by Cindy Dees
Thin clouds obscured most of the moonlight, but she still felt practically lit up by spotlights on the wide expanse of grass separating them from the barns. She felt Ruala’s gaze boring into her back, right between her shoulder blades. Despite a sharp stitch in her side, she hop-skipped even faster. She did her best to keep up with Mac in the race to the first barn, but she wasn’t used to such strenuous exercise. A bad cramp stabbed her under the ribs. But Mac dragged her forward while she concentrated on keeping her feet under her and letting him do most of the work. Finally they reached the blackness of the barn’s alleyway.
She stopped the second they hit the dark shadows. Mac’s arm fell away from her elbow. She stood there panting for several seconds. Abruptly a powerful arm snaked out and snagged her around the waist, yanking her to the ground. She’d have screamed if she had a single molecule of air left in her burning lungs.
One of these days, she was going to deck Mac when he scared her like that!
“Don’t move,” he breathed in her ear. “We’re not alone in here.”
Great. Just great. Her eyes began to adjust to the thick darkness of the barn. A long row of stall doors became discernible. She strained desperately to catch any sign of movement in the shadows. The smells of hay and horse sweat tickled her nose. How did he know there was someone here? She glanced over and realized Mac was in that Zen listening state of his.
Finally, he gestured at her to go into the nearest stall.
Assuming that he wanted her to do it stealthily, since that seemed to be how these guys did everything, she rolled gradually onto her side. Then onto her back. Another slow roll to her other side. She lifted herself enough to grasp the latch on the stall door. Thank goodness Frank kept them well oiled. She opened the door, inch by agonizing inch, praying the horse inside wouldn’t notice the opening and come barreling out. Finally it was wide enough for her to slip inside. She closed the door slowly behind her, leaving Mac out in the alleyway to face the intruder.
Terror for him ripped through her. He had to live. He had to survive these shenanigans with Ruala and his killers.
The mare, quiet little Moofah, came over to investigate. Susan reached up and patted her neck. Moofah recognized her and returned to chewing hay on the other side of the stall. Susan sat down in the sawdust and leaned back against the wall, quietly going crazy. What was going on out there? The silence was absolutely maddening. She rubbed her throbbing knee and talked herself out of peeking out of the stall at least twenty times. Curiosity was all well and good, but there were real men out there with real guns. With orders to kill her.
Susan started. She thought she heard a noise. Kind of a gurgling sound. But then it went away. Her pulse subsided.
Then Moofah’s head jerked up, her back rigid. The mare blew hard through distended nostrils. Something had spooked her but good. The mare trembled violently across the stall and continued snorting loudly. There was lots of stamping and snorting throughout the barn. All the horses were spooked by something. Her heart pounded even harder.
“Suzie, come out slowly and stay low like you did going in.” It was Mac. Whispering from the other side of the stall door.
Relieved finally to be moving again, and even more relieved that he was alive, she did as he instructed.
“We’re going to the far end of the alley. Walk, but stay low.”
Her knee threatened to collapse with every awkward, bent-over step, but thankfully it held until she reached the far end of the barn.
“Over here.” His voice sounded as if he was right beside her, but darned if she could see him. She moved toward it and jumped out of her skin when a shadow cast by a rack of saddles detached itself from the wall and held an arm out. She flung herself into Mac’s embrace. He felt so warm and strong and solid. She just wanted to grab on and never let go. He wrapped both arms around her and squeezed her so tightly she could hardly breathe. He dropped a kiss in her hair, and then he gently set her away from him and settled a rifle he’d apparently just acquired at the ready.
“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 whispered 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. A warrior through and through.
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 reached 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 fully 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 I or another Blackjack tell 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 the Blackjacks agreed upon earlier tonight was to stash you here when the attack came, but to make it look like you were still up at the house. We want Ruala to focus his attention there. When the team realizes what’s going down, they’ll guess 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. One of the noisy ones to get the guys’ attention. Thing is, I’m going to have to get away from this barn a bit to detonate a trap. 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 and still, there was no sign of Mac. She was going to go completely, screaming crazy long before he ever got back.
MAC CROUCHED in the shadow of a fat, bushy cedar tree. 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…where Mac had hot-wired the normally low-voltage electric fencing directly to a heavy-duty electrical outlet in the barn that would deliver a killer shock to whoever touched the wire.
Mac listened 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 Blackjacks had heard Ruala’s man hit the electric fence. The last light blinked out in the house. The Blackjacks would be tossing on gear and coming out to play any second. Thank God. Now maybe he 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 the Blackjacks 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 sense 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 Blackjack gone to check on Susan or one of Ruala’s men?
He leaped toward the barn. And all hell cut loose around him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The firefight exploded without warning. A single burst of gunfire became a raging torrent of lead flying faster than the ear could comprehend. Muzzle flashes lit up the night all around him. 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 the Blackjacks. 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-bang grenade detonated practically beneath his feet. The blue-white strobe of light blinded him, and the blast knocked him flat on his back. If it had been an explosive grenade, he’d be minus his legs or dead right now. Ears ringing and mostly blinded, 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 re-adjust to the dark 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 bare 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.
