The Medusa Prophecy

by Cindy Dees

  “They’re not upset enough about being captured.”

  Aleesha came up on frequency. “How upset should they be?” she asked reasonably.

  Fury at Aleesha’s tone shot out of Karen like lava from an erupting volcano. And that was the point. She took a deep breath. Focus. Say the words. Make herself understood. Beat back the rage just a little bit longer. “I got exposed to the stuff in the barrels one time. These guys have been living with it. You guys say boo to me and I’m ready to kill you. Why aren’t these guys completely insane? If I lost a gun battle, was forced to surrender, failed in my mission, I’d go berserk.”

  Anders, Jack and Vanessa emerged from the cabin just then. “Clear,” Vanessa announced tersely.

  Jack used his toe to roll one of the men over. Said something forceful in Arabic. No response. “Not talking,” he announced.

  None of them were. Out here in the snow with all the prisoners together wasn’t the ideal way to get any of them to talk, either. They needed to be divided and separated in rooms by themselves, and then tricked into talking or mentally worked over by a good, hard interrogation.

  “Okay, let’s get them away from the cabin so we can blow it up,” Vanessa said after a couple minutes. “We won’t get anything out of them out here. Cobra, Adder, come on out.”

  Given that there were six hostages, the order made sense. That way there’d be a weapon trained on every hostage as the dangerous maneuver of getting them up and moving was accomplished.

  “Let’s cuff them before we move them,” Vanessa ordered.

  Jack pulled out plastic, disposable restraints and passed several to Isabella as she came forward. Both he and Isabella spoke fluent Arabic, and appeared to use it to instruct the prisoners to put their hands behind their backs. The handcuffing procedure went smoothly.

  And Karen’s disquiet continued to climb. Was this no more than misplaced paranoia? A new symptom of the drug that she was experiencing for the first time? The twitchiness in her limbs started to feel suspiciously like panic. It rattled through her, shaking her from head to foot. Or maybe she was just having a panic attack on top of a seizure.

  She tried to stand, and collapsed in an unceremonious heap, rolling down into the bottom of the depression, facing away from her teammates. Tried to reach her mike button to call for help. Couldn’t control her hand well enough to make that happen. Only ended up slapping herself in the face a couple times. Gotta love the irony of that. Now what? They’d figure out she wasn’t joining them, eventually. Someone would come looking for her.

  And then a great, fist-like vise closed around her heart, squeezing it mercilessly until she couldn’t breathe. Oh. God. That. Hurt.

  She opened her mouth. Tried to call for help. Nothing. Not a whisper of breath escaped her seizing throat muscles.

  Holy crap.

  She was going to die.

  Oslo, Norway, March 11, 11:32 p.m.

  The bullet ripped into Astrid’s gut like a hot knife slashing through soft butter. So instant and intense was the agony of it that she barely noticed slamming into the floor shoulder-first. A gush of hot and wet rushed over her belly. And with it came a sense of calm. Wow. She must be bleeding like a stuck pig.

  More shots rang out in quick succession then, one right after another. A dozen in all. Something heavy fell beside her, jostling her. New shards of agony seared through her. She heard a long, low moan. Was that her making that awful noise?

  There was so much shouting. She wished it would go away. Her head was throbbing from it. At least the throb was slowing down. If only it would stop.

  The floor and shoes and darkness swirled around her. She felt as if she was going to puke. But the idea of contracting her stomach muscles to push anything out of her body caused mild panic to swim somewhere in the back of her head.

  Something white and round and blurry appeared in front of her. A voice floated down. Said her name. Repeated it louder. Insistently. She just wanted to go to sleep.

  “Astrid, honey, it’s me. Talk to me.”

  “Ivo?” she breathed. Lord, what was that raspy sound? Surely not her.

  “Stay with me, honey. You gotta fight. Stay conscious. Look at me. The ambulance is on the way.”

  He was up. Talking. That was good. “You…’kay?” she wheezed. She coughed and the taste of blood filled her mouth.

  “I’m fine. I have on my vest.”

  “Vest—guess I look…dumb…but he aimed for…head…” Her voice trailed off, the rest of the thought lost. Cotton candy filled her brain.

  “You dived in front of that bullet for me?” he asked. Sounded shocked.

  “Well…yeah…”

  “Aww, honey—” But then he disappeared from the narrow, dark tunnel of vision she had left. Another blurry white blob that looked like a face.

  Voices started barking out medical stuff over her head. They sounded like they had things well in hand. Finally, blessedly, she let go. And slid into the warm, dark abyss that beckoned.

  Northern Norway, March 11, 11:34 p.m.

  Karen gazed straight ahead, into the teeth of the storm. What a hell of a place, a hell of a way, to die. She’d envisioned herself going out in a blaze of glory, saving her team from disaster. Maybe saving the world. Something noble at any rate. Not this. Not succumbing to some damned drug.

  As whatever was happening to her got even worse, her lungs screamed for oxygen first. And then every cell in her body screamed for it. A hot flush rushed over her, and then intense pain as her muscles shouted for air.

  And then something began to materialize in front of her. A gray shape in the darker gray of the snow. A gust of wind swirled snow more thickly for a moment and she squinted into the blizzard. Was that an angel or something coming to fetch her?

  But as she watched, it materialized into a more human shape. Carrying a machine gun. And running.

  Some angel.

  And then he got close enough for her to make out his face. He was grinning ear to ear. Maniacally. In the full grip of the rage she knew so well. He was crazy as she was. And he was bent on killing. She knew exactly what he was feeling. The way blood surged through his head, how red filled his eyes, how thirst for violence was driving him mad with need.

  And he was charging straight at the cluster of people in front of the cabin.

  Of course.

  The guys inside surrendered at the first opportunity. Laid around a while. Drew out the entire Spec Ops team staging the attack. And then, when all the special operators had come out of hiding, this guy would ambush them. She bet he’d shout a warning. All the bad guys would drop to the ground, and this joker would mow down all the Medusas where they stood.

  Slick plan, actually.

  Unless she stood her sorry self up this very second and stopped him.

  Her body dragged in a sobbing breath. Where it came from, she had no idea. She focused every ounce of her being on doing that again. And painfully dragged in another breath. She had to roll over. Onto her belly. The guy was nearly even with her now, maybe ten yards away. She flopped like a fish on a dock, but managed to get onto her stomach.

  Elbows bent. Hands by her shoulders. Jeez, her chest was killing her! Her left arm was completely numb. A one-handed push-up, then. She slid her right hand by jerky degrees under the center of her body. Pushed. Nothing. Pushed again.

  She managed to wedge a knee under her gut. Thank God the snow was soft and she was able to drag her leg through it.

  Another push, leg and arm this time. Better. She made it to her hands and knees. The guy was slightly in front of her now. His weapon was coming up into a firing position. And sure enough, he shouted.

  The Medusas lurched, whirling to face this new threat. But standing in the light as they were and looking out into the blackness of night and white swirl of snow and fog and wind, they wouldn’t be able to see him. But she could. He was a black silhouette between her and the light. Somehow, she managed to hoist herself up to a standing position. She stagge
red a couple of steps on unsteady legs toward the ambusher.

  As one, the prisoners dropped to the snow.

  Run!

  Karen’s brain screamed the command at every muscle in her body. Her teammates were going to die!

  How she covered the distance between herself and the gunman, she had no idea. But the machine gun settled against its harness and into firing position as she neared him. A burst of gunfire erupted from the weapon, spraying bullets at her teammates.

  Jump!

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Vanessa fly backward. Aleesha went down in slightly less dramatic fashion, but clearly, she was hit, too.

  Karen slammed into the gunman. The two of them crashed to the ground, the guy cursing and screaming at her.

  Oh, she knew the feeling. Knew it very well, indeed. This bastard had just shot her teammates! Without a moment’s hesitation, she unleashed the rage. All of it. Every vicious, violent, savage impulse she’d ever amassed.

  The pain in her chest was nothing compared to the glory of wrapping her hands around this guy’s throat. He tried to fight back, but she swatted his efforts aside like a fly. Thank God for every ounce of power in her big, muscular body that she was able to use to tear this asshole limb from limb! She squeezed the guy’s neck tighter and tighter, the same way the vise in her chest was constricting around her heart.

  The abyss beckoned, and this time she flung herself into it headlong, sinking down, down, into the enveloping blackness. Everything went silent and dark.

  Chapter 18

  Northern Norway, March 11, 11:47 p.m.

  “Karen.”

  The voice, from far away, sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Come back to me, Karen.”

  There it was again. She blinked up at the voice. What was she doing lying on her back? A face came into focus. Anders.

  He was kneeling beside her. Plugging her nose. She turned her head away weakly from the annoying pinching sensation. She became aware of a weight on her chest. Glanced down.

  “Why are you lying on me, Misty?” she rasped.

  “I’m listening to your heartbeat. No time to get a stethoscope.”

  “What about my heartbeat?”

  Anders answered quietly. “You had a heart attack.”

  Ahh. That explained a lot. He and Misty must’ve done CPR on her. Hence the plugged nose. “Hell of a way to steal a kiss,” she mumbled up at him. “Next time, just ask.”

  He grinned down at her in obvious relief.

  “Vanessa and Aleesha?” she asked, lurching in sudden alarm.

  Anders clapped a strong hand on her shoulder, pushing her back down. “Aleesha’s wound is superficial. She and Jack have Vanessa pretty much stabilized, and Misty and I got you going again. So it’s all good.”

  He said it lightly, but a certain haggard look in his eyes said both she and Vanessa had come through close calls.

  He glanced over his shoulder at where the others must be and then back at her. “You ladies are good. Everybody had the medical training to know exactly what to do. And that Aleesha—she’s tough. Got up from her own gunshot wounds to work on Vanessa.”

  Karen smiled, startled at how much effort it took. “That’s Mamba. She mother-hens the whole team.”

  “You rest. Your heart just had a big shock.”

  Now there was an understatement. Seeing her teammates shot was about the worst thing she’d ever witnessed. And something she sincerely hoped never to see again in her entire life. She frowned. She couldn’t remember what had happened right before she had apparently collapsed. “The gunman?”

  Anders snorted. “Oh, he’s dead. Your ticker didn’t give out completely until you’d all but separated his head from his shoulders with your bare hands.”

  She nodded once. No guilt there. Maybe a little embarrassment over the degree of violence with which she’d killed him, but no guilt. She was thankful that, for the moment, the fire-breathing dragon inside her was sleeping. “Now what?”

  He shrugged. “Now we all go inside the nice warm cabin and wait for the storm to break. As soon as we can get a helicopter in here to airlift you and Viper out, we’ll blow the place to smithereens.”

  And that was exactly what they did. It took about twelve hours for the storm to finally abate. Karen slept most of that time. The prisoners were kept in one corner of the main room under heavy guard. No more gloating for them. They glowered sullenly now that their clever ambush had failed.

  At one point, Karen woke up to the sound of somebody babbling. She registered Jack leaning down over one of the men and murmuring quietly in his ear. Whatever Jack was saying apparently was scaring the guy half to death. The prisoner was talking as fast as his mouth would go, almost sobbing with fear. The other prisoners were scowling at the hysterical one.

  After a few moments, Jack straightened. Nodded at Anders in satisfaction. What was that all about? It looked like he’d been interrogating the guy. She fell back asleep before she could get an answer.

  Oslo, Norway, March 12, 4:00 p.m.

  Astrid blinked awake into a world of white. White walls, white curtains, white sheets. She turned her head and gasped as pain exploded across her lower abdomen. She felt a need to cough, but the idea of it nearly made her faint with apprehension.

  Someone stepped into view. Two someones. Her father—and Ivo.

  “You two look like hell,” she sighed.

  Her father snorted. “You don’t look ready to spring up and run for Miss Norway yourself, kiddo.”

  Ivo just smiled. “You look great.”

  Jens sighed. “I still can’t believe you dragged my baby into the middle of a shootout!”

  Astrid protested, “He didn’t drag me into anything. I’m the one who approached Izzy. At least I think that’s who he was.”

  Ivo nodded. “He was our guy all right.”

  “Did he get away?” she asked anxiously.

  “Nope. He died in the shootout. Turns out he was a wanted terrorist. Was in Norway illegally. Usually operated in Indonesia but was of Middle Eastern origin.”

  “What was he doing here?”

  Her father interjected, “Besides distributing tainted drugs that turned people into psychopaths? We’ve gotten information from military sources indicating he was the cell leader of the group making the powder and planning to make a major international attack with it.”

  There was a commotion out in the hallway, and Astrid glanced out through the open door. A group of a half dozen women and a couple of men in white Arctic parkas rushed past. The hospital staff seemed to be arguing with them about something. And losing.

  Jens cleared his throat. “Yes, well. Speaking of investigations, I have a ton of paperwork stacking up on my desk back at the office.”

  He kissed her forehead and then gazed down at her fondly for a moment. He might be an overprotective pain in the rear sometimes, but he was a great dad. “I love you, Daddy,” she murmured.

  “I love you, too, sweetheart.”

  Oslo, Norway, March 12, 11:00 p.m.

  Karen’s door opened and someone slipped into the room quietly. Hopeful that it was Anders, she turned her head to look. Jack. Looking grim. What was he doing here?

  Oh, God. Vanessa. She tried to sit up, but the tangle of tubes and wires they had her hooked to held her down.

  “Is she—” Karen asked breathlessly.

  “She’s fine. She’s just waking up now. Still pretty groggy.

  But they got the bleeding stopped.”

  Karen sagged back against the mattress. Thank God. She would never have forgiven herself if she hadn’t dived for that gunman in time. As it was, it had been a close thing. Way too close. She was the spotter. She’d been the one responsible for watching the team’s flanks. And she’d let them down. That gunman never should’ve gotten close.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t see him coming sooner—” she started.

  But Jack waved her to silence. “Give it up. Visibility sucked out there. You
couldn’t have seen him coming any sooner if you’d have been looking for him. As it was, it was remarkable that you picked him up as fast as you did.”

  Karen stared as Jack pulled up a tall stool and perched on it beside her. “I didn’t come here to chastise you. If anything, I’m impressed as hell that you managed to move in the condition you were in. The docs tell me you must’ve been in a full-blown seizure and heart failure at the point when you stood up, ran over to that asshole, jumped him and strangled him with your bare hands.”

  She didn’t quite know what to say to that. “Ain’t adrenaline grand?” she murmured.

  He snorted in disbelief. “That’s not adrenaline. That’s heart.

  Pure and simple. Your teammates were going to die and you did whatever it took to save them.”

  He looked down at her with something suspiciously akin to respect lurking in his gaze. “I owe you an apology, Python. I’ve hassled you and ridden you hard for a long time. I knew there was a hero hiding in there, but I just couldn’t get her to step up and show herself. But what you did—that went beyond heroic. That’s the stuff the great ones are made of.”

  Okay. Now she was embarrassed. She managed a shrug beneath all the electrodes and said lightly, “Hey. What did you expect of Freya?”

  He laughed quietly. “You may have to change your field handle after this.”

  “Never. I’m a Medusa. We’re the snake ladies. I’ll never give up being Python.”

  “Fair enough.” He stood up. Looked down at the floor. Looked back up at her. “Are we all square?”

  She nodded slowly. “Yeah. We’re square.”

  He reached out and laid a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Good. Now I gotta go get square with another Medusa.”

  Karen looked at him askance. Something in his voice, an odd vibe coming from him, made her ask, “What are you up to, Jack?”

  A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I guess since you can’t be there to share the moment it won’t hurt to give you a sneak preview.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a little black box. He opened it and tilted it down to show her a beautiful diamond solitaire ring nestled in black velvet.