by Sara Craven
“Nice try,” he said with a click of his tongue. Then a sound alerted him. He turned.
Dawn grabbed her pistol and dropped to the floor just as the back door flew open.
She heard them swarming in, shouting, firing. It sounded like a whole army. Sean had disappeared.
Two rounded the counter, and she squeezed the trigger. The sound of her shots was lost in the indiscriminate firestorm of the invaders—two more dashed past on the other side of the counter. They missed seeing her, hidden as she was. She aimed the pistol and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Damn. Useless. She laid it aside.
One man shouted in Arabic, probably to those outside. All she could do was watch from the shadows as the survivors headed out of the kitchen and down the hallway.
Dawn waited where she was, helpless to do anything at the moment. When no more shots were fired, she risked crawling to the edge of the counter and peeking around it. More men filed in.
The new wave immediately located the door to the cellar and were trying to get it open. They broke it down and with a shout of success, headed downstairs.
Dawn scrambled over to the two men she had shot. One was writhing on the floor, holding his leg. Quick as a flash, she grabbed the heavy automatic he had dropped. The other man was obviously dead, his nine-millimeter pistol still clutched in his hand. She yanked it free and stuck it in her pocket. The first one recovered enough to make a clumsy grab for her. Dawn landed a butt-stroke to his head and knocked him cold.
For a moment, she considered shooting him again, but decided a shot might bring the others running. An excuse, maybe. Killing a man who was firing at you was definitely different than dispensing with one who was unconscious.
Eric was her first concern. She headed out the way the others had gone. She moved cautiously even though they were making enough noise to cover any sounds she might make.
She concentrated on her approach, so much so that she didn’t realize anyone was directly behind her until an arm encircled her neck and a hand snatched her weapon away. She knew immediately it was McCoy. She recognized his scent.
“In there,” he rasped, shoving her into a small storage room. He closed the door. “Now, let’s have something straight, Aurora. I need to save Quince. I don’t have to kill you. In fact, I could use your help. If you cooperate, I’ll get rid of Jarad for you and get you back to the mainland today.”
Right, like she would believe that? “Suppose I don’t want to be rid of him?”
“It’s you or him, love. Choose right now.”
“I’ll help you.” If she could convince Sean she was no threat, at least she might have a chance to warn Eric. Maybe she could get the drop on Sean. She cleared her throat. “But the first order of business is to eliminate Ali’s men, agreed?”
He nodded. “Go ahead of me. I want you where I can see you. Get out the Glock you took off the dead guy.”
She pulled it out of her pocket, checked the load, clicked off the safety, then led the way back into the hall. The pistol was no match for the Uzi McCoy carried, but she felt a bit less vulnerable than she would have if he had made her his unarmed shield.
Dawn could hear Ali’s men running up the stairs near the main entrance, making no attempt to conceal their presence. How many were there on the island? Ali obviously had used some method of contacting them similar to what Eric had brought. Or something even more sophisticated since they had known where to find him.
She stopped and turned. “Quince and Jarad were headed for the study where the weapons are kept.”
He motioned down the hall to the left, then gave her a little shove when they neared the study door.
“Don’t shoot! It’s me!” she called softly, hoping no one would unload in her direction. “McCoy is here, too,” she added in order to warn Eric.
Sean was right behind her. He pushed her through the doorway, using her for cover. The lights were off and the blinds were drawn.
“Quince? You there?” Sean called.
Quince stepped out from behind a tall bookcase. “Sean?” he asked softly. “Are you all right?”
“Where’s Al-Dayal?” McCoy demanded.
Quince nodded to the opposite side of the room where Eric stood holding a fully automatic in the cradle of his arm, his finger on the trigger, the muzzle pointed up instead of at her.
Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, Dawn could see in Eric’s eyes that he knew McCoy intended to kill him.
“If I were you,” he said to Sean, “I’d eliminate the most immediate threat first. That is not me, by the way. Truce until we’ve cleared up this problem? Then we can haggle over the prize.”
“Fair enough,” Sean replied.
Dawn didn’t trust him to keep his word, but realized there was no choice until she or Eric had a clear shot at him.
“Two of Ali’s men are down in the kitchen. One dead and one unconscious,” she informed Eric. “Five others have gone down to release Ali and more are searching upstairs. Four, I think.”
“I didn’t see them disembark,” Eric said. “The entire island could be crawling with them for all we know.”
Quince spoke up then. “We could try to make it to my boat and get off the island. I told you the place is wired. Why don’t we get out and blow it?”
McCoy growled a protest. “Not until I get what I came here for. Get it, Quince. Now.”
Dawn thought about giving Sean the attaché she had found in the locked drawer. He wouldn’t have time to check the contents. Maybe she could fool him into thinking she had what he wanted, the same way Eric had bluffed Ali. But if she did, McCoy would probably shoot them all and take off. Damn.
However, if the information was locked in the safe, it needed to stay there until Eric’s team arrived.
“I can’t get it out of the safe,” Quince admitted.
“What do you mean? How did you expect to…Never mind, I can get into it,” Sean declared. “Haven’t met a safe yet I couldn’t crack. Let’s go.”
Quince was nodding, turning and pressing on one of the block designs beside the fireplace.
If they entered the secret passage and closed it behind them, they would be safe from Ali’s men. But McCoy could also kill them all in there, get the plans out of the safe, then hide and wait out the small army that was after them. Without a lot of luck or a fortunate accident, those goons would never locate that hidden section of the house.
Dawn couldn’t risk letting McCoy get whatever was in that safe. “No!” she cried. “Going there’s not necessary. I have what he wants.”
“Wait! Don’t…” Eric said through gritted teeth. He was frowning at her, his frustration tangible.
Dawn offered him a wry grimace, an apology for probably sealing their doom, and reached inside the front of her blouse. She withdrew the small device. “Here. This is not worth dying for,” she said, turning around and handing it to McCoy.
Sean took it in his left hand and gave it a cursory look. “And I’m supposed to believe this is what you say it is?”
Dawn shrugged. “Believe what you like. I followed the secret corridor from our rooms and found Quince’s office. This was in a locked drawer beneath his computer station. The plans are on it. I checked.” She reached for the device. “Of course, if you don’t want it, then I’ll…”
He snatched it back and shoved it into his pocket, then faced Quince. “What do you have to say about it, Quince? Is this what I’m looking for?”
Quince was already shaking his head. “No.”
“Then let’s go!” Sean commanded. “We’re wasting time we don’t have.”
His words were nearly lost as bullets struck the door frame behind him. Everybody dropped and scrambled for cover.
Ali’s men were shouting now, running down the hallway, firing indiscriminately.
Eric popped one when he reached the doorway. The others obviously decided Allah didn’t need them yet and stayed back.
Two seconds later, she watched a
grenade bounce into the room. The windows were barred. The enemy was outside the door. There was no way out but the secret passage, and it would take too long for Quince to open the panel.
Chapter 15
Eric flipped the heavily padded sofa over the grenade, leapt over it, grabbed Dawn and threw her to the floor just as the grenade exploded. He rolled to his back, already aiming at the hall door when Ali’s men came in shooting.
Dawn watched the scene unfold like something out of a silent movie, unable to hear it because the explosion had deafened her. While the action played out at full speed, her own reactions seemed to be in slow motion, her emotions temporarily numb. Then as suddenly as it had begun, the attack ceased.
Only when she saw Sean aiming directly at Eric did her autoresponse kick in. She finger-pointed her nine millimeter instead of taking time to aim and pulled the trigger repeatedly until the weapon emptied and she felt no recoil.
Sean fell flat on his back. Quince crawled out from behind a bookcase and bent over him. Dawn couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his face had crumpled and he seemed to be begging McCoy not to die. Eric was checking the bodies of Ali’s men. He turned to her. “You hurt?”
Dawn shook her head. She hadn’t bothered to examine herself for wounds, but felt no pain anywhere. Her hands and arms were covered with plaster dust and residue from the gunshots. A small nick on her forearm began to sting, but it was only a minor scratch. “I’m okay,” she muttered.
Another explosion outside the study rocked the room and collapsed the inner wall adjacent to the hall. Debris blocked their exit. The whole place was wired, Quince had said. It could go up any second.
Eric grasped her arm. “Reload,” he ordered. She realized she was reading his lips and couldn’t hear anything but a distant roaring.
She looked around and saw the shattered gun case with its drawers at the bottom hanging askew. Finding no clip for the empty nine millimeter, she grabbed another gun out of the shattered case and began to check and load it. A Walther PK, she noted. Dependable weapon.
Dawn forced thoughts to practical things like that, trying to ward off others she didn’t want to have just yet. She had killed today. More than once.
Her hands shook. The odor of cordite made her gag. Or maybe it was the smoke that filled the room, almost obliterating her ability to see. Thank God she had seen Sean aim and…
No, she had to think about the gun. Get it loaded. Do what Eric ordered. Follow his lead. The only way out of this was to follow Eric. Her breath caught on a sob, but she held it in, willing her fingers to behave, to do what her brain demanded.
There. The clip was in. She had done it. She began to cough uncontrollably.
Eric’s arms came around her from behind and lifted her to her feet. He guided her to a door in the wall, a door that shouldn’t be there. The explosion must have triggered Quince’s secret panel.
Eric reached into a niche just inside the tunnel door and procured two flashlights, handing her one.
Luckily, the grenade hadn’t triggered the explosives Quince insisted were rigged to blow the entire place. Damn him and his stupid island villa anyway. Damn the whole island. Why hadn’t the government sent a military team here to clear it? Why civilian Special Ops?
And why not? Things would be right on target if the gadget she had found were the real thing and Eric’s transponder worked.
Dawn looked over her shoulder and saw that Eric had gone back to get Quince. He held him by the back of his collar and shoved him into the opening behind her.
She proceeded down the narrow tunnel until she came to a forked passage. When she stopped, Eric gestured to the right with his flashlight and she continued, hurriedly leading them God only knew where.
This was taking too long. Dawn sensed they were headed away from the main structure and that the path they were taking did not lead to Quince’s office where he’d said the safe was located. Apparently, the study had had more than one secret panel or else they had taken the wrong fork. The whole place must be a rabbit warren underneath.
Her lungs cleared and she began to smell salt air. Dampness had invaded the poorly framed and unfinished corridor sometime after it had degenerated into a rough tunnel carved out of the lava stone.
She figured they had walked just under a quarter of a mile since leaving the study and should be well away from the villa by now. In any direction, that should lead to a beach.
Her hearing had returned, at least some of it. Quince’s breath huffed in and out right behind her. Their shoe soles scuffed against the irregular rock floor. Daylight loomed ahead.
“Wait,” Eric said. “Stop here and wait until I see where we are.” He stepped around Quince and came up beside her now that the tunnel had widened. “Keep him covered. If he tries to go back, shoot him.”
“I have to go back!” Quince cried. “Sean might be…”
“McCoy is dead,” Eric told him. “There’s nothing you can do for him.”
“Here. Hold on to this.” He handed her the flash drive she had given to Sean. “I brought this. It might have something on it since it was locked up.”
Dawn tucked it back between her breasts.
Quince had dissolved in tears, leaning against the wall of the tunnel with his face covered by his arms; he sobbed inconsolably. Sean had obviously been more to him than simply one of the bidders, but Dawn didn’t want to know what, at least not now.
Eric had disappeared out the end of the tunnel. She heard his surprised laughter and another voice she thought she recognized. Clay Senate? Where the devil had he been all this time?
“Dawn? Come on out here,” Eric called. “Bring Quince with you.”
Thank goodness it was time to abandon their roles as the Al-Dayals. This kind of undercover work was not the fun she’d always imagined it would be. Surreptitious entry was one thing, but becoming someone else for days on end was quite another.
She prodded the weeping man until he staggered along in front of her. They exited the tunnel onto a wide, rocky ledge above the beach. Steps led down to a sandy, sheltered cove.
“Come with me,” Clay said to them. “There’s a cave over there with all the comforts of home.” He smiled at her. “You could stand a little cleaning up.”
She touched her face and winced. Her fingertips came away coated black with soot, cordite and dirt. The rest of her must look about the same as her hands. Nasty. Her hair felt as if it were standing on end and her clothes were a mess.
Dawn trudged along with the men, periodically urging Quince so she wouldn’t step on his heels. He seemed to be in shock.
They entered Clay’s cave. Someone had indeed made it a refuge, probably well before Clay ever arrived on the island. Bedding and blankets were neatly folded against one rough-hewn wall. A fire pit lay near the front, stacked with small lengths of driftwood.
“The prisoners are bound in the back there,” Clay told them, pointing to a dark passage that led deeper into the rock.
“Prisoners?” Eric asked with a mirthless chuckle. “Who?”
Clay shrugged. “A really feisty woman I found hanging on to the rocks after she was pushed off the cliff’s edge, a couple of guards I managed to disarm, a Russian and an American mercenary I would really like to choke personally.”
“We need to contact Sextant and get this wound up,” Eric announced. “Unfortunately one of Quince’s bidders brought along a small army that seems determined to decimate the villa and everybody in it. See if your transponder’s working. For some reason, mine’s shot.”
They watched as Clay removed a knife from his belt and quickly sliced the tracker from the top of his shoulder before she could think to offer her help.
He wiped it off on the leg of his pants, then tapped the point of his knife to it several times. “There,” he said, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger for a minute. He frowned at Eric. “No response.”
“You’re bleeding.” Dawn shook her head in exasperation and looked aro
und for something to pad his wound.
“It’s nothing,” he replied “I’ll go wash it off in a minute.” Then he crouched near Eric. “Do you have what we came for?”
“It’s still in the house, in the safe, so Quince says,” Eric told him. “A safe he can’t open. Oh, and the house is rigged with explosives, only he hasn’t yet told us how that’s set up. I can’t read him.”
Clay’s dark brows drew together in a menacing look directed toward Quince. “Time for a few questions.” He tapped the flat of his blade against his other palm. “Shall I?”
“Be my guest,” Eric said with a negligent wave of his hand.
Quince seemed oblivious to the threat.
“You aren’t going to try to scare it out of him, are you?” Dawn asked quietly. “He’s pretty much zoned out. I don’t think it would work.”
“What’s his problem?” Clay asked her.
Dawn considered the question before answering. “I think one of the bidders was more than that to him, maybe a co-conspirator. The guy was killed just before we came out.” She had killed him. That was going to bother her, but she couldn’t dwell on it now.
“McCoy,” Clay declared with a nod.
“You’ve been keeping closer tabs than I thought,” Eric said with a smile. As he spoke, he slid one arm around Dawn and drew her near, sharing his warmth. “Learn anything interesting?”
Clay looked from Eric to her and back again, one black eyebrow raised. “McCoy and the woman struggled and he shoved her off the cliff in an attempt to kill her. But they had a fascinating conversation before he did his worst.” He paused, then looked curious. “You couldn’t read them, could you?”
Eric glanced down at the floor of the cave, then raised his gaze to meet his friend’s. “No.”
“And you couldn’t connect with me, either. Or Jack and the others? What’s wrong, man?”
“Let it go for now, okay?” He released Dawn and stepped away from her, resting his hands on his hips. “Just tell me what you found out.”