by Cherry Adair
She almost fell over her own feet, and realized the laces on her boot were trailing in the mud like a kindergartener's. She crouched to tighten the laces, then froze.
Voices.
Close.
Heart in her throat, she instinctively dropped to her stomach and scooted backward until the heavy, low branches of a pungent juniper concealed her. Here we go again, she thought wryly.
She shivered as the voices got closer. Strawlike needles rained down on her hiding place, and tiny particles of frozen snow made small, hard pellets as they plopped from the branches and onto her head.
She could barely make out the two men. Their outlines were scarcely denser than the darkness around them. But they were no more than six feet away. Too bad she didn't understand a word they said, because they sounded agitated.
The red glow of a cigarette arced toward her hiding place. It landed a hair's breadth from her face. Marnie hoped to God the smoker didn't suddenly develop a conscience. All she needed now was for the man to come over and stomp it out.
She waited in vain for the damp earth to do its job, but the cigarette just lay there smoldering. Damn. She gathered up enough saliva and spat on the glowing butt. Just in case.
After what seemed like forever and was probably only minutes, they moved on. She stayed where she was until the sound of their voices disappeared, then slithered out from under the bushes. At the rate she was going, she'd probably get adrenaline poisoning, if such a thing was possible.
She sensed rather than felt the man standing between her spread legs. Without looking over her shoulder, she knew it wasn't Jake. Uh-oh.
Marnie twisted her body, sliced her legs, and caught the man off balance. Now they were both down on the spongy ground.
His curses masked her grunts and pants as he managed to stagger to his feet, grab her around the neck, and drag her upright. He pressed her back against his body, his elbow clamped around her throat, his other arm locked with hers between their bodies.
She fumbled in her pocket and managed to yank out the sock. With a whoop, she swung it in an arc over her head. The weight of the bullets struck his face.
He howled.
She swung again. Thump. Whack.
She tried to kick him, but he jerked his arm tighter, almost cutting off her air supply and pulling her off balance at the same time.
"I should warn you," Marnie managed in a raspy voice, rocking on her heels to throw him off, "when I'm not being held, I fight back." She said it more for herself than for him.
He spat out something rude. They did a bizarre dance as he teetered, almost ripping her arm from the socket. She swung her sock weapon again, this time striking his throat. He gagged but didn't let go.
Through eyes tearing with pain, Marnie struggled upright, her breath wheezing in and out in a thick white plume about her head.
The man asked a question. At least she presumed it was a question. She couldn't have answered even if she knew what he'd asked. He was cutting off her air. She tried twisting out of his grasp, but he was strong and determined.
She kicked backward. He grunted when her sturdy Timberline connected with his shin. He snatched the end of the sock as she let fly again. Marnie held on with all her might. Like a taffy pull, the sock stretched before he managed to yank it out of her grip, in the process pulling her inexorably closer. His arms wrapped around her.
Almost carrying her, he dragged her toward a wide-trunked ponderosa. What he had planned for her, Marnie had no idea. She wasn't hanging around to find out. As they got closer to the tree, she raised her bent leg waist high in front of her. He shoved her toward the tree. She used the leverage of her foot to push off the trunk and jettisoned them both backward.
They rolled down the hill, entwined like lovers. She used her fists and knees to good effect. She might fight like a girl, but she fought like a tough girl. She wasn't her brothers' sister for nothing.
He got in a few punches himself. Unlike the movies, these hurt. She managed to block a blow to her face with her arm, and felt the strike zing through the bone into her shoulder. She snarled instead of screaming, and clawed at his face.
They tumbled over a drop-off—only a few feet, but it felt like a mile. They roiled again, and shrubs and tangled weeds grabbed her hair.
They came to a breathless stop against a boulder, Marnie on top. She immediately pressed her knee strategically to his groin and sat up. He didn't move.
"Hey!" she whispered, trying to see his face. "Hey, you." She gave him a far from gentle slap. Nothing.
She didn't hang around. A quick search of his spy suit revealed several guns and a lethal-looking knife. Marnie took them all. The knife she tucked gingerly into the pocket of her jacket, as she did, she had a mental picture of Madame Butterfly falling on the sword. She shuddered.
The little-bitty gun she stuck in the back pocket of her jeans; one of the bigger guns went in her pocket, and the other she kept in her hand.
She'd never held a gun in her life. It was considerably heavier than it looked. She hefted it to get accustomed to the feel of it. She had no idea if the safety was on or off, or even if this particular one had a safety. It made no difference.
Point. Squeeze. That's all she knew how to do.
It would have to be enough. She felt better having the weapons, although she prayed she wouldn't have to use them on anyone.
Marnie stumbled up the slight incline to find her sock. It glowed in the shadows, and she picked it up and stuffed it back in her pocket. This was a weapon she knew how to use.
She shivered as the wind picked up, sneaking under her jacket. Then she heard a sound that chilled her to the marrow, and her fingers tightened on the gun as she ran into the trees. Having traversed the open space, she'd just reached the shelter of an enormous ponderosa pine when she heard the unmistakable report of a gunshot.
Dropping like a stone, she rolled under the prickly shrubs. Her pubic bone landed forcefully on something hard. She screwed up her face and swallowed a yelp of pain. Her heart was beating with an irregular, painfully slow throb against her ribs; instinct warned her danger still lurked nearby.
Closer than that gunshot.
Chapter Fifteen
« ^ »
As still as a hunted animal, Marnie held her ground, not moving an eyelash as a man came within inches of her hand. He was alone as he melted into the trees.
The gun held between her knees, she took a moment to blow on her cupped hands. Plucking the weapon up again, she held on to it firmly. God, she was cold. The man was up ahead, barely visible through the trees. Marnie followed him.
She stopped when he stopped, taking every precaution to make as little noise as possible.
Okay, Jake Dolan, spy king of the universe, you can come and find me now.
The wind picked up, swirling shards of icy snow and soaking leaves around her feet as she moved from one concealing trunk to the next, her fingers numb around the grip of the gun.
Up ahead she could hear voices, too low to decipher what they were saying. The man sped up. Marnie was right behind him. It was much harder to keep hidden now that the moon shone through the scattered clouds. Everything looked faintly blue as patches of ground fog and smoke swirled, rising eerily around her legs.
The wet leaves that made her footsteps soundless also made the men up ahead harder to follow. Voices, pitched low, carried through the stillness of the forest.
Marnie sped up as the wind shifted, colder now. Something soft landed on her eyelash. Then another. She glanced up. It had started to snow again.
"This is a joke, right?" she whispered incredulously. All she needed now was a plague of locusts. She shook her head and aimed herself toward the lair.
The moon eventually peeked coyly around a cloud over the tips of the pines. She moved faster, keeping between the trees now that she could see where she was going. Through the branches she saw the rock formation to the lair up ahead. Every muscle and bone in her body had a complaint, so
me louder than others.
She wanted desperately to run, but restrained herself. About two hundred yards from the rocks she stopped dead as a noise alerted her that someone, or something, was close by. The same man she'd just avoided? Or another?
Heart pumping, mind racing, Marnie hefted the weight of the small gun in her hand and held her breath.
"Woof," came the soft inquiry from under a bush.
With a stifled cry Marnie dropped to her knees in the muddy earth. Duchess crawled out on her belly to greet her. She flung her arms around her dog's neck and buried her face in Duchess's short, wet fur.
"Oh, puppy!" Marnie whispered, "Are you all right? I missed you! I was so scared!" She half laughed, half cried. She hadn't wanted to imagine what could have happened to prevent the dog from returning.
She ran her hands over the dog's body, checking in the near darkness for obvious injuries. There didn't seem to be any. But her pup was cold and wet, and pathetically grateful to see her mistress.
Marnie wiped her cheeks with her palms and stood up. "Come on, goofus, let's go wait for Jake."
Duchess danced excitedly.
Marnie started walking. Duchess grabbed the flapping hem of her jacket in her mouth and tugged the opposite way. She stopped before the dog ripped her coat off her body.
"Now what?"
Duchess growled low in her throat.
Marnie looked down at the dog's agitated movements.
"Is this about Jake?" Her heart climbed higher in her throat. "Jake, puppy girl? Jake? Okay, fine, I'll follow you. Please don't get us shot, that's all I ask."
"What are you going to do with me, Lurch? Walk me to death?" Jake asked, marching ahead of the men, the plastic cuffs tight on his wrists which were securely manacled behind his back. They'd stripped him of all his weapons none too gently. He could feel the warmth of blood as the wound on his shoulder reopened.
Jake had checked each man's face to see if any were T-FLAC operatives. None were. These three were a mix of corn-fed rednecks and paid killers with the flat, disinterested eyes of paid killers. Not bright enough to do more than act as Lurch's muscle.
Was this all of them? Were there more hidden somewhere along the route?
"Head back to our cabin." Lurch prodded him in the back with his knife. It nicked but didn't slice. Lurch had always been a man for petty revenge. Jake had overlooked it as a harmless weakness in his friend. Now he recognized it as a symptom of something far more malignant.
"Our cabin?" Jake repeated disdainfully. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but other than a six-pack the day we bought the place, what was your contribution to the property?"
"It always belonged to the four of us. Walk faster, it's freezing. That was all I could come up with at the time, so don't go accountant on me, Tin Man. The cabin is part mine."
"And what?" Jake asked. "Now you want it all?"
Lurch giggled. "Hell, yes, I want it all. Mostly I want the lair."
"What lair?" Jake asked mildly, narrowing his eyes as he suddenly noticed a fire twinkling between the trees up ahead. Not all the smoke in the air was from the crash site. The stupid bastard had torched the cabin.
"What lair?" Lurch mimicked. "The lair the four of us planned. The lair you built. The lair where you keep the patents for all those lucrative toys of yours. You've got plenty, and all those cool inventions will bring in beaucoup bucks," Lurch snapped. "I'm getting it all."
"Last I checked you weren't my next of kin."
"Because of your damned efficiency," Lurch continued furiously, as if Jake hadn't spoken, "my money's tied up, my best lieutenant's dead, and my Midwest camp is useless. You owe me, pal. You owe me this mountain."
"Take a breath and a reality check. Nobody owes you anything. You made your choices. Live with them."
"My choice is that the great and incorruptible Jake 'Tin Man' Dolan will retire in disgrace, never to be heard from again," Lurch told him with a pleased chuckle. "Except for when he has to deposit those nice fat checks, of course. And I've got your John Hancock down now."
Which explained how Lurch had obtained secret documents and authorized clandestine maneuvers supposedly authorized by Jake himself.
The stench of wood smoke hung low in the air. Without a glance, Jake walked parallel to the rocks hiding the entrance to the mineshaft. "You use that Red Eye?" he asked through teeth so tightly clenched his jaw ached.
"Aw," Lurch mocked. "Were you real attached to your Miss M. Wright?"
How the hell does the bastard know her name?
Lurch's face wore a smug expression as he recited, "Residing at nine-thirty-nine La Mesa Terrace, Sunnyvale, California?"
Her medication, Jake realized, his blood rising to a higher boil. Her name would have been on the bottle they'd taken from her backpack.
"You idiot, Lurch. You always were one to jump to conclusions. It still makes you sloppy. You wasted an expensive ordnance. The girl was a camper. Nothing to do with me."
No emotion, he warned himself, no damned emotion.
"You always did think I was a step behind, didn't you, Jake? Well, surprise, I'm not."
Lurch glanced back and snapped his fingers at one of the men trailing them. The man jogged up and handed him a wad of thick, textured white paper. Lurch unfolded it and showed Jake a charcoal sketch.
They'd passed the entrance to the lair and moved downhill.
It started to snow. Soft flakes drifted to the ground, backlit by ethereal, misty moonlight. Marnie would have loved—Jake ruthlessly cut off the thought.
Lurch shoved the papers forward so Jake could see them, angling them so the light of the cold, white moon could illuminate the pages.
"Now this just doesn't look like the face of a stranger to me. Your honey was hot for you when she drew this, old pal. Real hot. And by the look on your face right here"—he tapped the page with his knuckles—"I'd say you were about a step away from screwing her blind." Lurch roared with laughter.
Actually, Marnie thought, shivering from her hiding place behind a nearby rock, he'd been about a step away from killing her at the time. But that was moot at this point.
That Jake knew the man beside him was obvious. Another betrayal? Oh, Jake.
She and Duchess stayed hidden until the men moved out of sight among the trees and the sound of laughter drifted with the snowflakes.
"Now what, girl? Now what do we do?" She looked at the dog, hoping for an answer. The gun in her pocket weighed a ton, as did the one in her hand. Fine and dandy. She had three guns, a knife, and a sock full of bullets. And zero knowledge of how to use the first two. She couldn't very well sneak up behind the bad guys and shoot them like they did in the movies, and her mind shied away from anything as grisly as using the knife.
They were heading down to what was left of Jake's cabin. So they didn't know about the entrance to the lair up here… and they didn't know she was alive. They wouldn't be looking for her.
"Okay, puppy girl," Marnie whispered. "What we have to do is give these guns to Jake. Somehow."
Duchess agreed with a woof and, tail tucked, followed the men, Marnie right beside her.
The men talked in low voices. She couldn't discern what they said and could barely see Jake up ahead of them.
The four men stopped by the log in front of what had once been a four-sided building. She frowned. She could have sworn there'd been five men counting Jake. But maybe not. She hadn't had a clear view of them as they'd passed her.
From her hiding place amongst the bushes, she saw that the cabin had been reduced to kindling and ash. The chimney held up part of the roof, but the walls had collapsed and scattered on the ground. Damp wood smoldered, and every now and then a knothole produced a shower of sparks.
Her breath hitched as Jake moved into view. The moon lit the area like a spotlight on a stage.
A frisson of gut-wrenching fear paralyzed her for a moment. Somehow in all the hullabaloo, she'd almost forgotten that he wasn't invincible.
Jake
stood with his back to her. His wrists were tied. His posture appeared perfectly relaxed, but he was carefully trying to free his hands as the other man spoke.
Move back about ten feet, would you, big guy? Marnie urged, frustrated and terrified.
A showy display of sparks and flame shot into the air. "You always were irresponsible with your possessions, Lurch. Now you don't have a cabin."
Lurch? Marnie frowned. One of Jake's Musketeers?
The man approached Jake. He was almost as tall, but of slighter build. And he moved as gracefully as a dancer. Marnie hated him on sight.
"Didn't want the damn cabin, wonder boy. I want the lair. And the land. This is gonna be SPA's new training facility."
"It's good to want things."
His friend hit Jake with his gun, right across the side of his face. Marnie winced and bit her lip so as not to cry out. Her heart pounded so hard she felt they must surely be able to hear it. Tears stung her eyes.
The fight-or-flight urge was overwhelming. Filled with a mix of fear and potent rage, she resisted with everything in her.
The man grabbed Jake by the throat, an expression of pure, unadulterated loathing on his narrow face. "How do I get into the lair?"
"I'm afraid that secret will have to die with me," Jake said calmly, his hands busy with whatever was holding his wrists together.
"Palm print?" Lurch demanded. "All I have to do is chop off your freakin' hand. Piece of cake."
Jake's muscles barely shifted as he tested the bonds and said flatly, "You have to find the panel first."
"I'll find it." Lurch started walking around him, chewing his lower lip like a child denied a favorite toy. "Bet you put in that retinal scanner we talked about."
"Bet you're right." Twist. Pull. Stretch.
That's not going to work, Jake. Marnie waited in an agony of suspense and felt sick. They were going to chop off Jake's hand and poke his eyes out any second, while she sat here in the shrubbery gnawing a hole in her lips and wetting her pants. Think, damn it. Think. She reached out carefully to touch Duchess, who lay beside her.
