by Kim McMahill
“Where’s Olivia?”
“She’s coming. I wanted to make sure you came alone, unarmed, and had the relic as agreed upon,” she said as she ran her hands over Cash’s body, checking for weapons.
Her hand rested on the bulge under Cash’s shirt. She looked up and smiled. “Smaller than I thought, but I assume this is the object of my desire.”
Cash grabbed her wrist and pushed her back. He reached under his shirt and retrieved the small relic.
“Let me touch it.”
“Not until I see Olivia,” Cash said as he stepped out of her reach.
Zara pulled out her cell and issued instructions to bring Olivia. Within several minutes a man pushed Olivia through the door, making her stumble as she struggled for balance. Cash assumed this must be Mustafa, and he had to fight the urge to kill him on the spot. He vowed to make Mustafa pay for his treatment of Olivia, but revenge would have to wait until she was safe.
Olivia’s hands were bound behind her back and Cash immediately spotted the bruise on her cheek Zara had mentioned earlier. Both eyes were blackened and swollen and a cut ran over her right brow. Olivia’s lip oozed blood from a fresh split and a speck of dried blood clung to her chin just below her lower lip.
Zara’s expression burned with fury as she glared at Mustafa.
“She loosened her bonds,” Mustafa said, explaining the extra damage to Olivia’s face.
Cash’s gaze locked on Olivia and he recognized fear in her eyes. He wanted to run to her and pull her into his arms and promise her everything would be all right, but he forced himself to look away and refocus on Zara.
“Tell Mustafa to stop where he’s at, untie her hands, and send Olivia forward until she reaches you. Zara, hold out your hand. When I have Olivia’s hand in mine, you’ll have the relic in yours.”
“This would be much easier if we didn’t have such a deep mistrust for each other,” Zara said as she ordered Mustafa to follow Cash’s instructions.
Once freed, Olivia walked forward until she neared Zara. She refused to meet the evil woman’s glare and kept her focus on Cash.
“That’s far enough,” Zara stated.
Olivia stopped and held out her hand toward Cash. His eyes narrowed as he noticed the damage on her wrists, which had been rubbed so raw they bled. He glared at Mustafa, surprised to see a smug look on his face, rather than the fear he should be feeling. Cash held out both hands, the small crystal clutched in one fist and the other palm open and extended in Olivia’s direction.
“Now,” he yelled.
Zara snatched the relic at the same moment Cash grasped Olivia’s hand, yanked her to him, and dove for cover. As he suspected, bullets whizzed over their heads as they crawled for the door connecting El Triunfo to La Catedral.
As they slipped through, closing it behind them, Cash pulled Olivia to her feet and ran for the silver altar.
“Heinrich and Marabout are covering outside with instructions to shoot to kill.” Olivia warned.
“That’s why we’re taking an alternate route,” Cash stated.
Marjorie handed Cash his headlamp and gun and held the trap door open. Cash jumped through, landing on his feet.
“You next,” Marjorie said to Olivia as the pounding coming from the front, back, and side doors of the cathedral grew louder and more persistent.
Olivia knelt down and dropped her legs through the opening. Pete and Marjorie each grabbed an arm and lowered her until Cash was able to reach her. Marjorie slid into the opening next, trusting Pete to hold her weight until Cash could help and ease her to the bottom. Once on the ground, she scrambled out of the way, giving Pete room to jump since he wouldn’t have any other choice being the last person topside.
The pounding was now concentrated on the side entrance of the church. Pete quickly ran to the back door, unlocked it, and left it slightly ajar, hoping if anyone still stood guard, they wouldn’t notice in time to react. He then lowered his body as far as he could through the opening and let go. Pete stood up, dusted himself off, and adjusted his headlamp.
“Up, Pete. Quick.”
With Olivia and Marjorie helping to balance Pete, the scientist scrambled onto Cash’s shoulders to reach the hatch and pull it shut.
“They’ll break through any minute and figure out where we went when they find us gone. They’ll find the hidden access,” Olivia whispered.
“Maybe not,” Pete replied. “I unlocked the back door and left it slightly ajar before I jumped. Hopefully they’ll think we escaped out that way.”
“Good thinking. Let’s get going in case we’re not that lucky,” Cash said as he stooped over and entered the short tunnel.
He glanced back and spied Marjorie’s and Pete’s headlamps bobbing behind him and trusted they had Olivia sandwiched between them, so he moved on as quickly as possible while keeping everyone close. Reaching the chamber containing the crystal pillar and pool, they cautiously emerged from the tunnel. The cavern appeared vacant and no sound followed, indicating Zara hadn’t located the hidden passage. For the moment, they were safe, able to regroup and catch their breath.
Cash grabbed Olivia and pulled her into his strong embrace. He held her for several minutes, not caring that Marjorie and Pete watched. He didn’t want to ever let her go, but he knew Zara’s people were searching and wouldn’t give up until they were dead. Easing her away from his chest, he kissed her gently, trying not to cause additional pain to her bruised, swollen lip.
“How bad did they hurt you?” he asked as he wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“What you see is the worst of the damage. I’ll heal quickly. Where’s Diane?”
“Covering our backs,” Cash replied, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. Disappearing like this and staying hidden for so long was out of character for Diane, making it impossible for him to not worry.
“How many people does Zara have?” Cash asked before Olivia could push him further on Diane’s whereabouts.
“I only saw Heinrich, Marabout, and Mustafa. Zara never mentioned anyone else.”
Zara seldom assembled a large team, since she trusted few and had the skills to operate lean. He had hoped she and her three colleagues he knew of were all that remained of her group and welcomed Olivia’s confirmation.
They had Olivia back and had evaded the immediate threat, but Cash was unsure what to do next. They needed to act soon, having already waited longer than prudent. If Zara found the hatch, returning the way they came wasn’t an option, and if she brought Mustafa to the chamber to see the pillar, then that route would be blocked. If he was alone, Cash would wait as long as necessary for Zara to come to him and then deal with her, but Olivia had seen enough death and he doubted arresting Zara was an option, so he preferred to try and figure out a way to escape with no more tragedy.
Distant voices echoed through the cavern, the sounds muffled but clearly coming from the corridor which led to the crystal column from under the Church of Santo Domingo.
“Back in the tunnel,” he whispered.
Everyone scrambled into the passageway, flipped off their lights and huddled near the mouth. The opening angled away from a direct view of the chamber and the pond, so they felt relatively hidden. Two lights emerged and illuminated the cavern. Voices echoed through the voidone sounded female and the other laced with a thick accent.
“Mustafa,” Olivia whispered in Cash’s ear.
He nodded and squeezed her hand. They sat quietly for several more minutes and no additional lights or voices appeared, making Cash fear they were trapped. If Heinrich and Marabout remained at La Catedral, all escape routes were closed off. They waited, hoping that once Zara showed Mustafa the last crystal and the pillar, they would leave to formulate a plan on how to retrieve the relic attached to the column. Then, he would get Olivia, Pete, and Marjorie somewhere safe, hopefully find Diane, and go after Zara and the crystals.
Cash’s feet tingled from lack of blood flow due to his crouched stance. He tried to a
djust a position when a noise from behind caught his attention and he froze. The rest of his group had clearly detected the sound as well, and three bodies slammed into his back, nearly knocking him off balance. Clumsily, they groped in the darkness for a way out of the tunnel.
Quietly, they climbed out and huddled behind a small rock outcropping near the mouth, holding their breath as they observed Heinrich emerge and walk toward the light. They listened as Heinrich relayed the discovery of the passageway to Zara and informed her Marabout was guarding the exit.
“Cash, I know you’re here, so you may as well come out. There’s nowhere to hide that we can’t find you,” Zara called.
Cash eased his gun out of his waistband and Pete grabbed his arm. “A spark in that pond and this place blows like…like…like nothing I can even think of,” Pete whispered.
“Into the tunnel. I’d rather take my chances with Marabout than risk an all expense paid trip to another galaxy,” Cash replied, feeling like a lab rat racing back and forth in a maze, trying to find a way out.
Without argument, they silently retreated to the tunnel and felt their way to the first bend before flipping on their headlamps. The light enabled them to pick up the pace, unsure of what lay ahead, but certain it could be no worse than what they had left behind.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
October 4, 9:00 A.M.
Cusco, Peru
BEFORE THEY MADE the last turn leading to the dead-end chamber below La Catedral, Cash halted. “Marjorie, give me your machete and scarf.”
She quickly handed Cash the requested items and he wound the colorful cloth around the blade, resulting in a wad of fabric roughly the size of a human head. He held the massive knife out toward Pete and motioned him closer. He thought about tasking Marjorie, but Pete was the agent and she a civilian, a fact he found more difficult to remember the longer he spent in her company.
“Wait until just before we emerge into the dead-end chamber. On my signal, stick the machete out to the right as far as you can and yell at Marabout. I’m counting on him being nervous and trigger happy. Hopefully, he’ll focus on the decoy while I approach from the opposite direction. I’ll try to take him down without killing him. He’s more use to us alive if we need to smoke out Zara.”
Pete nodded and Cash was relieved the scientist no longer looked like a deer caught in the headlights every time he gave him instructions.
“Marjorie, you still got your gun?”
She lifted her shirt enough to pull the weapon out.
“Be ready to back me up. If something goes wrong, it’s up to you to take Marabout out of the game and get Olivia out of here. Pete’s hands will be full with distracting our target. Besides, he couldn’t hit the side of a barn--unless a mule resided inside.”
“Wait a minute.” Pete started to object, and then realized Cash was right. He still didn’t know how he successfully completed firearms training. He hated and feared guns, but he loved his career. He never expected to do anything in the field that required him to use a weapon, and now he wished he would have taken the course more seriously. So far, he’d used technology to fight terrorism and had always been able to do his job from the safety of his office or the lab in Virginia. That lifestyle seemed like a distant memory, and he wondered how it would feel to go back to such a mundane existence.
The group crept forward, lights out until just concealed in the darkness of the tunnel’s end. A faint illumination from the open trap door gave them enough light that once their eyes adjusted, a man’s silhouette standing in front of them below the opening in the ceiling above came into focus. Cash stopped and waited for everyone to catch up. “Ready? On three.”
“One, two, three.”
As the last word came out of Cash’s mouth, he spied the colorful bundle shoot out to the right and he heard Pete shout Marabout’s name. As predicted, Marabout fired in the vicinity of the noise as Cash leapt quietly out of the shadows in the opposite direction. He dove, rammed his target, and both men landed, Marabout’s head hitting the hard-packed dirt with a sickening thud.
The body under Cash went limp. He hoped Marabout had been rendered unconscious, but as he let go, rolled back on his heels, and flipped on his headlamp, he saw empty open eyes focused on nothing, and a seeping of dark fluid edging out from under the man’s skull. Cash searched for a pulse, but was unable to locate any sign of life. Rolling the body slightly, he spotted the jagged stone protruding from the ground, which had turned a solid hit into a fatal landing. As he eased Marabout’s eyelids shut, Olivia’s soft hand touched his arm, and the desire to be somewhere else, anywhere else—as long as she was near—consumed him.
He stared down at Marabout, but said nothing. He couldn’t remember another mission where everything went wrong and absolutely nothing unfolded according to plan, except for possibly the sting operation in Hong Kong, and the common denominator was Zara. Cash was sick of it. Tired of this assignment and weary of all the killing. No matter what terrorist he took out, ten more waited to take his or her place, bent on destroying innocent lives. Ridding the world of monsters intent on evil seemed hopeless, but until Zara was dead or captured, he had to press on.
“Help me up,” Marjorie whispered. “I can hear someone coming through the tunnel, no doubt to check out the gunshots.”
Marjorie’s voice snapped Cash back to reality. He knelt down and she got on his shoulders. He stood under the door that Marabout had left open.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Go,” she replied.
Cash cupped her feet and pushed, propelling Marjorie upward. She catapulted, caught the ledge of the opening, and pulled herself topside. Reaching for Olivia’s outstretched arms, Marjorie helped her through. With each person successfully on the main church level, it became easier to tow the remaining members of the group out of the underground chamber using the priest’s sash.
Soon they all stood behind the silver altar trying to catch their breath. Cash held up his hand and all fell silent and everyone flipped off their headlamps. They listened as Mustafa tried to rouse Marabout.
“Zara will go crazy,” he hissed when he finally acknowledged Marabout’s death.
Cash doubted Mustafa could climb through the opening without assistance and suspected he would take up the guard duty, removing the corridor as a possible escape route for Cash and his team. Olivia’s hand clutched his arm. Looking up, he read the fear in her swollen and teary eyes. He touched the cut next to her right eye and she flinched, and then she forced a weak smile. He couldn’t imagine what kind of animal could strike such a compassionate face, or commit the horrible atrocities against the Asháninka people. Rage boiled inside him, demanding revenge.
He should shut the hatch and pull something heavy on top of it and get out of the cathedral as quickly as possible. He had no doubt that Zara and Heinrich were either on their way topside or en route to back up Mustafa. Either way he needed to act before they arrived. Cash took several steps toward the opening, intent on being reasonable. Making the mistake of glancing over his shoulder at Olivia’s battered face, he jumped.
Cash landed on Mustafa, dislodging the man’s flashlight from his hand, rolling out of reach but still providing enough illumination for Cash to see the look of fear in Mustafa’s eyes. Cash rolled the dazed man onto his back and straddled him. His fist slammed into Mustafa’s jaw. He threw another punch and another, until his victim teetered on the verge of consciousness.
“How do you like beatings, now?” Cash said as his fist smashed into the side of Mustafa’s head and the man stilled.
Cash stood and wiped his bloody hands on his pants. He wasn’t proud of himself, but couldn’t deny the satisfaction of venting his anger on one of those responsible for so much death and for hurting Olivia. Mustafa continued to breathe, but he wouldn’t be a problem for a while, and when he woke up, the pain would ensure he paid all over again for his mistakes.
He searched Mustafa and retrieved his weaponsa small dagger and an o
lder forty-five. Cash shook his head. Who do you think you are, Dirty Harry?
“Hurry up. We need to get the heck out of here before Zara finds us,” Pete stated as he hung over the lip reaching for Cash.
Cash grabbed Pete’s outstretched arms and worked himself back up to building level. He slammed the hatch shut and they quickly slid a heavy wooden communion table over the opening. Mustafa wouldn’t be waking up for a while, but the way everything had been going, Cash wanted to be sure to eliminate any possibility of a threat from below, in case Heinrich or Zara approached through the tunnel.
“Okay, let’s get out of here and find Diane.” Cash moved around the altar and jogged toward the back of the church, with his team in tow.
Before they reached the exit of La Catedral the door swung open. Cash drew, fired, and Heinrich hit the floor as Cash skidded to a stop.
“Don’t fire,” Zara’s calm familiar voice made Cash pause.
He watched as she stepped through the doorway, the sunlight silhouetting her as she spared only a glance at her fallen colleague while keeping her gun trained on him.
“You shoot me, and you will never find where I stashed all the relics and they may fall into another’s hands even more deadly than mine.”
“I doubt that’s possible,” Cash replied.
She smiled as if his words were a compliment. “Besides, I’m sure your scientist is dying to find out what happens when we bring the crystals together.”
“No, not really,” Pete offered.
“Drop the gun and put your hands where I can see them,” Cash demanded.
Zara laughed and took several steps closer, her aim never wavering.
“You won’t shoot me. You thought you killed me once before, and the remorse ate away at your conscience until you discovered I was still alive. And, without those relics you have failed again. The only thing that bothers you more than living with guilt is accepting failure.”
