by Elle James
Instead, he’d found himself ankle deep in what the folks in South Louisiana called gumbo mud. It stuck to everything—skin, boots, tires and itself.
The other man was on dry ground, on the knoll behind his partner. He was yelling at his buddy to stop struggling, because he was only making things worse.
Tristan gave the man on dry ground a second look. He was one of the kidnappers. The one who’d held a gun on him and had tossed him across the pier.
Finally, Tristan spotted Boudreau. The Cajun was crouched down behind a lantana bush. There was blood staining the left sleeve of his shirt. A hollow dread washed over Tristan. He’d never seen Boudreau hurt or ill. His friend had always been invincible, larger than life.
It took all Tristan’s willpower not to rush over to him. Boudreau’s head angled slightly in his direction, signaling that he knew Tristan was there. Then he moved it back and forth in a negative shake. Tristan read him loud and clear.
Stay back. Let them dig their own graves.
He could live with that. Carefully and silently, he shifted his weight to his left foot and got as comfortable as he could. He gripped the automatic handgun and waited to see what the two men were going to do. As he relaxed, the men’s yelling began to coalesce into words and phrases.
“Stop thrashing around!” the kidnapper yelled. “If you fall over you’ll never get up.”
He was right. The more the man in the water struggled, the more the mud sucked him down.
“You got anything that might actually help, Echols?” the man in the mud shouted.
“Maybe stand still and see what happens. And careful with that rifle. I need you to be able to shoot.”
Boudreau’s head lifted about a quarter inch. Tristan was barely a second behind him in realizing that the man was beginning to figure out how to handle the mud.
Boudreau pushed himself up onto his knees and raised his shotgun. Tristan held his breath. Was he going to shoot one of them? That wasn’t like him, but then Tristan wouldn’t have thought it was like Boudreau to shoot the Pleiades Seagull’s captain without hesitation, either, for ordering Tristan killed.
“Bonjour, varmints,” Boudreau said and shot the ground around three feet in front of Echols’s feet. Echols jumped backward and nearly tripped. Boudreau emptied the second barrel two feet in front of his toes.
“What the hell?” Echols yelled and raised his rifle again.
“Why don’t you explain what you doing chasing us?” Boudreau yelled. “’Cause I’m tired, me. I’m ready to go to the house.”
“We want Tristan DuChaud. My boss wants to talk to him.”
Tristan stepped far enough forward to be seen, but not so far that he couldn’t take cover if either of the men started shooting.
“Hi there. Remember me?” he shouted.
The kidnapper Echols threw his hands out in a frustrated gesture. “You. Still cocky as ever.”
“Oh, I’m not cocky,” Tristan said. “Just confident. So how you been?”
“Tristan,” Boudreau said. “Don’t get too cocky.”
Tristan felt his face grow warm. Boudreau was right. This was serious business. He had no business acting as though it was not. “Well, Echols, here I am. What’s Vernon Lee got to say to me?” he asked, watching Echols closely, waiting to see his reaction to the name of the owner of Lee Drilling.
It was the man in the water who reacted. He tried to lower his rifle to his shoulder, but the movement nearly toppled him into the water. Quickly he raised his arms again, waving them like a tightrope walker trying not to fall.
“How’d he figure out—”
“Shut up!” Echols yelled, then aimed his weapon at Tristan.
Tristan didn’t react. He just kept his gaze on the man’s hands and continued talking. “You’re just going to shoot me? Here’s an idea. Have your buddy record it on his phone so you can prove to Vernon Lee that I’m dead—this time.
“Oh, wait.” Tristan gestured toward the man in the water. “He’s sinking already. If he drops the phone, you’ll have nothing. Legend says that the gumbo mud’ll suck you all the way to the center of the earth.”
“What?” the man in the mud screeched. “I’m sinking? How deep is this—” He looked down. “Echols? Get me out of here.”
“Shut the hell up and throw that rifle over here.”
“What? Oh, hell no!”
“Do it. We need that gun and without it, you can move much easier. Plus, if you drop it in the mud it’ll be ruined.”
Tristan saw Boudreau turn to look over his shoulder at him. “You okay?” Tristan called.
“Yeah. They just winged me.”
“Look out!” Tristan cried suddenly as he saw Echols swing his rifle in Boudreau’s direction. The Cajun dropped to the ground just as the rifle’s loud crack split the air. The bullet tore through the brush above Boudreau’s head. Then without hesitating, Echols whirled and fired off two rounds at Tristan.
Tristan hit the dirt where he stood as the bullets whistled by his ear. He waited a beat, then peered over the tangle of vines. Dappled sunlight glimmered off the steel barrel of the rifle as the man swung it back and forth between him and Boudreau, gauging how low to aim to send a bullet through the underbrush and directly into their bodies.
There was no time to check on Boudreau. Tristan lifted the automatic handgun and pressed the trigger. A burst of about six or eight shots spewed out of the gun, much faster than Tristan could count.
He dropped again at the very instant that his hand flew upward from the recoil. A squeal told him his wild volley had hit at least one man, probably the one in the mud. He doubted Echols was a squealer.
“I’m hit!” the man cried.
“Throw that gun over here before you drop it!” his partner yelled.
But the man stuck in the gumbo mud ignored him. He scooted sideways enough to steady himself against the cypress knee. He’d finally stopped struggling. There was blood on the left side of his shirt, but not much. The wound probably was a graze. As Tristan watched, he lifted the rifle and fired off a couple of wild rounds one-handed.
Then Echols joined the fray, and bullets spattered the leaves and branches all around Tristan. He had to stop them somehow. He didn’t want to kill them, nor did he want Boudreau to have another death on his conscience, but what he wanted took a backseat to his determination to do whatever it took to get Sandy out of there and to a doctor.
“Tristan.” Boudreau’s voice was a little breathless. “Get on back there. I’ll take care of these two. You need to take care of yours.”
Tristan fired again another volley. More rifle slugs bursting all around them. “You go,” he called to Boudreau. “I’ll take care of these guys. They can’t have much more ammunition.”
“Neither one of you are going anywhere,” Echols said. Tristan rose up and took a look. Echols had been hit, too. Blood was staining the front of his shirt. But he had the rifle up and aimed again.
Then Tristan heard a sound that nearly stopped his heart. It was footsteps, treading lightly on the path behind him. There was only one person in the world it could be. He prayed he was wrong, even though he knew he wasn’t.
“Sandy,” he whispered through gritted teeth, when he heard the footsteps stop a few feet behind him. “Get the hell back to the hideout now or I swear to you I will shoot you myself.”
“Tristan,” Sandy whispered. “I found some grenades.”
“What? Sandy!” Shock and gut-wrenching fear sent Tristan’s pulse skyrocketing. “Damn it. Didn’t you hear Boudreau? Those things are corroded and unstable. They could go off in your hands!” He shimmied backward until he was deep enough into the foliage that hopefully Echols couldn’t see him. He pushed himself to his feet.
“Corroded? No, they’re not. Look.” She was holding a
small metal box. She started to lift the lid.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded. He hadn’t seen any metal containers in the lean-to.
“Inside a big crate. They were the only thing in there.”
Behind them a rifle shot cracked, then another and another. “Get down!” he yelled. He grabbed her and pulled her down with him. She pushed the metal box into his hands. He opened it carefully. But instead of white crystals, he saw four perfectly good grenades, with shiny pins intact. “Boudreau,” he called. “Metal box in the hideout? Can’t be very old.”
“Metal box?” Boudreau repeated. “Ooh-la-la. I put that in there the day before I pull you out of the water. I guarantee I plumb forgot.”
Tristan kissed Sandy briefly. “I love you. Get back to the lean-to.”
She glared at him. “I’ve got the revolver. I’m going to help.”
“The hell you are.”
“Tristan, you know what to do with those?” Boudreau called.
But Tristan didn’t answer him. “You have to go back,” he said to Sandy. “I mean it. You’ve probably saved our lives by finding these grenades. But I’m not letting you get shot again.”
“I’m not going to sit in that lean-to and wait to see who shows up, you or them.” The glare that Sandy aimed at him was nothing short of a laser, drilling straight into his heart. “I will never sit back and wait for you again, you stubborn lying liar.”
He closed his eyes, hoping the stinging behind them would not turn into vision-blurring tears. “Sandy, I love you. I will never lie to you for your own good. I will never ever leave you. But please stay back. Please keep you and the little bean safe so I can get you both out of here.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. The laser glare dimmed as her mouth thinned grudgingly. “Fine. Okay. For the baby.”
Tristan breathed a sigh of relief, then scooted back to his shooting position. “Boudreau? We’ve got four,” he said.
“Shh!” Boudreau whispered. “Listen.”
Tristan froze, listening. Echols was talking. Not yelling. Talking. Tristan took a quick peek. “He’s got a satellite phone,” he whispered to Boudreau. “If we can get our hands on that, we can call the sheriff and he can get a position on us.”
“We’re stuck back in the swamp,” Echols was saying. He hadn’t even tried to lower his voice. The tiny knoll he was on wasn’t big enough for him to have a private conversation. He knew that Tristan and Boudreau could hear every word. “In a standoff, facing each other on two islands surrounded by a sticky mud that sucks you down into it and won’t let go. Farrell is stuck in it.”
He stopped talking and listened. “You did! Yes, sir! Thank you, sir. I’ll be listening for it. Tell them they can’t land here. Not enough solid ground. They’ll have to hover and send down a harness to pull us up.”
He paused, listening. The relief on his face turned to terror. “But—but, Mr. Lee, you can’t do that. We’re right here, not fifty yards away. That won’t work. The strafing will hit us, too. We’ve done our jobs, sir! Please. You have to get us out! Mr. Lee, no! Mr. Lee? Sir?”
Farrell, who had been listening, forgot what he’d learned in the past few moments and started struggling again. “Strafing? Oh, my God! That rat bastard Lee is going to kill us, isn’t he? Damn it, Echols, I told you we’d never get out of this alive.” He tried to pick up his right leg, then his left. “I can’t move,” he shouted. “Help me!”
Tristan’s pulse was hammering again, this time because of what he’d heard. Both of the men had used the name Lee for the man who had just called them on the satellite phone and told them he wasn’t going to rescue them. From Echols’s side of the conversation, it sounded as if Lee was sending a helicopter. The bird could probably pinpoint their location from the satellite phone and Tristan had little doubt about its orders.
Lee apparently wanted no loose ends. So he’d ordered the helicopter to strafe the entire area, thereby killing Tristan, Boudreau and Sandy and Lee’s own men in one pass of the helicopter.
“Hey, Echols,” he called out. “Things don’t sound good for you and your buddy there. What do you say we team up to stay alive? I’ll help you if you’ll help me. Call the sheriff on that phone. I’ll give you his number.”
Echols set the phone down and lifted his rifle. “Call the sheriff so he can shoot us or arrest us or try us for treason?”
“He won’t shoot you, I’m pretty sure. And arrested for treason? It’s better than being strafed alongside your enemy, right?”
Echols glared at him. “Why should I believe you’d even think about keeping your word?”
Tristan pushed himself to his feet and took another step out of the foliage. “Maybe you shouldn’t. But I’ll tell you this. I’m one of the good guys. I want to get out of here. My friend is wounded.” They probably knew that Sandy was with him, but he wasn’t going to mention her. “I’m no more interested in being strafed by Lee’s helicopter than you are.”
Echols stared at him for a long time.
A vague sound reached Tristan’s ears. Farrell heard it at the same time Tristan did.
“Oh, my God!” he screamed. “That’s a helicopter! For the love of heaven call the damn sheriff! I don’t want to die here.” He turned and tried to make his way to the knoll where his partner waited, but he slipped and sank to his armpits.
“Echols!” he yelled, in full panic mode now. “Call him, man! You’ve got kids, just like me.”
“Call the sheriff,” Tristan pleaded. “You know Lee’s got a copter on the way. You’ve got to know the sheriff is searching for us, too. He mentioned the Coast Guard. We all heard the fire trucks. I’m sure the sheriff was right behind them.”
“I’m sinking, Echols! Help me! Make the call!”
Echols made a shushing gesture, then asked Tristan, “How do I know you won’t shoot me?”
Tristan shrugged. “You don’t. But I haven’t shot you yet and you and your buddy both are wide-open. Not to mention you could shoot me, too. Come on. You’re trading certain death for a trial and a possible prison sentence.”
“And if I decide to take my chances with my boss?”
“It’s your funeral.” Tristan shrugged. “Oh, wait a minute. I forgot to mention one thing. Lee won’t have the pleasure of blowing you up after all.” He reached into the box and grabbed one of the grenades. “See what I’ve got?” He held it up high so Echols couldn’t help but see it.
“What the hell?”
“This? It’s a good ol’ US-military-grade grenade. You know what a grenade is, don’t you?”
“You won’t detonate that so close to you.”
“That could be a smart bet, but the stakes are pretty high, I guarantee. We’ve got a lot more room over here. We can run. Besides, I can throw it way on the other side of you. Of course, if you call the sheriff for me, I won’t have to waste these.”
Echols was silent. Farrell talked almost the entire time, his tone varying from pleading to screeching to rationalizing.
Finally Echols switched the rifle to his left hand and picked up the satellite phone. “Give me the number.”
“And one last little thing,” Tristan said. “Thanks to you guys, the sheriff thinks I’m dead. You might have to do a little explaining to convince him that I’m alive.”
“What? How am I supposed to explain that?”
“You could tell him about your boss, Vernon Lee.”
Farrell was still pushing himself toward the knoll. He’d figured out that lifting each leg high enough and shaking it could help the water melt the sticky mud. It was excruciatingly slow, but it worked.
Tristan made a show of setting down the metal box of grenades and the automatic pistol. Empty-handed, he called out to Echols. “Come closer to the edge and hold the phone up so I can talk to him.”<
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Echols started forward, but Tristan held up his hand. “First, drop your weapons. I did.”
“Nope. I’m keeping my handgun,” Echols said emphatically. “And I’m not talking to the sheriff. You can do your own explaining. You’ll have to yell at the phone.”
He could do that, but he did not really want to leave his cover and walk over to the edge of the dry land in order to be heard. That was probably stupid. Either of the men would have an easy shot.
“What are you doing?” his wife’s voice whispered from behind him. “You can’t go out there.”
Tristan’s heart jumped. “Damn it, Sandy. What are you doing here? I told you to go back to the hideout. I should have known you weren’t going to listen to me. When have you ever?” He shook his head as he started forward.
“You know that this is the best chance we’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to let the sheriff know that I’m alive. The only way he’ll believe it is if he hears me himself.”
“They will shoot you. Then they can call Lee and tell him you’re dead and they’ll be safe.”
She was right. That was a possibility. But he’d heard Echols’s voice on the phone. Echols knew that Lee was going to kill them. “It’s a chance I’ve got to take,” he told her, then looked at Echols. “Okay,” he called to Echols. “I’ll trust you.”
“Tristan!” Sandy snapped. “That’s like telling a hornet on your leg you’ll trust him not to sting you while you’re trying to get him off. So what if they trust you. You cannot trust them.”
“Give me the number,” Echols shouted.
Tristan gave him the number. He keyed it in and waited, the bulky phone held to his ear. Within a few seconds, his face changed from trepidation to a vague relief. But then how relieved could he feel about the certainty of being imprisoned for treason, kidnapping, assault with intent, arson and whatever else the government might want to charge him with. Of course, one difference was that when he faced a United States court, he could be relatively sure he’d come out alive. From how he’d responded to Vernon Lee earlier, it sounded as if Lee’s plan was to wipe the slate clean. Get rid of not only Tristan, but the assassins he’d sent.
