Stupid birds.
He took a deep breath and stretched his shoulders. He had one hundred feet more to climb and it was thirty minutes before dawn, which put him exactly within the time frame Miki had suggested.
Max’s hands tightened. He wasn’t going to think about her cool announcement of upcoming marriage, since killing the groom probably wasn’t an option. The force of his emotions continued to surprise him, but Miki was right. Best if he forgot her.
He was going to start right now.
He paused, recalculating his route. With one stretch, hand over hand, he pulled up slowly and then clipped his safety rope into a new carabiner anchored on the cliff face. And thought about Miki’s hair sliding over his fingers.
Damn her and damn the memories.
Max felt a slight burn at his calf muscles. He was starting to sweat despite the cool air. One of his new chips allowed long-distance monitoring of his body and he could picture the Foxfire scientists huddled over a computer screen, muttering about the spike in Max’s vital signs. Thanks to Miki’s transmission they would soon know that he was closing in on the stolen weapon system.
Max tested his rope and took another fluid step, swinging his body out into space to wedge his foot into a crack. Each new position demanded complete focus and perfect footwork, a kind of Zen meditation in mass and movement while the wind gusted, driving rain into his face.
When his view cleared, he saw the top of the cliff a foot away. He had been shielding his presence using standard Foxfire techniques. They wouldn’t fool Cruz completely, but they should delay any detection—unless Cruz had developed new skills.
Squinting into the rain, he gripped a rock and pulled himself up until he was staring down at the center of the island. In that first second, he was hit by a wave of energy that seemed to coil along the highest ridge. Through the rain Max scanned the pre-dawn darkness and tracked the energy source to a ledge thirty feet down the far slope. He unclipped his climbing rope and dropped flat behind a row of boulders. Working quickly, he stripped off his right glove and pressed his fingers to the ground.
As he shoved his bare fingers into the dirt he picked up the layers of Cruz’s bio marker. Either he was in the area now or he had been here recently.
Max’s eyes hardened. He had to bring the rogue operative down before more lives were lost, and every instinct told him that he wouldn’t have much time to do it.
To the east, a faint line of gray tinged the horizon. He had thirty, maybe forty minutes before dawn, and the rain would offer him additional concealment after first light. As he pulled a high-tech silk and nylon rope out of his tactical vest, he was barely aware of being soaked and cold.
So much for paradise.
He was about to take a closer look at the ledge below when he heard the faint crunch of gravel nearby. Silently, he crouched behind the boulders, reaching warily for Cruz’s energy signature.
But nothing clicked. Whoever was on the narrow trail wasn’t Cruz. Slowing his breath, Max closed down his thoughts, making himself fade into the landscape as the footsteps came closer. A heavy man with an Australian bush hat appeared above the rocks, an Uzi slung over one shoulder. Slow and methodical, he checked every corner of the trail, stopping at the top of the ridge where Max had tied off and discarded his climbing rope only minutes before.
As rain continued to sheet down, the man leaned forward, peered down at the ocean, then crouched to examine the dirt along the ridgeline. Max waited uneasily, certain he had swept all his prints clean, but the man at the ridge continued to study the ground. He rocked back slightly, looking east, his hand on the stock of the Uzi.
Max made his energy as smooth and still as a pond at dawn.
No danger.
No movement.
No one here.
Slowly, the man reached into his chest pocket and pulled out a walkie-talkie, but for long moments he didn’t move, staring down at the water, squinting against the rain. Had Max missed some small detail?
Static hissed in a sudden burst. The man fingered a button, hunched over against the rain. “Malovich here.” When he released the transmit button, more static crackled.
“Where are the hell are you, Malovich? The plane’s due in thirty minutes and we have a shitload of cargo to finish unpacking before he gets here.”
The man on the ridge crossed his arms, unmoving at the edge of the cliff. Max saw him frown as he picked up a handful of gravel, tossing it up and down in one hand.
Rain drummed and hissed on the granite slope. The man still didn’t move, his shoulders tense. Max drew his energy even tighter, making a hole and pulling it in around him.
“Malovich?”
“What?” The man on the cliff pulled off his hat and scratched his head, then stood up. “I’m here. Checkpoint twenty-six. Situation stable.”
“What the hell is taking you so long up there?”
“I’m not sure. There was something…” He shoved his hat back on his head and turned away from the wind, his words muffled. “Forget it. I’ll take the short way back. I’ll be at base in ten minutes.”
“Move it.” Static crackled like grease hitting a hot frying pan. “You know he’ll be expecting a report.”
“Copy that. On my way. Malovich out.”
As the man disappeared down the slope, Max slowly let out his breath, then shouldered his pack, swept away his footprints and stood up.
Rain slammed into his face from a nearly horizontal wind. Izzy’s hurricane was moving in right on schedule. That was the good news.
Of course, it was also the bad news.
THE LEDGE WAS FAR DEEPER than Max had suspected.
As he followed the trail down from the cliffs, he saw that the recess in the rock went back for at least ten feet, and it had been used recently, judging by the smudged footprints in a dry area protected by an overhang.
He pulled a pair of thermal imaging goggles out of his backpack and scanned the area. There were no hot spots or cold zones near the ledge. No anomalies near the trail, either.
When he turned a corner, Max saw the palm tree Miki had warned him about. With his goggles in place, there was no mistaking the heat disparity she had seen in the photos.
The stolen weapon guidance system had to stay cool to retain its effectiveness, so Max searched for signs of electricity and air-conditioning units. Now that he had a location, it was time to rely on his special tactile skills. He ran his bare palm along the rocky trail.
Fallen tobacco ash. Traces of melted rubber.
A tiny piece of waxed paper impregnated with soybean oil and spices.
Max sniffed the fallen piece of paper and frowned. A torn wrapper from an MRE, he thought. Fallen food items meant this was a popular route, part of regularly patrolled terrain. The guidance system should be fairly close. The more important an area was, the more closely it was watched.
He left the trail and circled across a row of boulders for a closer look. Within five steps he found what he had expected to see.
Trip wires dotted the edge of the slope. Two motion sensors were hidden beneath a flowering hibiscus bush. Touching the ground gently, Max picked up layers of human sweat, with markedly high level of stress hormones. As he rubbed the dirt between his fingers, the chemical layers filtered through his senses. Alcohol residues mixed with sizeable steroid and amphetamine markers. Was Cruz keeping his force wired on drugs?
Silently he continued his scan. In an open space beside two trails he saw Miki’s false orchid. Just as they had expected, a wireless sensing device was hidden beneath the fragile pink leaves.
Hail hail, the gang’s all here.
Max squatted in the rain, every sense alert. The location made perfect sense. There could be an underground entrance or a trap door hidden in the scattered boulders. Yet something didn’t feel right. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had found this spot too easily.
Small, unformed details continued to bother him as he backed away from the tripwires and cl
imbed out of sight above the trail. There was something wrong about his bunker, something different. As the impression grew stronger, he realized he had made a fatal mistake.
The mistake of trust.
Huddled in the rain, he stared at the horizon as the truth hit him like a blow. When he’d opened his medical kit to give Miki the scalpels, there had been three sets of pills inside.
But two hours ago one of those sets of pills had been gone.
The answer hit him with brutal force. It had been there in front of him all along, while Cruz had played them perfectly. Max’s emotions had clouded his judgment, making him miss a clue that normally would have triggered his suspicions. The damage was done.
With steady hands, he pulled a waterproof bag of explosives and a detonation cord from his backpack. There was no more time for subtlety. Time to blow and go.
MIKI PACED THE UNDERGROUND tunnels, listening to the muted drum of rain above her head and trying not to think about Max. She had wanted adventure, excitement and a complete change in her life.
Be careful what you wish for.
In an effort at distraction, she folded a blanket on the ground and emptied out the contents of her camera bag, which Max had returned to her before leaving. It was a relief that he didn’t suspect her of being some kind of hostile agent anymore. If he’d known the details of her screw-up past, he would have seen how laughable that idea was.
Miki’s past was very much with her as she stared down at the sad remains of her life scattered over the cot. Waterlogged tube of lipstick. Dental floss. Old library card for books she never had time to read. Chewing gum and breath mints for Saturday night dates that had become nearly nonexistent. Knitting needles—rosewood double points. Okay, those weren’t depressing. But the beef jerky, moldy after being soaked in seawater for hours, was definitely a downer.
Eww.
Depressed, Miki picked up the items one by one. She had finally turned over a new leaf, gotten serious about her career and grabbed her first chance to show her skill, and where had it gotten her? Ditched from a seaplane in the middle of the ocean, caught in the middle of something that had top-secret military security written all over it. How could her luck possibly get any worse?
Bad question. She heard a small movement from somewhere in the nearby tunnel and froze. Low, skittering sounds filled the darkness.
Rats. The sooner she got out of this place the better. At least Max’s first bunker on the beach had been clean and relatively spacious, unlike this place.
Restless, she listened to a dull scuffing sound above the shriek of the wind. When the sound came again, she climbed the narrow steps and listened intently and realized it was the scrape of paws on rock.
Truman.
Had something happened to Max?
She shoved open the door a crack. A second later Truman nosed past her, sniffing the air intently. Ears back, he shot down the tunnel.
Maybe he needed water. Maybe Max had sent him for supplies. She was running through all the possibilities when she heard Truman growl.
Miki froze. The big dog never growled. Noise discipline, or something like that. Max had been very firm about any noise.
She felt a stab of uneasiness. “Truman, what’s wrong? Why—”
When she turned around, the dark shape in front of Miki wasn’t Truman. The big dog was standing to her left, ears back, body rigid. It was Dutch, breathing heavily, his face white and pasty. In his hands was the gun Max had left for her.
“Forget the dog. I’m afraid the bad news is just starting, Blondie.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“DUTCH, YOU SHOULDN’T BE standing up.” Miki looked down at the pilot’s unsteady hands, totally confused. “Where did you get that gun?”
“Same place I got the pain medicine and the radio transmitter. Your SEAL friend is well equipped.” He coughed hollowly, one hand at his chest. “Too bad that damned plane crash nearly whacked me. Now I’m way off schedule.”
“Off schedule for what?” Miki felt a weight settle over her chest. “I don’t understand.” But she was starting to pick up the threads and they made her sick. The man she had believed was an innocent victim was part of this whole dangerous mess.
Coughing harshly, Dutch leaned against the wall, gesturing with the revolver. “Your boyfriend should be in place at the island by now. It’s time we went over to join him.”
“My boyfriend? You mean Max?” Miki felt a stab of fury. Dutch had been playing possum, listening to every conversation while he followed orders from an unseen enemy. “Are you crazy? Max saved your life. After you went down, he swam back out to get you. If not for that, you’d be dead now. This is how you repay him?”
“The plane crash wasn’t planned—at least the bad weather wasn’t. First they’d follow you. Then I’d drop you, a civilian, down in an op zone, just to screw the hell out of everything. It was bound to bring the SEAL right into play, and it did.”
“Who’s they?”
“Government of the US of A, honey. Big eyes and bigger ears, and they want a piece of everything. You’ve been on their radar screen since that chip got put in your arm in the coffee shop back in Santa Fe.”
“There’s a chip in my arm?” Miki’s voice rose, shrill with shock. “That’s why it’s hurt for all these weeks?”
“Afraid so, Blondie. You’re in the middle of one hell of a big adventure.” The pilot laughed hollowly. “Are you having fun yet?”
“Dutch, you can’t—”
“Yeah, I can. I was just supposed to set you down in the ocean near the next island. Then the bad weather blew in, and I was lucky to get the damned plane down in one piece.”
“You almost died. You could still die,” Miki snapped.
He shrugged. “An acceptable risk. I’m tired of half-assed jobs carrying hack politicians and old entertainers around the Pacific. After this I’ll have enough money to retire in style. Believe me, the only charters I’ll be taking will be on my own vacations.”
He leaned toward Miki, but Truman shot forward, growling. “Get your damn dog out of my way. Otherwise, I’ll shoot him.”
Miki tugged vainly at Truman’s collar. “He’s not my dog. He won’t do what I say.”
“Make him do it.” Dutch staggered a little, leveling his gun at Truman “You’ve got five seconds. Then I’ll put two in his head.”
Miki put one hand on the dog’s rigid back. “Truman, stay here. Everything will be fine, honey.”
The dog didn’t move, his hackles rising as he growled at Dutch.
“Weird dog. He was watching me even before I pulled out the gun, and I was pretty damned quiet in the tunnel.” The gun rose.
“No. Don’t shoot him. I’ll do whatever you want. Just leave the dog alone.”
“No can do, Blondie. The dog’s part of my deal and he’s going to bring big bucks. Hell, anyone with eyes can see this is no ordinary Lab.”
“What do you mean?” Miki edged forward and sank down on the ground as if exhausted. Behind her back, she was digging through the contents of her purse, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon.
Knitting needles against a revolver?
“The dog is high trained, probably biologically modified.” Dutch’s eyes narrowed. “Just like your friend Max.”
Biologically modified?
Miki blinked. Suddenly all kinds of random details fell into place, from Max’s chemical sensitivities to his ability to withstand pain and his unusual sexual endurance.
She blushed a little at that last memory, remembering their off-the-chart sex, but she kept her face blank. “That’s ridiculous. There’s nothing special about either of them. I don’t know who fed you this stuff, but they were lying.”
Dutch’s eyes hardened. “Makes no difference to me whether they’re special or not. All I care about is getting paid and then getting lost.” His face was sickly white as he brushed a hand across his forehead. “That’s some damn storm outside. It’s raining like a bi
tch out there. Hope I’ll be able to take off.” He laughed tightly. “That junk heap Vance made me rent was crap, but I’ve flown in all kinds of weather. This storm won’t make any difference.” He looked down at Truman, his gun level. “Time to go, kids.”
Miki screamed and threw Max’s medical kit at the pilot with all her might. Truman bounded over her, hit the bunker wall and threw his body at Dutch from the opposite side. The dog moved so fast that he appeared like a ghost image, something you saw in a blurred home movie. A bullet cracked, and she shot forward, kicking Dutch’s legs with all her might while the pilot staggered, cursing between harsh, gasping breaths, trying to aim the revolver at Miki.
Truman slammed against Dutch’s feet from the back, and the pilot lurched, barely managing to stay upright.
His gun fell, pointed at Miki’s head. “I’ll shoot him if I have to, but I’ll shoot you first. The dog’s a hell of a lot more valuable than you are, believe me.”
Miki’s blood churned with fury, but she kept her face emotionless. “Go ahead and shoot then, you bastard. I hope Truman takes off your arm—and a few other body parts.”
“Too bad I’m supposed to bring both of you with me.” Dutch dug into his pocket.
“What are you—”
The pilot tossed something shiny onto the floor, and glass exploded.
The air filled with the acrid smell of camphor, menthol and rubbing alcohol, and Miki gagged as the scent became overpowering in the enclosed space.
Truman whimpered and sneezed loudly, the pungent scents overwhelming him.
Dutch nodded to himself. “Didn’t know I saw that, did you? I was feeling like shit, but I wasn’t totally out of my head, especially since the two of you kept putting all that damn water in my mouth.” He smiled nastily. “Just goes to show, no good deed goes unpunished.”
Truman huddled at Miki’s feet, breathing loudly, his body rigid in an asthma attack. “Take him outside, Dutch. He can’t stand that smell.”
“I’ll take him outside, don’t worry. The three of us have an appointment with a man one island over. He tells me he wants his chip back.”
Code Name: Blondie Page 22