Another deep breath dissipated the last of my irritation, leaving nothing but aching fatigue. No point in being pissed off at Stemp. Ruthless manipulation was simply what he did. And I’d been known to get pretty ruthless when protecting the people I cared about, too. I couldn’t blame him for that.
I exhaled slowly and typed, “Okay. I won’t mention your knowledge.”
The cursor moved again. “Thank you. Do my parents know about the terrorists?”
I hesitated. If Kane or Hellhound reported, they might mention Moonbeam and Karma had been ‘kidnapped’ by Orion. But Moonbeam and Karma likely wouldn’t mention it to Stemp, their civilian son.
I blew out a sigh. Cover as many asses as possible.
I typed, “Yes, they were briefly kidnapped. I got them back uninjured but I had to tell them about the terrorists. They might not mention it to you because they won’t want to worry you.”
“Are you sure my mother is all right? She’s very delicate.”
I snorted laughter. Yeah. Delicate like a fine steel blade.
“I’m positive,” I typed. My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I should warn him. But he might kill me for it…
I clenched my teeth. It didn’t matter. A child’s life was more important.
My fingers moved across the keyboard almost of their own volition. “Your mom tricked me. She pretended to be seriously injured and losing consciousness. I told her she had a granddaughter named Anna to give her something to live for. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have fallen for it. I told them never to mention her, and I think they’ll comply. The name was the only detail I gave them.”
The cursor blinked in place after I hit the Enter key, and I imagined Stemp dialling the number for a professional hit man. Or coming to hunt me down himself.
After a few moments the cursor moved again. “It’s all right. That’s not enough information to be dangerous. And my parents are masters of manipulation. You never had a chance.”
I imagined his wintry smile as I read the last words, and sympathy twisted my heart in spite of myself. Poor Stemp. Brought up to be devious and suspicious. Tearing himself loose from his family and a pseudo-religion drummed into him since childhood. Believing his parents to be naïve and deluded at best; heartless manipulators at worst…
I swallowed hard and typed, “Thank you. That’s all for now.”
The text box vanished and I stowed the laptop back in my pack and shouldered it wearily.
Limping down the hill, I fought the undertow of worry. Surely Kane should be back soon with the truck.
What if something had happened at the roadblock? What if Skidmark had been wrong about all the terrorists being subdued there?
Or worse, what if Hellhound had been terribly injured and Kane was on the way to the hospital with him, unable to contact me?
My stomach twisted in knots of nauseated exhaustion.
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Stay calm. Go back to the tent and wait. If it was an emergency, Kane would call the commune’s main line. If not, he’d come back to my tent when he was done…
A flash from the direction of the gate made my heart lurch into rapid drumming.
Headlights.
I hurried along the road.
No. Only one headlight.
I drew my gun and faded into the trees at the side of the road.
The headlight drew closer, silver daggers of rain slashing through its bright beam. I caught the distinctive throaty whine of a hyperbike and realization dawned.
Kane.
I dashed out to the road and the headlight bobbled and swung sideways as Kane slammed on the brakes, skidding in the wet gravel.
He grabbed for his shoulder holster and I threw my hands up where he could see them, suddenly realizing that jumping out of the darkness at a guy suffering from battle fatigue was a really bad idea.
“It’s Aydan!” I shouted. “Don’t shoot! I’m an idiot, sorry.”
He dropped his hand back to the handlebar. “It’s all right. You can put your hands down now.”
“Thanks.” I wobbled over to the bike, my heart still hammering.
He wore no helmet, and I wondered whether he’d had to leave in a hurry or had simply been too exhausted to care. The rain plastered his hair to his head and even in my night vision his face was white with bone-deep fatigue.
“Thank God you’re all right.” He pulled me to him without dismounting, nearly crushing me in his embrace. “I was hoping it was just a radio malfunction when I didn’t get a reply.”
“It was. I could hear you but you didn’t seem to be able to hear me,” I lied. “I tried to phone you but I’d broken both my phones. I’m glad you’re all right, too.” I clung to him for a moment before pulling away to survey him worriedly. “You are all right, aren’t you?”
He hesitated before replying, “Yes. As all right as I’m going to be for a while.”
Coldness that had nothing to do with rain crept down my back. “John, where’s Arnie?”
He just looked at me, his eyes dark, his face etched with lines of pain and exhaustion.
“John!” My hand clenched on his wrist, a skeletal claw whitening over tendons taut as cables. “John, where’s Arnie?”
Chapter 40
Kane’s gaze searched my face like a child seeking refuge from a storm. “I don’t know,” he said.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” My voice came out shrill and panicky.
Kane blinked and shook his head as though fighting to stay awake. “I don’t know where he is,” he repeated. “I assumed he’d be back at your tent by now. We loaded up the bodies and Orion said it was safe to approach the roadblock. Hellhound said something about looking for a cat and stayed behind here while I took Orion with me and dropped off the truck with the troops at the roadblock. They’ll finish the cleanup and make sure Orion gets to the hospital. But I thought Hellhound would be at your tent by now.”
“Oh…” I drew a breath, trying to calm my trembling. “Right, he was worried about Peaches. And I haven’t been back to my tent. He’s probably there.”
“Well, mount up, then.” Kane nodded at the seat behind him. “I’m done walking tonight. The commune members can just live with an unauthorized vehicle.”
I slung my leg over the seat and wrapped my arms around him. As he guided the motorcycle expertly along the twisting path, I craned my neck to peer over his shoulder and switched to thermal-only.
My tent was dark and cold.
I slid off the bike, my breath catching in my throat. “John, where is he?” I cried as though Kane would somehow have acquired that knowledge in the past thirty seconds.
“I don’t know, Aydan; did you try calling him?” he replied patiently.
“I can’t, I fell on my phones and broke them and I don’t have the numbers for his burner phones…” My voice climbed toward hysteria. I sucked in a breath and shoved my emotions back. “Sorry,” I added, forcing myself back under control. “I’m not thinking straight. Too tired, too much adrenaline. Will you call him, please?”
Kane nodded and reached into his pocket. “Let’s get out of the rain,” he said, and herded me into my tent.
He pressed the speed dial and held the phone out so I could hear the ringing on the other end.
It rang over and over.
Kane laid a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t panic. I’ll try his other one.”
He pressed the second speed dial button and turned the phone again so we could both listen.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring…
“Come on, Arnie, pick up!” I begged.
After twelve rings, Kane disconnected and we stared at each other in silence. A band of fear wound around my throat, coiling down to tighten my lungs and constrict my heart.
“What if Orion counted wrong?” My voice came out in a choked whisper. “What if there was another terrorist?”
“An MI6 agent wouldn’t make a mistake like that,” Kane said, but he didn’t sound c
ertain. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “All right, don’t panic. We’ll go to the bridge and start a search grid. That’s where I saw him last.”
“No, we don’t have time for that! He could be anywhere; if he’s hurt-”
“Aydan, we don’t have a choice…”
“Yes, we do!” I snapped. “Stay here in case he comes back. I’m going to ask Moonbeam to consult the Earth Spirit.”
“Aydan…” Kane’s hands closed gently around my shoulders. “You’re not thinking straight. There’s no such thing as the Earth Spirit.”
I shook myself loose. “I know that. But Moonbeam found a little lost boy once. Maybe she can find Arnie, too.”
Kane’s face softened, and I knew he’d indulge me. “All right,” he said gently. “I’ll start the search grid and you go and ask Moonbeam. Then you can join me in the search while she does… whatever she does. Take some phones so we can stay in contact.”
I suddenly remembered Skidmark was out in the rain picking up brasses and thinking the danger was past.
Oh God, if there was another terrorist on the loose…
“I saw Skidmark wandering around earlier,” I said, holding my voice steady with all my might. “Watch out for him, okay?”
“I will.” He held me in his arms for a moment, stroking my hair. “We’ll find Hellhound, Aydan. He’s all right. Think good thoughts.”
Heart pounding, I managed to return his embrace despite the sense of time ticking away. Then I pulled back and reached up to kiss him once, hard.
“Be safe,” I admonished, and ducked out the tent flap to run for Moonbeam and Karma’s tent.
As I dashed up their path, I realized I couldn’t hear Karma snoring. My panting accelerated into little keening whimpers.
What if they were lying dead in there? What if the terrorist was going silently from tent to tent massacring the members in their sleep?
I flipped to thermal only and the sight of two heat signatures weakened my knees. Either alive or freshly dead…
My scratch at the tent flap was more like a frantic raking, and I hissed, “It’s Aydan. Are you there?”
“Yes, of course.” Karma’s reassuring bass made me catch my breath in a sob of relief. “Come in. What’s the matter?”
I shoved through the tent flap just as he lit a candle. Moonbeam’s eyes widened at the sight of my face.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“We’ve lost Arnie…” At the horror in their faces, I clarified, “I mean, we can’t find him. He said he was going to look for Peaches right before John left with the truck and now we can’t raise him on the phone. Could Orion have been wrong about the number of terrorists?”
“No,” Karma said firmly. “And even if he was, Skidmark would have known the correct number. Remember, there are surveillance cameras on the bridge and along the road. He would have done a count as they deployed.”
“Thank God. I need to go back to the control room and look at your tracking screen, then.”
“No need, dear,” Moonbeam said, and reached under the mattress to withdraw a slim computer tablet. “We have a remote connection here.”
“Oh…” I dropped to my knees beside the mattress, partly to look at the screen and partly because my legs wouldn’t hold me any longer. She worked rapidly for a few moments, and comprehension dawned. “So that’s what Orion was doing in your tent the night of the Calling,” I said. “He was looking me up on the tracker.”
“Gold star, dear,” Moonbeam murmured absently. “…here.” She turned the screen toward me and jabbed a finger at the motionless dot east of the main building. “That’s Blessed Soul Dream’s bracelet.”
Karma was already pulling a jacket on. “I’ll come with you.” He turned to Moonbeam. “Guide us.” He pushed the radio earpiece into his ear and Moonbeam nodded and did the same, her gaze riveted to the screen.
I turned and ran.
Karma kept pace with me easily. My ankle jabbed with every step and my breath caught in sobs of pain and fear.
As we passed the main building, Karma reached out to tug my sleeve. “Go left,” he said, and we crossed the open space and plunged into the undergrowth.
“Should be about fifty yards straight ahead,” Karma panted, but I had already spotted the bulky figure lying on the ground.
“Arnie!” Tears mixed with the rain on my face as I charged toward him. “Arnie!”
He jerked as if woken from sleep but he didn’t stand up. His torso looked oddly misshapen, as though he was holding his jacket tented over some wound too painful to touch.
“Hey, darlin’, easy now,” he warned as I fell to my knees beside him.
“Arnie, what’s wrong?” I ran frantic hands over his head and shoulders.
“Nothin’, darlin’… hey,” he said as if noticing for the first time that I was sobbing with fear and exertion. He leaned up on one elbow, still moving slowing and carefully. “What’s wrong? What happened?” He wrapped his free arm around me.
“I thought I lost you.” Beyond dignity or even a modicum of self-control, I threw my arms around his neck and blubbered into his rain-soaked shoulder. “I thought… I lost… you.”
“Shhh, darlin’, I’m right here an’ everythin’s fine. I tried to call ya but I didn’t get an answer. Kane said he’d left ya safe in the main buildin’, so after we nailed that last guy I went to look for Peaches. I stopped by the buildin’ for ya but ya were gone already. Sorry ya were scared. I figured I’d give Kane a chance to get back from droppin’ off the truck an’ then I was gonna call him an’ let him know I’d be back in a bit.”
“We tried to call you,” I babbled, shivering uncontrollably in his embrace. “Why didn’t you answer? Why are you lying on the ground?”
“Aw, darlin’, I’m sorry.” He kissed my forehead, a gentle touch of lips and whiskers. “I musta missed the vibration ‘cause I had the phones in my jacket pocket an’ I was usin’ my jacket for this.” He raised the jacket into the odd tented shape I’d seen earlier.
Smiling, he nodded toward it and I sucked in a quivering breath and managed to relinquish my hold on him long enough to lean in and peer underneath.
Laughter and tears choked me, and I pressed my forehead against his shoulder and gave in to both. When I was capable of speech again, I pulled out the phone and punched Kane’s speed dial.
At his tense reply I said, “It’s okay, John, I found him. You were right, he was just looking for Peaches. Go back to my tent and get some rest. We’ll be along soon.”
Several yards down the path, Karma caught my eye and melted into the forest with a smile.
Hellhound didn’t even notice him. His enthralled gaze was still directed under his jacket.
I lifted a corner of the jacket again and smiled at the sight of Peaches and her brand-new family nestled safe and dry against his chest.
Chapter 41
“I’m really sorry, darlin’,” Hellhound said for approximately the tenth time as we made our slow way toward the main building. He cradled Peaches and her kittens tented in his jacket, apparently oblivious to the rain soaking him to the skin.
“I really fucked up,” he added. “If I hadn’t shot Ratboy, none a’ those assholes woulda attacked in the first place. An’ then I just about gave ya a heart attack into the bargain. I’m really sorry,” he finished again.
“It’s okay, Arnie.” I tightened my arm around him, partly to reassure myself that he was alive and partly to take some weight off my throbbing ankle. “If you hadn’t shot Ratboy, who knows what he might have done to Nichele? He wasn’t rational. He didn’t want to negotiate, he just wanted to cause as much pain as possible. You likely would have had to shoot him no matter what.”
Hellhound blew out a breath. “Yeah, you’re prob’ly right. But I wasn’t thinkin’ straight. I saw him grab Peaches an’ I just lost it.” His arms curled protectively around the purring bundle. “What kinda fucked-up sicko’d wanna hurt a little pregnant cat?”
> There wasn’t a good answer to that, so I didn’t offer one.
“When I found her, I thought she was hurt bad,” he went on, reliving the moment with a shudder. “I was out in the woods walkin’ an’ callin’, an’ I heard this little meow. She was all curled up, soakin’ wet an’ shakin’. I got down real slow, didn’t wanna scare her, but she never even moved, just kept lickin’ herself an’ her sides were goin’ in an’ out…”
He walked on in silence for a few paces. “I was sorry I’d killed him then,” he said flatly. “I wanted to wake him up from the dead an’ make him suffer.”
I shivered at that cold implacable voice. This was the part of him he’d never let me see. Even though I had known it was there, meeting the killer face to face chilled me.
“So I’m just as fuckin’ sick as him,” Hellhound finished, and the raw pain in his voice wrenched my heart.
“No, Arnie, you’re not,” I said softly. “Anybody who’d lie down in the rain to keep a cat and kittens dry-”
“Anybody who’d put an animal’s life before a man’s,” he interrupted, “…is fucked up.”
I said the only thing that came to my mind.
“That wasn’t a man.”
He grunted, but didn’t argue. “So when I figured out she was havin’ her kittens, I was afraid to move her,” he went on. “She’d just finished gettin’ everybody all cleaned up an’ dried off when ya got there.”
“Well, she’s fine now, thanks to you, and so are her kittens,” I said. “Let’s put her in the cat house for tonight. If she wants them somewhere else she’ll move them.”
Inside the small room furnished with carpeted perches and cushions, we chose a spot tucked away in the corner. Hellhound crouched to bring his armload level with the padded basket and I lifted Peaches into it.
Squeaks from the tiny blind kittens made her trill an anxious response, and I hurriedly transferred the motes of fur into the basket along with her. A couple of the other commune cats blinked sleepy eyes at us, and Peaches hissed a warning at one that approached too closely.
Hellhound stepped back, pulling on his jacket with a sigh of relief. “Thanks, darlin’,” he said. “I’d’a been afraid to touch ‘em. They’re so little.” He stared down at the basket, a wondering smile touching his lips. “They’re no bigger’n my finger. Fuckin’ amazin’.” He passed a gentle hand over Peaches’ deflated side. “Goodnight, little momma-cat. Take good care a’ your babies.”
Spy High Page 33
