Haunted Echoes

by Cindy Dees

  Who did she know that might ask her to check up on guys like these? I didn’t voice the question aloud, for there wasn’t time to nitpick details at the moment. That machine was set to fire in a few minutes, and I had no doubt Robert was toast as soon as it did.

  Ginny whispered, “I’ll see if I can draw the other men around to the far side of the machine away from Robert and the guy with the gun. Then, you jump the guy with the gun and overpower him.”

  Overpower him? Me? I must’ve looked skeptical because she added, “Robert will help you, of course.”

  Of course.

  She continued. “Use something heavy and conk the guy over the head. Just don’t make any noise, or we’re all in the soup. Agreed?”

  I can’t say as I liked that plan very much. The risks were huge to her and to me. But I didn’t have any better ideas, and we had only a few minutes to get in there and stop the disaster. Reluctantly, I nodded my agreement to Ginny.

  We headed back for the mouth of the tunnel, and I pulled the pickax out of the rope slung across my back. I hefted it warily. Long before I was ready, Ginny straightened up, gave her hair a quick toss and strode right out into the middle of the room. I lurked deep in the shadows, out of sight.

  The Italians squawked in surprise, and one of them exclaimed, “Dottore Moon? Che cosa state facendo qui?”

  My jaw dropped. That guy had just said, “Dr. Moon? What are you doing here?” Doctor Moon? The Doctor Moon? That petite brunette was the most wanted art thief in Europe? Was she the one who’d stolen the Black Madonna statue? Was she in league with these Italian thugs? Oh, God. Had I just walked into a trap and sealed Robert’s fate, as well?

  Should I scrap Ginny’s—Dr. Moon’s—plan and charge in now to rescue Robert, or should I wait and see what she did? After all, she and Robert used to work together. Did the thieves’ code of honor extend to helping out old colleagues in a pinch? Why in the world was she down in this cave, anyway? Was she already here working with the Italians? Had she followed us? The sailor in Italy did say someone small and sneaky had been hanging around the dock all day. Should I trust her or not?

  “Hey, boys.” Ginny drawled in Italian. She sashayed forward, her hips twitching with catlike allure. “How’s it coming?”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” one of the men burst out.

  “Checking up on you, of course,” she said smoothly and with just a hint of menace. “You didn’t think our employer would let something this important go unsupervised, did you?”

  The Italians didn’t miss the threat in her tone. “Everything’s fine,” the spokesman said.

  “Then why do you have some guy kneeling over there with a gun pointed at him?”

  “He says he’s a geo-something-or-other. Was exploring the cave. Inconvenient, but we’ve got him handled.”

  Ginny nodded casually and strolled over to the machine. “And how’s this contraption coming along? Is it ready to go?”

  “We’re powering it up now,” one of the men said eagerly. “Your timing is perfect. You’re here just in time to see us fire it.”

  “Of course, my timing is perfect,” Ginny retorted scornfully. “Show me how this monster works.” And with that, she strode around to the far side of the machine, the three Italians following along as obediently as puppies.

  Now. I had my opening. Did I dare take it? I paused, torn in an agony of indecision. To choose incorrectly would cost Robert his life. But then Jane all but kicked me in the behind and I found myself lurching forward.

  I regained control of my limbs and eased forward carefully while Ginny continued to talk one of the smoothest lines of bull I’d ever heard. The woman had a golden tongue. I bet she’d pulled off a couple of her thefts simply by talking people into handing works of art over to her. She grilled the men in detail over the machine, keeping them thoroughly occupied while I inched forward into the cave.

  I kept to the darkest shadows I could, making my way along the wall toward where Robert knelt. I couldn’t see him from here, but he was just around the end of the machine. I thought he might have glimpsed me as I first slipped into the room, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I froze as Ginny and the men came into view, circling the machine. I was totally exposed. There was nowhere to hide between me and the tunnel I’d come out of. Ginny said something in animated Italian too fast for me to follow. She took a couple steps toward the far side of the machine. Stopped. Gesticulated with her hands some more. Took another couple steps. It was ever so subtle, but gradually she led the guys out of sight again. Now I just had to hope my thug hadn’t turned around to watch.

  I heard Robert mumble something to his guard. Bless him. He was drawing the guard’s attention to himself for me. Smart man. I heard a dull thud. Kind of like a fist burying itself in a stomach. An oompf of expelled air accompanied the noise.

  I went around the corner low and fast. The guy was leaning over Robert, his fist drawn back for another blow. On silent, furious feet, I darted right up behind him and swung the flat side of the pickax at the back of the guy’s head. At the very last second he turned his head—he must have glimpsed the movement behind him. Oh, God. I was going to kill the guy! I tried to pull my swing, to break the force of the impact, but I only partially succeeded.

  The blow caught him in the temple, dropping him like a rock. Robert scrambled awkwardly to his feet. He was moving injured. He started to head back toward the tunnel I’d come out of, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm. I pointed at the machine and drew my finger across my throat in a slashing motion.

  He shook his head vigorously in the negative.

  We had no choice. It would be a national disaster if this thing were allowed to fire. Businesses would fail. Lives would be ruined. The economy would be thrown into recession and chaos. People would die. And besides that, he and I both needed to redeem our reputations. And maybe it went even deeper than that. Maybe we both needed to do something heroic and noble to convince ourselves that we were worthy. Worthy of what, I don’t know. Just worthy. I didn’t have time to reason it out any more deeply than that.

  Robert rolled his eyes and took the pickax from me. He lifted it high over his head and took a mighty swing at the ground. Or rather, at the thick electrical cable leading to the machine that was laying on the ground. Sparks jumped like crazy when the blade bit into the thick wire. Thankfully, the ax had a wooden handle, so he wasn’t electrocuted when he hit that live wire. Robert yanked the tool free and raised it to swing again.

  And all hell broke loose.

  The guy on the floor behind us yelled out. Apparently, my blow had only dazed him and he chose that incredibly inconvenient moment to wake up. The other men came charging around the end of the machine with Ginny behind them. I dived for the gun Robert’s guard had dropped when I hit him. Robert changed the swing of his pickax and took aim at the nearest guy charging him from behind the machine.

  I wasn’t going to be able to pick up the guard’s gun first. So I did the next best thing. I kicked the guy’s hand just as it wrapped around the pistol. I booted the weapon out of his grasp in a high arc. It landed in the pond with a satisfying plop. The guy lying at my feet howled in pain, but still managed to grab my ankle. He gave a good yank and I went sprawling. I rolled over, kicking and hitting for all I was worth. I landed several solid blows in quick succession, and the guy pushed to his hands and knees and tried to crawl clear of my flailing limbs.

  I needed something heavy to hit him with. You’d think in a cave there’d be rocks everywhere, but no. The floor was as bare as my living room. Dammit! I swung my trusty rucksack off my shoulder and gave a swing with it. Something heavy and hard inside it connected with the back of the guy’s neck, and he dropped to the floor again. This time I hoped he was dead.

  “Behind you,” a wispy voice breathed from the vicinity of the pond.

  I whirled around, swinging my rucksack as I did. I clobbered the guy from the park in Paris in the side. He grunted,
righted himself and kept on coming. But that pause gave me an instant to catch my balance. I windmilled my right arm down and back, circling it up over my head and slinging the rucksack down on top of the guy’s head. He threw up his arms to ward off the blow, and I let fly with my left foot.

  My toes slammed into the softness of his groin until they ground against bone. The guy let out a deafening scream that echoed through the vaulted space. Needless to say, he dropped to the floor. He was going to be incapacitated for a good long while.

  I looked for Robert. He was squared off against the biggest guy of the bunch. For her part, Ginny was facing a guy who towered over her, as well.

  Abruptly, I noticed an ozone smell starting to fill the air. Oh, crap. The machine was getting close to charged. I looked around frantically for the pickax, but saw no sign of it anywhere.

  “Ginny!” I yelled. “We’ve got to stop the machine!”

  She charged toward me, drawing her attacker with her. What was she up to? She took a flying leap that was nothing short of spectacular and landed on top of the engine housing. Another leap, and she was on top of the whole contraption.

  “Don’t touch the plates!” I shouted. “You’ll be electrocuted!” She might also discharge the machine by accident. And even if it were only ninety or ninety-five percent charged, that might be enough to fry the power grid, anyway. I glimpsed her starting to yank wires running from the plates to the ray gun free of their connections, and then the guy who’d been chasing her was on me.

  He was big. And strong. And mad. And I was in serious trouble. He knocked aside the meanest, hardest blows I could aim at him and charged me, wrapping his thick arms around me and crushing me to his chest. My arms were forced around the guy’s waist, and I could only pound ineffectually at his ribs through his heavy jacket.

  It was no love hug, let me tell you. My ribs were so crushed I couldn’t even draw a breath. It felt like a thirty-foot-long anaconda had me in its coils. I stomped on his feet, kicked at his knees, and bit at whatever I could get my mouth on, which turned out to be his leather coat. None of it did a lick of good.

  The room went gray, and then my vision narrowed down to a tiny tunnel with a bright, white light at the end.

  “Ana!” I heard Robert shout hoarsely from a great distance.

  “The statue. Use the statue,” a voice whispered in my ear.

  How? I was being suffocated, here. I couldn’t breathe a piece of stone…but I could hit my assailant with it. Using the very last ounce of my strength, I swung the rucksack up toward the back of my attacker’s head. My forearm and the bag were just the right length to connect with the back of the guy’s skull.

  The arms around me went slack and the guy staggered back. I drew a great, sobbing breath and swung again. I felt as much as heard the Lady crack inside my bag as it connected with the guy’s face. And a piece of my heart cracked along with it. Oh, God. Elise.

  And then Ginny shouted, “Robert, look out!”

  That pesky bastard I’d knocked out twice already was back up. He was charging straight at Robert’s back, the pickax raised high in the air. And there was no way I could get there in time to stop the blow.

  Time shifted into suspended animation. I turned, my mouth opening slowly to scream. My hair floated across my face with the force of my turn, which took a lifetime to complete. “Nnnnnnoooooooo,” I articulated as if I had a mouthful of cold molasses.

  My hands lifted by slow inches to ward off a blow they could not reach. Robert half turned, his forearm beginning to rise to take the blow. The pickax started its downward arc. Inch by deadly inch it fell, its ten-inch-long spike aimed directly at the center of Robert’s forehead. My life—our life—that could have been flashed before my eyes. A beautiful, intimate wedding in the Highlands. Children. Laughter. Quiet moments. An old age rich with wonderful memories. A lifetime of passion so beautiful it could make a soul weep.

  And it was all about to end.

  But then a dark shape came flying past me, and when I say flying, I mean literally. Airborne. Sailing past overhead. I made out the blur. It was Ginny. She’d leaped off the top of the machine and slammed feet first into the chest of the guy with the pickax. Not only did her boots knock the pickax out of the guy’s hands, but the force of her impact threw him backward to the floor like he’d just been hit by a Mack truck. His head made a sickening, crunching noise like a stalk of celery being broken in half. I seriously doubted he was going to be getting up after that hit for a while—if ever.

  Time abruptly resumed its normal flow and a pool of blood spread rapidly under the downed man’s head. Ginny rolled to the side, holding on to her knee as if she’d done serious damage to the joint.

  I spun to face my attacker. He’d stumbled and fallen to his knees. He wasn’t unconscious, but he was in no condition to fight. I headed for Robert to check his condition.

  And then a beeper went off behind me. Somehow, I just knew that sound meant the ray gun was charged up and ready to fire. I turned around in time to see the guy on his knees stagger to his feet, his right index finger outstretched toward the control panel on the side of the engine. A single thought passed through my head.

  Oh, shit.

  I made a running dive for the guy’s feet. It would’ve been a blatantly illegal move in my family’s flag-football games back home, but fortunately, my brothers and I hadn’t always followed the rules. I hit the guy in the side of the left knee. My momentum carried me through both of his lower legs, knocking his feet out from under him. He fell across me heavily, pinning me to the floor. The two of us struggled, but it was mainly about disentangling ourselves, as opposed to an actual fight.

  I rolled to my feet first and raised my rucksack and its ruined statue high in threat. Anaconda boy subsided, sitting on his bottom on the floor and putting both hands behind his neck without any prompting. I was tempted to pat his head and say, “Good boy.”

  I moved over toward the control panel, being careful to keep every last Italian squarely in my field of vision. I had to give them credit. They’d been a persistent bunch.

  While I stared down at the panel of gauges, Robert brandished the pickax and kept our foes from getting any cute ideas. I had no idea which button to push to turn the thing off. “Robert, could you finish severing that electrical wire?”

  “Sure thing.” He swung the pickax several times and neatly severed the incoming power cord.

  I frowned. “That’ll stop it from charging any more, but it won’t make any difference now that the negative charge is stored on the plates. We’ll have to discharge this thing or else let it sit for a long time while the ambient air bleeds off the charge. It could take hours or days to bring this thing down to a safe level.”

  “Why don’t we fire it, then?” Ginny gritted out from between clenched teeth, sounding as if she were in serious pain.

  It wasn’t a half-bad idea. All we’d have to do was aim it at something harmless. Hmm. I had no idea if any of the walls in here were harmless. I worried that ley lines crisscrossed through all of them, en route to their intersection beneath the pond. “What if we point the ray gun at the ceiling?”

  Robert and Ginny nodded. I made my way over to the business end of the weapon. Very gingerly, I grabbed the back end of the gun and tugged down on it. The contraption was incredibly heavy and took all my strength to swing it up and away from the pond. When I had it pointed at the ceiling, I turned to the capacitor to have a look at it.

  “This thing is going to give off a gigantic electromagnetic pulse. I don’t know how safe it’ll be to be anywhere near it when it goes.” But I knew how to find out. I turned to the Italian who had answered most of Ginny’s questions about the machine. “I’m tying you up and leaving you in this room when we blow Big Bertha, here.”

  His eyes bugged out.

  Okay, then. That answered that. We didn’t want to be in the same room with this sucker when it went off. I studied the capacitor some more.

  “Maybe
if we ease the sheets of insulation out slowly, one by one, we can bleed down the charge on the machine enough to reduce its blast to a safe level,” I suggested.

  Robert nodded his agreement. “When I first got in here, I thought I saw one of the men using levers of some kind on the other side of the machine to move some big white sheets into slots. I didn’t see any more than that, though. I was somewhat occupied at the time.”

  Yeah. Getting his brains beat out. I glared at his captors as I stomped around the far side of the machine. Bingo. A whole row of long handles pointed up at the ceiling. A sizzling noise greeted the motion as negatively charged ions leaped across the gap to link up with their positively charged counterparts on the opposing plate. One by one, I eased each insulating panel down, gradually bleeding off the stored energy. It took nearly ten minutes, but at the end of the day, I thought the machine was largely powered down.

  “I think we could fire it relatively safely now and get rid of the rest of the charge.”

  Nonetheless, I made Ginny and Robert take cover on the far side of the room while I reached for the silver-dollar-sized red button on the control panel. Here went nothing.

  I flinched as a bolt of energy shot out of the ray gun like a lightning bolt into a black night. A crack of noise deafened me, while the flash of light nearly blinded me. As afterimages of that beam of light streaked across my field of vision, I prayed I hadn’t just collapsed the entire French power grid. There. With the power cord cut, this machine was now useless. Just to be safe, though, Robert took the pickax to the generator and the control panel. He made short order of the doomsday machine.

  I headed for the tunnel entrance where Robert and Ginny had taken cover. They were talking quietly when I approached.

  Robert broke off and wrapped his arms around me tightly. “Could you please not fire off any more ray guns any time soon? My heart couldn’t take it.”

  “Neither could mine,” I mumbled against his chest.

  He said, “Ginny and I aren’t in any shape to hike out to the surface alone and call for help. I feel as if I’ve been worked over with a baseball bat, and Ginny’s done something to her knee. She’s in significant pain and the joint won’t bend at all.”