by Cindy Dees
Hathaway spoke sharply. “Get down flat behind cover. Eyes closed, hands over your ears. Contact in five...four...three...”
His voice was drowned out by a faint but distinct whistling noise that quickly built to a scream too loud even for her hands clapped over her ears to block.
And then the explosions detonated. They were almost simultaneous, and she barely distinguished the first from the second. The combined flash of light washed over her first, followed a millisecond later by a concussion of sound so loud it made her entire body hurt. The ground jumped beneath her, and dirt and twigs and leaves showered down upon her.
“Direct hit, gentlemen. You’re on, Kinsey.”
Still so stunned by the explosion that she felt numb all over, she nonetheless poked her head up from behind the log. Two blazing hulls were all that was left of the vans. The two guards lounging against them had been vaporized. The front wall of the building was dented in, the door hanging askew in its frame. On cue, someone from inside leaped into the doorway. She took careful aim with the MP-4 submachine gun from Mitch’s black duffel bag and pulled the trigger. The weapon leaped in her hands and she fought to bring the muzzle back down into a firing position quickly.
She had no time to stop and think about having killed someone as the man lurched backward and fell, for another man appeared in the doorway. She pulled the trigger again. A secondary explosion rocked one of the burning van remains, and a third man staggered back into the building before she could get off a shot at him.
“Are they shooting back at you?” Hathaway bit out.
“No,” she ventured to murmur into the radio. “Maybe they think the two guys I shot were hit by shrapnel. They’re dragging them inside now.”
“The explosions removed some of the canopy of tree cover. We have visual on part of the clearing now. Keep picking off guys in the doorway until they start shooting back. Then bug out.”
“Got it,” she replied grimly.
She felt nothing. So intensely focused was she on saving Mitch, she had no time for emotion. No time for horror. No time for moral self-recriminations. These guys were trying to kill Mitch; she was trying to kill them. The logic was simple. Clean. Straightforward.
Another man appeared in the doorway. She took aim and pulled the trigger. The side of his head exploded in a blossom of red. He spun, staggered outside against the wall, reached clumsily for the weapon at his hip. She pulled the trigger again, this time taking aim at the center of his chest.
He dropped to the ground.
She swung her sight back to the doorway. Two men came out this time, guns blazing. She dived behind her log. They were firing wildly, although a few shots winged by overhead. Time to go. She crawled backward on her belly, getting covered in muck and slime as she dragged herself through a puddle.
“You’re clear,” Hathaway announced. “Get up and run.”
She sprinted through the jungle, tearing through branches and vines, heedless of them grabbing at her, uncaring if any of them were snakes or not. Mitch needed her.
Gunshots continued to ring out from the front of the building. The remaining soldiers were plenty panicked. They must think the entire American army had invaded.
“The second Predator will be on target in four minutes, Kinsey. As soon as it gets there, we’ll give them something more to think about.”
As she approached the back of the building, the gunshots out front subsided. Not good. The danger to this plan was that the bad guys would get a moment’s pause and use it to blow away Mitch. She had to keep the pressure on these guys. She aimed at a small transformer box mounted high on a pole behind the building.
Darn it! She missed! She took another try at it. A shower of sparks erupted from the paint-can-size box. The lights inside the building flickered and went out. The air conditioner rumbled to a halt, and silence fell momentarily.
Then, to her vast relief, another fusillade of gunfire erupted from in front of the building. She fired as
Hathaway had instructed her to at the roof of the metal building. The sound of her shots and the ping of metal would convince the bad guys that someone was firing back at them. In the chaos of their own shooting, they should have a hard time determining where the shots were coming from and what they were aimed at. Fortunately, the jungle was known to do weird things to sound.
Indeed, immediately after she squeezed off a couple rounds high—she surely didn’t want to accidentally shoot Mitch through the flimsy walls of the building—a renewed frenzy of shooting erupted out front.
Her heart pounding so hard it hurt, she eased forward. Lord, she felt naked past the cover of the thick undergrowth. Who’d have thought she’d actually embrace the vines and brambles and threat of nasty critters the jungle represented? But here she was, wishing it went right up to the back of the building. She darted forward and crouched beside the air-conditioning unit and the low screen where its ducting entered the building.
Using the wire cutters she’d found in Mitch’s bag of toys, she started snipping at the screen.
“Take a couple shots, Kinsey. They’re getting bored out front.”
She started. God bless the guys in the Bat Cave. She’d been so intent on getting to Mitch, she’d momentarily forgotten about distracting the Cubans at the front door. She fired a couple shots up at the roof.
As the rat-a-tat of gunfire duly started up again, she continued snipping. It was painfully slow work. Her hands ached dreadfully from the force of having to squeeze through the heavy wire, but she gritted her teeth and kept cutting. She remembered to pause to shoot again the next time herself. She held the weapon clumsily and accidentally held the trigger down longer than she intended. A barrage of fire spewed from her weapon, all but knocking it from her hands. Whoa. She dropped it, startled.
Must keep moving. Must free Mitch. She picked up the wire cutters and went back to work. Almost there. A few more inches and she’d be able to bend the wire back and slip between the fan inside and the wall. It would be a tight squeeze, but Mitch was in there. She’d make it work.
“Target lock-in on the clearing in front of the building,” Hathaway announced in her ear. “Cease fire, Kinsey. Let’s see if we can draw a couple of these guys outside.”
She kept snipping frantically.
“Bingo,” Hathaway bit out in grim satisfaction. “Two tangoes have exited the building. Fire when ready.”
Perfect. The idea was for the folks in the Bat Cave to release another missile and cause a big diversion so she could slip into the building and find Mitch.
She wrestled the screen up and away from the opening, cutting her palms on its sharp edges, completely oblivious to the searing pain. On her hands and knees, she waited for Hathaway’s command.
Kaboom!
“Go, Kinsey.”
She slipped through the opening, careful not to snag her clothes on the screen. Dust choked her, and spiderwebs coated her face. She couldn’t get a hand up to wipe it away, but that was the least of her worries. For a brief panicked moment, she got stuck between the ducting and the galvanized metal wall, but then the sheet metal flexed slightly and she was able to wriggle forward again. She had no idea how Mitch was going to get through this narrow gap. They’d cross that bridge when they got to it. The first order of business was to find him and free him.
The interior of the building was black. She couldn’t see anything more than the barest of shapes. She pushed up to her hands and knees, hugging the wall. A brief flash of gunfire from outside faintly illuminated the doorway across the structure. It looked like a single open room. But in that brief moment, she didn’t see Mitch. Had all of this been for nothing? Was he not here after all? Had she made a horrible mistake?
As her stomach sank, she heard a noise. An odd rasping sound. And a stab of agony so intense it stopped her breath shot through her lungs. M
itch.
She listened carefully. Another labored rasp. Off to her left. She darted that way, staying low. She kicked something hard and a grunt of pain sounded directly in front of her. She reached out in front of her with both hands. Cloth. The curve of a shoulder. A muscular one.
“Mitch?” she breathed. She thought his name as much as said it, so terrified was she that they were not alone in here.
No answer. Either he was unconscious, or he had a reason not to make any noise. Pain coursed through her freely. She instinctively knew he was experiencing the same pain, which meant he had to be conscious. She moved around behind him, crouching with his chair between her and the door. Easing the knife out of her waistband, she began sawing at the cords holding his wrists. It was hard to do in the dark. She couldn’t see what she was doing and was terrified she would slit his wrists with the wickedly sharp blade. The bonds were tight and swollen with moisture.
But, grimly, she continued to saw. A cord popped. Then another. It felt as if maybe there were two more strands wrapped around his wrists. But then his hands jerked and the bonds fell away.
The chair lurched gently. His feet. They must have bound his ankles to the chair.
She lay down, reaching forward under the chair to saw off the ropes around his legs. This was easier, for only the chair leg was behind the rope. Quickly, she released his right ankle and then his left. She was startled when he didn’t stand up.
He still wasn’t talking, so he must think they weren’t alone in here. Crud. As hard as she listened and as intently as she stared around into the darkness, she couldn’t make out anyone else. She felt Mitch moving just a little, then realized he was picking at his chest. They must have tied his torso to the chair, too. She reached up behind him and made quick work of those ropes, as well.
And still he didn’t move. Flummoxed, she crouched behind him, motionless. What was she supposed to do now? She’d assumed he’d take over from here, but he was just sitting there, not moving!
For lack of anything else to do, she eased the MP-4 upward very slowly, edging it forward along the side of the chair, up and under Mitch’s right elbow. Its weight abruptly lifted out of her hands and she sagged with relief. Mitch continued to ease it forward by slow degrees. She marveled at his patience. She was on the verge of screaming in terror and frustration, her nerves stretched to the breaking point and beyond.
She started violently as a male voice mumbled in the dark...in Spanish.
A second voice answered.
Crap! They sounded as if they were near the front door.
She heard a faint shuffle of shoes on concrete. Mitch’s captors were moving. Where, she had no idea. She couldn’t see a thing back here behind this chair. And now that she’d passed the MP-4 to Mitch, she was unarmed, anyway, except for her knife. Fat lot of good that would do against these guys’ guns.
A wave of helplessness washed over her. She hated this feeling! She was not giving in. They’d come this far, and they’d get out of here alive.
She jumped violently as Mitch fired his weapon without warning, a bright muzzle flash accompanying the deafening report of the weapon inside the building’s metal walls.
Someone screamed, and the chair lurched violently to the side as Mitch flung himself off it. It occurred to her that she had better move, too, because the bad guys were bound to fire back at where Mitch’s muzzle flash had just given away his position. She dived right, rolling fast for the nearest wall.
A hard hand closed over her mouth, and something heavy rolled on top of her. But then she recognized the muscular, familiar contours of Mitch’s body against hers.
“Get out however you got in. Tell Hathaway these are Zaragosa’s men. Zaragosa is in league with Camarillo and has turned on us. They’ve called for reinforcements. I’ll hold them off as long as I can. Buy you time to run.”
She froze in shock, absorbing all that in the blink of an eye.
A fusillade of gunfire lit up the front of the room.
“Move,” Mitch grunted as he rolled off her and fired back. She scrambled toward the hole in the back wall, with Mitch close behind.
There was no cover in here. As soon as the Cubans just open fired and sprayed the heck out of the space, she and Mitch were both dead. She paused before the narrow slit. Mitch would never fit through here. From somewhere behind her, Mitch fired his weapon. She felt as much as heard his dive and roll across the floor as pain exploded in her body.
“We need a diversion. Now,” she muttered into her microphone.
“Coming up. Fire the second missile.”
She tugged frantically at the metal duct, trying to widen the space so Mitch could escape.
The ground rocked and a blast of light and heat rocked the building. Mitch skidded to the floor beside her. He reached up, pushed her hands aside and ripped the entire air-conditioning duct free of the wall, greatly enlarging the hole as debris banged down on the building’s roof.
“Go,” Mitch ordered.
“Not without you.”
He gave her a push and she stubbornly shook her head.
“Fine. We both go.” He sounded plenty mad, but as if he also realized arguing with her would be futile. She paused, peering at him, trying to make out his expression.
“I swear,” he bit out.
She dived through the now wide-open hole and rolled to her knees. A big burst of gunfire erupted inside, then Mitch’s muscular body burst through the opening beside her. They took off running, diving to the ground in the first heavy tangle of jungle.
Grimly, Mitch took off crawling low on his belly. She followed, marveling that he could still move with such speed in the condition he—they—were in. She could really stop experiencing all his aches and pains anytime now.
He didn’t go far, though, before he pulled up, leaning heavily against a tree trunk. She opened her mouth to ask him if he was okay, but he gestured her to silence and pointed at his ear. Ahh. He was listening for pursuit. She crouched stock-still, straining to hear any sound not of the jungle. She didn’t know what the heck she was listening for, though.
He reached over and took the earbud and its attached mouthpiece out of her ear.
“I’m out. With Kinsey,” he reported low.
He listened intently for a moment. “Roger.”
Without speaking to her, he took off through the jungle. At least they were able to walk upright this time. As grueling as the next half hour was, she couldn’t complain. She’d had enough wallowing around in the mud with the bugs for one night.
Finally, Mitch stopped, sliding to the ground, panting himself. Her pain was nearly unbearable, and she was only experiencing ghost pains of his. She couldn’t imagine the agony he was suffering.
“Take the headset, Kinsey. The folks in the cave will vector you out of here.”
“What are you going to be doing?”
He started to laugh, but it turned into a gasp of pain. “I’m going to sit here and rest awhile. Then I’m going to hook up with the SEAL team when it gets here. We’ve got an appointment with Camarillo and Zaragosa.”
“I’m staying with you.”
“Kinsey—”
“I’m not arguing with you about this. We’re in this together.”
He glared at her as balefully as he could from between the puffy slits of his eyes.
She squatted down in front of him and looked him square in the face. “You may think it’s okay to walk away, Mitch, but I don’t. Do you hear me? I’m not walking away. This time we’re playing by my rules.”
There, in the dark and the wet and fear, the jungle pressing in around them, their gazes met. Very slowly, his cracked and blackened lips curved up. She felt the pain of the smile in her own mouth. He leaned forward. Reached up with his right hand to grab a fistful of her shirt. He dragged her forw
ard until their noses almost touched.
“Yeah. I hear you. Your rules from now on.”
She stared. “Do you mean it?”
His other hand came up behind her head, pulling her the last few inches separating them and their two worlds. “I promise.”
“Your word of honor?”
“My word of honor. I’m never walking away from you again.”
On a sob, she gathered him in her arms, careful of his injuries. His arms wrapped painfully tight around her, but she didn’t complain. She slid down to the ground beside him, still holding him. As she felt his consciousness slipping away, she said gently, “Give me the radio.” She added, “And the gun.”
With his last strength, he dragged the earpiece off his head and passed her the weapon.
“I’ll take the watch,” she murmured. “You rest now. I’ve got your back.”
“I love the sound of that. I love you.” He sighed. And then he passed out.
She stared down at his dark head. He loved her! Exultation exploded within her. She wanted to kiss him madly, to make passionate love with him, to sing and shout her joy, and the man had just passed out cold.
There’d be time enough later to share their love. A lifetime. Smiling, she donned the headset and laid the gun at the ready across her lap.
And all was right with the world. She sat there in the mud and filth, with rain streaming down her face, aching in every last muscle and so exhausted she could hardly see straight. Mitch’s head was heavy on her shoulder, his battered body draped uncomfortably over hers. And none of it mattered. The trained predator and the pampered princess had found each other. They’d become a team. A heck of a good one if she did say so herself. And neither of them would ever have to be alone again.
And as she sat there, the first birds of dawn began to sing and the sun rose on a new day. They’d found their way out of the darkness. Together.