by Dana Marton
She did the same. “Better tie them up.”
He took the reins from her and tied both horses to a low-swung branch of a flowering hibiscus. They immediately began nibbling on the leaves.
Cal stole forward.
She followed.
The clearing seemed deserted. Two helicopters sat on a flat area where vegetation and rocks had been removed and the ground was packed hard and relatively even.
“You know anything about these?” she asked belatedly.
“I flew a couple of times when I was doing business with a megacompany. They sent the corporate chopper for me. Very plush.”
He flew in a chopper? That was the extent of his knowledge?
“We’re doomed,” she said before she could stop herself.
He just flashed that cocky grin. “How hard can it be? We’re practically superspies.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Strong emphasis on practically.”
“You and I can do anything together,” he said, holding her gaze.
Warmth spread through her suddenly. She swallowed. “Damn right,” she said before she could melt into a puddle at his feet. “Let’s get to it.”
But he went still and put a hand out to hold her back, staring at the larger chopper. His body language transmitted imminent danger.
She responded by drawing back and scanning the clearing. “What is it?” she asked, keeping her voice to a whisper.
“We’ve got company.”
She stared harder and did spot a dark shape in the chopper, somebody sitting in the back. Whoever it was didn’t move. Why not? He had to have seen them. They were out in the open.
“Dead?” She had no trouble picturing Tsernyakov dealing harshly with insubordination.
“I think he’s sleeping.” Cal skirted toward the smaller chopper, moving in a crouch, keeping out of the line of vision of the man in the other one.
She followed him, observing the same precautions. When he got to the door, he opened it without a sound. “Get in.”
She’d never been in a helicopter before. Looked smaller on the inside than she’d thought. She took the front passenger seat and glanced around. A slew of gauges took up most of the space in front of the pilot. The window came down lower than in a car.
Cal was rummaging through the back and came up with a toolbox and took out a sizable screwdriver. He popped off the instrument panel. “Hold this.”
“Are you sure you haven’t done this before? You look like you know what you’re doing,” she said.
“Now that I’m seeing it up close, it’s not much different from a car. We are not trying to fix it. We want to break the thing. That’s always the easier part, isn’t it? People break stuff they know nothing about all the time.”
His calm logic reassured her, and she watched with fascination as he switched to a smaller screwdriver and loosened a number of bolts and took them out, shoved them into his pocket. He wiggled out a small piece of metal, then another, then looked at his handiwork with a good measure of self-satisfaction.
He looked very adventurous and handsome and capable. But it wasn’t just his looks she was attracted to. Although she hated to admit that, because it begged the question: what was she going to do about her wayward feelings?
He turned and grinned at her, the combination of those lips and his sparkling green-blue eyes enough to steal her breath away. “That should do.”
With some effort, she put everything else but the mission from her mind. “That’s it?”
“Engineering is an efficient science. I don’t think there are any spare parts in there that don’t do anything.”
Made sense. Still, she wished they had a gun so they could put some bullets into that instrument panel. She was familiar with guns. When in doubt, people tended to resort to what they knew. But they didn’t have a firearm, so she had to trust Cal’s mechanical skills.
He went to work on some wires and she watched him intermittently, searching around her seat with her free hand…and hit pay dirt. She pulled a SIG Sauer from under the backseat. “Look.” She half expected him to ask for it and was prepared to make an argument.
But all he said was, “Brilliant. You keep it. You have more experience with guns.”
The acknowledgment felt good. “Need help?” She pointed it at the top row of instruments.
“I’d rather not make noise if we can do this quietly.” He didn’t take his eyes off what he was doing.
“What about the other chopper?”
“Too risky.”
“There are two of us.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” he said. “If the guy gets off a single shot, it’ll be heard in the bay.”
“Then we ride to the other side of the island?”
He made a face as he looked toward the horses, but he said, “You bet.”
His reluctance around horses messed with her head. He was all capable and smooth and suave and all that, a mix of masculinity and European elegance. She found that much perfection intimidating. The fact that he had a chink in his armor made him more lovable. Likable. Likable was what she’d meant.
She slipped out of the chopper, annoyed at her train of thought, and strode toward the jungle. Maybe if she was fast enough, she could outrun all this weirdness she was beginning to feel when she was around the man.
THE SHIP WAS VISIBLE now, anchored offshore. Cal watched the beach from the cover of the trees. No boats anywhere, no sign that any of the terrorists had come to shore yet.
“They probably have a time set for the meeting when they’ll come in for the handover.” Gina kept an eye on the ship.
“Or Joseph will take the virus to them.” He thought about that for a second. “Not likely, though, is it? He would want the exchange to happen on his own turf to give him the strategic advantage in case his business partners are up to no good.”
“What if he is up to no good?” Gina looked at him. She looked a little scruffy, her hair messed up from the swim, her face smudged. Scruffy and hot, like some comic-book heroine preparing for the showdown fight.
“What if he takes the money but won’t deliver the goods?” she asked.
“An out-and-out fight where Joseph’s men and the terrorists take each other out? A nice fantasy but probably too much to hope for. He always delivers. That’s why he has the reputation he does. That’s why he’s the biggest.”
They waited silently for a few minutes. Nothing happened. There was no movement near the ship that they could see from this distance. The winds were much worse now than a few hours earlier, and for a second he thought about the other women, how they were handling the rough seas. The sky was darkening toward the west.
“Let’s check out what’s going on at the bunker,” Gina recommended, eyeing the swirling clouds. “Maybe Tsernyakov’s men are already there. Maybe we can raise some mayhem, slow them down.”
He thought about that for a second. They did have a gun and the element of surprise on their side. If they could get their hands on the virus and hide it until the commando teams got here…It would be a miracle. But the bunker in question was just a few hundred yards from where they were, and there seemed to be nothing to do here. He was too pumped up on adrenaline to sit around and stare at the sea. He turned and walked back into the jungle.
“Wonder how far Anita and the others are from Hariumat.” Gina walked beside him.
He glanced at his watch. “They should be there soon.” But would it be soon enough? The wind was picking up, shaking the canopy above them, dislodging leaves and small branches.
Although the incoming storm covered any noise they made, they moved slowly, going as carefully as possible, knowing that they might not find the bunker deserted this time. They didn’t want to run into Joseph’s men. Their caution paid off. They saw the enemy before the enemy saw them. They crawled in the cover of the bushes to get close enough to hear.
“I’m starving,” someone said in Russian. “How long do we have to sit here?”
&
nbsp; “Until the boss says we can go,” another responded.
Gina flashed him a questioning look, probably wanting to know what the men were talking about. He’d learned Russian from his mother.
He shook his head and made a diminishing gesture with his hand. “Nothing,” he mouthed. Nothing important.
How many were they? He stole forward another couple of feet, keeping under the cover of some big-leafed evergreen. Four men sat around the opening of the bunker, each armed to the teeth. He didn’t recognize any from the island. They must have come with the chopper. The front door was open. Were there more inside?
“Plenty of food and water in there,” one of the men said.
His buddy made a face. “Not worth getting any bones broken over. We’re not supposed to touch nothing.”
Cal pulled back to Gina to a point where he could still hear the men but didn’t have to worry about them getting lucky and catching a glimpse of him.
“What now?” Gina mouthed.
“We wait.” Making a move without knowing how many people they were up against was too risky. As long as they kept their eye on the virus they always had a chance to mess up the handover.
A walkie-talkie crackled to life by the bunker a few minutes later. Too much static and wind to hear what was said from this distance. This time when he sneaked closer, Gina followed.
The men were nowhere to be seen.
They kept low and waited. Then a guy appeared, alert and with AK-47 in hand, ready for action. Two others came behind carrying a stainless steel cooler. After them walked another one, also well armed, Sergey bringing up the rear. He must have been in the bunker earlier.
Cal exchanged a look with Gina. They were outnumbered five to two. He doubted anyone would stay behind at the bunker. No sense in guarding the place now that it was empty. Five well-armed men against the two of them and their sole weapon. But the odds didn’t matter much when they didn’t have a choice. There were no decisions to be made. They had to try something. The men were headed for the shore.
The handover was going down. Now. By the time the commando team got here, the virus would be long gone. It was up to Gina and him.
They followed close by, halted when Sergey stopped to light a smoke. The path they followed was choked with vegetation and vines hanging from the trees above. In seconds Sergey’s buddies passed out of sight.
Gina signaled toward him. Cal nodded.
The next second she rushed the man from behind, gun to the back of his head.
Sergey spun.
Gina had her index finger across her lips in a gesture to remain silent, although, as much noise as the trees were making, bending in the wind, Sergey would have had to be pretty loud to be heard. They just had to make sure he didn’t get a chance to discharge his gun.
Cal kept in the bushes and got behind him while he was distracted, hit him hard in the back of the head with a fallen branch. It only stunned him, didn’t knock him out. Still, he hesitated for long enough for Gina to grab the AK-47 from him. She smacked him with the butt of the rifle and watched with satisfaction as the man crumpled to the forest floor before handing Cal the weapon.
“Good work.” He swung the AK-47 across his shoulder and grabbed the man under the armpits.
Gina picked up his feet, and together they dragged him off the path. When he was tied to a tree with his own belt, Gina tried to rip a piece of the guy’s shirt for a gag. The material was heavy enough not to give.
She groaned with frustration, then a wicked smile spread on her face as she tugged Sergey’s boots off first, then his socks, then stuck the latter in his mouth.
“I hope you never get mad at me for anything.” Cal grimaced.
“You should try your best to stay on my good side.” She grinned and took off after the others on the path.
The trees soon gave way to sand and that was as far as they could follow. They couldn’t come out into the open, but they were close enough to observe the beach. A boat was coming to shore.
The men ahead just noticed that Sergey was missing. They looked back a couple of times and shouted his name. Then one remarked that he was probably taking a leak.
“Do you think they’ll come back to look for him?” Gina asked, getting the gist of what was going on even without knowing the language.
“Unlikely.” He watched as a pickup came around the cape, riding on the sand with two men in the cab.
“Mark,” he told Gina. “The other one is Joseph.”
The pickup stopped.
The buyers ran the motorboat to shore and were jumping into the shallow water.
Then Joseph and Mark got out, as well, and everyone began to move toward some spot in the middle. The whole picture was surreal, resembling a harmless meeting of bootleggers instead of a handover between ruthless criminals who were about to alter history and send countless innocent people to death.
“Time to cut off the avenue of retreat,” he said, using an expression he’d learned during his SIS training, slipping the rifle from his shoulder. “Be careful.”
He held her gaze for a moment, wishing they could have met under different circumstances. He leaned forward for a kiss while inside he raged against the unfairness of life. She clung to him. If he hadn’t already known how bad the situation was, this would have clued him in. Gina didn’t cling. She was tough as anything. He pulled away with a world of regrets choking him up.
“We can’t make a mistake.” He cupped her face with his free hand. “As soon as we fire the first shot they’ll know where we are.”
Steely determination hardened her face. “I guess we just have to make sure we don’t miss. I take the boat, you take the pickup.”
The boat was the more difficult mark, with the waves in constant motion behind it. She didn’t seem intimidated by the task. She was the hottest woman he’d ever met, all fire and rock-solid.
“One, two, three,” he said, and they aimed for the gas tanks.
The boat and the vehicle went up in simultaneous explosions.
Confusion ruled on the shore, everyone running for the cover of the trees, running toward them, spraying the tree line with bullets in front of them as they neared.
“Go, go, go.” He covered Gina as they ran ahead on the path. They couldn’t hold off eleven armed men. They had to get someplace where they had decent cover and a strategic advantage.
He ran toward the closest bunker, followed by Gina, but after a few minutes realized that the men weren’t following them. Where in bloody hell had they gone?
“They are going for the chopper,” Gina said, catching on to what was happening at the same time he did.
The handover was a bust. Neither party trusted the other enough to be sure that they hadn’t been set up. Everyone was clamoring to get out of here.
He and Gina had an advantage now, even if it was an advantage of mere seconds. Cal took off after them, praying they wouldn’t be too late.
“There are eleven of them and only one working chopper.” Gina ran close behind.
Hope bubbled up through the rush of adrenaline. If they fought amongst themselves, it would give Gina and him time to catch up with the bastards. They still had the cooler. Under no circumstances could the virus leave the island.
When they reached the clearing, both helicopters were chock-full of men, the rotors going already. Two of the terrorists were trying to get the cooler into the smaller chopper.
Both Gina and he aimed at the men in the bigger one, not wanting to hit the virus by accident. The chopper lifted off temporarily, then touched back down with a hideous noise. A moment passed while the pilot tried again, all the while the others shooting through the open doors.
Then it became obvious that the bird wasn’t taking off anytime soon and people began pouring out of the helicopter. A few went for the other one; others ran for the woods, wary of getting caught between the bullets Gina and Cal were squeezing off and those coming from the other chopper.
The cooler was d
ragged in just as Gina picked off one of the men trying to get in after it, while Cal picked off the other. The chopper was lifting off. Other than the pilot, there were three men inside. They kept shooting in Cal and Gina’s direction and, for the most, kept them flattened behind the trees.
It wasn’t going to work this way. He had to give up his cover in order to do what he had to do.
“Cover me.” Cal rushed forward without giving her a chance to protest, without giving himself a chance to think, really. The time for sheer gut reaction was here; nothing but that and a serious dose of luck could save them now.
He ran while Gina did her best, hitting the chopper with her few remaining bullets. She couldn’t have too many left.
The chopper was six feet off the ground and rising.
He dived forward and jumped, grabbed on to the skid at the last minute but didn’t have as much as a split second to marvel that he’d actually made it. Instead of staying covered, Gina was running after him.
“Get back!” He’d meant to do whatever it took to crash that chopper into the ocean. He didn’t want her to be on it.
GINA JUMPED FOR THE other skid, opposite Cal, without thinking, acting on sheer adrenaline in the heat of the moment, ignoring the fierce look he was giving her. She silently thanked her mother for all those gymnastics lessons. All that good balance and hand-eye coordination was about to come in handy.
The helicopter pulled up sharply and all of a sudden there was considerable distance between her and the ground, growing by the second. Omigod, omigod. Reality hit her. This wasn’t the uneven bars. She was dangling from a chopper in midair. And even if she pulled off some wild acrobatics, she was unarmed. She’d tossed the SIG when it’d run out of bullets. Was it too late to jump? She looked down and swallowed the lump in her throat. Definitely too late.
She glanced over at Cal, who was still glaring at her. He was unarmed, as well, having had to let go of the rifle to jump after the chopper.
“Up?” he asked—or she thought he did. The rotors were deafeningly loud.
He gestured upward with his head and extended one hand to her. Was she supposed to go over there?
