Hellhound stopped, his hands rising slowly in a placating gesture. “Okay, Cap. It’s okay, I ain’t comin’ any closer. Nobody’s gotta die.”
“John…” I began.
“Shut up.”
His flat words hit me like a slap, but the tiniest quiver of Kane’s eyelid made me hope he wasn’t as far gone as he looked. Maybe he was still protecting us. When the police came, we could honestly say we couldn’t have stopped him.
Hellhound took a slow step back. “Okay, so what’s goin’ on?” he said conversationally.
“We’re going for a walk in the woods,” Kane snapped. “Move.” He shoved Murphy forward.
Murphy limped a couple of paces. “We have to take the quad,” he whispered. “It’s over half a mile. I can’t walk that far. And there are bears-”
Kane’s knife hand flashed back and forward so quickly that for an instant I thought he’d stabbed Murphy. Murphy let out a wrenching cry and fell, writhing in agony.
Hellhound winced. “Don’t worry, Kane didn’t really let him have it,” he muttered out the side of his mouth. “He’ll piss blood for a week, but he’ll live.”
So that’s what a kidney punch looked like. I made a mental note to avoid receiving one at all costs.
“Looks like he’s already pissing blood,” I whispered back, nodding toward the stains on Murphy’s jeans.
“Get up,” Kane said coldly. “Whine like that again and I’ll give you something to really whine about.” He jerked Murphy to his feet and pushed the knife against his back again. “Walk.”
Doubled over gasping and whimpering, Murphy tottered toward a quad trail that disappeared into the woods next to a sign stating, ‘Private Sporting Club. Members Only. No Hunting. No Trespassing’.
“Not on the trail.” Kane steered him roughly by the back of the neck into the forest.
We hiked more or less in silence. Murphy emitted quiet groans and whimpers whenever the uneven ground jarred his body or he had to step over a log. He and Kane went first, and Hellhound and I followed.
Sweat trickled under my hair and down my spine.
Should I take off the jacket?
No. If I got shot while carrying a state-of-the-art bulletproof jacket in my backpack, I deserved to die. I compromised by leaving it open and flapping it back and forth in an attempt to gather the slightest cooling breeze.
After about ten minutes of walking, Hellhound moved closer to mutter, “This feels like an ambush to me. We’re still beside that quad trail. What d’ya wanna bet he’s got a buncha buddies at the end waitin’ for us?”
“No bet,” I murmured back. “Sporting club, my ass. Bunch of rednecks with hunting bows is my guess. Guns if we’re really unlucky. Do you think John knows?”
Hellhound shot a doubtful look at Kane’s rigid back. “Hope so. Problem is, we won’t know if they’re innocent or not ‘til they make a move.”
I sighed. “Well, I might be able to level the playing field a bit.” I donned the special sunglasses, toggling up the amplification until the ambient sounds of the forest and our shoes crunching through the undergrowth was nearly uncomfortable. Then I pulled the crowd-control baton out of my backpack.
Hellhound eyed it with interest. “That ain’t standard-issue.”
I shouldered the pack again and kept walking, baton in hand. “Nope.”
Our whispers reverberated inside my head as though we were shouting, and I suppressed a wince. Chow had better be right about that sound-equalization circuit, or if somebody sneezed nearby my head would explode.
“Cool,” Hellhound whispered. “How does it-”
I jerked up a silencing hand at the sound of a slow silvery hiss I’d heard a thousand times before.
An arrow sliding stealthily along an arrow-rest. Adrenaline punched into my veins and I scanned wildly.
Camo-clad archer in a tree-stand coming up to full draw.
Too late, I swung up the ultrasound baton.
Chapter 42
Launching myself between Kane and the archer, I hit the trigger on the baton an instant before a hard blow to my shoulder knocked me out of the air and spun me to land facedown on the ground.
Thumps and violent rustlings.
A quickly-aborted yelp of pain.
The sound of vomiting.
Footsteps crashed through the undergrowth and I rolled fast, swinging up the baton only to jerk it aside at the sight of Hellhound’s wild-eyed face. He dove to his knees beside me, his hands rapidly exploring my body.
“Where ya hit, darlin’?” he demanded.
“I’m okay.” I flexed my shoulder slowly.
“No fuckin’ way.” He continued his careful examination. “Broadhead’ll go right through ya. You’re in shock…”
“No, really.” I grasped his hands and sat up. “It bounced off. This jacket is bulletproof and blade-proof.”
“Fuck… off.” Hellhound sat back on his heels, staring. “Nothin’ stops a broadhead, not even Kevlar.”
I shrugged and stretched out the neck of my T-shirt so he could see the reddening mark on my shoulder. “Ta-da. It hurts like hell, but it’s not as bad as getting shot in a bulletproof vest.”
“Well, fuck me.” Hellhound traced the edge of the bruise with a feather-light fingertip.
“Later,” I promised, and he rewarded me with a grin.
We both rose and regarded Kane staring empty-eyed at Murphy’s sprawled body. My already-racing heart doubled its pace.
“Is he… dead?” I whispered.
“No. He tried to run and I knocked him out.”
The archer was still vomiting behind us, and a memory niggled.
Reggie Chow saying, ‘the harder you try to move or focus your eyes, the harder you puke’.
I whirled in time to see a throwing knife flash from the archer’s hand, but spasms wracked his body and the knife bounced harmlessly off a log to land at my feet.
Glancing up at Hellhound, I froze as the personality I had secretly named ‘The Killer’ emptied his face of all emotion. In a couple of quick strides he crossed to the archer. Seizing one of the scattered arrows, he crouched beside the man, who tried to struggle away and only succeeded in retching harder.
Hellhound reached out to clinically palpate the man’s inner thigh while I watched uncomprehending. Then he wedged the nock of the arrow into the soft ground and in a single fast motion lifted the man and dropped his thigh on the upturned point of the arrow.
The blades sliced home as his body fell. Bright blood fountained.
Gurgling on vomit and strangled screams, the man thrashed helplessly while his lifeblood squirted from a severed femoral artery. His struggles grew feebler, then ceased as the rhythmic spurting weakened and slowed to a dribble.
Stunned, I stood staring, my stomach twisting.
“Oughta wear a safety harness in a tree-stand,” Hellhound said dispassionately. “Pretty dangerous if ya fall on your arrows.”
Kane nodded and crouched beside Murphy, fingering his pulse. “Still out,” he grunted. “Damn, I shouldn’t have hit him so hard. I wonder how many more of those there are.” He jerked his chin toward the blood-soaked heap of camo.
I was still staring at Hellhound. Did the gentle, good-natured musician step back willingly when The Killer surfaced? Or did The Killer imprison the true Arnie against his will, crushing him even while he fought to escape?
My gentle Arnie was back, his face creased with concern. “Aydan?” he asked softly. He reached toward me, but lowered his hand without touching me, self-loathing rising in his eyes as he took in my expression.
In another moment he’d be lost to me; hating himself too much to let me in…
“Damn, I hope that guy wasn’t a member of our archery association,” I said shakily. “Or our insurance premiums are going to go through the roof.”
Shock chased across Arnie’s face, followed by relief. I held out my arms and he came into them in a short fierce hug.
“Thanks, darlin�
��,” he whispered into my hair, then pulled away and faced Kane. “Awright, ya fuckin’ dumbass,” he said gently. “Spill it.”
“Daniel’s here.” Kane’s eyes burned with intensity. “Murphy said he’d take me to him.”
“Okay,” Hellhound said. “So let’s call the cops an’-”
“No! He might be lying. We’ll only get one chance. Once the police are involved he could clam up and refuse to tell them anything.”
“I get it, but, Cap…” Hellhound jerked his chin at the crumpled body of the archer. “Murphy’s leadin’ us into an ambush. Let’s take him back, wake him up, an’ make him tell us exactly where-”
“I don’t think so,” Kane interrupted. “I took Murphy by surprise so he wouldn’t have had a chance to arrange an ambush. That man…” He nodded at the fallen archer. “…had cause to shoot at me, especially if he knew Murphy. And he probably did, if they both belong to this sporting club. He saw me pushing his friend along at knifepoint and correctly guessed that it was a life-threatening situation. Even if he’d killed me, he likely would have been acquitted in court.”
“He tried to kill Aydan,” Hellhound said in The Killer’s flat voice. “An’ we dunno how many more there are.”
“I can find out.” I swung my backpack down and pulled out the control unit and the box of flies whose buzzing had been driving me slowly insane in the enhanced audio. “Here we go.”
Sliding open the box’s cover, I recoiled as the swarm of insects boiled up toward my face. A quick press of the button transferred them to Hellhound, then to Kane, Murphy, and the downed archer before a final button press sent them on their way.
“What the fuck was that!” Hellhound exploded.
“Tracking and mapping system.” I tilted the control panel toward them and pointed out the clustered dots that indicated our position. “Now we just have to wait.” I shouldered my pack again and watched the screen.
Hellhound stared open-mouthed, and even Kane managed a quirk of his mouth that looked almost like a smile. “Looks like somebody’s been making friends with Reggie Chow.”
I grinned. “I’m his new favourite.”
Hellhound grunted. “His only favourite, I’d say. He’s as warm an’ fuzzy as a fuckin’ alligator.”
“Actually, I kind of like him,” I began, then broke off as another dot appeared on the screen. I pressed the button, and another dot formed immediately beside the first. Then another and another.
“Aw, fuck,” Hellhound muttered as more dots crowded the screen.
A few minutes later I stared at the screen, my heart sinking. “Seventeen people. All clustered just over that rise. And it looks as though this one’s another sentry.” I tapped the outlying dot between us and the cluster. “John, I think Arnie’s right, we should-”
“Aydan…” Hellhound interrupted quietly, and something in his voice sent icy shivers down my spine. “Does your puke-stick work on bears?”
Heart jackhammering my ribcage, I turned slowly.
“Back away,” Kane whispered. “Nice and easy.”
He hoisted Murphy’s flaccid body up into a fireman’s carry and we all followed his lead, stepping cautiously.
“Is that a grizzly?” Kane breathed as the giant bear moved closer, its glistening black nose twitching while it scented the air.
“Yep, that’s a grizzly,” I babbled in a high-pitched breathy whisper. “Little round ears, dished face, big hump on its back, big fucking claws, that’s a grizzly all right, yep, yep, yep…”
My Glock was trembling in my hand, but I couldn’t imagine nine-millimetre bullets doing anything but annoying the huge animal.
My pulse rocketed up into heart-attack range as crashing in the woods to our left resolved into a second grizzly triangulating toward us.
“Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuckety-fuck…” I forced my trembling legs to keep backing away slowly. The audio amplification in my sunglasses was no damn comfort at all. Behind me and to my left I could hear Kane’s and Hellhound’s accelerated breathing and the rapid percussive duet of their heartbeats.
The bears didn’t even look our way. Their attention was riveted on the sour smell of vomit, still detectable even to my inadequate human nose. To the bears it must have smelled like a glorious buffet. As we backed over a rise, my last sight was of their muzzles dipping down toward the archer’s body.
But the sound of tearing cloth and flesh and the nauseating pop of bones was all too clear in my ears.
Hands shaking violently, I muted the audio.
“Well, I vote to go forward instead of back the way we came,” Kane whispered.
Hellhound and I nodded in fervent silence as a third grizzly ambled by about fifteen yards away, nose twitching in the direction of the buffet.
“How many a’ these fuckin’ things are there?” Hellhound demanded in a whisper. “I thought they were supposed to be fuckin’ endangered.”
“I don’t know.” I unmuted my audio, trying to ignore the slurping and crunching from over the rise. There was no more crackling of large bodies moving through the woods, but I caught the not-too-distant sound of buzzing and frantically rustling cloth.
“Shit, I forgot about my flies!” I pressed the homing button on the control box I was still clutching with nerveless fingers, then slid open the storage box. A breath of relief and some brushing sounds carried to my ears, and I kept my voice low. “The other sentry is right beside us. He must be just far enough down the hill that he can’t see us.”
“How d’ya know, darlin’?” Hellhound inquired. “Ya got some other gear we don’t know about?”
“Yep.” I tapped the sunglasses. “Massive audio boost. I just heard a squirrel fart three trees away.”
He snickered, then sobered, his eyes widening. “You’re serious.”
“Yeah. Well, not about the squirrel, but that’s how I knew the archer was there. I heard his arrow sliding on the arrow rest.”
“Fuckin’ cool!”
The swarm of flies returned to their box and I closed it with a shudder and stowed everything in my backpack again.
“So I wonder…”
“What they’re guardin’?” Hellhound finished. “Prob’ly that.”
I followed the direction of his pointing finger without comprehension for a moment. Then the forest of tree trunks resolved itself into a stockade wall.
“Holy shit.” I moved downhill a few paces, trying to get a sense of the size of the structure. A row of timbers with the bark still on them soared about twenty feet tall, the tips tapered to points. The wall marched off into the distance a good fifty yards or so, and by ducking my head I spotted the opposite corner that formed a roughly square enclosure. A large and forbidding iron door was centred on the wall, its heavy latch and welded cross-banding looking like the entrance to a medieval castle.
“I think that’s where the other sentry is,” I murmured. “Guarding the gate.”
“Man, what are these guys doin’ out here?” Hellhound asked.
“Daniel must be inside,” Kane growled. “They’re guarding the gate so he can’t escape.” Sweat stained his T-shirt, and I finally brained up to the fact that he’d been holding Murphy over his shoulders all this time.
“Why don’t you put him down?” I suggested.
“Right.” He shook his head as if waking up and lowered Murphy to the ground, then crouched beside him. “He’s still out. Dammit.”
Hellhound and I exchanged a glance, sharing the worry that Murphy might not wake up ever again.
“We’ll go circle the perimeter an’ see…” Hellhound began, but a slow shiver of realization made me hold up a restraining hand.
“What?” Kane demanded.
Oh, God. This was bad.
“Remember how I said I could hear a squirrel fart?” I asked faintly. They both nodded, worry rising on their faces at the sight of my expression. “Well, I just realized I can’t hear anything else. Just ambient forest noise.”
When they didn�
��t respond right away, I added, “There are seventeen people inside that stockade and I should be able to hear normal conversation. But not a single one of them is saying a word. And…”
I didn’t want to say it, but I had to. “I can hear whimpering.”
Kane went chalk-white. “Let me see the mapping again,” he hissed.
When I handed over the control box he jabbed a shaking finger at the dots that were separated from the others. “Here’s the sentry outside the gate. This must be a guard directly inside the gate. And here are three other guards off at angles. Surrounding that cluster of people.” He looked up, the muscles in his jaw standing out like cables. “It’s a hostage situation. They’re holding the children in there!”
“We gotta call the cops,” Hellhound said, and pulled out his cell phone.
“No!” Kane’s hand shot out to stop him. “It’s a fortified structure. One entrance, guarded. You know how this goes. Negotiations. Hostages dying.” His eyes burned with feverish intensity. “And you know how it ends. I won’t take that chance.”
“John,” I said gently. “You’re reacting to an old trauma here-”
“No, I’m reacting to what I’ve learned,” he snapped. “I’ve been there, done that. Learned my lesson. No more negotiating while innocent people die. Especially not my son. I’m going in.”
He turned toward the sentry and Hellhound seized his arm. Kane went deadly still, glaring at Hellhound. Suppressed violence crackled in the air.
“I ain’t gonna stop ya,” Hellhound said firmly. “But we gotta have a plan if we’re gonna make this work.”
Kane drew a deep breath, visibly fighting his need to batter his way inside, through a solid log wall if necessary. “You’re right. I’ll circle around the back of the structure so I can avoid the bears and get back to the quad trail. Then I’ll walk up the quad trail in plain sight. When they challenge me, I’ll tell them I’m a new member and I was supposed to meet Scot. His truck is in the parking lot, but I can’t find him. That should get me through the gate.”
“Maybe. But then what?” I demanded. “You don’t have a clue what you’re getting into. Even if you take my gun, one of those guards can probably take you out before you can drop all of them. Here, take the ultrasound baton-”
The Spies That Bind Page 34