“Classical music is mathematically precise. People who have strong mathematical skills like yourself often are drawn to it. Languages, to you, are simply more music to study and absorb.” Ria smiled gently. “I have spent decades listening and studying people of all types and stripes. You needn’t look so shocked that I could draw a simple conclusion from obvious facts.”
“And the third factor?” Montana prompted her. She had no intention of letting Ria ‘explore’ any more of her psyche than necessary.
“You have a well-developed ability to teach yourself any skill and master it. Windsurfing, computer programming, a strong interest in physical prowess and agility, gymnastics, self-defense arts, archery...Need I say more?”
“I think you’ve said more than enough already. It’s uncomfortable to know that someone has been studying you.”
“I was fascinated, my dear. You remind me so much of myself, you know.”
Montana slid past that one with an evasion. “You’re proposing that I take the position as...?”
“I want to train you to take over the day to day operation of this base.”
Montana glanced at Ghenghis Bob. He was glowering at her. This was clearly not a surprise to him, but he still didn’t like it.
“Oh, don’t worry about Bob. He has his own little assignment and departs tonight.”
“I can see why you’re in a hurry, then.”
“Indeed. I need someone to take over the running of the finances and deal with our vendors.”
What a convenient name for drug dealers! Montana curled her lip up a little. “Now I can see why you decided Caden was not suitable for the job. What did you do with him, by the way?”
“All in good time,” Ria said. “First, the agreement, remember?”
“I remember. So, let’s deal. What’s my salary? I hope it isn’t just good will and access to the power you keep dangling in front of me?”
“That would be a little crass, wouldn’t it?” Ria agreed. “How does ten percent of the gross profits sound?”
“Fifteen,” Montana said instantly.
Ria lifted her brow. “I didn’t think money was all that important to you.”
“It’s not, but I don’t want to be out of pocket, either. You don’t offer health benefits and there are higher risks involved. Fifteen would barely cover it. I should hold out for twenty, but let’s settle for fifteen and agree to renegotiate in...what? A year? Six months?”
Ria laughed. “Six months,” she said. “But I have the option to drop your cut if things don’t go as well as they should. Oh, and let’s add another incentive. A thousand dollar fine for every man killed or otherwise detained.”
Montana folded her arms. “Then we should add a two hundred and fifty thousand bonus for achieving the first semester goals.”
Ria laughed even harder. “All right,” she agreed, with a wave of her hand. “Australian dollars?”
“American, of course.”
“Done.” Ria didn’t seem annoyed at the roughly fifteen percent increase the change in currency represented. She looked at Bob. “Bring the others in. It’s time,” she told him in Arabic.
He turned and called over his shoulder. “It is time.” His voice bounced around the cavern.
From the five entrances to the cavern came a murmuring, steady flow of people. Nearly all of them were men. This had to be the total population of the caves. Montana felt cold fingers run up her spine. They had badly underestimated the size and strength of Ria’s cave dwellers!
She tried to relax, to look cool, competent and wise. She had just become their leader and had to behave like one until she found a way out of this mess. But the huge numbers of men surrounding her and Ria made her wonder if that was ever going to be possible. They couldn’t possibly trust her straight away. She’d have to prove herself. The true size and shape of the jam she was in was beginning to come into focus.
The men around her fell silent.
Ria stood upon the table and held up her hands, palms up. “Thank you for attending,” she told them all. She had no need to lift her voice. The acoustics of the cave amplified it perfectly and the solid body of men halted the echoes. “This woman before me is called Montana. She has agreed to take your leader’s place when he leaves for his sacred mission tonight. However, she is untested and in your eyes, her qualities are unknown. So, in order to prove to you both her spirit and her dedication to our cause, we will have a demonstration.”
Demonstration? Montana kept her face neutral, as she puzzled it out. How on earth did one go about demonstrating dedication? It was proved over time, through repeated tests. It wasn’t something you could put on display and say “there you go!”
Ghenghis Bob was smiling and the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Nothing touched his eyes—and if the eyes were truly windows to the soul, then nothing touched his soul, either.
She shuddered, registering the deep cold of the cavern for the first time.
There was a murmur from the back of the crowd and a shuffling of heads. Someone was coming through. They parted, making way for two men walking slowly towards her. The two men dragged Caden between them. His head was hanging down, the heavy black hair hiding his face. His jeans and tee-shirt were even more scuffed and ripped than the last time she had seen him on the dock. While she had been given the royal tour, Caden had been going through a small version of hell. What had they done to him?
Montana gritted her teeth together and forced herself to breathe slowly and normally. She knew with utter certainty that every eye in the cave was watching her, weighing every move and gesture and expression she gave them. They were testing her. What she did next would determine if they would allow her to lead them or not.
What was it they were about to demand of her?
“Bob,” Ria said. “Would you mind?”
Bob’s grin broadened, showing exceptionally white, square teeth. He reached under his dishdashah and brought out the Glock he had been carrying on the boat. With quick movements, he ejected the cartridge and pushed out nine bullets with his thumb. He did it all while staring at her.
The cave was utterly silent and the clink of each bullet on the stone at their feet was clearly heard. The silence was hushed and thick with expectancy.
With the last bullet still in the clip, Bob pushed it back into the gun and seated it with a click. He flipped the gun on its side and let her see him disengage the safety. He held the gun out to her. “Take it.”
Montana held out her hand. It would be fatal to hesitate, but already the awful shape of what lay ahead of her had suggested itself. Sweat gathered at her temples and prickled under her arms. She felt sick with the tension that had accumulated and now throbbed around her. It was almost palpable.
The Glock was heavy in her hands. A dead weight. She let it hang from her side.
Ria, still standing on the table, waved to the two men holding Caden up. A third carrying a saucepan stepped toward him and threw the contents up into his hanging face. He rolled his head back in reaction and shook it to clear the water from his eyes.
“Stand him up,” Ria ordered, in English. She repeated the order in Arabic and the men holding him lifted him up so his feet were on the ground, then kicked at his knees until he was standing. They stepped away and so did everyone around them. The space behind Caden was clear.
“Bob,” Ria said. “Repeat in Arabic what I say.”
He nodded.
Ria looked at Montana and her eyes were dancing with good cheer. “Here is your chance to take command of a new form of power, one that will be yours from now on. The power over life and death. Shoot him and prove to all of us your loyalty, your unflinching dedication to your new cause.”
Montana looked at Caden. He stared back at her, his face bloody and scraped raw in places, but there was life in his eyes—the same raw, animal power she had seen in the Pink Galah, when he had been facing five men with knives.
Montana swallowed, her heart hammering and her min
d screaming at her to think of something, anything, to get her out of this. Every second she hesitated would add to their conviction that she was not one of them. Then they would both die.
Caden lifted his chin. “Do it,” he said clearly.
Finally, Montana understood the difference between her and Caden. He freely broke laws and was infamous for spreading anarchy and chaos, but he did it for a purpose. He had a mission that drove everything he did. He did it not for himself, but for others.
Regardless of how he pulled it off, Caden made a difference to people’s lives. A good difference. All her life, she had thought she wanted to serve her country, to pay it back for saving her life, but she wasn’t doing it for anyone else. She had been doing it just for herself, to off-load her guilt and to pay back Vinnie’s death. There was no noble purpose in it anywhere.
No wonder it had failed to work out for her.
She stared at Caden. “I can’t,” she said softly. “Not you.”
“You have to.” He wiped blood from his eye with the sleeve of his tee-shirt. “You’ll be doing me a favor. Do it.”
She shook her head.
“Do it, you hear me?”
She knew what he was saying. Only one of them needed to die here. Ria would never trust him. It had to be her that lived. But she couldn’t do it.
Ria stamped her heel on the table. “Come, come. He’s a flawed, unwanted piece of flotsam. You need to prioritize here, Montana. Quickly now. I grow tired of waiting.”
The tension was beating at her, in audible waves that roared and receded. She lifted the gun, aiming it at him, knowing she had no other choice. Her vision blurred. Tears. Hastily, she wiped them. She must be able to see clearly.
Caden’s black eyes were all she could see. “Do it,” he said, and it was as if he had whispered in her ear.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered back and fired.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The impact of the bullet flung Caden into the air. He landed like a stringless puppet. His hands and feet lifted up in the air and fell down, bouncing off the rock. The sight would live with her the rest of her life.
He lay very still.
She lowered the Glock. Her hand was shaking. She was shaking. Violently. But the cavern had erupted into cheers and catcalls, the men dancing around her. They crowded around her, blocking off her view of Caden’s body.
Ria held up her hands, commanding silence. She looked at Montana with open contempt.
“Tie her hands,” she said.
“What?” Montana’s voice was trembling as much as she was.
“I wondered how far you would take this. You surprised me. I lost two thousand dollars when you pulled that trigger.” She got down from the table, step by careful step and lifted her brow at Montana. “You didn’t believe me, did you? That I’d put a woman in charge of this band of traditionalists?”
There was a roaring in her ears. Sound was beating at her, a white noise. She was afraid to say anything. Afraid to speak. She wished she was dead. Soon, you will be, she told herself.
Ria patted her cheek with avuncular pleasure. “But you were fun to play with, my dear. How delicious it has been. Altogether a wonderful day’s entertainment.” She took a deep breath and let it out with a contented sigh and looked at the men around them.
Someone grabbed Montana’s wrists. Wire was wrapped around them. It dug into her wrists and numbed her hands almost instantly.
“Why?” she asked Ria. Her voice was a croak.
Ria spun to face her, surprised. “Why?” she repeated, her brows lifting high.
“Why any of this? Why? You were respected, a legend. You saved people—a whole country. Saved them! Now you’re tearing down lives. More.”
“Exactly, my dear. That is why I do it.”
Montana shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I do it because I can do it. Power, my dear.” Ria smiled, her eyes sparkling. “Do you know how many history books, encyclopedias, how many chronicles my name appears in? None! Not a single tract anywhere in the world, in any language, acknowledges what I have achieved, what I did achieve in Tahir. But I will be recognized now! I will be applauded. My name will go down in history. Just you watch!”
“You’re doing all this because you weren’t famous?”
Ria gave one of her tinkling, trilling laughs. “In four days or less, I will be famous. Everyone will know my name! They will all acknowledge my power over their lives.”
Montana shook her head. She couldn’t seem to hear properly. The pressure in her head was like a staccato rattle.
The gabble of Arabic and tribal dialects checked, then halted. They were looking at each other.
Then the sound came again. It wasn’t just in her own mind. It was real. It sounded very much like real machine-gun fire would probably sound if it was in an enclosed space.
“That’s the sentries!” Bob cried. “We’re under attack! To your positions!”
The mob about her swirled and moved. Suddenly it was no longer a mob, but streams of men racing away through the five means of access to the cavern, tripping over each other, shouting at each other. They had been caught in their own warren with their guard down. Panic was close.
Ria frowned and whirled to Ghenghis Bob. “To the boat,” she declared in Arabic.
“That is where the fire is coming from!”
“Nevertheless, you must see me through to the boat. I cannot be caught here with these men.”
The cavern was nearly empty now. The machine gun fire was drawing closer. Montana could hear the sound of many voices shouting. Bob glanced at the seaward exits, then back at Ria. He dumped the Glock on the table next to her, dug into his pocket and slapped the remaining bullets beside it. “As they say,” he said in rough English. “Knock yourself out.” He turned and ran for the inner passages.
Montana hurried over to where Caden lay.
“Stop!” Ria cried. “Or I will pull the trigger, too.”
She halted and looked over her shoulder. Ria was pointing the Glock at her.
“You’re out of bullets, remember?” There hadn’t been time for her to refill the clip. Montana would have heard it if she had.
“There’s still one in the chamber.”
Montana backed up a slow step, considering. It was possible Bob had left a bullet in the chamber when he’d stripped the others from the cartridge. It was possible to hold an eleventh bullet in the gun, that way. Bob was the sort of man to take that extra caution. It was attention to details of that type that gave him the nine lives of a cat.
She took another step back and jerked her thumb towards the sea. “That gunfire is getting very close. It’s not all machine guns, either. Someone is coming, Ria. Someone with guns and they sound really pissed to me.”
Another step back.
Ria followed her, the Glock not moving off her midsection. “Who are they?” she demanded.
“How the hell would I know?” Another step.
“It has to be something you did,” Ria insisted, closing in on her fast. “I demand you tell me. I refuse to be out-foxed by a mere girl.”
Despite the numbness in her, Montana almost laughed. “Going to stamp your foot again, Ria?”
The Glock pushed up against Montana’s stomach. “I had you entirely cut off. It’s not possible that you arranged anything. You were completely alone.”
“The world is a big, magical place. Your power doesn’t reach everywhere. Perhaps that’s the cavalry coming to my rescue.”
Ria’s face flushed red with fury. “I’ve power enough to shoot you!”
Caden sat up and yanked Ria’s tiny foot out from under her. Her back and head took the impact of the flat landing. Her head connected square and hard with the solid rock. The Glock bounced and slithered away.
“I’d much rather you didn’t,” Caden told her, his deep voice rumbling in the hollow, empty cavern.
Ria’s head rolled to one side, the eyes closed.
He looked at her. His pupils were dilated with shock. “I’m still alive.” His tone held a wonder.
“Of course you are,” she said, trying to sound casual. She ripped her shirt out of her jeans and pulled the buttons undone. A couple flew off the shirt, the cotton snapping. She slid it off and bundled it up. “Can you get your tee-shirt off?”
He blinked at her. “How come I’m still here? You shot me.”
She realized he wasn’t functioning at full throttle. Physical shock could do that. So she reached into his pocket and pulled out the folding knife—they’d taken the big knife, of course. She ripped the cotton away from his shoulder with the blade, bundled up her shirt again and packed it against the wound on either side of his shoulder. Entry and exit. She clamped both hands on it, front and back.
“I aimed for a non-vital point,” she told him. The sound of firing was very close now and she had to lift her voice above it.
“You’re a crack shot, too?” He sounded peeved.
She gave a tiny shrug. “At archery,” she admitted. “I’ve never fired a gun before.”
It took him a moment to respond and then his eyes snapped fire. “You could have killed me!” He was genuinely outraged.
Laughter shook her, but she held it back. “You’ll just have to get even later. Don’t move for a bit, Caden. Whoever had the guns out there is about to come tearing through here and anyone moving is likely to be shot. I’m sure you don’t want to go through this twice.”
He swallowed. Swallowed again. “Very thirsty,” he croaked.
“That’s the shock.”
“I’m in shock. Right. Recognize it now.” He was muttering to himself. Montana suspected he was trying to get his mind clear by forcing himself to process the situation and assess his surroundings. He slowly scanned the cavern, then cocked his head to listen to the approaching force.
Finally, he looked at her. “Hey.”
“You’ll be fine,” she assured him. “It’s a straight through and through. As non-lethal as a bullet shot can get.”
Terror Stash Page 29