by Cherry Adair
The lights flickered off, on, off, then on again.
Jesus. The kid had run hell-bent for leather across the combat zone to bring him a message, and now was having trouble getting to the point. “Where’s your headset?” he asked, interrupting.
“Daklin made us . . . It was distracting—”
“Message? What’s the bottom line?” Hunt demanded, watching the action behind Daklin’s guy.
“We’ve crossed it, sir. We’ve fucking crossed it. With that weight—ah, geez—it gives it an effective large kill envelope, and the highest lethality against soft-skin targets. Oh, fuck. Oh, God. Oh, shit. Las Vegas is screwed real bad. Sir.”
Soft-skin targets. So, it wasn’t a nuke that would have taken out buildings as well as people. The payload was chemical. Fuck. “How long will it take your team to destroy the guidance chips and deactivate the bloody thing?” Hunt asked calmly.
The kid was still hyperventilating. “Four hours, Daklin said.”
“Remind him he has seventy-six minutes. Move.”
The kid’s eyes widened, his Adam’s apple bobbed, then he turned and hauled ass, weaving and dodging through the mayhem. He disappeared into the smoke and flames.
“Morales,” a voice said through his earpiece. “ETA fourteen minutes.”
“Good man,” Hunt murmured into the voice-activated mic. “South entrance Level Seven.”
“Affirmative.”
Hunt quickly transmitted the information to his team leaders.
Through ribbons of drifting gray smoke, he scanned the vast area. It was a beautiful sight, watching the black-clad T-FLAC operatives whip Morales’s goons . . .
But that wasn’t one of Morales’s people.
Hunt’s eyes narrowed as he recognized two more faces. Both ID’d by T-FLAC as Black Rose terrorists.
Excellent, he thought with satisfaction, spotting several more Black Rose members. Two tangos for the price of one. That expedited things. The two groups were hard to ID as separate groups. Not that it mattered now.
Dead, they’d be easy to identify. Sometimes they had to see their bodies to be sure. The Black Rose members all wore the tattooed rose on their backs.
Things were shaking down nicely. He passed Savage, her red hair streaming loose and wild around her shoulders. A small, vengeful smile curved her mouth as she crouched, throwing her knife from hand to hand as she and one of Morales’s men circled each other. She’d unzipped her suit down to her waist, and her bare breasts threatened to spill out. A calculated distraction she enjoyed. Savage was very good with misdirection, and even better with that Ka-bar. He knew the guy didn’t stand a chance.
Three men rushed Hunt simultaneously. One of the aspects Hunt enjoyed most about his job was hand-to-hand combat. Usually, he didn’t get many opportunities. A fast bullet was far more expedient. But presented with this opportunity, he took it.
As the man closest to him came in, Hunt, keeping his arms tight to his body, extended his leg with a smooth snapping motion, connecting squarely in the center of his opponent’s chest. The man went flying into the guy directly behind him, and they both went balls-up, skating along the cement floor.
The third man came with fists raised. Using the momentum from the last kick, Hunt rotated at the hip, kicking the inside of his opponent’s leg, at the same time grabbing the front of the man’s shirt, taking him down to the floor in a quick, smooth sweep.
Controlling his opponent by the arm, Hunt did a front kick to the man’s knee, preventing him from rolling out of the way. The crack of the bone was almost lost in the noise around them. The man shrieked, trying to rise. Hunt stomped his head. He lay still.
He quickly stripped the fallen man of his weapons, then tossed the gun and knife to a T-FLAC man who’d just neutralized his own opponent. Just in time, Hunt saw, as he half turned, a blonde woman coming at him at a run.
She advanced, wielding a Gurkha Khukri fighting knife with skill and speed. He could see she knew her way around a knife, but then, so did he.
Not one of Morales’s, he thought, crouching, Ka-bar dancing from hand to hand as she came closer. Morales had no women in any of his cells. So the Black Rose had sent in their own people to try and take the Mano del Dios ordnance and missile before Morales blew everything to hell and gone.
When he’d first started working for T-FLAC, Hunt had loathed taking on a woman, especially in hand-to-hand combat. It went against everything in him to hurt a woman. He’d gotten over that aversion pretty damn fast when a female terrorist attempted to cut off his balls ten years ago.
A terrorist was a terrorist was a terrorist. No matter if they had the face of a pug dog or, like this woman, looked as sweet and angelic as the girl next door. Sunny ponytail bouncing innocently, she came at him with that lethal knife, knowing, as he did, exactly where to cut to kill.
The stomach was where most people aimed. It was usually unprotected and the biggest meaningful target. Not to mention that the thought of receiving a gut wound terrified people. Hunt preferred the carotid. He didn’t toy with his opponents. If he had a weapon in his hand, his intention was a quick kill.
They danced around each other, knives flashing and slashing. She was small and light. He was more experienced and a hell of a lot faster.
He arced his arm high and brought it down in a blur of silver. She glided around his hip and lunged. The sharp blade of the Khukri curved up, slicing painlessly into his side. He chopped at her wrist with the side of his hand. Her fingers loosened on the hilt but she managed to catch the knife in her other hand.
Hunt tossed his blade to his left hand as well. She backed up. He advanced. They circled each other, orange flames dancing along their blades, smoke billowing and eddying in their wake as they moved.
She stumbled up against a stack of crates and her eyes went wide. “Please don’t hurt me,” she begged, knife hand dropping to her side. Blood from her slashed arm dripped on the floor beside her Nikes as she stood panting, fear stark on her face.
Face. Not eyes.
Hunt anticipated the move a split second before she lunged. He shifted, letting her momentum carry her. He spun and cut down fast and sure. She grunted as the blade sliced deep into her knife arm. She feinted left. Unlike the blonde, Hunt wasn’t utilizing only his knife. His entire body was involved as he twisted away from her lunge, brought his left leg up, over her knife hand, and connected his booted foot to her temple.
She dropped like a stone. He bent to relieve her of the Khukri, then slipped it into the sheath strapped to his right thigh.
He heard a faint voice, and realizing that his earpiece had slipped, reinserted it. “Talk.”
“Morales awaits your pleasure.”
“On my way.” He turned to see Savage, who’d dispatched her own opponent. “Take care of this, would you?” he said, nudging the blond with his booted foot.
“I live to do garbage detail,” she grumbled, but grabbed the other woman by the shoulders and started dragging her to a tightly guarded holding area several hundred yards off to the side.
“Daklin?” Navarro’s voice sounded in Hunt’s ear.
Radio silence. Then an unfamiliar voice. “He says don’t talk to him, for fuck sake. He’s busy!” Then Daklin’s mic was disconnected.
Fair enough. Hunt didn’t want anyone distracting Daklin either.
He glanced at his watch. Forty-seven minutes to detonation.
Fifty-two
Taylor sat on the plush burgundy velvet sofa, holding the gun with both hands. It was a lot heavier than she’d expected. She’d never fired one, but figured if someone came through that door, she’d aim and pull the trigger. At this distance, she couldn’t miss.
The problem with guns and knives was, if you didn’t have a clue what you were doing, and someone else did, they could take the weapon away and use it on you. She made a mental note to find a shooting range when she got home. A skill she hadn’t found necessary before now seemed of incredible importance. Not just for
her, but because she knew one thing with absolute certainty—any bad guy she killed couldn’t kill Hunt.
She had no intention of leaving this room. And she wouldn’t open the door for anyone other than the good guys. She knew she’d be useless out there anyway. She couldn’t fire the gun with any accuracy, and she wasn’t handy with her fists. In her line of work, she hadn’t had to be proficient at either.
She’d had some experience with hitting and punching as a kid. But she hadn’t enjoyed it when people hit her back, and had avoided physical confrontation ever since.
No, she’d stay put. Hunt had told her he’d be back, and she believed him, as much as she feared for him. The seconds ticked in slow motion as she listened to the violent sounds on the other side of the door.
Please be okay.
The door didn’t have a lock, but she considered having a door to close a plus. Who did Morales shut out when he was down here in his lair? She figured he didn’t get many visitors. Not unless they had a good seven or eight hours to run the gauntlet of sick, Dante-inspired levels.
She’d dragged a heavy marble-topped table in front of the door. It was the best she could do. So far nobody had tried to get in.
She’d spent her time inspecting everything in the room. It almost took her mind off what was directly beneath her feet. And the activity gave her something to do other than wonder where Hunt was and what he was doing. Well, she had a pretty good idea of what he was doing—she just didn’t want to think about it. Not when it caused her chest to tighten and a lump to clog her dry throat.
There were some very fine baubles in here. Many of which were, or had been, on the lists of Consolidated Underwriters. Taylor looked around for something to carry some of them in and found a handy black alligator briefcase. It wasn’t big, but she knew how to pack.
The selfish bastard had all this incredible, priceless artwork down here for his eyes only. She tried to decide between the ruby Fabergé and the twin, smaller, more delicate diamond and translucent emerald enamel pair on plinths of rock crystal. Exquisite. All three, she decided. The little ones would tuck into corners. Two were from the same Russian museum. The third—she couldn’t recall where that had been stolen from. She remembered seeing the photograph in the book of stolen items.
She hoped Hunt and T-FLAC returned everything to their rightful owners, and shoved Morales in that stinky river of whatever for the rest of his natural life. No, on second thought, she wanted Morales to die—slowly and painfully. Maybe in the propeller blades like poor Piet Coetzee.
She couldn’t believe the son of a bitch didn’t give a damn about destroying all of this beauty when his missile took off. He must have been hiding the things he had stolen down here for years. Not only was he an evil, deranged terrorist, but he was a selfish bastard for hiding these treasures away and keeping them to himself.
She patted her chest where the Blue Star diamonds nicely warmed her skin under her LockOut suit. She’d report in to Consolidated when she could. But for now, the Blue Stars were hers.
From the sounds of it, the raging battle out there seemed to be winding down. Just knowing that men were beyond that door killing one another, however, freaked her out. She knew Hunt and his men were professionals, that they dealt with stuff like this every day. But, damn it, she’d heard that enormous percussion bang minutes after he’d left. Forgetting that she’d promised to stay put, she’d flown out of that door so fast she was a blur.
A fire raged in one of the stacks. She had a moment of concern as the flames and smoke made visibility difficult and she heard men coughing and gagging. She reminded herself, as she scanned and tried to identify the men, that she’d paid attention earlier as Hunt and his guys had discussed the incredible ventilation and air-conditioning system Morales had installed in the mine to keep the temperature so moderate and the air fresh.
Where was Hunt?
She’d narrowed her eyes against the smoke, tracking from left to right, eliminating this figure then that, until she recognized his broad back. As soon as she saw him, alive and well and sprinting across the warehouse, she’d returned to the room, shut the door, and leaned against it for several seconds, breathing a prayer of thanks.
But that had been a while ago, and her concern was building to yet another heart-tugging crescendo as she paced the floor, no longer seeing the priceless artifacts.
How odd. The only person she’d ever worried about before was Mandy. Now her stomach was in a knot of anxiety over Hunt. As good as he was, as professional as he was, he was still flesh and blood. He could be killed.
The thought scared her. Terrified her.
She couldn’t begin to imagine a world without him in it.
She knew they had no future. People like them didn’t. That was a given. Neither of them was a picket-fence, two-point-whatever-children kind of person. She wasn’t going to be a Brownie mom and bake cookies, and she couldn’t imagine Hunt spending a Sunday afternoon mowing the lawn.
She adored kids. Other people’s. But she didn’t have a burning urge to produce any of her own. She was only twenty-seven. There was no rush. When or if the time came, she’d do something about it. If the time never came, she was fine with that too.
What she wanted was more time with Hunt.
She was in love with the maddening man.
How could she be so in love with him when their entire “relationship” had been no relationship at all? Actually, she was stunned to find herself thinking the L word at all. She’d never even considered the possibility for herself.
She wasn’t a quiet-walks, learning-about-each-other-over-leisurely-meals kinda girl. She’d never expected to feel this all-encompassing sensation of needing him more than she needed breath. It was too fast.
But maybe that was good, she thought now. Maybe she was destined to fall in love the same way she lived her life—risky. All or nothing.
Still, she wanted time for slow lovemaking in a big bed. Hell, she’d like fast sex on the floor, for that matter. And she wanted to hear him laugh again. How could a man laugh so seldom?
She could make him laugh.
Something—someone crashed into the door, startling the hell out of her. Heart in her throat, Taylor jumped to her feet, leveling the nose of the gun at the middle of the door.
“Taylor? It’s Savage—Catherine—open the fucking door! Hurry!”
Taylor raced to drag the heavy table out of the way so Savage could slip inside. “What the hell took you so long?” Savage snapped, dragging another woman through the door behind her.
Taylor glanced at the angel-faced blonde who looked as though she’d gone ten rounds with a prizefighter. “Who’s your friend?”
“This,” Savage said savagely, shoving the woman in front of her, “is the head of Black Rose.”
From the look of Savage’s knuckles, she hadn’t been reticent about hitting someone. But Taylor didn’t feel any sympathy for the woman whose nose Savage had broken. She was a bleeding mess and clearly less than half conscious as Savage kicked her to the floor. The woman’s eyes rolled as she slumped to the museum-quality Chinese silk area rug and lay still at Savage’s feet.
“What are we supposed to do with— Shit, watch out!”
The younger woman suddenly sprang to her feet as if catapulted from a cannon. Taylor took an instinctive step back out of the way, but the woman wasn’t going for Savage—she was coming at her. With a feral shriek, the blonde powered into Taylor, knocking her off her feet.
Holy crap!
The gun went flying as they thudded to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. Taylor didn’t enjoy fighting, but she didn’t intend to let some strange woman beat up on her without getting in a few punches of her own.
She pulled back her arm, brought up her elbow, and smashed it into the woman’s broken nose. The blonde bucked, gurgling on her own blood.
Sick to her stomach, Taylor shoved at her. “Are you just going to stand there?” she yelled at Savage. “This is your jo
b, not mine!”
The blonde still had a lot of fight in her. She raked her nails down Taylor’s throat above the necklace. Taylor kneed her in the side, and they both rolled, smashing into the marble-topped table that had been barricading the door. Taylor’s head hit the wooden leg and she saw stars. “Savage, damn it! Get over here and help—”
Savage lunged as the terrorist staggered to her knees and lunged for the discarded gun on the floor near the door. Savage tried to reach the weapon first, but the blonde got hold of the gun. She smiled then, a grotesque bloody mask, as she leveled the gun squarely at the center of Taylor’s chest from three feet away.
She was not going to miss.
Fifty-three
José Morales stood calmly amidst the chaos, waiting for Hunt. Dressed in a natty black suit, crisp white shirt, and old school tie, the terrorist looked like a gentleman on his way to the office. Except for having his hands secured behind him, his ankles hobbled, and a phalanx of heavily armed T-FLAC operatives surrounding him.
Hunt was twenty feet away when his earpiece activated. Double click. Daklin himself transmitting. An excellent sign. “We’re clear,” Daklin told him.
Jesus—Hunt glanced at his watch—two minutes shy of 1500 hours. “With time to spare. Good job,” he said with classic understatement.
A local T-FLAC operative jogged to meet Hunt halfway. The man handed him a small black handheld device with a small screen on it.
Hunt paused to glance at it. Bloody hell. Here it was. Here was the real secret to Morales’s stronghold. This, coupled with the disks holding the combinations, was what made it possible for the terrorist to enter the secret passages. “Where did you find it?”
“On the wife’s body. We checked it out. Too powerful for any household electronics. Hell, too powerful for just about anything.”
“Does he know we have this?”
The man shook his head.
Hunt suspected that Maria Morales had been the woman feeding them information over the last few months. He stuck the device in his weapons belt and strode forward to face Morales.
