WAR: Intrusion

by Vanessa Kier

  The sound of several booted feet announced the arrival of a small group of rebels. They burst into the cavern and immediately began firing in Lachlan’s direction.

  He lunged into the protection of the stalagmites.

  The women were behind the large rock formation he’d used as one of his sniper platforms. As bullets shattered the stalagmites behind them, he grabbed Helen’s hand.

  “Run!” he ordered, pulling her forward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her take hold of Mrs. N’Dorah. With the women stumbling along beside him, Lachlan ran toward the perimeter corridor.

  The rebels in the cavern blocked the exit to the main entrance. In a break between bursts of gunfire, he heard more soldiers running toward them along the perimeter corridor. Damn it, that left only the ancillary passage as a place to escape. If there wasn’t a door that he could close, the rebels would end up herding Lachlan and the woman right into Natchaba’s arms.

  He raced with Helen and Mrs. N’Dorah into the unlit ancillary corridor. Lachlan stopped just inside, but shoved Helen forward. “Keep going,” he said quietly. “I’m going to look for a door mechanism. I’ll catch you up.” He desperately wanted to pull Helen into his arms and make certain she was okay, but reckoned they had at most a minute before the rebels reached this tunnel.

  Mrs. N’Dorah leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath. “Here, take this rifle. It’s too heavy for me.” She passed Lachlan an AK-47 and two magazines.

  He raised his brows in surprise. “Thank you.”

  Mrs. N’Dorah gave him a smile, then grimaced, wriggled her shoulders and reached behind her back. “The door mechanism is here,” she murmured. A second later there was an electronic whir and a metal door slid down from the ceiling.

  “Brilliant. Let’s go.” Lachlan turned on the torch. He set his empty AK-47 on the ground, reloaded the rifle Mrs. N’Dorah had handed him, then led the way down the corridor. They’d just rounded the first bend when bullets slammed into the metal door. Knowing the door wouldn’t hold for long, Lachlan broke into a slow run.

  Behind them, the metal of the door groaned under a heavy impact. It wouldn’t be long now before the rebels were on their heels. He urged the women to move quicker, but they struggled to keep up.

  “I’m sorry,” Helen gasped. “We’re moving…as fast as we can.”

  Hearing pain in her voice, Lachlan stopped and spun around. “What’s wrong?” The light from his torch picked up the smears of blood from the cuts on Helen’s arms, but what really caught his attention was a dark, wet spot on her shoulder. “Bloody hell, woman. No wonder you’re barely able to keep up. You’ve been shot.”

  His heart kicked. “How serious is it? How much blood have you lost?” He reached for her, but Helen shook her head.

  “Leave it. It’s just a flesh wound.” Her eyes gleamed as she said it, and some of the tightness in his chest eased. She couldn’t be too badly hurt if she was joking about it.

  Trusting her judgment, he nodded, barely refraining from kissing her. “All right, let’s move.”

  “Can’t we hide in one of these places?” Mrs. N’Dorah asked as they jogged past the doors to the household storage rooms. “Or down one of the side tunnels?”

  “No. The rebels will conduct a thorough search for us. If we tried to hide in one of these rooms, we’d be found out. And since I don’t know where the few side tunnels lead, we can’t risk that they’re dead-ends. Just keep going. It’s not far now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT,” Helen protested fifteen minutes later. They’d taken refuge inside a storage room next to the ruined communications center. “You can’t leave us here.” Her stomach sank. If Lachlan left without her, she feared she’d never see him again.

  “There’s no choice, lass. You and Mrs. N’Dorah are flagging.” Lachlan’s gaze fell on the blood staining her shirt. His lips pressed into a thin line and his eyes narrowed.

  Unfortunately, she knew he had a point. Her mind was fuzzy. She hadn’t lost a critical amount of blood, but enough that it contributed to her overall exhaustion. She didn’t trust herself to make the right decisions. And Mrs. N’Dorah looked about ready to collapse.

  “Please, Lachlan. Don’t leave us.”

  “You’ll be fine, Helen. My men will be here shortly,” Lachlan reassured her. “Lock the door after I leave and I’ll lead the rebels away.”

  “No.” The edges of her nerves had frayed too much already. She couldn’t stand the anxiety of hiding here in the dark, waiting either to be killed or rescued. “There has to be another option.”

  Lachlan shook his head. “You and Mrs. N’Dorah escaped the cavern. You’re tougher than you think.” He nodded at the butt of the pistol sticking out from her cargo pocket. “Just sit tight and all will be well.”

  He strapped his watch to her wrist. “Take this. It emits a special locator signal that will allow my teammates to find you.”

  “But—”

  “We’re out of time. I hear the rebels coming.” He searched her face for a moment, then placed a fast, hard kiss on her mouth. “This is what I do, love.” He backed out of the room and shut the door.

  Helen’s breath backed up in her throat as the room was plunged into darkness except for a thin band of light around the edges of the door. She quickly locked the door.

  A moment later, she heard booted feet pounding along the corridor and men shouting in excitement. Helen pressed her fist to her mouth to keep from crying out and held tight to Mrs. N’Dorah with her other hand.

  Tears slid down her cheeks and pooled on her knuckles. Please let Lachlan survive. Please let Lachlan survive.

  Helen fought her panic for ten agonizing minutes. But when the room shook under the force of an explosion from the direction of the main cavern, Helen gave up.

  She swiped the tears from her cheeks. “We’re leaving. I’m not risking that the ceiling is going to collapse on us. At least if we’re out in the open and moving we have a better chance of surviving a cave-in than if we’re locked here in the dark.”

  “I agree.”

  Helen waited until she didn’t hear any movement outside, then said, “All right. Let’s do this.”

  She cracked open the door. The hallway was empty in both directions. “Okay. We’re clear.”

  Easing her way into the corridor, she paused, hearing gunfire from her left, the direction Lachlan had gone. Reminding herself that he was a trained professional, she fought her instinct to help him and instead turned right.

  She and Mrs. N’Dorah stuck close to the walls of the corridor as they walked, even though this area was deserted. A short time later, they discovered a row of dormitory style rooms. The rooms were disordered, as if Natchaba’s men had dashed inside, snatched everything essential, then fled.

  The first intersection they came to was clear. But they hadn’t gone more than a few yards past it when a metal door clanged down behind them.

  Helen shared a nervous glance with Mrs. N’Dorah. “Well. So much for having the option of retreat.”

  Mrs. N’Dorah gave a shrug that belied her uneasy expression. “Do you hear that?”

  “Yes.” A faint hum was coming from the direction opposite the fire door. As if there were people down that way. “But we don’t have a choice, do we? Let’s go.”

  They’d just passed through the next intersection, when they heard the sound of a vehicle racing toward them. Helen gestured frantically to Mrs. N’Dorah and they took up hiding spots in opposite doorways.

  There was little chance of remaining unobserved by the driver. Using hand signals, Helen indicated that Mrs. N’Dorah should stumble in front of the cart and Helen would grab the driver and pull him out of the vehicle.

  Mrs. N’Dorah nodded.

  A heartbeat later, a cart with a flatbed full of stacked boxes careened around the corner. The cart rocked slightly as it recovered from the sharp turn. When the driver checked over his right shoulder to make sure his
load was still in place, Helen realized she didn’t need Mrs. N’Dorah’s help because the man had turned away from Helen.

  She lunged forward. As she’d seen Lachlan do, she snaked her arm around the man’s neck. Placing her hand over his mouth and nose, she wrapped her other arm around his chest and pulled him out of the tiny cab. But the driver was heavier than she’d expected and his weight overbalanced her. She twisted as they fell so that the driver hit the ground with the side of his head before he rolled face down and went still beneath her. Helen slipped her hands out from beneath him, then checked that he was unconscious.

  While Mrs. N’Dorah put on the man’s jacket, Helen took his walkie-talkie and set it on the front seat. This way they’d have some idea of what the rebels were up to.

  Next, Helen removed the man’s pistol and held it out to Mrs. N’Dorah. “Take this.”

  The other woman nodded and tucked the pistol into the jacket’s pocket. The man hadn’t been wearing a cap that Mrs. N’Dorah could use to hide her hair, so she spit on her hands and smoothed her hair close to her skull before climbing behind the wheel.

  Helen walked around to the flatbed. The crates were stacked too close together for her to squeeze between, so she’d have to crouch down in the cab. As she was walking toward the passenger side of the cab, the walls and floor of the corridor jerked violently again, throwing her against the vehicle.

  “Hurry,” Mrs. N’Dorah said.

  Helen jumped into the cab, then wedged herself into the leg space beneath the passenger side dashboard, wincing as the movement set her wounded shoulder to throbbing again. “Drive until we’re close to the rebels, then find a place to stop where we can observe unseen while we wait for a chance to slip outside.”

  Mrs. N’Dorah nodded, started the engine, and they were off.

  From her hiding place, Helen could just see the walls of the corridor pass by. A muscle cramped in her upper back, just below the shoulder where she’d been shot. Helen gritted her teeth and panted against the pain as the cramp expanded all the way to her buttocks. Oh, God, she didn’t think she could take much more without crying out. Yet she was afraid that if she straightened even a little bit, she’d be spotted.

  Just as she thought she would scream, Mrs. N’Dorah made a sharp right turn. The rest of the cart struggled to follow the path of the front wheels, but the weight in the back was too much. The cart tipped sideways, balanced on two wheels a moment, then fell over.

  The impact jarred Helen loose from her hiding place and she toppled onto Mrs. N’Dorah. Using the side of the driver’s seat and the dashboard, Helen levered herself off of Mrs. N’Dorah, then climbed out. “Are you all right?” she asked as she held out her hand and helped the other woman out of the cab.

  “I am okay.”

  “Good. We have to get out of here before the others come to investigate.” Helen turned, but the cramp in her leg caused it to buckle beneath her. Mrs. N’Dorah put a steadying hand under Helen’s elbow. “Thanks.”

  Helen tried again. This time managed to put a bit of weight on it. “Okay. I can do this.” Luckily, the cart’s headlights provided them with illumination. She broke into an uneven, limping run and they headed down the corridor.

  “What did you see that made you turn down this corridor?” Helen gasped after the tunnel had twisted to the left. The turn had cut them off from the cart’s headlights. Unwilling to risk one of them tripping and breaking an ankle, she pulled out her flashlight and turned it on.

  “Several meters…ahead of…us…” Mrs. N’Dorah slowed to a walk and took several deep breaths before continuing. “There was a queue of rebels waiting to get outside. Too many men for us to drive into and hope to get away.”

  Helen raised her brows. “That wasn’t the plan.”

  Mrs. N’Dorah shrugged. “I decided that if such an opportunity arose, I would take it.”

  “Okay.” Helen glanced over her shoulder, but saw no sign of pursuit. “Halt a minute, let’s listen.”

  It took a moment for their breathing to calm enough for the tunnel to fall silent. “I don’t hear anyone,” Helen said.

  “Me, neither. But doctor, how are we going to get outside?”

  “I don’t know.” Up ahead, to their left, light spilled from a long window such as found in a medical ward. Helen shut off the flashlight and indicated for Mrs. N’Dorah to stop. Then she sidled along the wall until she was next to the window. Mentally crossing her fingers for luck, she chanced a quick peek into the room.

  As she’d suspected, it was the infirmary. She didn’t see any nurses or other attendants, so she motioned for Mrs. N’Dorah to join her. “This might be a good place to hide. I’m going in to check that it’s deserted. You stay out here and sound the alarm if anyone is coming.” She pointed to the far end of the window where it met the rock wall. “It’s safest if you stand there, out of the line of fire.”

  “Be careful, doctor.”

  Helen flashed her a faint smile. Once Mrs. N’Dorah was in place, Helen approached the door, pistol in hand. Holding her breath, Helen turned the door handle, then shoved the door open with her toe. Flattening herself against the corridor wall to the right of the door, she waited for an explosion or a barrage of bullets. After a count of ten, during which she wrestled her heart rate back to normal—how did Lachlan and his men deal with such moments day after day and remain sane?—she eased into the room. A generator hummed behind a screen to her left. To her right, several gurneys had been shoved against the wall. Her patient from the cavern lay on the closest gurney. Someone had put a bullet through the center of his forehead.

  Anger flashed through her. Had Natchaba ever intended the man to live? Had that entire incident been some sort of sick game? Bile rose in her throat. She forced it back, then pulled the sheet up over the man’s face.

  As she took a quick tour of the room, she discovered that the infirmary was stocked with all the necessary equipment and supplies to keep patients alive. Including the fluids that had not been provided for her when she’d been in the cavern. Tanks of anesthesia gases sat at the head of the table in the attached operating room.

  It took all of Helen’s control not to slam the operating room door shut. Oh, yes. Natchaba, damn his soul, had been playing a psychological game with her. Forcing her to make an unconscionable choice, knowing that the outcome would be the same no matter what she decided.

  Her patient, dead.

  She went to the door.

  “It’s clear. You can come in now,” Helen whispered. Mrs. N’Dorah hurried inside and shut the door behind her.

  “It does not lock,” Mrs. N’Dorah said in dismay.

  “That’s okay, we can roll this gurney in front of it.” The dead man would add some extra ballast to the barrier.

  Once the gurney blocked the door, Mrs. N’Dorah turned to Helen. “Let me treat your shoulder, my dear.”

  Helen shook her head. “We’ll be too vulnerable if the rebels come in. I’m fine. But we could both use some hydration.” She strode over to the small fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. As she sipped hers, wary of drinking too fast and causing her stomach to cramp, Helen tried to figure out where was the best place for them to hide. She considered, then rejected, the operating room. She didn’t want to be trapped in a space with just one exit. At least if someone found them in this main room they had both the door and the window as avenues of escape.

  “Let’s put the privacy screens in front of the window, then turn off the lights,” Helen finally suggested. When she moved the last screen, she discovered that it hid another door.

  “After I shut off the lights, I’m going to crack open this door to see where it leads.”

  “All right.”

  The door opened onto another corridor. To Helen’s right, the corridor disappeared into darkness. To her left was the line of men Mrs. N’Dorah had mentioned. All their attention was on getting out to the source of the natural light that brightened the corridor.

  Helen s
hut the door, then rested her forehead against the back of it. So close. They were so close to freedom. The disappointment of being stuck here in the dark while sunlight beckoned not far away was almost too much for her to bear. But she could hear Lachlan’s voice in her head telling her to hang on a bit longer.

  She wouldn’t let him down. She’d find patience, somehow. They’d wait until the rebels were gone. Then, if Lachlan’s team hadn’t shown up, they’d make a break for it.

  Relieved to have a plan, Helen turned and slid down the door to sit on the floor. There must be a vent on this wall, because she could hear the murmur of the men in the corridor. Good. That might give them a bit of warning if rebels decided to enter from that direction.

  Now that she didn’t have to keep moving, exhaustion nearly overwhelmed her.

  She looked at her shoulder, then reached under her shirt. The handkerchief was soaked.

  Uh-oh. How much blood had she lost?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  FROM INSIDE HIS private office, Natchaba checked the status of the evacuation on the screen of his laptop. He’d been informed that the destruction of the main console had both frozen the back door closed and had disabled the override switch. But his men had blown open the back door and were now in the process of loading the trucks. Excellent.

  While Natchaba’s senior bodyguard stood a discrete distance away, and a team of four other bodyguards carried boxes of records and personal items though his private escape tunnel to his vehicle, Natchaba swiped his finger along the trackpad to bring up the next camera feed. A few government lorries had gathered on the opposite side of the gorge. But unless they had a way of establishing a temporary bridge, they would be no threat.

  The forces that were moving through the jungle toward the back door, however, would soon be a problem. He notified his commander of the danger and told the man to activate the outer booby-traps in ten minutes. Scrolling through the rest of the feeds, he spotted Dr. Kirk and Mrs. N’Dorah moving down the corridor toward the exit, and MacKay heading this way, chased by a team of over a dozen of his men.