by Cindy Gerard
He shot a scowl skyward, getting madder by the minute. Really? Was it really too much to ask? A lousy two-week vacation? No bullets? No bad guys? Nobody’s life on the line? Especially mine?
Muttering under his breath, he slouched deeper into the seat and prepared to roll into combat mode just in case these guys got too frisky.
He hoped to hell they didn’t.
Yeah, he’d turned into that man. Once upon a time, he’d have relished the thought of putting the hurt on these two cretins. Now he was looking for escape routes.
At what point is enough, enough?
Get out of my head, Mom!
The memory of her standing by his hospital bed in San Salvador, tears tracking down her cheeks as she took in all the tubes and machines keeping him alive, made his gut ache.
“You almost died this time, Luke. What do you have left to prove, son? And for God’s sake, who are you trying to prove it to?”
Same person he’d always tried to prove himself to: his dad, who had never forgiven him for walking away from the family ranch. Old story. Old news.
He’d hated seeing his mom that way. Hated knowing that his parents had dipped into their meager rainy-day fund for the airfare to get to him, knowing even before he’d offered that his dad would be too proud to let Luke reimburse them. But he hated even worse that they’d had to see the horrors of his world.
You almost died this time.
Yeah, so what? Between his SEAL days, his stint with Task Force Mercy, and his current position with the Black Ops, Inc. team, he’d almost died a dozen times. So why had he let El Salvador get to him, turn him into someone he wasn’t proud to be?
Who the hell knew? The only thing he did know was that there was a good chance he was going to die tonight if he didn’t pull his head out of his ass and do what he was trained to do.
He slid the stainless steel housing of the Leatherman up into his sleeve and palmed the blade. Then he sized up the Bad-Ass twins and his odds of taking them out.
They were short and heavily muscled—possibly Peruvians, definitely Latino—and they knew exactly what they were doing as they worked the aisles with the precision of a well-oiled machine. Something about that precision rang alarm bells from here to Lima.
In the first place, this wasn’t one of those jazzed-up sightseeing trains that hauled cash-laden touristas back and forth from Arequipa to Machu Picchu. This was a bare-bones transport train carrying mostly locals who barely scratched out a living raising potatoes and beans. They probably didn’t have any cash, so why target this particular train? And who the hell robbed a train in the middle of the night when it was likely to be half empty?
Something else bothered him. While they dressed like run-of-the-mill thugs, both carried state-of-the-art HK416s dressed up with laser target designators and high-tech holograph scopes. The automatic rifles were souped-up versions of the U.S. military’s M-4, tricked out like Cadillacs on a showroom floor. Big, big bucks. No low-rent bandito had access to that kind of firepower.
So if they weren’t locals, then who the hell were they? He immediately ruled out the possibility of them being terrorists. The government had pretty much gotten El Sendero Luminoso—the Shining Path—under control in this area. Besides, there wasn’t a damn thing of value in these mountains, tactical or otherwise. To top it off, they were speaking Spanish. The prevalent language here was Quechua or Aymara; most of the passengers wouldn’t even understand Spanish, which the bad boys would have known if they were from around here.
Something was way off-kilter . . . not the least of which was the fact that they seemed to be more intent on searching the faces of the passengers than they were on robbing them. As they drew closer, Luke grew more and more certain that a search, not a robbery, was their main objective. When the kid popped his head up above the seat again and they spotted him, it got real clear, real fast, who was the object of their search.
Bad-ass number one nudged his partner in crime, pulled a photograph out of his pocket, consulted with the other man over it, and pointed in the boy’s direction. Then both gunmen headed straight down the aisle toward him.
“I told you to stay down,” Luke growled, sinking lower in the seat to avoid drawing their attention. “Wanna tell me why those nasty boys are looking for you?”
“Me?” Shock colored the boy’s pinched voice. “They aren’t looking for me. Why would men like that be looking for me?”
The two assholes were closing fast—until one of the passengers panicked. A older Quechua man wearing a bowler hat and sandals made from rubber tires jumped up out of his seat and started running down the aisle. The lead gunman instantly shot him in the back. No hesitation. No mercy. No remorse.
The railroad car erupted in more horrified screams and wails, which the shooter silenced with another blast of his rifle into the ceiling.
Now Luke was royally pissed. There had been no reason to shoot anyone. Yet a man lay dead or dying, shot without provocation.
At what point is enough, enough? When the world was free of scum like this.
A sudden calm washed over him, the combat calm that took him to the place he always went when he knew there was no other option, and where fear didn’t factor in. A place where muscle memory and gut instinct ruled, to get him through the fight.
He glared at the shooter with hard, cool eyes. When the sonofabitch with the quick trigger finger shot that unarmed man, he’d sealed his own fate.
2
“This is going to get real ugly, real fast,” Luke warned the kid. “So when I say move, you move.”
A mix of confusion and paralyzing fear crossed the boy’s face.
“Listen.” Luke leaned lower and drilled him with a hard look. “We’ll sort out the details later. In the meantime, denial’s not gonna keep you alive. For whatever reason, they’ve targeted you. If you want to get out of here in one piece, I suggest you get on board with me and do it now. We clear?”
The kid gave him a sharp, clipped nod.
“Then make like a mole and burrow as far under that seat as you can get.”
The boy moved like a bullet, dropped to all fours, and skittered under the wooden seat.
Luke’s hands were steady, his head clear as he pulled his hat low over his brow and watched from beneath the narrow leather brim as the men approached. He figured they had to be just the tip of the spear. Someone else had to have stopped the train, and was most likely guarding the engineer so he couldn’t call for help or try to take off before their ugly business was finished. So there was more than just these two bad boys to deal with.
One problem at a time.
“¿Qué pasa?” he mumbled, adopting the sluggish speech of a half-conscious drunk as the pair stopped between the seats.
“Silencio!” The shooter took a bead on Luke’s chest when he faked a failed attempt to stand. He fell clumsily back into the seat, hands in the air, palms open, the picture of helpless submission.
The second gunman bent over and reached for the kid. To his credit, the boy scrapped like a street brawler, kicking and swinging and giving the bandito all he could handle when he started dragging him out from under the seat.
When the shooter glanced down to see how his partner was doing, Luke made his move.
He kicked the gun skyward, sprang to his feet, and hooked one arm around the guy’s neck. With the same mercy the bastard had shown the unarmed Quechua man he’d just killed, Luke sliced the blade of the Leatherman across his carotid artery.
The man collapsed in Luke’s arms. His rifle clattered to the floor as his hands scrabbled helplessly at his throat. He was already as good as dead; he’d bleed out in less than three minutes.
Before Luke could grab the rifle, the thug who’d gone after the kid reared upright.
“Run!” Luke yelled.
The boy crab-scrambled over the dying gunman, then stumbled toward the rear exit while his attacker came up swinging.
The butt of his rifle clipped Luke hard on the
shoulder, knocking him back onto the seat. Luke gripped the seat frames on either side of him for leverage and kicked his boots hard in the guy’s gut. When he doubled over with a whomp of pain, Luke flew to his feet again, grabbed the front of the guy’s shirt, and slammed his head into the metal seatback. The would-be kidnapper dropped to the floor like a bag of sand.
Luke had just stomped his heel into the guy’s throat and finished him off when two more men burst through the front doors of the car, rifles drawn. When they spotted their downed compadres they sprinted straight toward them.
It went against all his fighting instincts—and he was running on pure instinct now—but Luke knew he had to run. Odds were good that there were more bad guys waiting in the wings. There was no winning this battle. Not against these numbers. If he removed the kid from the mix—and despite the kid’s denial, Luke was certain the boy was the main attraction—a lot of innocent people stayed alive. He might even stay alive.
He quickly slung his backpack on one shoulder. Grabbing a rifle and a handgun that he shoved into his waistband over his right hip in a Mexican carry, he sprinted down the aisle.
“Keep moving!” he ordered, catching up to the kid as a blast of automatic weapon fire missed them by inches.
He fired high over the passengers as he retreated, then jerked the rear door open. “Jump and roll!”
When the boy hesitated, Luke heaved the rifle out the open door in a sling toss, prayed for the best, then grabbed the kid’s arm and launched them both out of the train.
Legs and arms flailing, they hit the ground hard, rolling together like a pair of runaway logs down the steep embankment flanking the railroad tracks.
When they finally slammed to a stop a good twenty yards away from the tracks, the kid had landed on his back beneath him. Like Luke, he was gasping in pain from the hard landing. But now wasn’t the time to lick their wounds—the bad boys would be barreling out right behind them with a helluva lot more pain in store.
Luke started to push to his feet, but stopped abruptly when the moon broke through the heavy cloud cover and cast the boy’s face in soft shadows.
The aviators had flown off in their wild plummet down the ravine. The watch cap was gone, too.
“What the—” He did a double take at the long black hair fanning over the ground, then took a quick, hard look at the kid’s face.
The eyes that stared back him, glazed with pain and wide with fear, were decidedly familiar. And the boy wasn’t a boy at all, but a woman.
Slender. Gorgeous. And very much a woman. A very familiar woman.
“Jesus H. Christ.” Luke shot to his feet, grabbed his hat, slapped it against his thigh to bang out the dust, and resettled it on his head. Then he reached for her hand and dragged her up with him.
“Stay!” he ordered and sprinted back up the hill to retrieve the rifle.
He found it lying cockeyed against a rock. The pricey scope had been knocked off in the tumble down the ravine. He cursed the bad luck, then raced back to her side.
Grabbing the rest of his gear, he clutched her elbow and took off at a run. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
But not right now. Right now, as the shouts of men grew closer, he needed to tend to a pressing little matter called running for their lives.
Rifle fire cracked through the crisp mountain air, echoing off the mountain peaks. The pa-zing of bullets slamming into the dirt at their feet, then glancing off a rock just behind them, had Luke moving fast, ducking low and pulling her close. The short head start and the cover of night were the only things they had going for them.
Now was not the time to make a stand, not when he didn’t know how many guns they were up against. Two for now, but there could be others. Besides, he had no idea how much ammo he had in the guns he’d lifted from the dead men. Until he had time to take stock, he couldn’t be shooting off rounds in the dark. Every bullet was going to count.
With his hand clasped tightly around hers, he ate up the ground in a crouching run, hurrying down the steep, rocky slope in full retreat mode. If the shooters had night-vision goggles—and as well equipped as the rifles were, he had to figure they did—he and the woman were easy targets out in the open. He’d have given his left nut for a stand of trees to hide in, but had to settle for the thick clumps of tall, brittle grass dotted across the open ground. He darted from one to another, never staying put for long before taking off again, pulling her along with him as he worked his way toward his goal.
Fifty yards ahead, the barren ground gave way to one of the massive rock formations this area was known for. If they could make it there, they had a chance of losing those goons in the maze—or of getting trapped in a box canyon.
Since he didn’t have a Plan B, he decided not to think about that prospect as more bullets zipped near their feet. He just ran, hoping he didn’t die before he found out what this particular woman was doing in this particular place at this particular time.
Finally they reached the tall spires and gigantic boulders that made up the canyon, its walls towering as high as twenty feet in places, as little as five in others. He picked a meandering path, swearing when he slipped on the stone floor slick with scree and the beginnings of frost.
Fifteen minutes passed as they rushed down a winding path, dodging scrub brush and deadfall and fighting for breath. Then half an hour, then an hour as they threaded their way beneath a series of steeply pitched cliffs, following twisting trails cut by thousands of years of wind and rain and erosion. They didn’t exchange a word, only stopped for brief moments to listen for pursuit as the wind whistled through the canyon walls, their lungs burning, backs pressed against the cold stone, eyes watchful. Then they ran again, tripping over rubble, skirting rock piles, hiding deeper in the murky darkness and tall slabs of stone until finally, the voices faded and eventually drifted away to nothing.
“I think we lost them,” Luke whispered. He gulped in a serrated breath of air that smelled of damp earth, cold stone, and the winded woman at his side. “At least for now. Let’s take a minute and catch our breath.”
His sides ached; his lungs screamed for oxygen in the thin air, pressuring his heart so it pounded like a bass drum. Hers had to be doing the same as he steered her to a wide crevice cut into a wall. Above, a rocky overhang knotted with gnarled tree roots and the detritus of thousands of years provided some shelter.
They leaned back into it, then slid to the ground exhausted, sitting side by side, sucking in great gulps of air.
As he fought for a deep breath, Luke kept an ear out for the bad guys and took stock of their situation. The handgun was a Glock 19, a solid weapon. The fifteen-round magazine was only short one round and it was in the chamber.
He checked the broken scope mount on the rifle, cursed silently, and unclamped it from the barrel. The scope was useless; he’d make do with the iron sights.
Next he ejected the rifle’s magazine and checked its ammo supply. Half full. Add the nine live rounds left in the clip to the one already chambered, and he had a total of ten shots. With the pistol, that made a total of twenty-five rounds. Twenty-five freakin’ rounds between him and the guys with the working scopes and, no doubt, several extra mags.
That just meant he had to shoot better than they did—hard to do when his hands were shaking like a virgin’s knees on her wedding night. Any SEAL worth his salt would call this a slam dunk. Hell, at his peak, he could have outgunned most bad guys armed with automatic weapons, with a slingshot. Even on an off day he should be able to outshoot these yahoos, because shooting was all about muscle memory, which was programmed into the reptile portion of the brain. It was time to channel his inner anaconda and get a goddamn grip.
He let out a deep breath and assessed the weather conditions. The sky was mostly cloudy and dark. That, at least, was good for them. It was also cold. Not so good for them. Sixty to sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit was the average daytime high in June, but it could drop into the twenties at night. It was he
ading that way now; the patches of frost underfoot told that tale. They weren’t feeling the bitter cold yet, because adrenaline and exertion kept the blood pumping hot. But the chill would set in soon enough. He could take it, but he worried about her.
Luke set the rifle beside him, tucked the gun back in his waistband, and glanced at the woman panting for breath beside him. Even in the dark he could still make out her features, see the rise and fall of those famous breasts beneath her dark turtleneck shirt.
He still couldn’t believe it.
“Valentina,” he muttered and could tell by the way her shoulders sagged and the resignation on her face that she wasn’t happy he knew who she was.
Keee-rist.
Valen-freakin’-tina.
The Valentina. Like Beyoncé or Madonna, one name was enough to tell the entire world who this woman was.
How in hell had he ended up on the run, in the Andes, with a woman whose face and body had inspired more wet dreams than a man his age should ever admit to?
He suppressed an incredulous laugh and slowly shook his head. The first time he’d seen her image, he’d been seventeen, stuck on the ranch in Montana, and at the height of his horny period. He’d been bored to death, running a ranch errand for his dad, cruising down the interstate in the pickup on the way to Billings. And there she was, only a teen herself, stretched out on her side on a fifteen-by-fifty-foot billboard along I-90, her long, dark hair blowing in the wind, seductive smile beckoning, the ripe curves of her young body artfully draped in a filmy piece of champagne-colored silk, all sex appeal, innocence, and original sin.
His teenage brain had shut down like a smashed clock; he’d damn near driven off the road. And though a lot of years and a lot of women had passed since then, the “Valentina mystique” had been rockin’ a little corner of his world ever since.