by Cindy Dees
“It’s almost time to go,” he muttered. “We’re heading straight for the next barn this time.” He nodded at the second, larger horse barn. “No crouching or anything. Just run as fast as you can and I’ll keep pace at your left elbow. Okay?”
She nodded.
“Remember to breathe.”
Breathe. Right. They waited just inside the barn for Mac to decide the coast was clear. And waited. She had no idea what he was looking for, but she trusted his instincts implicitly. She could swear she saw him actually fidget for a second as the wait for whatever he was looking for dragged out.
“What happened in here?” she murmured while he peered outside. “Did you find anyone?”
He gave her a hard look. Then he nodded shortly and gestured in a slashing motion across his throat. She blinked. He’d slit a man’s throat? Surely that cutting motion was a euphemism for something less lethal than killing somebody. Except the horses had reacted violently. Just like they would if they’d smelled blood. Holy cow.
The absolute lack of emotion in Mac’s expression as he pantomimed the fate of the intruder was chilling. This was not the same man who had made love to her less than an hour ago.
This man was dangerous.
He interrupted her train of thought by nodding at her and then at the door. Time to go. She took a deep breath. She took off hop-skipping again with Mac supporting her left side. She tried to remember to breathe, but that awful itchy sensation between her shoulder blades was too much for her. She tensed up, and all hopes of breathing deeply were gone.
She was about three-quarters of the way to the next barn when she ran out of oxygen. Her feet became heavy and clumsy. She wasn’t going to make it. She was going to die out here, and Mac would die trying to save her. His hand lifted even more powerfully under her elbow and propelled her forward. He all but carried her the last thirty yards. He kept going until they were well into the bowels of the darkened barn before he released her arm and let her take her own weight on her knee.
At least he was breathing hard, too. It was a small consolation.
“Stay here until I sweep the trainer’s apartment upstairs. I’ll come get you when it’s clear to come up.”
She nodded and sagged against the wall at her back. Her legs felt like rubber and her chest felt like huge steel bands were squeezing it until she couldn’t inhale at all.
She still wasn’t recovered when Mac said quietly from off to her right, “Come on up.”
She climbed the stairs laboriously. “Where are you?” she murmured into the inky blackness.
“Over here,” was Mac’s quiet reply. “By the bed.”
She made her way cautiously to him. She bumped into him and his arms came around her.
“Hi, gorgeous. Wanna dance?” he whispered.
The incongruous remark made her smile against his chest.
“I’ve made you a nest,” he said, gesturing at the bed.
She made to sit down on it, and he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Under the bed, sweetheart.”
“Of course. How silly of me,” she remarked wryly.
His quiet chuckle was a breath of fresh air in the middle of this nightmare. Thankfully, it was an old-style metal cot with a good eighteen inches of clearance under it. Mac had, indeed, laid several thick blankets underneath the bed and even provided a pillow and another blanket to cover herself with.
“Lie on your side, sweetheart. That way if you fall asleep, you won’t make noise breathing.”
“You mean I won’t snore,” she commented.
“Well, yes. I was trying to be delicate.”
“You were wonderfully delicate, Mac.”
“Thanks. But don’t get out from under that bed under any circumstances unless one of the four of us tells you to. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“This is really important. You need to stay out of our line of fire.”
“Got it. I’m not budging from here until you guys say so.”
“Okay. And don’t be afraid…”
He sounded so worried for her. Her heart melted a little. “I’ll definitely be afraid, Mac. But I trust you.” To keep her safe. She’d just finished ranting about him letting her stand on her own two feet, and now, when the chips were down, she caved. Sheesh.
“Just out of curiosity, why are we up here?” she asked.
“The plan Charlie Squad agreed upon earlier tonight was to stash you here when the attack came, but make it look like you were still up at the house. We want Ruala to focus his attention there. When the squad realizes what’s going down, they’ll know I’ve put you in here to keep you out of harm’s way.”
She nodded. “And just how do you propose to let them know what’s going on? It’s not like you can just shout it up to the house.”
“I thought I’d set off one of my traps. A couple of them will make plenty of noise to get the guys’ attention. Thing is, I’m going to have to get away from this barn a bit to detonate my traps. I don’t want to draw Ruala’s men right to you.”
She stared hard at him in the dark. No, he was just going to draw Ruala’s men right to him. “Mac, don’t do anything stupid and heroic on my account.”
Mac kissed her hard on the lips and murmured, “Stay put. I have to go make some noise. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
A few minutes. Right. The next ten minutes took a veritable eternity to tick off her wristwatch. She was going to go completely, screaming crazy long before he ever got back.
Mac crouched in the shadow of a fat, bushy juniper. Any minute now. He’d shown himself to one of Ruala’s men for an instant, just a flicker of movement, to draw the guy’s attention. Enough to get him to come this way to investigate, but not so big a movement as to truly alarm the guy.
Ruala’s man stooped and peered between the slats of wood at the far end of the paddock fence. C’mon, already. Climb the damn fence and come investigate me. There. The guy put a foot on the first fence rail. Then shouldered his rifle and reached out with both hands to grasp the top rail of the tall fence.
Mac nodded in satisfaction as the night’s deep silence was ripped asunder by a horrible screaming noise. The guy sounded like a rabbit in its death throes with the same eerie pitch of agony in his voice. The noise trailed off into a choking gurgle and then silence. He moved away fast because Ruala and his men would surely come investigate that scream.
He glanced over his shoulder at the main house. All the lights were going out. Fast. The squad had heard Ruala’s man hit the electric fence he’d juiced up earlier that day. Well, maybe that wasn’t the word for it. He’d run enough electricity through the wire to kill a man in a few seconds. The last light blinked out in the house. Charlie Squad would be tossing on its gear and coming out to play any second. Thank God. Now maybe they had a fighting chance of keeping Susan alive tonight.
He spent the next half hour creeping around on his belly outside the barn, trying to spot one of the guys on Charlie Squad to let the team know where he and Susan were. Unfortunately, his teammates were too good. He couldn’t find any of them.
He’d better head back to Susan. She had to be freaking out by now. After that guy’s screaming death and then the long, loaded silence that followed, he could imagine how wired she must be. She’d been damned brave up till now, but she’d trembled like a leaf when he told her Ruala and his men were at the ranch. Even she had her limits.
He low-crawled on his belly toward the main horse barn and Susan. It was slow, painstaking going. Move. Pause. Move, move. Pause. He avoided any rhythm in his motion, any large movements that would attract Ruala’s attention. The bastard or one of his men could pick him off like a duck in a shooting gallery if they spotted him right now.
It took almost twenty minutes to move the full length of the fence whose shadow he followed. A grassy, open space about a hundred feet across separated him from the yawning blackness of the barn’s alleyway. He scanned the whole area slowly. Ruala was out there. He could sens
e the killer nearby. Could smell him.
He pressed into a slow motion push-up, easing himself toward vertical, inch by agonizingly slow inch. There was no help for it. He was going to have to make a run for it across that expanse of grass. He took a couple of long, deep breaths and leaned forward to launch himself at top speed.
And froze. A flash of black moved in front of him. A lone figure. Slipping around the corner of the main barn and into the alleyway. Swift and silent. Too fast for him to see a face or make an ID of friend or foe. He swore under his breath. Was that a Charlie Squad member gone to check on Susan or one of Ruala’s men?
He leaped toward the barn. And all hell cut loose around him.
Chapter 14
T he firefight exploded without warning. A single burst of gunfire became a raging torrent of lead flying faster than the ear could comprehend. Automatic weapons spit out their staccato rhythms. A pair of grenades exploded in white starbursts, throwing clods of dirt high up into the sky to rain down around him and on him.
Flares popped overhead, their sulphurous pink sizzle casting the landscape in bright focus. Standard tactic for blowing night-vision and making night-vision goggles useless. He ducked as something whizzed past, dangerously close to his head. Rocket-propelled grenade, maybe. A booming concussion behind him knocked him off his feet, blasting him forward and slamming him flat onto his face again. Damn, that hurt. He rolled and regained his feet in one movement and resumed running toward the barn and Susan. He dropped the rifle into a firing position at his right hip and randomly returned fire in the direction of Ruala and his men.
A hail of bullets rained around him, and he changed course, zigzagging back and forth. But then a second barrage of gunfire erupted and the lead whizzing around him diminished. Suppression fire from Charlie Squad. His guys had gotten position fixes on Ruala and his men from the muzzle flashes of their guns and now were pinning down the assassin and his men. Hallelujah.
An ominous sense of déjà vu assaulted him. It was just like ten years ago. A firefight flying all around and Susan at the middle of it all, in deadly danger. The barn loomed before him. He ducked as something hot brushed his cheek and wood exploded off the corner of the barn at face level. Damn, that had been close.
Only a few more yards to go. And then a flash grenade detonated practically beneath his feet. The blue-white strobe of light blinded him, and the blast knocked him flat on his back. Damn, that had been close. If it had been an explosive grenade, he’d be minus his legs or dead right now. He staggered to his feet and stumbled forward, pressing on doggedly for the barn and Susan.
He might just make it after all. The black maw of the alleyway entrance loomed. He dived for it. And landed awkwardly, slamming his shoulder into the hard dirt floor. He rolled up against a stall wall and lay there breathing hard. He was as blind as a baby bird. He squinted, begging his eyes to adjust while he strained to hear anything at all that might indicate the whereabouts of the shadow he’d seen entering the barn.
The alleyway came into focus painfully slowly. Deserted. No sign of the guy he’d seen slip in here. Not good. He crept stall to stall, checking inside each for the intruder. Nothing.
The guy had to be upstairs. Dismay slammed into him, and a string of curses ripped through his head. The trainer’s apartment was a single, spacious room. Susan didn’t stand a chance of hiding from Ruala’s man up there!
For the first time in his career, he very nearly panicked. Only years and years of intense training prevented him from tearing up the stairs, shouting her name. Hanging on to his cool by a thread, he glided up the steps, one at a time. The agony of taking it slowly all but killed him. But he managed not to rush headlong into surefire disaster. Barely.
He reached the top of the stairs and stopped, listening. Over the sounds of the firefight outside, he couldn’t hear a blessed thing. He eased down onto his belly and inched his head far enough around the corner to peer into the room.
He’d have roared his rage aloud if it wouldn’t have gotten him and Susan both killed. She was seated on the bed, and one man held a gun to the side of her head. Another man was peering right at the stairs—right at him—through a pair of night-vision goggles.
The man in the goggles spoke in heavily accented English. “Come join us, G.I. Joe.”
His gut fell like a brick. They’d made him. All chance at stealth was gone. With that gun at Susan’s temple, there was nothing he could do but surrender and hope for a miracle to get her out of there alive before they killed her. He’d always known this moment might come, where he’d be out-maneuvered and outgunned and there’d be no way out. He just hadn’t expected Susan to be there, too. A strange calm overcame him as he stood up and stepped into the room with his hands on the top of his head.
Susan moaned aloud when she saw him.
He shot her a crooked smile. “Sorry, sweetheart. My fault.”
“I’m the one who charged outside in the first place. Don’t apologize to me,” she replied.
“Shut up. Both of you,” the man in the night-vision goggles spit out. “Drop your weapon, G.I. Joe.”
He dropped the rifle and held his hands away from his sides.
The silent one frisked him. Rudely and painfully. Bastard.
“Now take off your belt. And your shirt,” goggle guy ordered. “Get down on the floor with your hands behind your back, American.”
Mac knew the drill. He’d done this to other people a hundred times. The silent one slapped a pair of metal handcuffs on him. Mac tested the rigid restraints cutting into his wrists. Standard police issue. With time and a little pain, he could get out of them. But he probably wouldn’t get the opportunity. They’d shoot him first. He eyed the guy in the night-vision goggles, who was alert and wary. The guy’s attention never wavered, and neither did the muzzle of his pistol, which remained pointed at Susan’s head. Which left him no options at all.
The pair withdrew to a corner to whisper to each other. Mac strained to hear them. He heard enough of the two men’s conversation to figure out that these jokers weren’t the brains of the operation. But they were smart enough to realize they weren’t going to walk out of this firefight alive unless they had hostages. He and Susan were the thugs’ ticket out of here.
Sure enough, he was dragged to his feet moments later and shoved down the stairs. Susan slammed into him from behind, and he barely managed to maintain his balance. He half turned to help right her with his shoulder.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“Shut up,” goggle guy hissed. He smacked her across the back of the head.
“Quit slapping around the lady,” Mac growled. “Or aren’t you man enough to pick on somebody your own size?”
“Don’t do it, Mac,” Susan murmured.
He should have guessed she’d recognize that he was trying to channel the men’s anger away from her and onto himself.
The blow to the back of his head with a pistol butt exploded agonizingly inside his skull. It sent razor-sharp shards of pain shooting through his eyeballs. Had the blow been a little to the left, it would have knocked him out cold. Had it been a little lower, it could have killed him. A gun barrel poked him hard in the ribs, and he stumbled forward once more.
Goggle guy snapped at the one who’d clocked him. “Not yet, you fool. We need them to shield us until we’re out of here.”
If only Susan knew the first thing about military tactics. She’d know once they were outside and in sight of Charlie Squad to drop to the ground and give the team clear shots at their captors. Howdy and the guys could have them free in no time.
But she didn’t know to do that, and he dared not try it by himself. If he pulled a shooter’s drop, Susan would get shot long before Charlie Squad could get a clear line of fire at her captor.
Mac was startled when Ruala’s men prodded them to the rear of the barn instead of the front. He caught sight of an open-topped Jeep parked outside. Must have been driven back here during the first few seconds of t
he firefight. He and Susan were shoved into the vehicle. He did his best to cushion her body against his when the Jeep lurched forward. As he expected, the two of them were forced to stand up like rag dolls for the drive across the ranch compound. He flinched every time the vehicle hit a rut. That gun to the side of his head made him damned nervous. It didn’t take a lot of pressure to fire a weapon. A hard jostle of a finger on a trigger…
Fortunately, the gunfight ceased as they made their way toward the driveway. Charlie Squad wasn’t going to shoot while he and Susan were being used as human shields, and Ruala probably wanted to kill her himself. The bastard. Mac was surprised when Ruala didn’t take a shot. His own men must be blocking his line of fire to Susan.
Sometimes being as highly trained as he was turned out to be a strange blessing. He knew almost to the moment when the blow was coming just behind his left ear. He even turned slightly at the last second to better position the blow and minimize the risk of brain damage.
His last conscious thought was that he hoped Susan was as lucky if they knocked her out.
The first thing she became aware of was pain. A sharp ache behind her right ear. Blood throbbed through the tender spot with each beat of her heart. The second thing she became aware of was light behind her eyelids. Then, a hard metal chair beneath her bottom. It felt like a standard folding chair. Her hands were handcuffed behind her back with metal bracelets and felt as if they were attached to the chair. Her mouth tasted like stale blood.
Where was she?
She slitted open one eye. Cardboard boxes? She opened her eyes all the way. Tall piles of brown boxes were stacked along the walls. It looked like a storeroom of some kind. It smelled like a basement.
