by S A Monk
Good lord! She wasn’t a soldier. She had no idea what she was doing. Her only strength lay in the element of surprise. If she could just scare the guards into unlocking Nick’s chains, she could let him do the rest. She said a little prayer, then silently eased the door open a little further.
CHAPTER 26
TO HANNA’S IMMENSE RELIEF, the anteroom on the other side of the door was empty. Still she crept in cautiously. There were two small rooms off the one that she was standing in. The doors were closed to both. Overhead there was one bare light bulb that dimly illuminated the room. Wooden crates were stacked high against the stone walls, casting creepy dark shadows.
There was a switch on the wall, but she wasn’t sure if it was only for this room. If it turned the lights off in the other rooms, the guards would know she was coming. Hanna chose a lone crate to climb up onto. It gave her the height she needed to unscrew the single bulb. Once the room was cast into darkness, she pulled her night vision goggles down over her glasses and carefully climbed off the crate. Now the room was cast in a weird green light that disorientated her for a few seconds. Once her eyes adjusted, she crept to one of the closed doors and listened for a bit. She heard muffled voices on the other side. It sounded like Nick and Lance talking. But where were the guards? The last time she had seen them, they had been leaving.
She went to the second closed door and listened. Inside, she heard men speaking in Chinese, laughing occasionally. The clank of utensils against plates told her the guards were taking a meal break. That meant Lance and Nick might be alone, which was good and bad. She could enter their little room without interference, but she needed the guard with the keys to release them.
She still had the element of surprise. Should she execute it now or wait until the guards returned to the room Nick and Lance were in? She finally decided they probably wouldn’t have any need to go back until Chen returned. She might be able to get Nick released before then, so he could deal with Chen. She certainly wouldn’t be any match for the martial arts skills she’d seen the drug lord use on Nick.
Having finally figured out a plan of sorts, she kicked hard at a tall stack of crates. Luckily they all toppled easily, making a loud crashing noise in the process. The two guards came bursting out of the room. Hanna had the advantage of sight, while they stumbled around, bumping into the crates, falling over one in the darkness. Well positioned, Hanna shouted at them to halt and drop the handguns they carried. When one moved toward the sound of her voice, she poked him sharply in the chest with the point of her rifle and repeated her order to drop their weapons. This time they both did so without further hesitation.
With the stock of the rifle braced snugly against her shoulder and her finger on the trigger, she told the guards to open the door to the second room and to step inside. Behind them, she saw Lance and Nick, their backs braced against the cinder-block wall, their arms chained above their heads. As soon as Hanna entered, their attention snapped to her. Since the room was lit, she yanked off her night vision goggles with one hand, while keeping her rifle trained precisely on the men in front of her.
“Which one of you has the keys?” she demanded in the same altered, husky voice she’d been using on them. From the moment she’d spoken, she been praying they wouldn’t be able to tell she was a woman. When they didn’t immediately respond, she shoved her rifle into the back of one of the men.
“Keys! Now!” To her utter astonishment, her voice actually sounded threatening, revealing none of the trembling fright she was feeling. She brought the barrel of her rifle up to the back of the man’s head. “I’ll kill you and get them myself.” Thankfully, he took her seriously, immediately pulling a set of keys from his pocket.
“Ha....” It finally dawned on Lance who she was, but Nick silenced his brother with a kick to keep him from giving Hanna’s gender away. She took a quick peek at both brothers. Their faces were cut and bruised, their lips swollen and split. Nick’s paint-smeared face was bloodier than Lance’s, and one eye was nearly swollen shut. Beneath the blood, his expression was grim, set in taut lines of absolute concentration on her and the guards. Only his eyes showed his alarm.
“Now, unlock them!” she growled. As the first guard did her bidding, she shifted the barrel of her assault rifle to the second guard.
Keeping her eyes trained on both men, she stood her ground resolutely until Nick was unchained. Hanna expected him to drop to the ground from his injuries. Instead, he rushed to her and took the rifle from her. She relinquished it with a sigh of trembling relief.
“Good gawdalmighty, Hanna!” He spared her only a brief glance before he swung her behind him and focused his full attention on the guards.
Meanwhile, the guard with the keys unchained Lance, who rose more slowly than Nick, clutching the region around his ribs with a forearm. His face was drawn with pain, and pale as a sheet. Hanna started over to him, but Nick’s arm shot out and slammed into her stomach, stopping her.
“Chain them to the wall, and check them for weapons,” he ordered his brother. Again Hanna went to help. Lance moved like he was really hurting. Again Nick pushed her back. “Stay behind me, damn it!”
When both guards were relieved of a couple of hidden knives, then chained to the wall, Nick went to the door to look into the anteroom. Hanna hurried over to Lance. She slid an arm around his waist to help him catch his breath. He turned to her and pulled her stocking cap off. He looked absolutely awestruck to see her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the guards’ eyes widen with surprise. Feeling elated with her success, she winked at them, then turned back to Lance and hugged him.
“I’m so glad to see you! We’ve been so worried about you.” Cautiously, she touched the lower side of his chest, her touch knowledgeable and gentle. “Is it your ribs?”
He winced and nodded. “Shit, Hanna, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he growled, then coughed, which nearly doubled him in half.
“Well, I am! You could at least thank me for saving you both another beating.” Her eyes swept from Lance to his brother.
Still posted near the door, Nick glared at her, scowling furiously over his shoulder. “Where the hell is Kurt?”
“At the dock, getting us a boat.” She walked over to him, pulling her stocking cap back onto her head as she went. “Let me take a look at you.”
“I can’t believe you brought her with you— into this mess!” Lance hissed from behind them. “Holy shit! Can she even use that gun she was holding?”
“Does it matter? I got you freed before Chen came back to kill you!” Reaching up with the end of her sweater sleeve, Hanna wiped some of the blood off Nick’s badly lacerated face. Besides the cut on his lower lip, there was a long open gash on his right cheekbone, and another one across his right eyelid. Blood oozed steadily from both injuries, painting one side of his face red. While trying to stem the flow of blood with the stretched end of her sweater sleeve, she placed her other hand on his uninjured cheek to hold his head still and look into his stormy gray eyes. He was still furious with her.
“There’s a room with security monitors across from the elevator. I saw the beating you and Lance were getting. Kurt told me to stay put until he took out the guards at the dock and got us a boat, but I couldn’t let them hurt you anymore. I was afraid Chen would come back and kill both of you.”
The hard look in his eyes softened as he covered the hand that lingered on his cheek. “You took half a lifetime off me coming in here with those guards at gunpoint.”
“I had to.”
He leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I know.”
Lance walked up to them. “Don’t you have any Marines you could have brought with you?” he demanded, angry with his older brother. “Chen and his gang are a nasty bunch of bastards. Hanna shouldn’t be here!”
“Well, shit, she is! Now let’s just get the hell out of here before the bastard returns.”
The signal on his transmitter started to blink. Nick walked over to where his headset and radio lay on the floor. After clipping the radio to his belt once again, he put the earphones and microphone back on. He listened for a few moments.
“Looks like Kurt secured the dock and got us a boat. I told him to meet us in the tunnel and that you were with us,” he said to Hanna. “He wasn’t too happy.” She winced.
His weapons— his knife, 9 mm handgun, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and grenades were in a far corner in a little pile. He retrieved them, rearmed himself, then gave his brother the assault rifle Hanna had brought.
“I’ll take the sniper rifle,” she volunteered.
“No!” The immediate response came from both Lance and Nick simultaneously.
“Geez! Fine! Some gratitude!” she huffed.
Walking over to the two guards chained to the wall, Nick lifted his sniper rifle and slammed the stock into the man’s jaw, knocking him unconscious. Then he repeated the action on the other guard.
When he turned to the door, Hanna was watching him wide-eyed. “I can’t have them yelling out our position,” he explained, then cursed in chagrin. In twenty years, he’d never explained combat actions to anyone, but a superior officer. He strode to the partially opened door and looked through. “Let’s go! It’s clear.”
At the doorway to the tunnel, Nick stopped to listen, then eased it open. After slowly scanning the corridor, he motioned Hanna and Lance to move ahead of him.
The second Hanna stepped through the doorway, she swung around and tried to step back. “The lights! They shouldn’t be on!”
Before she could retreat, she was grabbed from behind and pulled aside. Lance stepped out to snatch her back and was stopped at the end of a rifle. Nick lifted his assault rifle, and from the shadows of the anteroom, leveled it on the group of men on the other side.
Li Chen stepped out from behind them, then reached out and smoothly caught Hanna around the waist. “Come join us, Colonel Kelly. Hands and gun in the air.”
Nick had been watching everyone’s back, concerned with a surprise rear attack, not one from a corridor he had just visually cleared. He wondered where the bastards had come from, then saw the stack of four big crates farther down the corridor and figured they’d been hiding behind them.
When he stepped into the hallway, hands raised, his rifle held above his head, he was immediately relieved of all of his weapons, knife, grenades, and Glock included. One of the guards stepped around him to retrieve the sniper rifle he had leaned against the wall. His gut clenched at the sight of the Li Chen holding Hanna in front of him. One arm was locked across her chest in an angle from shoulder to armpit, and the other held a big 9 mm to her temple.
“Well,” Chen mused, his lean face sculpted in a half-smile. ”What do I have here? Obviously, another rescue party I wasn’t expecting.” Lowering his gun from Hanna’s temple to her side, he moved to look into her face. “Feels a little different.” His hand slid out from under her arm and moved to one breast to mold its shape. Laughing, he yanked her stocking cap off. Blonde hair spilled out and caught the weak light in shining disarray. Chen regarded Nick with a contemptuous sneer. “Is she your backup, Colonel? Is this who was on the other end of your communicator? A mere woman?” Yanking her by the arm to face him, he swept her figure in a slow assessment. “Are you a soldier? A DEA agent?”
“I’m a doctor,” she answered him defiantly, refusing to be intimidated. Her gaze insolently swept the tattoo of the multi-colored snake that ran up his right arm, beginning on the back of his hand and disappearing under the short sleeve of his black knit shirt. On the way back down, her eyes dropped to the ruby and diamond ring on his finger. It twinkled like an evil eye.
“Well, these two aren’t going to need a doctor.” He waved toward Lance and Nick, chuckling. “They’re going to need a mortician.”
Hanna wasn’t amused. Despite his impeccable grooming, his eyes were cold and hard, and his grin was malevolent. “Men who worked for you and Yancy Masters, smuggling your heroin, killed my brother six weeks ago,” she informed him acidly. “He was the provincial policeman you referred to in one of your phone conversations with Yancy. His name was Deputy Sheriff Dylan Wallace. He left behind a wife and a new baby daughter. He was my only brother.”
“Ahh.... Revenge, then.” Chen nodded. “That I understand. The Colonel killed my brother several years ago. He was also my only brother.”
Hanna narrowed her eyes at him. “No, you don’t understand,” she argued fearlessly. “I didn’t come for revenge. Dylan wouldn’t have wanted that. Unlike you and your brother, he was a law abiding man. He didn’t deserve to die. I came for justice, and…,” she added, looking towards Lance, “…to bring a friend home to his ten-year-old son.”
Surprise and a hint of admiration flickered in his cruel, black eyes. “I may not kill you, woman. I may keep you. Are you a good doctor? Could I use you?”
“Sure,” she laughed. “Let me operate on you. I guarantee you won’t make it past the first cut.”
The drug lord threw back his head and laughed, exposing a small gold hoop earring in one ear, beneath his long mane of black hair. Grinning, he cast a look at Nick. “Your woman is very entertaining, Colonel, very courageous. She won’t keep me from finally getting my revenge, though. Unfortunately, she will also have to die with you and your brother.”
Li Chen aimed his big handgun at Lance, then at her. “But who first?” He made it a game, and chuckled while he shifted his weapon back and forth, all the while watching Nick’s tautly drawn face.
The finger on the trigger of the handgun was without tremor. Hanna knew for a certainty that Li Chen would have no change of heart. He’d shoot all three of them in the head, without hesitation. She glanced at the two guards on either side of him. They both had their weapons drawn and ready. Maybe she could create a little distraction and give Nick an opportunity to do something. Since it appeared all three of them were soon going to die, anything, at this point, was worth a try, she figured.
Gathering every ounce of courage she possessed, she yanked her elbow out of Li Chen’s grasp and rammed it as hard as she could into his stomach. His hand flew upwards, causing him to fire involuntarily into the ceiling, shooting out the overhead light bulb. Without the light, the corridor where they were standing went instantly dark.
Hanna whirled out of his reach, and Nick pivoted his big body, striking Chen in the chest with a powerful sidekick that knocked the smaller man to the ground.
“Get behind the boxes!” Nick yelled at her as he went immediately after the guards.
One was helping Chen recover. The other was shifting around, trying to get a clear shot at Nick, who was moving so fast in the darkened corridor, it was hard to follow him.
In a whirl of motion, he struck the guard trying to take aim, bringing his hand down in a swift, fiercely delivered chop to the man’s forearm that sent his rifle to the floor. He followed with a knuckle punch to the guard’s windpipe that knocked him to his knees, then to the floor, unconscious.
Then he went after Chen and the second guard. The drug lord pushed to his feet in a roar of rage and lunged for Nick. Hanna watched from behind a wooden crate as Lance went after the remaining guard, tackling him to the ground.
Nick stepped to the side, avoiding Chen’s frontal attack, then pivoted and kicked out with the side of his boot. Chen staggered, trying to regain his balance and equilibrium. Nick took advantage of the drug lord’s disorientation and delivered a quick succession of punches to Chen’s face, inflicting a probable broken nose and some deep lacerations that bled profusely.
Hanna was hesitant to do anything but watch. Several weapons lay on the floor, near the four still fighting. Lance was still wrestling with the second guard. The man’s handgun appeared between them. Hanna was terrified that it would go off as each man struggled for control of it.
Nick saw that his brother was having trouble with the guard he was trying to sub
due. While Li Chen was distracted for a moment trying to staunch the effusive rush of blood from his nose and a cut above his right eye, Nick delivered a brutal axe kick to the guard’s head, instantly knocking him out.
“Grab the guns!” he shouted at Lance. “Get Hanna out of here!”
Chen’s head snapped up. With a fierce growl, the drug lord came at Nick with a series of amazingly swift moves that demonstrated he, too, was well-trained in martial arts. Nick deflected each move, and after a few minutes, Chen began to visibly tire. Nick’s size, skill, and stamina were greater. Averting any major damage from Chen, he retaliated with several punishing jabs to the man’s face and abdomen, targeting areas that were cut and still bleeding profusely. With his vision seriously impaired, Chen couldn’t see Nick clearly enough to avoid his blows. Finally, Nick whirled his big body in a savage roundhouse kick that slammed into Chen’s gut. In the next instant, he reversed himself and repeated the circular attack from the opposite direction. The moves were so incredibly fast, Hanna would have missed them had she blinked.
Chen stood for a moment, swaying on his feet, then crumpled to the floor like a rag doll, unconscious. Nick bent over at the waist to brace his hands on his knees and suck air into his heaving lungs. Blood and perspiration had all but eliminated the grease paint from his face.
Hanna hurried over to him. “Oh my God! Are you okay?” she inquired as she wiped at his face once again with the sleeve of her sweater.
Nick didn’t respond at first. Hanna rubbed his back as he remained bent over at the waist. When he began to breathe easier, he straightened and looked at her, then at his brother. “Why the hell didn’t you run when I told you to?”
Hanna replied before Lance could. “I wouldn’t go without you.”
