Medusa’s Master

by Cindy Dees

  Without warning, a tall figure clothed in black rose up about thirty feet beyond her head. She froze, lying on her back, gazing awkwardly up and back at him as he swung up a semiautomatic carbine in a smooth motion. In an instant, she identified the weapon. A Yugoslavian SKS rifle with a bayonet mount. Not a weapon Jeff or the Medusas used. And the guy obviously had a target in sight. The weapon settled against his shoulder and his right forearm tensed. He was firing!

  Without hesitating, she squeezed off two shots overhead while lying on her back. The first shot caught him under the right ear. The second, she’d adjusted downward to compensate for his beginning to collapse, and it hit him square in the temple. A kill shot.

  The guy dropped like a stone as crashing sounds erupted from all directions. Men shouted back and forth. They yelled in a language she didn’t know, but she didn’t need to understand. They knew they had a man down, that there was a shooter out here, and they were determined to find and kill her.

  This scenario, she knew. The kill was always easy. The escape afterward was hell. She rolled fast across the remaining moss, then rose into a crouch behind a tree trunk. She glanced up. A towering black pine. Not ideal for climbing…the branches were too thin to support much weight, and closely spaced enough to make scaling the trunk a pain in the rear. But she didn’t have much choice.

  She often made use of three dimensions when egressing a close-range kill. Most people only thought in two dimensions, so thinking vertically gave her a big edge. Not to mention, Hidoshi had trained her to climb like a monkey.

  Not worrying about noise as the dead man’s colleagues crashed through the gully like a herd of bull elephants, she jumped for the nearest branch. The soft wood bent deeply beneath her weight, but held.

  Up she went, distributing her weight as best as she could among multiple branches as she climbed the rough ladder of limbs quickly. A dark shadow moved below, and she froze, one arm around the trunk, the branch she stood on slowly flexing beneath her weight. As the angle of the limb grew steeper and steeper, she prayed silently.

  Hold a few more seconds. Don’t crack.

  Thankfully, the sap-filled wood remained silent, and the shadow moved on. She switched quickly to another branch and wrapped both arms around the trunk, supporting most of her weight that way.

  “Where the hell are you?” Jeff murmured.

  “I went vertical. One hostile just passed beneath me,” she breathed back.

  Misty murmured, “I have one moving past me, away from the park entrance.”

  Isabella spoke next. “I have one examining the downed man.”

  Frustratingly, no one reported sighting the last man. Kat was startled when Jeff breathed, “Ops, say location of hostiles.”

  A new voice came up on their frequency. “Two hostiles, immobile, sixty feet east of Cobra. One moving northwest, one-hundred-ten feet north of Sidewinder. One hostile moving west-by-southwest, approximately fifty feet from Python’s location.”

  Kat mapped the locations in her head. Nobody was about to stumble across her hiding spot.

  The voice continued. “A new hostile moving between Adder and Mamba’s positions. Field-of-fire conflict between Adder and Mamba. Maverick, another tango is heading toward you. Should pass twenty to twenty-five feet in front of you, moving left to right. If you have cover and hold position, you should be clear.”

  Six men were out here? Those last two might have successfully ambushed the Medusas had the H.O.T. Watch combat observers not warned them. Handy, having an infrared picture from God’s-eye view like this.

  Jennifer Blackfoot came up on frequency. “Visual shows one more hostile back in the parking lot. He appears to be tampering with your vehicle.”

  Kat’s jaw dropped. Okay, so the H.O.T. Watch folks were more than handy. They were lifesavers.

  “Copy,” Jeff murmured. “I have my man in sight.”

  The woods and the radios went silent as the hostiles calmed down from their initial panic and went into hard-core hunting mode, creeping stealthily through the lush tropical foliage.

  It was a deadly game of cat and mouse. For the most part, Kat, Jeff and the Medusas held their positions, hunkered down to wait out the hostiles as the H.O.T. Watch observers occasionally murmured a position update.

  And then Jennifer announced, “Problem, folks. We just got a momentary visual on one of your hostiles. We enhanced the image, and he appears to be wearing night-vision goggles. We cannot confirm, but have to assume they’re infrared.”

  Kat’s stomach dropped. That meant they also had to assume that their trackers could see them now, and would shoot them on sight. The rules of this game had just changed completely.

  Jeff breathed into the radio. “Request permission to go full offensive.”

  Chapter 15

  Kat held her breath while a long pause ensued. Then Jennifer spoke crisply. “Pull out of there. Attempt not to kill them, but shoot your way out of there as necessary.”

  Jeff murmured, “Copy. Medusas, rendezvous at Point Alpha.”

  The Medusas always established several rendezvous points in case they got separated on an op.

  Jennifer spoke again. “Cobra, if possible, please confirm your kill and search the body. Who are those guys?”

  Kat shimmied down out of the tree quickly, her gloves and shoes sticky with sap. She raced for the man she’d shot. She stared when she got to his body. His pockets were already turned inside out, his left wrist flung wide—and minus a watch. His weapon was gone. He wore no ammunition belt, and she thought she remembered glimpsing the bulge of one when she’d taken the shot. But she’d been firing from a wacky angle. Maybe she was wrong.

  “This guy’s been stripped of all identification,” she reported.

  Jeff ordered, “Converge on me, ladies. Ops, if you’d vector them in?”

  The H.O.T. Watch controllers obliged, and Kat followed their directions toward her teammates. She thought hard as she ran lightly through the trees. Her kill’s identity had been sanitized by one of his buddies. Which was pretty sophisticated behavior for common thugs. These guys were pros.

  Jennifer Blackfoot came back up. “We just picked up a phone call to the Bajan police. Gunshots were reported. Time to leave the area. ETA on police—five minutes.”

  Dang. The H.O.T. Watch had the capacity to monitor local phone calls, too?

  Jeff started, “Raven, about our vehicles. The cops—”

  Jennifer cut him off. “Carter’s calling the police now to tip them off anonymously that the cars may be rigged to blow up.”

  “Thanks,” Jeff replied.

  Kat was close to their rendezvous point and reached it in about a minute. She topped a steep outcropping of rock and spotted a crouching figure before her. A hand signal flashed. Jeff. She flashed back an all’s well and he waved her in. She moved to his side while they waited for the others to join them.

  “You okay?” he asked quietly, off radio.

  She was startled to realize that the very same question had been on the tip of her tongue to ask him. Thing was, she already knew he was uninjured. And yet, she felt a need for reassurance. Her hands wanted to run over his limbs and torso and face, to check for injuries. Weird. She answered, likewise off radio, “I’m fine. You?”

  “Fine. Why’d you shoot that guy?”

  It did not escape her that he was giving her the benefit of the doubt—that he was assuming she’d had a good reason to disobey his order not to shoot and giving her a chance to share it with him. “The tango stood up, took aim, and started to fire at one of you.” She shrugged. “There was no time to ask for a modification of your order.”

  He nodded briskly. “Okay. You’ll need to write it up, of course.”

  She nodded, profoundly relieved. No questions. No second-guessing. He believed her story. Trusted her judgment. The paperwork of making an unauthorized kill was routine.

  Karen and Isabella popped over the ridge next, and as sirens became audible in the distance
, Aleesha and Misty joined them.

  Jeff looked around. “Who’s your pacesetter?”

  The slowest runner always set the pace, and the others stayed with her.

  Aleesha answered. “Me or Isabella, depending on who’s carrying the most weight.”

  Isabella grinned. “Hey, I’ve been working out like crazy.”

  Aleesha grinned back. “I’m it, then. Let’s go.”

  Kat fell in behind Python in the Medusas’ usual retreat order. Not surprisingly, Jeff assigned himself to bring up the rear—the most dangerous position in a fighting retreat. They ran steadily until they emerged from the park. Aleesha found a narrow road, and took off down it.

  They ran hard for nearly an hour before the lights and noise of a village came into sight ahead of them. Jeff called a halt. They pulled off the road into a clump of tall weeds. He pulled out a map and spread it out on the ground between them. “I place us here. Do y’all concur?”

  Kat glanced at the map and nodded her agreement.

  Jeff continued. “It’s too far to run to any major town from here tonight. We can either obtain wheels or find someplace to camp.”

  Kat spoke up. “I vote for wheels. I want to see what the Ghost gave me and we’ll need a computer to do that.”

  Jeff stared at her. “He gave you something?”

  “Looks like a computer disk. He said he found it by accident. It’s why he wanted to meet me.”

  Jeff nodded. “Wheels it is, then. Who’s good at hotwiring cars?”

  Aleesha laughed. “Boy-o, we be de Medusas…Lay dem baby blues on how we do business.”

  Misty stood up, grinning. “Kat, your shirt, please. Maverick, if you wouldn’t mind turning your back…”

  Kat stripped out of her close-fitting black turtleneck while Misty did the same. They quickly traded shirts. Additionally, Misty popped off her bra before pulling Kat’s shirt over her head. The effect never failed to startle Kat. The black fabric was skintight and left shockingly little to the imagination.

  Misty announced, “You can turn around now, Maverick.”

  He did so. Kat didn’t blame him for gulping. Misty was magnificently endowed, and Kat’s three-sizes-too-small shirt showed the girls off to full effect.

  “Well, then,” Jeff commented dryly. “That’s certainly…informative.”

  Kat’s eyes twinkled as he glanced over at her, clearly checking to make sure she wasn’t jealous of his reaction to Misty’s display.

  “Pass me your cash, ladies,” Misty muttered as she applied mascara, using a small mirror Karen lit for her with a flashlight.

  While Misty finished putting on eye shadow and lip gloss, the Medusas pooled their emergency cash. Misty counted it quickly. “That should be plenty. Wheels for six, coming up. Back in a few,” she said breezily. “The usual bet, Mamba?”

  “T’ought you’d never ask, girlie. De usual.”

  Misty disappeared down the road, rolling her pants down around her hips to show off her flat, tanned midriff, her golden hair loose and flowing behind her as she ran.

  As they hunkered down to wait, Jeff asked, “What’s the bet?”

  Karen explained, “Misty has five minutes once she arrives to acquire whatever she’s going after. In this case, a car.”

  Jeff gaped. “Five minutes?”

  Kat blinked innocently. “What’s wrong? That too slow for you?”

  He spluttered. “She can’t do that in five minutes. She has to buy a drink. Settle in at the bar. Strike up a few conversations. Work her way around to suggesting that she’s looking to buy a car. Negotiate a deal. It takes hours.”

  Kat couldn’t resist. She replied blandly, “Is that how a male team does it? How quaint.”

  Jeff retorted, scowling. “No way can she do it in five minutes.”

  Aleesha jumped on that lightning fast. “Care to make a side bet, big guy?”

  He glanced over at Kat. “Will I lose?”

  “Oh, yeah. Bargain for three minutes. Then you might stand a chance.”

  He shook his head. “This I have to see.”

  Karen gestured toward the village. “Be our guest. Just don’t get caught.”

  He moved off quickly down the road and disappeared into the night.

  Kat felt oddly bereft without him nearby. She was losing her marbles.

  Aleesha startled her out of her disgusted musings. “Nice caboose dat boy’s sportin’.”

  Kat replied, grinning. “Shall I tell Michael you said that?”

  Aleesha chuckled, dropping the Jamaican accent. “Be my guest. He knows that when I quit looking I’ll be dead. He also knows he’s got my heart forever.”

  Kat asked curiously, “How does it work having both a significant other and a job like this?”

  Karen crowed. “Oh, ho! Our little Kat does have a crush on Maverick. I knew it!”

  Kat scrunched her eyes shut in dismay as Aleesha’s motherly arm looped over her shoulder. “’T’ain’t nuttin’ to be ’shamed of, kitten. He’s a fine one, he is.”

  Kat blinked in surprise. “You approve of him?”

  Isabella laughed. “It’s not up to us. If you like him, then go get him. I, for one, will be glad to see you happy for a change.”

  The others nodded. “I’m happy,” she declared, a tad defensively.

  Karen, the team’s tall Marine, and usually one to keep her nose out of others’ business surprised her by saying, “No, you’re not. You’re like I used to be. I was happy to be a Medusa. I was happy to have this job. But I wasn’t personally happy. Because I wasn’t, I just didn’t allow myself to have a personal life. I didn’t even know how unhappy I was until Anders came along.”

  Kat couldn’t deny it. Ever since Karen had hooked up with the Norwegian Special Forces officer, she’d been a different woman. These days, she practically glowed from within. Kat muttered, “I don’t need to glow, dammit.”

  “Ahh. Sure ye do. Glowin’s good fer a girl,” Aleesha replied.

  Kat just shook her head. At least they approved of Jeff. That would save her a few hassles, at any rate.

  “Speak o’ de devil. Here comes Kat’s firefly-mon now.” Aleesha glanced at her watch and cursed under her breath.

  Kat grinned. Aleesha must’ve lost the bet.

  Jeff rejoined them, shaking his head and muttering, “She’ll be along in a minute with the van. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Kat patted his shoulder. “It’s all right. We Medusas take a little getting used to.”

  He glanced up at her, his eyes gleaming. “Now there’s an understatement if I ever heard one.”

  Her pulse jumped. Sheesh. She couldn’t even have a normal conversation with the guy without twittering like a schoolgirl. She really needed to get control of herself.

  The sound of an underpowered engine putt-putting up the hill toward them yanked Kat’s mind back to the business at hand.

  Jeff ordered, “Let’s move out, ladies.”

  As usual, the folks at H.O.T. Watch Ops came through like champs. How they managed to procure a cottage on a secluded beach on the north side of the island at this hour, Jeff had no idea. He rode shotgun and relayed directions from Ops to Misty and her tight T-shirt as she drove them to their ramshackle lodgings.

  As hidey holes went, the place wasn’t bad. It had running water in the kitchen sink, a flush toilet, and most importantly, electricity and a computer. The desktop model was several years out of date, but it had a CD-DVD drive, and that was what they needed to read the disk the Ghost had given Kat.

  In short order after they arrived, the team gathered around the computer, watching it boot up at snail speed. Kat held out a cardboard CD sleeve to him. He took it, examining it closely. “What did he say when he gave this to you?”

  “Not much. Apparently, it was attached to the back of a painting he stole, and he accidentally took it, too. He said I’d be in extreme danger if anyone found out I have it.”

  Jeff was inclined to believe the guy. Ev
entually, the computer spun up the disk and got around to reading its contents. The blinking hourglass on screen was replaced by the last thing he’d ever expected to pop up….

  Over his shoulder, Kat inhaled sharply.

  Chinese characters.

  Jeff glanced up at her. “What does it say?”

  “It’s the opening menu to a generic video playback program. Click on that character there to play the video.” She pointed at the appropriate pictograph.

  Unfortunately, to reach his computer screen, she had to lean over his shoulder and practically lay her cheek against his. They both inhaled simultaneously, breathing in each other’s scents instinctively. Her feminine essence mixed with the green, fresh smell of the leaves and moss she’d crawled around in tonight. The combination was heady, making his thoughts whirl in a kaleidoscope of flashing impressions.

  Misty piped up. “Anybody see a fire extinguisher?”

  Kat started, brushing against his back. “That’s right,” she commented. “You and Greg had to deal with that booby-trapped computer last year. Do you think this is some sort of self-destruct program?”

  Misty laughed. “No. I think the sparks flying off you and the good captain are going to set something on fire pretty soon.”

  Amused, he glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Kat close her eyes in mortification. He said sympathetically, “It must really suck, having all these nosy women pick apart your private life like this.”

  Kat groused. “You have no idea.”

  He chuckled. But his laugh was cut short when a video image suddenly popped up on the computer screen. “Whoa!” he exclaimed. No wonder the Ghost had warned Kat this tape would put her in extreme danger!

  Bloody hell.

  Chapter 16

  Kat leaned forward to peer at the image on the computer screen. It was grainy and shot from an odd angle, as if the camera were mounted high in the corner of the room. A surveillance camera, then. Not surprisingly, a bedroom came into focus. Even less surprisingly, the bed was occupied.