“Why didn’t they just kill us?” Showers asked.
“I’m guessing that’s their plan,” said Storm, “but first they want to make certain that the gold is here. We’re still the Russians’ best chance at finding it.”
Their leader issued a command in Russian, and three of the soldiers disappeared through the cave entrance, leaving the leader and two men behind to watch their captives. As they waited, the leader stepped over to Oscar’s body and began digging through the backpack that the geologist had been carrying before he was killed. The soldier removed a small device, putting it in his pocket.
“A tracking device,” Casper said. “That Russian prick was helping them.”
Because of the dark makeup on their faces, it was impossible to see any facial expressions. Only their eyes showed through. They said nothing, and that made them appear even more fierce.
The three soldiers had positioned themselves across from Showers, Storm, and Casper. While two of them watched with their guns pointed at the trio, the third stepped forward to frisk them. He started with Storm and did it quickly, expertly removing his extra clips of ammo. Satisfied, he moved to Showers, beginning with her ankles, moving his hands up her legs, but he hesitated when he reached her waist because her right arm was in a sling. As he began to check her, Showers screamed in pain.
“I’m wearing a sling!” she yelled. “How can I shoot anyone?”
He stepped back, surprised at her outburst.
The leader said something in Russian, and the soldier moved on to Casper. They’d already stripped him of his beloved shotgun, but he was still wearing his Ka-Bar knife on his waist.
Storm looked at Showers, and she moved her right arm slightly, pulling the sling away from her abdomen. Without moving her chin, she looked down, signaling him.
In that instance, Storm understood.
“You Commie bastards are supposed to be invincible,” Casper said loudly, “but you look like a bunch of candy-asses to me.”
“Oh my God!” Showers screamed hysterically. “I don’t want to die!” As the soldiers watched, she threw her good left arm around Storm’s neck and cried, “Kiss me one last time, darling!”
The Vympel leader yelled, “Nyet!” But Showers clung desperately to Storm.
With her now blocking the soldiers’ view, Storm reached between the sling and her waist, where he felt the familiar metal grip of his Glock. Somehow she had managed to slip the gun back into its hiding place before she’d been captured.
“Now,” he whispered.
Showers spun to his left as Storm pulled the handgun and began firing. His first target was the leader. Afraid that the Russian might be wearing a protective vest, Storm fired directly at his face. His first shot found its mark. Leaping to his right, Storm fired at the surprised soldier guarding him, who reacted by raising his submachine gun. Storm’s shots whizzed by the Russian’s head as the soldier pulled the trigger, popping off two rounds as he’d been trained to do, rather than firing a full, ineffective burst in a panic. One round nicked Storm in his thigh. Its sister sailed past his chest, striking a rock. Before the soldier could squeeze off another pair, Storm fired his Glock, killing him.
While Storm was busy firing at two of the soldiers, Casper attacked the Russian sent to frisk him. Although Casper was wounded, he released a crippling left hook into the soldier’s jaw while simultaneously slipping the Ka-Bar knife free with his right hand. Assuming the Russian was wearing an armored vest under his mountain man attire, Casper curved the blade so that it would puncture his attacker’s side.
He thrust his knife with such force that its hilt pushed into the wound. Casper pulled it upward and then sideways and down, ending the man’s life.
“Nice shooting, deadeye,” Casper called to Storm.
They had successfully killed the leader and two soldiers outside the cave, but there were still three inside it searching for the gold. Storm checked his leg. It was a flesh wound, but the gunshots that Casper had taken earlier, during their exchange with the Jihad Group, were much more serious.
Bending down, Casper retrieved his shotgun from the Russian who’d taken it from him earlier. “I’m bleeding out,” Casper said. “You two get going. I’ll keep the other three pinned in the cave as long as I can.”
“No,” Showers said. “We’re not leaving you behind.”
“It’s my choice,” Casper replied. He looked at Storm. “I thought you’d betrayed us in Tangiers. I blamed you for what happened.”
“I thought you were the traitor,” Storm replied.
Casper chuckled. “And it was neither of us. Dilya was working for the Viper all along, and Oscar was a mole for the Russians. They’re the ones who sabotaged Tangiers.”
He let out a painful groan and reached for his side.
“You don’t have to be a hero,” Showers said. “We can get you down the mountain.”
“To where?” he replied. “I’ll be dead by the time we hit the main road. Besides, I want to die a hero and I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Storm said.
“You saved my life when you shot that bastard on the roof of the slaughterhouse.”
“Then we’re squared,” Storm said.
“Not yet, deadeye. Not until after you leave and those rats come peeking out of their hole. I never loved anything as much as this shotgun so there’s something fitting about me holding it when I die and go to hell. Now get out of here before I change my mind.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Storm drove the SUV down the mountain at daredevil speed, dodging rocks, trees, and drop-offs that seemed to jump before the vehicle’s beams.
They had gone less than a half mile over the rocky terrain when headlights appeared behind them.
“Casper?” Showers asked, but she already knew the answer. “Hurry,” she said.
“I’m not Sunday driving,” he replied. “But if I go any faster, I’ll rip out this car’s bottom.”
The SUV’s undercarriage banged against a rock, nearly knocking both of them from their seats. Mercifully, they reached a gravel road a mile later. The SUV chasing them was close enough now that Showers could see the outline of the driver and a passenger.
“Casper must have killed one of them,” she said.
Her sentence was punctuated by a bullet sailing through the rear window of the SUV. Shards of glass flew by her face. The Russian in the SUV’s passenger seat was leaning out his window firing his machine gun at them.
Storm handed his Glock to her and she started to fire, just as Storm swerved to avoid plunging off the narrow road. Her first shot hit their own SUV’s back side window and the second the interior of its roof.
“Shoot them, not us,” Storm said. “We’re the good guys.”
“They’re less a threat than your driving,” she replied.
The gunman chasing them fired another burst of rounds, peppering the rear of the SUV.
Showers spun around in the front passenger seat, so that her back was now pressed against the dash, and lifted her left hand so she could fire through the busted rear window. She emptied the rest of the magazine, causing the attacking vehicle to pull back.
“I must’ve hit one of them,” she declared. “Give me a new clip.”
“I don’t have any. They took them? Remember? Getting frisked?”
“Time to get creative,” she said, climbing between the bucket seats into the SUV’s rear compartment.
“Anything there?” Storm asked as she rummaged through the back. “An AK-47, rocket launcher, cannon, bombs? Peanut butter sandwich?”
“Actually, there’s only this,” she said. She lifted a bag of creme cookies.
Storm glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Showers throwing them one at a time with her left hand at the approaching SUV. Several exploded onto the windshield.
“You’ve got to drive faster,” Showers yelled.
“I hate backseat drivers,” he replied.
She slipped in
to the front passenger’s seat and said, “Drive faster.”
“Look at this road,” he complained.
They were racing down a one-lane gravel path that had steep drop-offs on its one side. One wrong turn and they would plunge off a cliff.
“Well, he’s going faster,” she said.
“I’m still in front, aren’t I?” Storm said, checking his mirror.
“At least he’s not shooting now,” she said. “I must have wounded him.”
“With a cookie?”
“No, the Glock.”
“Maybe they’re out of bullets.”
Just then the Russian fired another round at them.
“Obviously, they brought along extra ammo,” she said.
Storm swerved, and the wheels of the SUV sent gravel flying from the roadway’s edge. Showers pressed her left hand against the Range Rover’s ceiling to brace herself as he turned quickly around another curve.
Despite Storm’s driving, the vehicle behind them was gaining ground. Within a few seconds, they were so close that Showers could see the Russian’s eyes as he aimed his machine gun at them. At this distance, he wouldn’t miss.
“This is not how I planned to die,” Showers said.
“A white picket fence,” Storm said, swerving, “a rocking chair, grandkids running around while you sipped lemonade. Was that your plan?”
“No, but it certainly wasn’t dying on a Uzbekistan mountain next to someone whose real name I don’t even know.”
“Planning your own death is overrated,” Storm said. “Trust me. I’ve done it.”
Showers braced herself for what she thought would be her last breath as Storm swerved again and waited for the inevitable.
Just as the Russian was about to fire, the SUV that he was riding in turned into a giant fireball. The explosion lifted the vehicle from the roadway and completely engulfed it in flames. It crashed down and bounced off the cliff, tumbling down the mountainside in flames.
“What was in those cookies?” Storm asked. He jammed on his brakes, causing the vehicle to spin to a stop.
“What the hell just happened?” Showers asked.
“Quiet!” Storm said. He turned off the engine.
Through the SUV’s shattered windows, they heard a whirling noise hovering above them in the darkness.
“Jedidiah Jones!” Storm said. “He sent a predator.” He glanced at Showers and started to explain, “You know, an unmanned radio controlled military drone-”
“I know what a predator is,” she snapped. “What I don’t know is how Jones knew we were being chased down the side of a Uzbekistan mountain by Russians.”
Storm lifted up his wrist so she could see his watch.
“I guess no one in the FBI has one of these,” he said proudly. “It’s a tracking device. When Dilya pulled a gun on me in the cave, I turned it on and it sent Langley a signal telling Jones that we were in trouble. This watch tells Jones exactly where I am at any time and in any place in the world.”
“Glad someone is keeping track of you,” she replied.
By the time they reached the bottom of the mountain, the morning sun was rising, and on the horizon they saw a Bell 206 helicopter flying low across the plains toward them. Storm turned off the road as the four-seat chopper landed. Within minutes, they were flying toward Kazakhstan, leaving the bullet-ridden SUV and the bodies of Casper, Oscar, Dilya, the Viper, his men, and six dead Russians behind them.
As they rode in silence in the chopper, Showers suddenly reached over with her left hand.
“Here. A present.”
Storm looked at her opened palm.
It was one of the cookies from the SUV. It had fallen into her sling when she was heaving the others through the window.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They separated as soon as the CIA-contracted charter flight delivered them to the U.S. garrison in Wiesbaden, Germany. Showers was admitted to the hospital so doctors could repair her damaged collarbone, while Storm was given time to bathe and eat, but then was put on a flight back to Andrews Air Force Base. A car was waiting to take him to Langley.
Jones was leaning back in his squeaky desk chair when Storm entered his office and sat in the all-too-familiar chair across from the CIA spymaster.
“We didn’t find any gold,” Storm said. “No sixty billion in kilobars owned by the Communist Party. Petrov must have given Lebedev the wrong coordinates.”
Jones leaned forward and said, “Is that what you think?”
Storm paused and then said, “You intentionally entered the wrong coordinates into our GPS in Uzbekistan. You sent us on a wild goose chase.”
“For more than twenty years, that gold has been hidden in the Molguzar Mountains and no one has been able to find it,” said Jones. “Why disturb it now? Especially since I know where it is and we can keep an eye on it with one of our birds.”
Removing sixty billion in gold from a Uzbekistan cave would be a major operation that would not go unnoticed. There would be angry denouncements from Russia and Uzbekistan. The White House would have a major political problem on its hands-especially since Russian president Barkovsky remained in power.
“If you didn’t expect us to find the gold,” Storm said. “Why did you send us to Uzbekistan?”
“I thought you would have figured that out by now,” Jones said.
Storm had, but for once he wanted to hear it from Jones. This time, he was the one playing dumb in their cat-and-mouse game.
“Tangiers,” said Jones. “After it, I knew we had a leak. There were only four possibilities. Oscar, Casper, Dilya, and-you.”
“You suspected me?”
“It’s my job to suspect everyone. What did we really know about you as a person? Clara Strike recruited you because you were a skilled private eye. After Tangiers, I thought maybe the other side had gotten to you, corrupted you. You decided you wanted out. I was suspicious, but your death also gave me an idea. I decided to retire Oscar, Dilya, and Casper, too.”
“Tangiers,” Storm said.
Jones nodded. “When I learned where the gold was hidden, I decided fate had given me an opportunity, a chance to catch a traitor. I knew the mole would contact the Russians. Sixty billion was too big of a prize. And that is exactly what Oscar did.”
“What about Dilya?”
“That’s an irony, isn’t it?” said Jones. “You throw out a net and who knows what you catch? Oscar told the Russians about Tangiers. Dilya tipped off the Viper.”
“Twice betrayed,” said Storm. “What kind of spying operation are you running when two of your recruits are secretly working for the other side?”
Jones shrugged. “Good traitors are hard to find.”
“Why did you suspect Casper?” Storm asked.
“Casper had a habit of getting drunk and bragging. I thought maybe he had inadvertently talked to the wrong people.”
“Casper got killed and we nearly did.”
“But you didn’t, did you?” Jones said. “Before you begin feeling sorry for yourself, remember you came back to work for me because you knew someone had betrayed you in Tangiers. You wanted revenge. And I couldn’t afford another Tangiers. It was a price I was willing to pay.”
“Casper might feel otherwise.”
“In a strange way,” Jones said, “fate brought us full circle from Tangiers. We learned that Dilya and Oscar were traitors. We missed the Viper in Tangiers, but his body was found dead on the mountain. The Vympel soldiers apparently cut his throat. You and Casper were cleared, and we now know where the Russian gold is hidden. It’s a win-win-win in my book. The only question that remains is this: Are you done? Are you going to disappear back in Wyoming?”
“Montana,” Storm said.
“No matter. Are you going to go back off the grid or are you going to do what you do best?”
Storm rose from his chair. “Right now, I’m going to take some time off.”
“Take as long as you want,” Jones said, opening his des
k and removing an envelope. “This will help.” He slid over the package and Storm picked it up, knowing that it contained hundred-dollar bills.
Storm removed the wristwatch that Jones had given him and put it on his desk. “I won’t be needing this.”
Jones said, “I’ll keep it for next time. There’s a rental car parked outside.” He handed Storm a set of keys.
“Is it bugged?” Storm asked.
“You figure it out.” He stood and extended his hand.
As the two men shook, Jones said, “Agent Showers will be flying in tomorrow. I understand she will be placed on a mandatory one-month medical leave of absence. She’ll have time on her hands, just like you.”
Storm found the rental parked outside. Jones had splurged. It was a cherry red Corvette ZR1, a $110,000-plus convertible with a 638 horsepower, supercharged V-8, the fastest production car ever made by General Motors. It was not the type of car that passed unnoticed-the suburban-friendly vehicles that Jones insisted that his operatives drive.
Storm fired up its engine and enjoyed the loud muffler growl as he exited the CIA en route to the George Washington Parkway. His private cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
It was Showers calling from Germany.
“I need a lift from the airport tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’ll check my schedule,” he said.
“I’m expecting more than a ride?”
“Like what?”
“Dinner.”
“No cookies in Germany?”
“Just be on time.” She hung up.
He turned into one of the scenic overlooks on the parkway and look down at the Potomac River. He searched his cell phone until he found what he wanted. When he had been in London in the parking garage, he’d sent Jedidiah Jones the coordinates for the gold. He’d also sent a backup copy to his own private phone.
Jedidiah Jones was not the only one who knew where the sixty billion in bullion was stashed.
His phone rang again.
“Listen,” Showers said in a serious voice, “I really do want you to show up tomorrow at the airport. I’ll pay for dinner if you want. Just don’t go AWOL on me.”
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