Stormchaser

by Cherry Adair

  Standing there in nothing but a wet suit and water shoes was not conducive to a rational conversation where she could be in control. Of course she’d need body armor for that—preferably Kevlar. And Jonah wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true. It pissed Callie off that she didn’t have much of a defense. She was wrong for the right reasons, but he wasn’t going to give a crap about that.

  “Yes,” she admitted, voice thick. “Really shitty all around. I had no idea when I agreed to Ry’s request that I’d…”

  “Discover the real Atlantis?”

  Fall in love with you. Taking a much-needed breath, she was surprised at how shaky it was. “Have feelings for you.”

  Her fingers tightened reflexively around the butt of the gun she still held. God. They were both armed. Standing six feet apart, with loaded weapons in their hands. And God knew Cutter was pissed enough to take a shot. Her fingers shook slightly as she slid the weapon onto the console. Not because she wanted to shoot Jonah, but because she was afraid she’d shoot herself in the foot by accident. Guilt mixed with anger made adrenaline surge through her body, making her jumpy and her hands damp.

  “Feelings? This.” He made an angry swirling motion with his finger. “This is feelings? Screwing me, whispering love words in my ears as you sharpen a diving knife to plunge deep between my shoulder blades?”

  There was no hint in his expression that he even remembered they’d made love barely half an hour ago. “When I came on board it was out of loyalty to my friend. My family. It wasn’t personal.” God, she was just making it worse. “I didn’t know you,” she said a little desperately. “Rydell has just cause to dislike your family, and you know it. This salvage was in my purview. I agreed to help him. No one would get hurt, except the Cutters’ monumental pride. Then I met you, and I—”

  “So your brother-in-law’s enemy is your enemy, is that it, Callie? To hell with anyone else’s feelings, dreams, and aspirations. Including, I might fucking well add, your own. Ah, I see that thought did occur to you. By screwing me, you end up screwing yourself. Because you know damn well that if some court in the land gets a wild hair up its ass, and allows Case to stake a claim for some trumped-up reason, Atlantis will be tied up in court for the next millennium. We all lose.”

  Remembering why she’d agreed to help Rydell, she drew on her buried anger. “Trumped up like what you Cutters did to him in South Africa, you mean?”

  “Is that the bullshit Rydell fed you? That my brothers trumped up that claim?”

  “Do you deny it?”

  Fury burned in every inch of his face. “A court of law denied it.”

  “Then we have nothing to discuss, do we? You believe he wronged you, he believes you wronged him.”

  “Guess we know what you believe,” he snarled back.

  The sound of her heavy heartbeat filled her head, and it felt as though an elephant sat on her chest. She wasn’t a crier, but God, she’d like to lay down her head right now and have a good sob. Which of course wouldn’t fix a damn thing. Her indecision had reared up and bitten her in the ass.

  “Are you going to let me get a word in,” she asked, keeping her voice even with effort, while her mind went a mile a minute trying to come up with something that didn’t sound as damning as it really was. “Or are you just going to stand there and be judge and jury without letting me speak my piece?”

  A muscle jerked in his cheek. “You can put your ‘piece’ in an email when you return to Miami, Doctor. Then go ahead and hit DELETE. I have no interest in any of your justifications.”

  Maintaining eye contact, Callie swallowed the lump in her throat. Going back home would give her ample time to reorder her thoughts, to come up with something that was the truth, but didn’t make her look—No. No matter what she did or said. Jonah had every right to be furious with her. If she hadn’t slept with him, maybe there would’ve been a chance of salvaging this mess. But she had, and there wasn’t.

  “Then there isn’t anything else to be said, is there?” Her voice sounded odd, calm and flat. “I’ll head back to Stormchaser and pack my stuff. I’ll be gone in an hour.”

  “You can’t go back on your own.”

  Her eyes stung, but she was damned if she’d cry. Especially in front of Jonah. Fueled by shame, her temper spiked. “I can do any damn thing I please, Jonah Cutter. Stay here and watch me on the monitor, but I don’t want you to buddy me. Not no—”

  “How did you get in here?” Anndra Spanos demanded, staring at them as if they’d suddenly materialized before her. She was wearing scuba gear, and carried a large gun as she stepped farther into the room, her brother hot on her heels. He, too, wore a black wet suit, and held a gun.

  Both weapons pointed at Jonah’s heart.

  * * *

  The first shot, a warning across the bow, hit the monitor an inch from Jonah’s head exploding into hundreds of pieces. He heard Callie’s startled half scream and leapt for her, taking her to the floor as large chunks of thick glass and monitor parts rained down on them.

  No time for words. Or recriminations. He kept his body curled over hers.

  The long console was only good protection if the gun-wielding Greeks didn’t come around the back of it. Peering over the top edge, he made out Anndra’s forehead and a portion of Kall Spanos’s face. He scooted back, trying to make Callie, and himself, smaller targets.

  Crouched as they were between two long consoles, they had some protection, but they were also trapped by their location. All the Greeks had to do was walk ten feet, and they could shoot them like fish in a barrel.

  Another shot, another monitor shattered to smithereens. The loud, reverberating ping of bullets hitting metal, the sound of glass breaking and bouncing off the cement floor, made whatever Anndra was yelling impossible to understand.

  The next shot almost grazed his fingers where he was gripping the console. He felt the wind a millimeter above his knuckles and was grateful his head was lower than his hand or he’d be toast.

  Fuck. Bad shots or calculated misses? Whichever, even a bad shot couldn’t miss hitting fish in a barrel. Spanos blocked the exit. Motioning for Callie to stay down, Jonah lifted up just far enough to peer over the edge, and squeezed off a shot in their general vicinity. The bullet ricocheted off the metal door behind them with a loud crack. Kall screamed at the same time another shot was fired. Followed by two more.

  The heavy door shut behind the Greeks. Trapping them all inside. No way would they do that to themselves. Either they were counting on reinforcements, or they had another way out.

  Fingers wrapped tightly around his ankle, Callie hissed, “Get down!”

  He didn’t need the hard tug for motivation. Jonah dropped flat. “What are you doing here, Kall?” Jonah shouted, motioning Callie to crawl beneath the console. He hoped to hell that door across the room wasn’t the fucking broom closet.

  “You talk to Kallistrate because he is the man?” Anndra laughed. “Do you think such weakness should be in charge of an operation such as this? You are all fools.” Her next shot was a hell of a lot closer.

  There was about an eighteen-inch clearance beneath the console. Jonah hoped they didn’t get stuck as he pulled Callie underneath with him.

  “What operation?” He motioned Callie to get the lead out and crawl for fucksake.

  “My cosmetic empire, Jonah Cutter.”

  Jesus. That was a ridiculous explanation if he’d ever heard one. He glanced at Callie, who shrugged. “What does any of this have to do with cosmetics? Are you harvesting some sort of ingredient that only grows—Where? In the cavern? Near the city?”

  “There is no need for further discourse,” Anndra snapped.

  “I told you we were too greedy!” Kall yelled at her. “One ingot, you promised. No one would know, you said! But did you listen when I told you the Guardians wouldn’t tolerate us coming back so often? No. You never list—It’s all ruined! You ruined it!”

  “Shut up,” Anndra screeched back. “Shu
t up! You fool!”

  All Jonah could see from his vantage point were her feet as she circled around the other way. The Greeks weren’t dicking around. They kept firing. Anndra was a great multitasker. Yelling at her brother and shooting at them simultaneously.

  “Cover me. Contact the others,” Anndra yelled at her brother. “And for God’s sake stay by the door, Now, Kall!”

  Others? Fuck. Double fuck.

  Jonah heard Anndra’s soft footfalls approaching between shots. He kept slithering on his belly beneath the dusty underbelly of the giant console. Cords and fittings draped, coiled, and snaked on the floor beneath all the electronics. He kept a wary eye out for anything sharp enough to slice through the neoprene that protected them. But neoprene sure as shit wouldn’t stop a speeding bullet.

  The other door was diagonally across the room. Not optimal for escape when he had no fucking idea what lay behind that door. But he wasn’t taking Callie through two people determined to kill them. And others.

  “That way.” He pointed with his free hand. She nodded, moving crab-like in the low space.

  “Jo-nah? Come out so I can talk to you,” Anndra cooed. But the seductive tone was ruined as two more shots hit the metal bench with loud pings that reverberated through the room.

  Callie crawled out on the other side, putting the giant console and monitors between herself and Anndra. Jonah got off several more shots, covering her until she reached the door, then raced to join her. All he could see were Callie’s trim ankles and the curve of her ass as she crouched low to get across the room, keeping the console between her and the Spanoses.

  He got off two more shots, heard Kall’s shout of pain, and bolted into to a low crouch of his own. “Go!”

  Hidden well below the top of the console, Callie sped crab-like on all fours. Jonah stayed on her ass.

  “I’ll hold them off. Try the door.” He sent up a prayer that it wasn’t locked.

  Reaching up, Callie twisted the heavy handle. The door opened a crack. Jonah got off another shot. The answering fire was a hell of a lot closer—he saw two pairs of feet beneath the console. “Go!”

  Callie pulled the door open just wide enough to slip through. Jonah fired his last shot then followed her, slamming the heavy door shut behind them, blocking the brother-and-sister duo.

  They both straightened. Callie handed him the gun she’d somehow managed to hold on to. He checked the clip. Twelve bullets.

  “Can you lock it from this side?”

  “No.” There was nothing around them to block the door or wedge beneath the handle. Jonah ripped off his water shoes. Folding them into thick pads, he shoved them under the thin door crack.

  “Your feet…”

  “The cement looks smooth enough. That won’t hold them long. Move!” They had less than a minute to get away from the door before the Greeks came through it, guns blazing. He grabbed her hand, all distrust and hurt gone in the face of their mutual survival. “Haul ass.”

  The tunnel was a smooth tube of gray cement. Human-made, six feet across, ten high, and an unidentifiable length that zigged and zagged at crazy angles. The air smelled stale, and the slap of her rubber-soled shoes on the hard surface sounded dangerously loud.

  Metal-caged bulbs every twenty-five feet kept the path dimly lit. Other than the two of them, the tunnel was empty with no indication of where it led. No one else shared their wild dash to wherever the hell they were going. But that wasn’t going to last long if Spanos actually had the friends with him that his sister had ordered.

  Suddenly the whole tunnel vibrated, followed by an undulating roll beneath their feet. Callie’s steps faltered as she staggered, slapping a hand on the wall for balance as the lights overhead swayed. “God, is that a quake?”

  Jonah grabbed her other hand, keeping her tethered to him, not to keep her moving—she was doing that on her own—but he had a sudden, terrible fear that they’d become separated. That she’d need him and he’d be fuck only knew where. He tugged her against his side. “They wouldn’t be stupid enough to start a quake while they’re in here with us—”

  The quake continued, rolling beneath their feet like a waking beast as they ran. “Shit, maybe they are that stupid.” He spared a moment of concern for his dive team, who’d be surfacing to wait it out.

  Jonah kept the momentum as best he could. They’d turned several corners, still with no fucking idea where they were, and when they might reach a destination. But any second now that door back there was going to bust open and someone was going to be right on their asses. “Keep moving.”

  The opening slam of the door behind them made them put on more speed. There was a sharp corner ahead about ten feet …

  He heard the passing of the bullet before he felt the wind as it grazed his cheek. Jonah tightened his fingers around Callie’s.

  “Unless they each brought another clip,” she told him, her breath raw and uneven as she ran, “they have ten bullets between them.”

  “You counted the bullets?”

  “I couldn’t tell who shot what, but together, yeah.” She shot him a smile. “Where would the ‘others’ come from? Are we going to run smack into them, do you think—Oh, my God, look!”

  They almost fell over a kid-sized jeep as they rounded the next corner at a dead run.

  Jonah started squeezing by it; there was only a couple of feet. “We can run faster than a golf cart! Come on.”

  Callie hung back, tugging his hand. “We can go faster in this. Ry—my friend has one. They can usually travel at about twenty miles an hour, thirty feet a second, Jonah. Faster than we can run. Come on.”

  What the hell? Incongruously, the cart was plugged into an outlet near the floor. Jonah yanked out the cord. “Let’s do it.” He didn’t fucking need a reminder that Callie had betrayed him and worked for his family’s enemy. But that was a conversation for another time.

  It took moments to climb on and start it up. He wanted the beefy roar of a Harley engine; what he got was the pissy purr of a battery-operated golf cart. The vehicle took up most of the passageway, but once it got going, it did seem to travel at a fast clip. At least they were putting distance between themselves and whoever was following them.

  There were no more gunshots. That was a blessing. However, there was another danger. The quake continued, shaking the walls and ceiling. The cart had a hard top. But it wasn’t going to last long as huge chunks of cement started fracturing from the top of the tunnel to pummel them. They winced every time a rock made a dent in the roof. Any minute one of the sharp projectiles would slice through it, and then they’d be screwed.

  A chunk the size of a loaf of bread thunked off the top, continued its downward trajectory, and sliced open his arm before shattering on impact on the ground. Jonah hissed out a curse.

  “Ho-w b-ad is it?” Callie yelled over the din of crashing cement. Her teeth clicked together with the vibration of the floor.

  The slice in his favorite wet suit pissed him off more than the hot trickle of blood. “Scratch.”

  There didn’t appear to be an end to the labyrinth of tunnels. And he was fucking done with shit falling on them, gaps in the floor, and the potential of Anndra, Kall, and “others” right on their asses. When he got out of this fucking hellhole he’d have nightmares about this little trip through a rockfall of cement with gun-wielding Greeks after them. He floored the pedal. None of this made any damn sense.

  “What has that room got to do with cosmetics? And who built it, for what purpose?” Callie raised her voice over the din, reading his mind, although with the vibrations and sound of crashing cement it wasn’t that easy to understand her.

  “When? Why? And fucking how? Hell if I know.” Large chunks of cement continued to rain down as the thick tires of the golf cart spanned an inch-wide crack in the floor.

  Callie applied the nonexistent brake on her side of the floorboard as Jonah took that gap, gunning the piss-poor engine so it went a millimeter faster. Callie’s elbow bumped
his shoulder as she rested her arm on the seat twisting to see behind them.

  “The tunnel’s collapsing in on itself.” Other than the vibration of her voice she sounded calm and matter-of-fact. Thank God she was cool under pressure, because Jonah was scared enough for both of them. “No one could be sneaking up behind us. The entire ceiling back there is now on the ground, and the floor has fissures a foot or more wide. Someone’s setting off this quake. Clearly they have no idea of the consequences of this kind of unnatural disruption.”

  “Or they do, and don’t give a flying fuck.”

  The ceiling still crashed around them. Bigger slabs broke apart in a cacophony of noise, and clouds of dust and debris, causing them to cough as they squinted to see through the thick air.

  The collapsing tunnel was going to bury them alive.

  Nineteen

  Callie let out a startled scream as, one-handed, Jonah grabbed her arm, yanking her down off the seat of the golf cart while it was still in motion. She barely had her feet on the ground when he pulled her into a flat-out run. The cart careened into the wall behind them.

  He had the gun in his right hand, although she had no idea who he planned to shoot. Everyone behind them must be dead beneath the rubble by now. Breaking her out of a nanosecond reverie, he jerked her forward when she didn’t move fast enough.

  “If they were the bad guys,” she shouted, trying to keep up with his long, running strides, “and the bad guys are dead, who’s causing the earthquake?” Her voice jiggled like Jell-O as her entire body shook. Somewhere along the way she’d lost one water shoe, and her braid flapped on her back as she ran. It wasn’t easy. He was taller, stronger, and more athletic than she was.

  “Does it fucking matter? Don’t waste your breath talking. Run!”