Lucas released the reins and the horse continued on, leaving himself exposed, bow at the ready. He squeezed the trigger and sent the arrow flying; and then he was in motion, dropping the bow and running at the man, Bowie knife unsheathed. The bolt struck the gunman in the chest with an audible thwack, and Lucas was on him as he went down. He drove the knife through the man’s eye as he tried to bring his weapon around, ending the fight with a violent shudder.
“Quincy?” a voice called from the fire, and Lucas ran in a crouch toward the dense brush that bordered the clearing, stealth abandoned now that others were up. He reached the bushes and raised his rifle to see one of the men standing, gun in hand, and two of the other sleeping forms stirring.
The M4 barked three rounds and the man’s chest fountained blood. The others rolled toward their weapons and Lucas fired at the nearest, two of his rounds shredding through the target’s torso as he screamed in anguish. He adjusted his aim at the next man but missed as the gunman threw himself to the side, hoping to use the fire pit as cover. Another burst from the M4 stopped the man cold as he returned fire at Lucas, and took half the shooter’s skull off as he crumpled in a heap.
Lucas searched the area for the last gunman but came up empty. He swore under his breath and then rounds snapped past his head – Tarak was firing at him. Lucas couldn’t scream at the Apache for fear of drawing the missing man’s fire, leaving him little choice. He grimaced as he drew a bead on the guide and stitched him with a burst, knocking him backward, and his gun fell by his side as his arms windmilled.
Shots erupted from Lucas’s right and he dove for the ground. An AK on full-auto hammered the brush with a sustained burst. Lucas waited for it to end with a telltale snap as the shooter ejected the spent mag, and then fired at where the muzzle flashes had lit the night twenty-five yards along the bank.
Answering fire dashed any hope that he’d scored a lucky hit, so he rolled left and dog-crawled to a different spot as the shooter rattled another half a magazine at him. Forcing himself to remain calm, Lucas peered through the scope for a glimpse of the shooter and waited in tense silence for the man to make a mistake.
Seconds ticked by, and then one of the bushes directly ahead moved. He fired two bursts and was rewarded with a volley from the ground beneath it – the shooter had done the same as Lucas, hugging the dirt to minimize his profile as a target.
What he hadn’t banked on was the night vision.
Lucas saw a flash of faint reflection in the scope and realized it was a man’s bald head. He fired four bursts, grouping the rounds within a two-foot area, and then ejected the magazine and slammed another home by feel, his eye never leaving the scope’s glowing field.
His pulse thudded in his chest and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. He ignored the itch caused by its passage and continued to sight on the target’s last position. After a good five minutes, Lucas rose slowly and ran low to the ground toward the gunman. When he reached the bushes, he found a powerfully muscled figure lying face down in a coagulating pool of blood. Lucas toed an AK-47 away from him and checked his torso for any evidence he was still breathing. Seeing nothing, he stepped away and put a final burst into the man’s head for good measure, and then made his way to the fire to confirm all threats were neutralized.
Sierra’s jaw dropped when she saw him materialize from the darkness, and she uttered a strangled cry.
“Lucas!”
He ignored her and moved to Tarak, whose eyes were staring into the eternity of the night sky. Lucas took cautious steps to each fallen form, leading with the M4, and verified that the men were all dead before slowly turning to Sierra with an unreadable expression.
“Lucas,” she tried again. “Thank God.”
His boots crunched on the gravel bank as he neared. She looked up into his steel gray eyes and her face fell at what she saw in them.
“Please. Untie me,” she pleaded.
“Hello, Sierra,” Lucas said, his voice a rasp. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Lucas, I can explain. Untie me – I can’t feel my hands.”
Lucas nodded and unsheathed the bloody blade of his Bowie knife. He studied it in the firelight before kneeling by her side, his movements mechanical and a bitter frown twisting his features. He hesitated at the rope and glanced at the dead men.
“You’re going to tell me everything, Sierra. Everything, or so help me God, you’ll be joining this bunch in hell.”
Chapter 33
“Lucas, I’m sorry. I know…I know how this looks.” Sierra hung her head as Lucas severed the cord on her wrists and then went to work on her ankles.
“You mean where you snuck out of my room and left with Tarak in the middle of the night?” he spat. “I’m sure there are a dozen plausible reasons.”
“Nothing I say is going to change that.” Tears streamed down her face as she slowly flexed her fingers to get the blood flowing. “But this isn’t about you, Lucas.”
“Of course not. How about we skip past all the drama and you tell me how you wound up with a bunch of Crew gunmen, for starters?”
Sierra sighed. “I want you to know that our night together meant a lot, Lucas. That was real. It was.”
“Sure,” Lucas said, his voice tight. His expression hardened. “No more stalling. Why did you leave?”
“I’d fulfilled my obligation. I got Eve to Shangri-La safely.”
“Right. And I risked everything to get you there. So did Ruby. So did a lot of people. And then you snuck out under cover of night.”
“I had to, Lucas.”
“Sierra, I’m losing patience. Give me some hard answers and stop talking in riddles.”
“I was heading back to Texas.”
“Why?”
“Unfinished business.”
“That’s a bullshit answer. Why were you going back to Texas?”
Sierra looked away. “My son.”
“Your son’s dead. You told me so yourself.”
She nodded. “I thought so.”
“But now he isn’t?” Lucas demanded skeptically.
“When Garret took me captive, he told me that my son was still alive. That he’d survived.”
Lucas studied her face, trying to decide whether she was telling the truth. He gave up after a few moments. He couldn’t read her. “And you believed him?”
“Why would he lie?”
“Let me guess – he was interrogating you when he popped out with that?”
Sierra closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she looked lost. “Does it matter? If there’s a chance that he’s alive, I have to find him. You’re not a parent, Lucas. You don’t know what it’s like. For a mother, especially. There’s nothing more precious than your child.” She drew a ragged breath. “Nothing.”
“He used that to break you down, Sierra. It’s predictable. The job of an interrogator is to do whatever he has to in order to get answers. Lie, misrepresent, threaten, cajole – anything. And you fell for it.”
“You’re guessing. Neither of us knows.” She paused. “And I need to know.”
“Because nobody tells you what to do, right? You just get an idea into your head, and it’s damn the torpedoes. And every time it results in disaster – but you don’t learn a thing.” Lucas shook his head. “So that’s why you left? I’m amazed.”
“I don’t care whether you approve or not, Lucas. This isn’t any of your business. It’s mine. You don’t own me. We had an amazing night together, but I’m not some schoolgirl to be scolded because you disapprove of my choices.”
Lucas sighed. “Choices that had you a captive of the Crew within forty-eight hours. Way to go, Sierra. Why listen to anything I have to say when you’re doing so well?”
Sierra pursed her lips. “Thank you for saving my life. Again. Sorry I’m such a burden.” She forced herself to her feet and walked over to Tarak’s inert form. “But we’ve got a bigger problem than you being pissed because I left.”
“Wh
ich is?”
“Him,” she said, pointing to the dead guide. “He told them where Shangri-La is.”
“Doesn’t matter. Dead men tell no tales.”
“No. You don’t understand. The big one, Cano, sent a pair of riders to Albuquerque to radio Magnus with the location.”
Lucas scowled. “When?”
“In the late afternoon.”
Lucas checked his watch and swore. He’d never be able to catch up to them – it would be physically impossible.
Sierra turned to him. “So for all your anger over me leaving, the real problem is that our guide here sold Shangri-La out. Which would have happened whether I’d left or not. In a way, we only know about it because I did leave, so maybe everything happened for a reason.”
Lucas moved to Tarak and searched him. He retrieved the heavy suede pouch with the gold in it and slipped it inside his vest pocket. Sierra stood uncomfortably close, but he forced himself to ignore her presence.
“We have to warn them,” he said.
“Obviously. You can go back and save the day. I’m headed to Texas.”
“Did you overhear anything that we can use?”
“Just that Magnus would pull out all the stops once he knew where it was.”
“Any idea of what that means?”
“Cano bragged that he’d send a thousand men.”
Lucas’s frown deepened. “Was he serious?”
“He sounded like it.”
“It would take weeks to get a force that large from Texas to Los Alamos.”
She shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t.”
“Do the math, Sierra. Figure twenty-five miles a day. It’s got to be a thousand miles. And you’d have to supply all those men and horses.”
“That’s not what he thought. He figured a week.”
“There’s no way.”
“You’re underestimating Magnus. He’s got vehicles. And fuel. He’ll be in a hurry to take down Shangri-La, so he’ll throw everything he’s got at this. Cano was confident enough to wait for him here. That’s not the actions of a man who expects it to take a month.”
Lucas hadn’t considered the possibility of a motorized force. But it made sense that if Magnus controlled so much territory, he would have access to resources beyond the norm.
The thought chilled him. What Sierra had described was a modern army headed their way, and only three hundred denizens of Shangri-La to defend themselves against it.
The outcome wasn’t hard to predict.
He turned to her. “First things first. You’re not going back to Texas.”
“You don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m doing exactly that, and for once you’re going to listen. You almost got yourself killed here. Is that your plan? To just ride south until you’re captured by any number of miscreants and get your throat slit after they’re tired of gang raping you? Think, Sierra. Use your head. You have less than zero chance, and that’s even if Magnus wasn’t mobilizing.”
She threw him a defiant stare, but her lower lip trembled. “I’m not abandoning my son.”
“Right. So it’s better to get killed than to have a workable plan. Good thinking.”
“You made it into Lubbock and back. It can be done.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Sierra. Promise me that you won’t try any more idiocy, or I’m going to hog-tie you again, and you’ll go back to Shangri-La a prisoner.”
“Who do you think you are, Lucas? You can’t do that.”
“Right. Just like Cano couldn’t.” He paused. “Those are your options. Either you do this my way, or I force you.” Lucas was out of patience. He squared his shoulders. “At this point I don’t much care which it is, because we need to get out of here. The gunfire will draw any predators around here, so we’ve already outstayed our welcome.”
“This isn’t over, Lucas. If he was your son, you wouldn’t quit until you found him.”
“Sierra, I’m going to say this with all possible kindness, and then we’re done discussing it. Garret lied to screw with your head. He told you a story to confuse you, to break down your resolve. I’m sorry, but your son isn’t alive. It’s a fiction. I watched the same technique used over and over in interrogations back when I was a Ranger. You were fooled. End of story.”
“I need to be sure.”
“What you need to do is recognize the disastrous consequences of your impulsive behavior and think about the number of times you would have been killed if I hadn’t saved your bacon, not to mention all the other people you’ve endangered. Now are you going to come willingly, or do we do this the hard way?”
She stepped toward him and touched his arm. “Lucas…”
He shrugged off her hand. “Promise me, Sierra.”
Sierra blinked away tears and sighed. “Fine, Lucas. I promise. Happy now?”
He shook his head. When he looked at her, his eyes were pained. “Wouldn’t use that word, but it’ll do.” He angled his head, listening, and then began walking back toward where he’d tied Tango. “Gather up a weapon and some magazines and get your horse, Sierra. I want to be on the trail in two minutes.”
He stalked off, hating that he had to doubt every word out of her mouth, looking for the lie. The only reason he didn’t believe she was a threat was because she’d been the Crew’s prisoner. Otherwise he would have thought she’d been in it with them. But the ropes proved that wasn’t the case. As to the rest, he could understand why she’d left – the guide could ensure her safe passage, or so she’d thought, and she’d never get another chance like it.
That she believed the story about her son he didn’t dwell on. People believed all sorts of incredible stuff, and Garret had chosen her one weak link and worked a blade through it with considerable skill. Of course she’d believe what her heart wanted to think was true – even though Lucas didn’t have children, he could understand a mother’s love.
Whether she had any intention of honoring her promise to him remained to be seen. She didn’t have a choice for now, but he suspected he hadn’t seen the last of her attempts – he had to hand it to her for persistence, if nothing else.
He despised himself for the stirring he felt when he gazed into her eyes, and wanted to maintain his fury at her, but it was already being replaced by concern over her story about Magnus and compassion at the grief that she must be feeling at the idea her son was still alive.
What he couldn’t forgive her for was abandoning him without telling him. It was childish, he knew, but there it was. She’d chosen to sneak away rather than sharing her problem, and there was no way to pretend that hadn’t harmed any chance they had together.
Tango shook his head at Lucas as he neared, and Lucas pushed the thoughts from his mind. He needed to get clear of the camp and ride all night; the clock was ticking ominously, the damage by the treasonous guide already done.
Chapter 34
Luis and one of the Crew gunmen – a particularly nasty piece of work named Ross – rode all night and arrived in Albuquerque two hours after sunup, their horses exhausted. Once in the city, they plodded along a main street until they found a promising area with several watering holes and numerous trading posts.
Nothing was open yet but a greasy spoon in the middle of the block, so they parked themselves at a sidewalk table and ordered breakfast. Ross was uncertain about eating before he found a radio, but Luis assured him that it was fine – not much would be open at that hour, and they might as well maintain their strength.
Cano had ordered Luis into town with Ross because he considered the Loco expendable, which he as much as told Luis. Luis had offered no reaction, understanding Cano’s attempt to bait him. Their final confrontation would happen on Luis’s terms, not Cano’s, he was determined, and he took pleasure in giving the Crew boss his best stone-faced nod of acquiescence.
Ross was a serious lowlife, even by prison standards. Violent and fearless, he had the cunning of a rat. On the ride south he’d regaled Luis w
ith stories of brutality that were typical for hard cases. He’d been locked up for multiple life sentences following his arrest for a string of particularly vicious home invasions, where he’d pistol-whipped geriatrics for the thrill of it, costing one an eye and another her hearing. The public defender had argued that Ross was mentally ill, positing that nobody sane would rape an octogenarian while filming it on his phone, but the jury had disagreed, as had the judge, who’d thrown the book at him.
Of course to hear him tell it, he was a victim, unable to get a job due to his lack of education, forced into selling drugs on the street, and then later moving up to violent crimes to support his habit. Luis had heard variations of the same story hundreds of times and had tuned the man out; there was nothing new under the sun once you’d done as much time in lockup as Luis had.
The eggs were delicious, and a full stomach diminished the throbbing in Luis’s temples to a manageable ache. The cook didn’t know where they could find a radio, so they sat in the shade and waited for the trading post to open. Twenty minutes later a scruffy man arrived with a pair of menacing-looking sidekicks, and Luis told Ross to stay put while he got directions to the nearest shortwave transmitter.
Luis returned after a brief discussion with the trader, and they rode into the center of town, ignoring the glowers of the residents. Six blocks up, near a square with a century-old church, they tied up outside of a barber shop with a towering antenna rising from its flat roof.
The owner of the establishment wasn’t thrilled by their looks or smell, but seemed happy enough when Ross counted out several fistfuls of rounds for ten minutes of airtime. Luis distracted the man with questions while Ross raised the Crew operator in Houston and delivered the coded message that Cano had scrawled on a scrap of paper. Cano’s fear was that Shangri-La would intercept the transmission, so he’d created a three-part message, sent over several frequencies, lingering on none for longer than twenty seconds.
It seemed hyper-paranoid to Luis, but he played along, congratulating Ross on a job well done when they exited the shop. The owner had offered them a bath and a shave for a few more rounds, but neither of them took him up on it, preferring to spend their barter elsewhere.
The Day After Never Bundle (First 4 novels) Page 62