by Kay Hooper
“Are you saying—”
“Tranquilizers, Luc. This is a dart pistol.”
Lucas let out a long-suffering sigh. “Figures,” he said.
She was nothing more than a shadow, dressed all in black, and made not a sound as she moved into the warehouse. But she didn’t continue to lurk in the darkness; instead, she moved confidently into the dim circle of a so-called security light, folded her arms, and waited.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Kelsey moved into the circle, looking more pained than surprised. “Don’t tell me you trailed me here,” he begged. “I know you’re good, but you’re also supposed to be out of touch these days.”
Raven Long smiled at him, her merry violet eyes dancing. “We never gave our contacts away—even to each other, remember? And I kept mine. They got me within twenty miles of here. I’d already settled on the munitions dump as the likeliest place when I got word you were here for sure.”
“Got word from whom?”
“Josh—via Rafferty. You just might be guarding the wrong rat hole, chum.”
Kelsey stared at her for a moment, then said several things he must have learned in rough places. Still exercising his colorful vocabulary, he found a crowbar and pried off the lids of several crates. His language became more colorful as each crate was opened.
Raven didn’t look to see what he’d found; she didn’t have to. Interspersed among his more colorful phrases were listings of such things as machine parts, nuts and bolts, hubcaps and crankshafts.
In a detached tone she said, “I suppose the art collectors must have some pretty shrewd people working for them. Or else Ryan met with them and arranged it. They waited until this shipment was spotted and then somehow got in and replaced the crates with dummies.”
In a tone approaching a groan Kelsey said, “And the boss pulled back the marshals when he found out your gang was coming in on this. He said there’d be too many watchers for the job. Great. That’s just great.”
“Where are the marshals?” she asked briskly.
Kelsey got a grip on himself. “An hour or so away. With Hagen.”
“You can reach them?”
“Sure.”
“Then you’d better. Rafferty’s in a helicopter following the semi, and what is presumably Ryan’s car. Josh, Lucas, Zach, and a lady named Teddy are in a van somewhere behind. Everybody’s heading west.”
For a moment Kelsey allowed himself to be unwillingly fascinated. “A damned convoy, for crying out loud.”
Politely, Raven said, “Would you mind very much getting a move on, old pal? I’d like to be with my husband before we have to circle the wagons.”
“I hope you have wings.”
“Next best thing. I have a foreign job with a lot of horses under the hood.”
Kelsey winced. “Can I drive?”
“No.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
Raven followed him from the warehouse. Bracingly, but with a hint of laughter in her tone, she said, “Be brave, Tonto. I can hold horses on a curve.”
“Uh-huh. That’s what you said the last time.”
EIGHT
TEDDY CRAWLED UP beside Zach despite his gesture to stay back, and peered over the top of the hill where they all lay prone. Ignoring her various aches and pains, she said in a low voice, “Now what?”
In an idle tone Josh said, “Anybody got an Uzi?”
“I thought those were illegal,” Teddy commented.
“This whole damn thing’s illegal,” Lucas reminded her.
“Oh. Right.”
Zach looked at the three glum faces ranged beside him and said dryly, “There’s only five of them.”
“They have Uzis,” Josh remarked.
“Then,” Zach said calmly, “we’ll just have to be better shots.”
Teddy winced. “I don’t like any of this. Those are real automatic guns down there, held by men whose faces indicate the seriousness of their states of mind. Now, I may well be an amateur at this kind of stuff, but I’d say the odds are that those guys will hit at least half of what they shoot at.”
Apparently approving of her logic, Lucas said, “Why don’t we just shoot each other and save them the trouble?”
“Defeatists,” Zach grumbled.
Josh was smiling a little. “Okay, gang, now that we’ve got that out of our systems, what do we do?” And he looked at Zach, since this was, technically, his show.
Zach thoughtfully eyed the setup below. The semi holding the stolen artwork had pulled well off a little-traveled secondary road and into a fairly large clearing ringed by trees. Ryan’s car had pulled in close behind, and now both were parked. Ryan’s three henchmen, the semi driver, and himself were grouped between the vehicles. And even at this distance Ryan didn’t seem happy.
“He didn’t hear an explosion,” Josh murmured.
“Would he expect to?” Lucas asked. “He got nearly a quarter of an hour’s head start and had put most of a mountain between himself and the house by the time it should have blown.”
“The helicopter, maybe?” Teddy guessed.
Zach nodded slowly. “Maybe. Maybe either or both. If he heard the helicopter somewhere along the way, he could be getting jumpy. Or it could be that he expected the guns to be here.”
“Hello, all,” a low voice murmured behind them.
Zach glanced over his shoulder, then looked at Josh somewhat balefully. “I ought to take up knitting,” he said in disgust.
“They’re pros at this sort of thing,” Josh pointed out, amused. “We’re just talented amateurs.”
“Still—”
“I know. Lucas?”
“I’ll keep watch. You guys caucus and decide what to do.”
Josh looked at Zach, brow raised. “Caucus?”
“Getting fancy, isn’t he?”
“Go to hell,” Lucas muttered, struggling with a grin.
Teddy looked at them all bemusedly but followed when Zach and Josh slid back down the hill.
Waiting at the bottom were Raven Long and Kelsey, both of whom were responsible for Zach’s disgust, since they’d approached without any sound or warning.
Raven, a tall, striking brunette with laughing eyes, responded to her husband’s embrace with enthusiasm and said cheerfully, “Trouble. I knew you were trouble from the moment we met.”
“Look who’s talking.” Josh kissed her, then, after a glance aside, said curiously, “What’s wrong with Kelsey?”
Looking a bit queasy, Kelsey said, “Her driving, that’s what’s wrong with me.”
Josh held his wife’s shoulders and stared at her in horror. “You drove in these mountains?”
Raven patted his cheek consolingly. “Not over eighty, darling, I promise.”
“Eighty-five,” Kelsey said in a failing voice.
Teddy, sitting on a rock with one elbow on her knee and her chin cupped in a palm, stared at them, fascinated. There was just something about these people. A murderous gang of cutthroats over the hill, and this little group … Teddy had a strong feeling that these friends of Zach’s were something quite out of the ordinary.
And it wasn’t just that they were obviously strong people. Or even that they were courageous in an age when that was hardly a common trait. They all seemed to share another trait aside from strength and courage, something almost quixotic. It was as if, out of their varied pasts and experiences, each had emerged with a strong idealism and a secure inner vitality to cope with whatever came along. And enjoyed coping.
Teddy, with her sure knowledge of Zach’s past and the parts these people played in it, thought that they should have lived during an age when men fought dragons. They would have been awfully good at it. She looked at Raven Long, silently deciding that the violet-eyed woman would have fought alongside her husband. And what’s more, that he wouldn’t have found that surprising or unusual.
Fascinating.
Raven blithely promised her husband that somebody else
could drive the Porsche back to the rental company, then turned and introduced herself and Kelsey to Teddy. Responding suitably, Teddy wondered if the other woman was even conscious of the .45 automatic that was stuck inside her belt at the small of her back. She didn’t seem to be.
They were all armed. Even Teddy was.… She thought about that. Thought about the difference between her gun and their weapons. Absently, still thinking, she followed the conversations going on around her.
“What happened to the guns?” Zach was asking Kelsey.
The other man, who had an unremarkable but curiously pleasant face and a deep voice, sounded as disgusted as Zach had earlier. “Damned if I know. They were there—and then they weren’t. But I’d bet the price tag on the stolen art that the guns weren’t moved while I was watching.”
“Who spotted them?”
Kelsey grimaced. “A ranger, of all people. Just a routine check of the old dump. A marshal verified the guns were there, and that it was the shipment we were busy tracing on the other end. I was up here within two days, and the warehouse was supposed to be under guard until I got here.”
They were all kneeling or sitting on the ground now, and Raven, who kneeled beside Josh with her fingers laced together over his shoulder and her chin resting on them, asked, “Just how sure are we that the trade hasn’t already been made?”
Zach frowned. “You mean that the semi down there has the guns rather than the artwork?”
They were all business now, and Teddy paid attention.
“Why not?” Raven asked. “These mountain roads are hidden from the air by trees in places, and we passed through one tunnel. If an identical semi holding the guns had been waiting inside …”
“Ryan could be waiting for an airlift out of here,” Josh suggested. “All he needed was a glance to verify the guns; they could have pulled it off in the tunnel. Rafferty had to stay back so far, he could have missed it. The other truck could have pulled off onto one of those side roads, and we’d never have seen it, even if we’d been looking for it.”
Kelsey, reclining with his back against a tree, said glumly, “I’d like to believe Ryan wouldn’t be so devious, but somehow I can’t. I agree with Raven.”
“Nothing else really makes sense,” Zach admitted. He swore quietly. “So we’ve probably lost the art.”
“We’ll get it eventually,” Kelsey told him. “Just not this trip.”
“The main target was always Ryan,” Josh reminded them.
“You weren’t supposed to know that,” Kelsey said.
Zach gave him a look. “Something I intend to take up with your boss at the first opportunity.”
“If you can catch him,” Kelsey responded with a grin.
“So where the hell is Hagen?”
“He’s supposed to be on his way with half a dozen marshals.”
“By air?”
“No such luck,” Kelsey said, still grinning. “The military isn’t real fond of Hagen, and they wouldn’t offer him a chopper.”
Mildly pleased, Josh said, “We’re one up on him there.”
“And we’re on our own,” Zach said with a sigh. “And if Ryan has an airlift planned, it’ll have to be a helicopter. Army surplus or transport. Nothing else could land around here. We’ll have to get him before his ride gets here.”
“Easy,” Raven said in a solemn tone. “Just stick your head up over the hill, yell something about them being surrounded by the FBI, and accept their surrender.”
They stared at Raven in disbelief, and she murmured, “Well, it works in the movies.”
“Not without a bloodbath,” Zach said dryly. “They have automatic weapons. And, trite though it sounds, Ryan won’t be taken alive.”
“Sure he will,” Teddy said, entering the conversation for the first time.
She was stared at. She stared back.
“The suspense is killing me,” Raven murmured.
Teddy grinned at her. “You’re married to a commando; do they ever do things the easy way?”
“Not if they can avoid it,” Raven answered after careful consideration.
“Thanks a lot,” Josh murmured.
“Anytime, darling.”
Lucas slid down the hill before anyone could say more. “Ryan just split his forces. Seems to be getting paranoid. Two of his men are heading toward the road.”
“That makes it even easier,” Teddy said. “It leaves three men, counting Ryan, at the truck. If you guys can take out the two at the road without too much noise—”
“Teddy.” Zach was staring at her. “Just what have you got in mind?”
She wasn’t about to explain her real motivation—which was to keep Zach out of a gun battle. Nor was she going to admit that she knew very well Zach wanted to kill Ryan; he was no longer on the edge of berserk, but she knew that if there was a battle, neither Ryan nor Zach would stop until one of them was dead.
Teddy didn’t know if the others were aware of it, but she could feel the tension in Zach and see the faintly distant, inwardly turned look in his eyes. Light conversation and calm strategy aside, Zach was prowling a deadly inner jungle. She really didn’t care one way or the other whether Ryan lived or died, but she didn’t want Zach to kill him. Not here. Not now. She wasn’t willing to be the cause of another stain on her warrior’s soul.
“Teddy?”
She looked at Zach. “The easy way. I have a dart pistol, remember? And enough tranquilizer and darts to give those guys a nice long nap. Within a few yards of them I can get all three before they have time to react.”
Several voices responded at once.
“Sounds good.”
“The marshals’ll love sleeping bad guys.”
“Nice and easy.”
“No fuss, no bother.”
“No way.” Zach’s voice cut through the rest, and even a stranger would have jumped at the grim note.
Teddy met his stony gaze calmly. “No other way.”
“I’ll do it,” he said in a flat tone.
The others looked at one another and then eased themselves out of the problem. Lucas returned to the top of the hill, Josh and Kelsey went to see about ambushing the two men at the road, and Raven headed for their vehicles to alert Rafferty to the possible approach of an unfriendly helicopter.
Teddy found herself on her feet, wishing dimly that Zach hadn’t gotten up also; it was a little difficult for a small woman to look strong and tough when facing a very large one-man army on his feet. But not impossible.
“You’re not getting anywhere near Ryan,” Zach told her.
“Have you ever handled a dart pistol?”
“I’ve handled guns.”
“Dart pistols are different—or at least mine is—”
“No, Teddy. That bastard’s already shot you, kidnapped you, hurt you—”
“All the more reason. I’ve got a score to settle, too, Zach.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’ll settle it for you.”
She squared her shoulders and met his flinty eyes, her own fierce. “Yes, you would, if I let you. Oh, you’d use my pistol. On two of them. Then the gun would jam—or you’d somehow misplace that third dart—or you’d miss Ryan. Deliberately. Anything to make certain it’ll be just you and him.”
Something flickered hotly in Zach’s eyes. “Teddy—”
“Ever since Ryan … took me … you’ve been determined that he’d never see the inside of a jail, haven’t you, Zach?”
“Do you know what you’re saying?” he asked softly.
“Yes, I know.” Her voice became quiet. “Because I’d like to kill him myself. But he’s not worth the sleepless nights that would cause me.” She was rolling the dice again, gambling that Zach would see that she understood, that she wasn’t afraid of him because of the savagery of his intentions. It was very important to her that he see that. Important to them.
She drew a deep breath. “I know how hard it will be for you to let him go, let him live. And if he hadn’t taken me, if
that wasn’t a large part of your reason, I wouldn’t try to stop you. But that is why, isn’t it, Zach? That’s why you don’t want to let him go.”
Zach was very still, his gaze fixed on her face. “Partly,” he finally admitted.
She nodded. “Partly. Because he took something you felt responsible for. Me. The dragon got the lady, and you can’t let him get away with that.”
For the first time amusement softened the hard line of his mouth. “White charger, rusty armor, and all?”
Teddy smiled in return. “Maybe nobody else ever told you, but you were born a few ages too late. And I think I knew that even in the beginning. I think it’s why I love you.”
This time his entire face softened. Just a little. “Teddy—”
Aware that time was passing, that there were some things they’d have to discuss later, she interrupted. “Even if I thought you loved me, I wouldn’t blackmail you emotionally, Zach. If you killed Ryan, it wouldn’t change the way I feel about you. Nothing could do that. I’m just asking you to let me do this.”
“You’re left-handed, and that arm’s wounded.”
“With guns, I’m actually better right-handed.”
After a moment, and in the tone of a final argument, Zach said, “Those guys are pros.”
She pulled the dart pistol from her purse and held it firmly. “When it comes to hitting vicious moving animals with this,” she said quietly, “I’m a pro.”
When the others returned moments later from their errands and approached warily, they found Lucas alone and looking bemused and somewhat stunned.
“Where are they?” Josh asked quickly.
Lucas cleared his throat. “They’re circling the clearing to find a better place to use the dart pistol.”
“Who’s going to—?”
“Teddy. Can you beat that?”
Raven started to smile. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
Her husband drew her close, smiling as well. “All I can say is that I’ve never—ever—seen Zach back down for anyone. Not with something like this.”
“Never underestimate the power,” Raven murmured.
“Of women?” Kelsey asked, because he didn’t know Zach as well as the others did.
“Of love,” Josh told him.
