Bunny felt a shiver pass down her backbone. First Liza now Lopez’s mother delivering basically the same message.
“So what are we going to do?” Davidson asked. He always was the pragmatist.
Lopez shook off his concern. “Steal a plane and head to Germany. What else should we do?”
“But the warning from Liza and your mother.”
“I am not getting spooked by two crazy women,” Lopez laughed. “If I did everything my Momma’s Babba said, I’d be married with six kids and own a saint’s candle factory.”
How easily Lopez could shake off the onerous feeling that had settled over the room.
Bunny wasn’t so lucky.
* * *
Germany.
Baasha had on good authority that Liza was being taken to Germany then was heading to the US. That could not happen. They needed a plan. A brilliant, foolproof plan, immediately.
Unfortunately an operation of this magnitude usually took months of planning and inserting personnel into key positions. It was the ultimate chess game. But now they needed to divert a plane from DC to Haiti with under four hours lead time.
If he wished to remain indispensible, Baasha had best come up with a plan, otherwise his usefulness might be called into question especially after what happened back at the pirate camp.
Even though they had predicted its failure, there were times when it was just as easy to kill the messenger than it was to listen to the message.
Baasha limped over as the helicopter landed. It had taken far too long for his extraction. Why? Because in Aaron’s infinite wisdom and arrogance, he hadn’t felt the need for an extraction plan. They had three helicopters, why would they need any more?
The reason was four names. Davidson, Lopez, Levont and Prenner. Four names that had been burned into Baasha’s mind. Four names that needed to be wiped off this earth.
Who knew what secrets of the Righteous that Liza might be spilling as they waited? Anyone who had come into contact with her must be eliminated.
The other brothers diverted their eyes as he awkwardly climbed aboard. None would offer assistance. Not that he would take it. He was of their lineage. He could show no sign of weakness even if he was in fact, weak.
Baasha took his seat and strapped in. The rest left a halo of empty seats around him. None wanting to get too close as if his disabilities were contagious. He knew that they found it hard to believe that he held the same DNA as they.
They were unto gods and he was, well, he was a misshapen demon whom they had to tolerate.
The helicopter lifted them smoothly from the ground and into the sky. They headed northwest. Most likely to Egypt then onto France. They had strongholds in both locations.
He would call ahead and try to manipulate events in Germany. That plane must not make DC.
Not with the second coming so close at hand. There were a series of very specific events that must occur to bring about their savior’s arrival. He could not allow a simple Special Forces team to get in the way of the world’s next great religion.
With the strife, war, poverty and rising oceans it was a time of biblical proportions.
A time of biblical destruction.
CHAPTER 6
Bunny never thought she would say this, but an Air Force transport was quite the luxury after the hellish helicopter ride out of the Somalian forest. Of course it was no five star yacht, but it had comfortable seats and a nice berth for Liza’s hospital bed.
Lopez had gotten them out of Africa and to Germany in record time. No great surprise there. And the crew in Stuttgart had been all over it, getting them transferred within the hour and onto this larger medical transport, gassed up and ready to head to DC.
For a moment, Bunny had hesitated leaving the team. Then she’d looked into Davidson’s eyes and seen nothing. Nothing to make her stay. So here she was flying to DC, trying to forget what it was like to have Davidson’ lips on hers.
Glancing out the window she expected to see the rock of Gibraltar out the left hand window. For some reason she was always so impressed by the sight when she flew out of Europe. It was stupid really. It was just a rock. A big freaking rock, but still just a rock.
To her though it meant so much more. Resiliency. That rock had seen it all. The crusades. Napoleon. World War II, yet it still stood. And a thousand other conflicts small and large.
‘The ocean couldn’t whittle it away. Hitler couldn’t bomb it into oblivion.
It stood as a symbol of hope and the power of persistence.
Only problem it wasn’t out her left window. It was out her right. Which meant they were south of the rock. Certainly not the path to DC.
She hit the intercom to the cockpit. “Pilot, we seem to be off course.”
“No, ma’am,” The man answered, “We are right on course to land at Bollings Air Force base at seven hundred hours.”
Bunny knew it was futile, but she had to try. “We are south of the rock. We are not heading to DC.”
The line was cut off abruptly. She grabbed her phone from her purse. No signal. No surprise because when you are being kidnapped in an Air Force plane, the enemy wasn’t going to allow you to make a few calls along the way.
Given the southern trajectory and Liza in the hospital bed, Bunny was pretty damned sure where they were headed.
Haiti.
And here she hadn’t packed a single sarong.
* * *
Stark rolled back and forth between six screens. He was monitoring so many perimeters that it would take him longer to list them all than it would to read aloud most phone books. His mother was hard at work as well, trying to make sense of all the readings that were flooding in.
But one in particular was really bugging him. “Lopez.”
There was a slight delay. “Yes?”
“Bunny’s plane is taking a detour.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lopez replied.
“Where exactly is the plane headed?” Davidson asked. At the least he had the courtesy to sound concerned. They never should have let Bunny and Liza go to DC on their own. If Stark was Bunny’s man, he wouldn’t let the woman out of his sight. Their lives were just too volatile and dangerous. What had the men been thinking?
“Where do you think?” Stark asked.
No one bothered to answer.
“Fine,” Lopez said. “Let HQ know that they are going to have to find another team for Libya.”
Stark typed rapidly, sending in the change of plans.
“Well, luckily,” Lopez said. “We aren’t far behind them. Although I’m not sure we’ve got enough gas to get all the way to Haiti.”
“I’ll arrange a mid-air fueling.”
Some pilots might have been just a little freaked out by that concept, but Lopez didn’t even answer. Of course they were going to fuel mid-air. Like Bunny would say, “duh.”
* * *
Bunny tried to clear her mind. They were making their descent. The pilots couldn’t help it. By the time they had realized that their instruments had deceived them, they were committed to Haiti. They didn’t have the fuel to do anything else but land here.
She watched as the crystal blue waters rapidly approached. Up ahead you could make out the tropical green forests and white sandy beaches. It looked so peaceful, like she was flying into a luxurious vacation, but she knew the truth of what would happen once they landed.
These attackers only wanted Liza which meant Bunny was probably scheduled to be face down in a few minutes.
The plane shook as the wheels touched down. For his last flight ever, the pilot made a smooth landing. Bunny had searched the medical bay for a weapon of any kind and only come up with the IV stand and an oxygen tank. Guess she was going to have to use them wisely.
She patted Liza’s arm one last time. “Hang on, okay? We’re going to get you out of this.”
Was that a promise or just wishful thinking? The guys had to be right behind her, didn’t they? She knew that Stark
kind of had a crush on her, rightfully so, and that he had most likely been monitoring her flight, mainly so that he could probably met her at the airport. She wasn’t going to dissuade him in any way from now on if he brought the boys to Haiti for her.
The plane taxied to the small airport. They didn’t have any mechanical gangways here. They used the old fashioned roll up stairs. Bunny could see three men in blue jumpsuits waiting to board.
This wasn’t going to be fun. She tried to replay in her mind everything that Davidson had taught her about hand-to-hand combat. She tried to reassure herself that just because she wasn’t armed, that she could take on someone with a gun.
It was all for naught though. All she could hear was the pulse pounding in her ears. All she could remember was how often she was back down on the mat after she had screwed up and Davidson had won the match.
And now she was supposed to somehow come through under these circumstances?
The stairs clanged against the outer shell of the plane. It wouldn’t be long now.
It was even more eerie as the silence lingered. No gun shots. No screams. The enemy was just that good.
Then the latch to the door turned. Bunny pressed her back against the metal, holding the IV pole in her trembling hands.
* * *
Davidson tried not to let his frustration reach his tone. “How much longer?”
Lopez turned around in his pilot’s chair to face him. “This backseat flying is getting to be a little much. Plus, I’m punching it.”
Davidson knew that was true. As a matter of fact he was mildly shocked that the plane was still in the air given the rattling of the engine.
“They’ve landed,” Prenner informed the team.
“Lopez…” Davidson growled. Granted they had been over two hours behind the jet, it was still unacceptable to have Bunny land first. They had hurled themselves across the Atlantic in record time, yet still couldn’t catch up.
“Anything, Stark?” Davidson asked into his mic.
“The satellite still isn’t quite in position,” Stark relayed.
Nothing had gone right since he let Bunny leave the team. He should have known better. The enemy had gone to such great lengths to gather Liza the first time, they should have assumed that they would try again. But to divert an Air Force transport? That took some serious balls.
These “Righteous” were anything but. Davidson should know. He’d grown up, indoctrinated into a religious fanatical cult. The more a para-military group said they were doing God’s work, usually the opposite was true. They were doing what they were doing to further their own delusions of importance and worth.
When really wasn’t the essence of God’s work to feed the poor? Stand up for the weak? Blowing up half of mankind just didn’t seem like what the Heavenly Father would want.
Try telling that to them though.
“I’m landing, are you happy now?” Lopez grunted.
“Barely.”
* * *
Bunny’s arms shook. Something must have happened because the latch flipped back into place. Dear God, just get this over with.
Then the metal latch tilted again. She brought the IV pole up and over her head. The metal rod wasn’t very thick. She was going to need as much swing as she could get to have any effect.
While she hadn’t been at the camp, she’d heard about the clone’s physical prowess. Bunny licked her lips. She had to put all of that out of her mind. Davidson had taught her that. She needed to be a blank slate. This allowed her brain to concentrate only on the events that unfolded. She was going to need all of her gray matter computational capacity to survive this one.
The door finally cracked open and a man in a black jumpsuit entered the room, his gun arm out and pointing at Liza.
Bunny couldn’t hesitate, without warning, she brought the steel rod down, directly behind the wrist. The bone snapped as it broke, slightly nauseating her, but she couldn’t stop as the gun clanged to the deck and slid under some medical supplies. All the better.
Davidson had said that most people spent more time trying to retrieve the gun, rather than continue hand to hand. Big mistake. So Bunny continued the momentum of her swing and brought the rod back up and clocked the guy on his perfectly square chin. His head snapped back as blood shot from his lip.
She couldn’t pay any attention to that though. Nothing mattered until the man was down, out cold or killed. Killed. That sounded so harsh, but wasn’t as the man reacted, throwing a backhanded blow.
Bunny ducked just in time, Using her TyBo work out thighs to power her forward, grabbing the man around the waist, slamming him into the steel wall.
He hadn’t expected that. Davidson had taught her that as well. Men had a certain expectation of how a woman fights. She needed to keep the guy off balance.
Giving a sharp thrust of her knee into his groin, she backed away before he could get a hold of her. She spun the rod in her hand as they circled. Good thing she’d been a majorette in high school. This was a little like throwing a baton.
The guy’s bright blue eyes sparkled in the low light. He would be hot. No, make that super hot, if he weren’t trying to kill her.
While she was a sucker for a square jaw and sapphire eyes, homicidal tendencies was kind of was a deal breaker for her. Bunny reprimanded herself. The fight, it should be the only thing she was thinking of. She had to clear her mind of all this extraneous stuff. Concentrating on the man’s shoulders and hips, Bunny got back into the fight.
As Davidson said, all attacks started at the core. You couldn’t throw a punch without committing your shoulders first. You couldn’t kick without angling your hips.
There it was. His hips. She was ready when the roundhouse kick came. Instead of guarding against it though, she went for the soft target. The abdomen that had to be vulnerable during the kick. She turned the IV pole lengthwise and gouged the end into his stomach.
The kick was wide as the man doubled over. Bunny took a moment to bask in her accomplishment. Which was exactly what she shouldn’t have done. The guy recovered quickly and set a cross-cut upper swing, Nailing Bunny right in the jaw. She went sprawling backwards, her IV pole flinging from her hand, landing half under Liza’s bed.
The man, rather than gloating, took advantage of the situation, pouncing on Bunny, grabbing her by the hair, jerking her head up as he punched her again and again. Her head spun. The room spun. The pain was like bright flashes of light, searing into her brain.
She couldn’t take much more of this punishment.
Luckily her secondary weapon was only inches away. She grabbed the valve end of the oxygen tank and swung it up, nailing the guy in the temple. He fell back, his fists falling to the side as he crashed to the ground.
There would be no gloating this time. Bunny leapt up and brought the tank up again, bringing it down on the man’s chiseled features. They exploded into blood and mangled tissue. She swung again and again, sucking in iron tinged air.
Bunny didn’t stop until her arms gave out.
Beneath her you never could have recognized the man as a clone. You could barely recognize it was a man at all. Her breath came in great gulps. Adrenaline sang in her ear through a chorus of heartbeats and wheezing. She’d done it. She’d survived.
The first one…
Bunny knew there had been three assailants on the stairs. Where were the other two? Before she could look for her IV pole or the gun, the second man stepped over the threshold. He raised his gun.
This was it.
All Bunny had was the oxygen tank in her hand. Which she threw toward the clone just as he fired. The bullet pierced the metal tank, igniting the highly combustible oxygen. A huge fireball raged, consuming the gunman.
Bunny was thrown backward from the blast, but was pretty much unsinged. The gunman, not so much. The smell of burnt flesh hung in the air. It was thick and nauseating. Bunny was glad that Liza was still so out of it.
Then the third gunman entered the room.
His eyes quickly scanned the carnage in front of him. His handsome features hardened as he raised his gun. Bunny had nothing. No IV pole. No oxygen tank. No gun. Nothing.
She took in what might be her last breath and squeezed her eyes shut, she really didn’t want to see this.
The shot rang out. Bunny could swear that she felt the bullet tear into her flesh. She could swear she felt blood gush down her shirt. She could swear she felt her body go into shock as her knees weakened.
Only none of that happened. The gunman looked surprised as blood welled on his chest and he collapsed face forward. Levont rushed forward as the rest of the team swept into the room, making sure it was secure. Davidson coursed by her without even giving her a glance.
She’d hoped he might catch her as her knees really did buckle. However it was Prenner who caught her just before she hit the deck. His strong arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her close to him.
“You’re okay. You’re good,” he murmured as he kissed the top of her head.
Of course it was fine for him to do that. He could express his affection since everyone knew it wasn’t going anywhere. Not to Bunny. Not to any woman.
Not caring that it made her look weak, Bunny leaned into Prenner’s muscular chest, listening to the soothing sound of a heart not racing a thousand miles a minute. The slow, strong beat, seemed to infuse her with a feeling of peace.
“So do we know why the Righteous had a hard on for Haiti?” Lopez asked.
* * *
Davidson checked on Liza. “Sorry, she’s still speaking in tongues.
He spoke nearly a dozen languages, yet couldn’t make a word out of what the young woman was saying.
Glancing over his shoulder he watched Bunny try to stand up alone. She swayed to the side just before Prenner caught her. Davidson knew it should be him over there. He should be comforting Bunny, but he just couldn’t allow himself to draw that close. Had his Knot mentor, Petir, been right? Not in all of it, but about women?
He knew that his thoughts were scattered when Bunny and he had been their closest. He’d cared too much where Bunny was or what she was doing when he should have been focusing on the fight at hand. And if she were in danger? He could barely think straight.
Bull's Eye Sniper Chronicles Collection (The Second Cycle of the Betrayed Series) Page 9