by Cherry Adair
"You son of a bitch." Jake grabbed Plunkett by the loose fold of fabric at his throat and hauled him to his feet. Then he threw a punch that spun the guy around and onto his ass. Hauling him up, Jake punched him again. Plunkett fell to the dirt and doubled over, nose bleeding profusely.
Jake pulled the Daewoo from its holster in the small of his back. "You fire the rocket?" he demanded.
Plunkett looked up, eyes wild. "No!"
"Then who's pulling your chain?" Jake kept the pistol exactly where it was—between the traitor's eyes. Plunkett started to rise. "Stay the hell where you are."
Jake was ripped in two: stay and get the info he so desperately wanted, or search for Marnie's… his jaw clenched… body. Wishing he were an optimist, Jake prayed. Maybe she wasn't dead. Maybe she was alive. If so, he had to find her. Now.
The rank smell of burning jet A fuel filled the crisp mountain air. "Screw it," Jake said flatly as he stripped Plunkett of his weapons and tossed them into the brush. "I don't give a continental damn what you're doing here."
He lifted the business end of the gun a fraction of an inch. "I'll find out what's going on later."
"No, wait!" Plunkett unfolded his long legs and stood, hands in the air. "I'm one of the good guys, Dolan." His eyes darted nervously before coming back to Jake. "The others'll be here in less than two minutes. I'll talk fast."
"I'm not in the mood right now to chat." Jake withdrew a short length of clear plastic tucked beneath the harness of his shoulder holster. "Turn around. Don't even twitch, or so help me, I'll save myself the aggravation and waste you now."
Resigned, Plunkett lowered his arms and grimaced, one hand going to his midriff, where he rubbed at what looked like a small muddy footprint on the black fabric of his suit. He turned. Jake used the plastic handcuffs, pulling the end as tightly as possible.
" You're cutting off my circulation."
"Write a letter to Amnesty International." Jake prodded him in the back. "Move."
"There's no point in going to the wreckage," Plunkett said over his shoulder. "No one could've survived that."
Jake told him what he could do with himself anatomically. He should shoot the bastard. But a dozen unanswered questions buzzed in his head. He could kill him just as easily in five minutes as now.
"Keep moving," Jake shoved him in the shoulder.
The gruesome image of Marnie's body, charred beyond recognition, ripped out his heart. For the first time in his sixteen-year career, he felt emotion when confronting the bad guys. It boiled and churned in his gut like lava, and ran like a rat in a maze in his brain.
He wanted to rip out someone's heart while it was still beating. He wanted to wreak vengeance on a purely personal level. He craved a confrontation. Something violent. Something bloody. Something to the death.
Grimly Jake started up the steep incline to the crash site, pushing the younger man in front of him. He waited for the smell of death to reach them, borne on the stench of kerosene, listening as flames snapped in the clearing above them. His eyes stung. From the smoke. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Wind could be hell on a man's tear ducts.
He imagined a road not taken.
He allowed the pain to rip through him as he remembered the taste of her on his tongue. Her unique fragrance. The way her blue eyes often held a wicked glint, as if laughter hovered a second away from curving her sweet mouth.
Plunkett's steps lagged. "They'll be waiting up there for you to investigate."
"I'm looking forward to it."
Jake bent to pick up the Walther he'd dropped earlier, and checked it as he walked. The closer they got, the more profuse the smoke and the more powerful the reek of burnt fuel, burnt metal, and the sweet, nauseating stench of burnt flesh.
He swallowed bile. Dazed by the enormity of his despair, Jake stopped at the edge of the tree line. Black smoke and smoldering debris filled the small clearing. There were no large pieces of anything. Bright flames still licked at the edges of the scraps, soon to be smothered by the wet ground and inhospitable environment.
No one could have survived this.
There'd be nothing there but charred remains. He couldn't handle seeing them now.
His eyeballs felt scorched. The weight on his chest made breathing hard. He dragged in a lungful of toxic smoke.
"U.S. Army Red Eye?" he asked flatly, and Plunkett nodded. The same shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missile the U.S. of A. sold to anyone who had the price.
Jake ran his fingers through his hair and swallowed roughly, a lump the size of a barrel cactus lodged in his throat. What he felt was immaterial now. He dashed away the smoke-induced moisture in his eyes and let ice take over his organs. He'd done a piss-poor job of protecting the woman he…
He looked at Sam Plunkett, feeling savage, almost demented with the ripping rage and despair devouring him.
The rank smell turned his stomach. He'd smelled worse. Witnessed more carnage firsthand than this single aircraft carrying only two passengers. But it had never been this personal.
He had to put her firmly out of his mind. Jake couldn't bear even to think her name. Nothing must interfere with what he had to do. His ability to focus one-hundred percent was crucial now.
"All right." Jake's voice sounded flat and dead. About as flat and dead as he felt inside. "Talk."
He wanted Plunkett to make a break for it, to make a move that he could counter. Shooting him was too quick. He wanted hand-to-hand combat. Craved the physical release for his rage. Burned to hear bone crush and muscle tear. He wanted blood sport. To the death. May the best man win.
"Sure," Plunkett agreed nervously. He wiped his bloody nose on his shoulder and then looked around, skittish and twitchy. "But not here, man."
"I'm not walking all over this mountain so you can have a moment of privacy," Jake snarled. He backed against a broad, knobby trunk of a blue-tinged Douglas fir, the muscles in his entire body clenched for action, his stomach in a hard, unrelenting knot of anguish.
Push it aside, he commanded himself. Focus on payback.
Tendrils of pungent smoke drifted between the upper branches of the trees, ghostly and pale against the darkening sky.
There's not a damn thing you can do to help her now. Not one damn thing. You did it all when you lifted her sweet, fragile body into what ended up being her funeral pyre.
He looked away from the clearing. They were high enough to see over many of the treetops down into the dam below. The sky reflected pewter off the choppy water. Jake looked back at Plunkett. "Start talking, or spare the air."
"Know a tango called Dancer?"
"This is an SPA operation?" Jake asked incredulously. The Shining Path of America had been the militia group in the Midwest that was responsible for the massacre last month. Dancer was the group leader? This made no sense.
"What the hell does the SPA want with me?"
Plunkett shrugged.
Jake stared at him through narrowed eyes. God, he needed a drink. A kill. A moment without this gut wrenching… hole in his stomach. The adrenaline seemed to have been sucked out of his body. He suddenly didn't care who the hell was after him or why.
"Just tell me who ordered the hit on the chopper and who held the Red Eye."
"Dancer." Plunkett sank onto a nearby rock with a wince. His eyes flickered about—looking for his backup, Jake knew.
"Who the hell is Dancer? What's your involvement? You riding double?"
"Damn, I'd kill for a cigarette," the younger man said. A faint Texas accent emerged as he shifted nervously on his rock. "I'm true blue, one hundred percent T-FLAC," he said with a boyish grin that didn't impress Jake one iota. "Phantom called me in when we got back from that gig in Venezuela. Said you had someone riding your ass. He asked me to look into it."
"That right? Why didn't he let me know? That was two freaking years ago."
Plunkett shrugged. "Don't know. All I know is he told me to watch your back. I let it be known I could be bought. Someone approac
hed me a couple of years ago, and I turned—" His eyes widened as Jake shifted the Daewoo. "Hey, hey, hey. Not for real, man. Not for real."
"So you rode double for T-FLAC and SPA, but your loyalties of course remained with T-FLAC?"
"Absolutely."
"Which lays the tab for the massacre entirely at your feet, doesn't it?" Jake said dangerously.
"No! No way, man. Dancer has people strategically positioned inside our organization who feed him data. I was just one of a whole bunch of—"
"And are you the traitorous son of a bitch who shared our language and signs with him, Plunkett?" Jake pushed away from the tree.
"Dancer knew all that long before I came on the scene. I swear."
"Are all the men up here with you current or former T-FLAC?"
"No. I'm the only one. The rest are SPA militia."
"How many?"
Plunkett managed a weak grin. "Thirteen of us were airlifted in. You're good, man, the best. Dancer wasn't taking any chances."
"Thirteen," Jake repeated. "My lucky number. Which leads us back to the big question: Who's Dancer, and why is the son of a bitch after my ass in the first place?"
A man in black garb stepped into the clearing, a snub-nosed automatic in his hand and pointed at Jake. He pushed the headpiece off his face.
"Perhaps I'm the one you should ask."
Fear flashed across Plunkett's face. "Dancer!"
"Lurch," Jake said tonelessly at the same moment.
Shock. Joy. Anger. Betrayal. White-hot fury. A tumultuous barrage of emotions rushed at Jake with supersonic speed.
"Drop your piece." Lurch motioned to Jake with his weapon.
"Go to hell, you bastard."
"Aw." Lurch pouted. "Aren't you happy to see me, Tin Man?"
"I preferred you the way I last saw you. Dead."
"Funny. I believe at the time you almost cried."
Jake's gut twisted at the memory. "I got over it."
He stared at the man he'd thought he knew so well, and bile rose to choke him. A haze of red obscured his vision for a moment. "Why don't we save each other the trouble, and both shoot?"
"Oh, man, you don't think I came this far to play fair, do you, Jakie boy? Hell, no."
A shot rang out from the trees. The Walther flew from Jake's fingers leaving a stinging numbness all the way to his shoulder.
Lurch laughed. "Still have those scruples, I see. I just love how predictable you are. In fact, I'm banking on it. Nice guys finish last, Tin Man, haven't you heard?"
"I came loaded for bear," Jake said. "Too bad all I see is a weasel."
"Yeah? Well I'm the one with a gun in my hand, now, aren't I? Check him out," Lurch told Plunkett.
Jake stood still while the younger man stripped him of his weapons and secured his hands behind his back. What the hell did it matter at this point?
"Are you sure you have everything?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good." Lurch turned his weapon toward Plunkett. A pop, and it was done. The double agent looked startled, a neat hole in his temple, as he crumpled to the side and rolled to the ground.
Lurch stepped nimbly around the body and ambled over to Jake, who hadn't moved from his relaxed position against the tree. "How ya doin', Tin Man?"
Jake glanced at the body, then back to Ross Lerma without expression. "No honor amongst thieves, I see. You look pretty damn good for a corpse."
"Yeah." Lurch smiled his familiar, charming smile. "Being invisible is real good for me."
"Lucrative, too, I'm sure."
Lurch's smile got wider. "We used to talk about how damn unjust it was that the bad guys got all the dough, remember? Well, man, I got me a piece of that action. A big ol' piece."
It all suddenly made horrible sense to Jake. Too bad he didn't give a rat's ass anymore. "So you used Plunkett to work inside, keep you updated."
"Hell, there've been a dozen people at T-FLAC in the past six years who work for me," Lurch boasted as he kicked Plunkett's leg off the rock so he could sit down. His weapon was still trained almost casually on Jake's chest.
"Hey," he said conversationally, "remember Sylvia Cortez? Good operative, huh? You dated her a couple of times a while ago? Hoo-ee! Was she hot in the sack. What a babe. Too bad she got gree—"
"Lose the hardware." Jake cut him off. "Let's do this mano a mano. No holds barred."
Lurch laughed. "I'm not taking you hand to hand, pal. I know you too well." He looked behind Jake and nodded. Three men emerged through the trees.
Jake didn't bother moving; he kept his eyes on Ross Lerma. The friend he'd held in his arms for his big deathbed scene six years ago. He didn't need to know how. Several drugs could mimic death.
"Why?" he asked flatly.
A gross, gasoline-type, smell filled the air. Marnie coughed, opened her eyes, then wished she hadn't. The back of her head throbbed sharply. Blurred and fuzzy, her vision wavered as she tried to focus.
Flat on her back and spread-eagled, she could see the dark tree canopy against the purplish gray of the overcast sky above her. The moisture from the ground had soaked through the back of her coat and jeans. She shivered, both from the cold and from the aftereffects of her near-death experience.
Wiggling her toes experimentally inside her boots, she stayed sprawled where she was for a few moments, trying to orient herself and figure out what had happened. She hoped fervently that she didn't have any broken body parts and that she wasn't bleeding.
Seconds after she'd watched Jake turn away, a man had emerged from the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. Before she'd realized what was happening, he was inside the helicopter.
The pilot, busy with taking off, hadn't been able to help her as the man's intention to toss her out of the rising helicopter became clear.
Marnie had managed to get off an effective kick to the jerk's stomach before he'd backhanded her. That was the last thing she remembered.
No wonder she hurt. Looking up, she could make out the broken branches of the pine that had softened her fall all the way down. She was lucky she was still in one piece. She'd probably dropped twenty feet or more.
Although she wished her aching head belonged to someone else.
It had been midafternoon when she and the pilot had taken off. It was almost dark now.
Hours had gone by.
"Ow, ow, ow." Marnie cursed softly under her breath and sat up carefully. Every part of her body felt as if it had been tossed out of a helicopter onto the hard ground. She palmed her throbbing cheek; it felt hot and hurt like crazy. And by the obstructed vision in her left eye, she must have one heck of a shiner. It felt as huge as the state of California.
She was lucky. No blood.
She rested her head on her knees until the dizziness passed. Cautiously she staggered to her feet, leaning heavily on a nearby tree trunk for support while she found her equilibrium.
She eyed the debris of twisted black metal. The pilot dead, the helicopter destroyed. Jake must be worried sick about her. Okay, she amended, maybe not worried sick. Concerned.
But as she looked at the wreckage, she realized with a shudder that Jake would think she was dead.
Oh, Jake.
She couldn't very well go skipping down the mountainside calling his name to let him know she was okay. Logic dictated she return as quickly as possible to the lair, where she could wait for him in safety.
All she had to do was find her way back in the dark, avoid the who-knew-how-many bad guys, and not freeze to death in her wet clothing.
Despite the low clouds enough light reflected off the snow to at least allow her to see where she was going. In the darkness, the thick smell of smoke and burned pine resin was oppressive.
She started down the mountain. Though she felt dizzy and a little unfocused at first, the cold air cleared her head as she navigated the steep incline, and she made good time. Grabbing handfuls of needles as she used low branches to aid her, she used landmarks to guide her way, remember
ing the large icy patch under this tree, recalling Jake helping her over these rocks—or so she hoped. Her sense of direction wasn't too hot to begin with.
Ahead was the stand of ponderosa pine that marked the boundary of Jake's land. In about twenty minutes she'd be inside, out of the sharp wind. She narrowed her eyes, looking toward the hill sloping down to the lair and beyond it to the cabin. She was on the right track. With the smoke behind her, she could see the sunset, a spectacular, blazing, showy ball of orange and blood red. Tangerine rays reflected off water droplets like dancing fireflies.
Marnie didn't waste too much time admiring the scenery as she trudged down the slope. She tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, expecting one of the bad guys to pop out like a jack-in-the-box at any moment.
Wait a minute…
Something about that spectacular solar display niggled at the back of her mind. Then it hit her: It was already dark, and there was no way to see the sun's descent through a solid mountain anyway. She turned around.
Between the trees flames shot toward the sky, licking and eating at the surrounding pines. She could practically hear the snap and crackle as sap boiled and branches caught.
In the midst of the inferno sat Jake's cabin.
She stopped where she was, one arm against a wide tree trunk as she caught her breath. The cabin was ablaze. The helicopter gone. Her car inaccessible. Her dog lost. And somewhere on this mountain a bunch of radical maniacs were trying to kill Jake. "Damn, damn, damn."
There was little chance of the entire mountainside going up in flames. It had been raining or snowing hard for days. But the simple wood construction of the cabin would go up in minutes.
They hadn't been able to ferret out Jake's lair, so they'd burned the cabin down. Now the question was, had they managed to get inside his hi-tech basement?
The mine shaft entrance was fairly close. If they were inside the lair, they'd see her coming. She'd have no idea if they were down there or not. Not until that elevator door opened and it was too late.
The same fate awaited Jake.
Marnie bit her lip trying to decide the best course of action. She couldn't stay out here on the slope. The bad guys knew enough to blow up Jake's cabin. Chances were good they were close and crawling all over the area.
