Spy Hard

by Dana Marton

  The bastards outside thought that the inside force was weakening and launched an all-around attack—just what he didn’t need.

  Pretty soon, the enemy figured out that there weren’t as many people inside the hacienda as they had thought, and pushed forward all at once, from every direction. The fight reached a critical point. The battle could be lost in minutes if he couldn’t hold the attackers back.

  Then Melanie appeared in the doorway. “I want to help.”

  “Go back to bed. You need to stay off your feet.” He kept shooting.

  “If they break into the house, none of that is going to matter.”

  He gritted his teeth. “Can you handle a gun?”

  “You could teach me.”

  “No time for that.”

  “I have a good arm.”

  “What?”

  “Baseball. I played on the women’s team at the university.”

  He glanced back. Maybe she was delirious from pain.

  But she shuffled closer, grabbed a grenade from the floor next to him—he’d been saving those for later—pulled the pin, popped up from behind him and let the grenade fly.

  She’d aimed at a group of men who’d been shooting the house from behind a pile of wood. The grenade cleared the stack of logs and went down right behind it. The force of the explosion sent three men into the air.

  “It doesn’t hurt all the time,” she said behind him. “Just the contractions. I feel fine in-between.” She lobbed another grenade.

  He stared at her, frankly filled with admiration. “Look at you now.”

  She put her chin up. “I’m done hiding behind other people’s backs.”

  He squeezed off a couple of rounds before he responded. “Go to the back of the house. Take as many grenades as you can. And sit down, for heaven’s sake.” He couldn’t really afford to take his eyes off the enemy, but he glanced back anyway and caught her gaze one more time. “Be careful.”

  “I’m fighting for my baby,” she said, as she gathered up two dozen grenades in her shirt.

  Which gave him an idea. He squeezed off a few more rounds, then ran off to grab the Don and drag him back to the front room with him. He pulled the rag from the man’s mouth.

  “This is how it’s going to go. I shoot, you throw the grenades.”

  “Who the hell are you?” The man’s eyes blazed with heat.

  They had no time for that. “These are your choices: if Cristobal gets his hands on you, you’re dead. You help me fight him off, and you’ll get a comfortable cell in a U.S. prison, three square meals, cable TV, you can go to college and get a law degree or whatever.”

  The Don looked like he was ready to strangle him. But he nodded. He probably figured he’d get away from Jase later. “Give me a gun.”

  “I don’t think so.” A gun could be too easily turned against him. But if the Don dropped a grenade in the room, they’d both be killed. He untied the man’s hands, ready for an attack, but the Don seemed smart enough to have gotten his point. Good. “Aim and throw. Get busy.”

  The attackers were getting too damned close to the building.

  Melanie was holding off the men in the back, though. Explosions shook the air regularly, coming from that direction.

  The three of them working together pushed back the next wave of attack successfully.

  But as much as having the Don helped, he also slowed Jase down, since he had to keep an eye on the man and he could no longer run from room to room to check all around the building without dragging the guy behind him.

  And that was a giant drawback, he acknowledged silently, as a loud crash came from below.

  Jase swore. That had to be one of the boarded-up windows. Somebody had just made his way in.

  Their defenses had been breached.

  And the evac team was still nowhere in sight.

  Chapter Twelve

  Defending the top of the stairs was the name of the game at this stage, so Jase rushed to take that strategic position, taking the Don with him. The man had stuffed his pockets full of grenades, so he was supplied for a while.

  Melanie limped down the hall for more hand grenades, then went to cover the area outside the breached window so no additional attackers could come in. Jase couldn’t believe she could still think at this stage, let alone put up a fight.

  He couldn’t watch her for long. He had to turn his attention back to the melee. Then a shout from the Don distracted him for a second from the man who’d broken through and had now taken up position downstairs.

  One of his bullets hit the Don in the shoulder and he went down. Right shoulder. He wouldn’t be much help after this. Which was fine. Too many hand grenades going off inside the house wouldn’t be a good thing anyway. The explosions could weaken the structure enough so the whole building would collapse.

  At least the army had never materialized, Jase thought, trying to think of some silver lining. Maybe they were on the take from both sides. He needed something good to hang on to.

  Then he finally got a clean shot of the man below and took him out. The enemy fighter went down, leaving red splash marks behind him on the wall.

  Not wanting to waste the momentary break, Jase ran to Melanie.

  “Still okay?”

  “First babies don’t come so fast. Quit worrying.”

  He ran to the other side of the house to look out that way. Men were right up by the wall, trying to breach another boarded-up window. There were probably more up front, doing the same. He pointed his gun out and down and shot randomly, scattering them. When they returned fire, he pulled back in and ran to the front to do some damage control there, but was stopped halfway by a keening sound.

  Melanie.

  He changed course immediately. “Are you hit?”

  No answer came.

  * * *

  THE SUDDEN CONTRACTION took her breath away. This was different than the others. This one meant it.

  She dropped the grenade, just barely outside the window. It blew up right at the foot of the wall and shook the building. Okay, she was now officially doing more damage than good. Time to quit.

  Even from her sitting position she could see Cristobal’s men rush in from every direction. They knew the defense team was weakening, and they were moving in for the kill.

  There were too many of them. She could hear them breaking through the boarded-up windows and coming in downstairs.

  “I’m coming,” Jase shouted to her, but from the sound of his gun, she figured he’d been stopped at the top of the stairs, trying to hold them back from coming up.

  She could no longer help. She glanced at the Don’s bed in the far corner and stood from the chair to waddle over there. Her water broke halfway to her destination.

  She braced her back against the wall as another contraction gripped her. The baby was definitely coming.

  She desperately wanted to live long enough to see her son born. When the contraction passed, she moved forward. A short burst of gunfire sounded just outside her door. Then silence.

  Was Jase hit? She detoured that way with what little strength she had left.

  “Get back!” he yelled as soon as he spotted her. “I got this.”

  His tone and expression were grim. He was bleeding from several wounds, his face was messed up.

  Her heart turned over in her chest. He was protecting her to his dying breath, like he’d promised. She’d never met anyone like him. In another life…if things had been different…

  But no amount of valor could stand against the overwhelming force they faced. Tears burned her eyes as she realized they weren’t going to make it.

  She could see out the front window from where she stood. More of Cristobal’s thugs were rushing toward the hacienda. Trying to get to the bed no longer mattered, so she simply leaned against the wall and looked at Jase. At best, they had minutes left to live.

  But then she saw something strange happen outside. One of the attacking men in the back of the group fell and didn�
�t get up. Definitely not Jase’s doing. He had his gun trained on the stairs inside.

  Then she saw another of Cristobal’s men fall outside, then another, taken out by a phantom enemy from the forest. Yet she heard no gunfire coming from the jungle.

  Maybe she was hallucinating out of sheer desperation, seeing what she wanted to see.

  But soon half a dozen men were on the ground. Then a dozen. Their buddies up front realized at that point what was going on, turned to shoot at the forest, abandoning their attack of the hacienda. They looked bewildered, firing wildly, not particularly aiming at anything.

  It seemed as if the forest itself had risen up against them and fought against them with some ancient magic.

  She felt as stunned as they had to be, the short hairs rising at her nape. Then she saw a brownish shape fall from one of the trees. She couldn’t make out who he was until he hit the ground: a native Indian, dressed in nothing but a loincloth. He still clutched the blowpipe he’d been using as a weapon. He stayed where he’d dropped, unmoving, red blooming on his chest.

  Some tribal warriors had arrived, fighting with poison darts. Probably from one of the nearby villages. It made no sense. According to Pedro, they avoided him and his men, the loggers and the drug runners. She could understand why: Pedro and the men he employed gave nothing to those villagers but grief.

  Yet they were here now, invisible in the trees, and they had very accurate aim. They were bringing down Cristobal’s men one after the other. The bandits were still spraying the trees blindly with their automatic weapons. And the sheer volume of bullets was starting to show results. Several of the native warriors fell as she watched helplessly, contractions gripping her.

  She slid to the floor, doing whatever Lamaze breathing she’d seen on TV. She hadn’t gone to actual classes yet. Nor would she get to, at this stage. Too late, she thought. Too late for everything.

  Then, after what seemed an eternity, Jase’s gun fell silent at the top of the stairs. And soon the guns outside, too, quieted.

  “I think whoever the Indians didn’t get ran off.” Jase picked her up and carried her to the closest room with a bed: Pedro’s. She was beyond caring.

  He left, but came back a minute later dragging the Don behind him. He tied the injured man up and shoved him into the corner without ceremony.

  Then he turned to her, his gaze immediately softening. “Sorry. Can’t afford to let him run off at this stage.”

  “Please. Not here.” She had her limits.

  He nodded after a moment and dragged the man out, came back in shortly. “Tied him up in his office and locked him in. How are you?”

  Breathing hard. “How soon is that chopper coming?”

  He looked her over, the way her face twisted with the next contraction, his gaze falling to the hand that held her belly. “Probably not soon enough.” A twinge of panic underlined his words.

  She wasn’t used to seeing him unsettled, his unbreakable composure shaken. Made him a little more approachable, actually.

  “I’ll be fine. Women have been doing this since the beginning of time.” Whatever confidence she didn’t feel, she faked.

  He laid his gun down, but didn’t step closer.

  She gulped some air. “At least that’s what they always say on TV in situations like this.”

  He flashed a pained grin.

  Then spun and went for his gun. But didn’t shoot.

  Mochi stood in the door. The kid was smiling from ear to ear, his chest puffed out a mile. He sauntered in, surveyed the situation, then moved to the window and shouted a couple of sentences in his native language.

  Jase went to look out from behind him. A strange look crossed his face as he surveyed whatever was going on out there.

  She wanted to see, too, but couldn’t get up. Not even between two contractions now. They were too close together. “What’s happening?”

  “About two dozen warriors are picking up their dead. They are pulling back into the forest.”

  Mochi came to her, a proud smile on his face.

  “Oh, Mochi.” Tears sprung to her eyes. “You are really something. Thank you. You saved our lives, you know that?”

  Then she couldn’t say anything for a while as the next contraction came.

  “I think we’re going to need clean water and clean sheets,” she said when the contraction passed.

  “More TV wisdom?”

  She flinched.

  “I don’t suppose you took one of those classes?”

  “I was going to do that after I got back from delivering Julio’s ashes to his family.” That trip didn’t turn out as planned, to say the least.

  He raked his long fingers through his hair. “You should puff your cheeks out. I mean breathe.”

  “You think?”

  He’d gone from supersoldier to rattled man pretty quickly, clearly out of his element with the whole childbirth thing.

  “I’m going to help,” he said heroically, even as his eyes said he wanted to run for the hills.

  “I appreciate it.”

  But someone else showed up before he would have been put to the test. An old Indian woman appeared in the doorway.

  Mochi greeted her respectfully. She measured up the situation, looked out the window as if orienting herself, then picked a corner and set down her bundle, pulling out a dried birdwing with the black feathers still attached to it.

  She swept out the corner with it, then reached to her waist and unwrapped her skirt, laying the reddish colored cloth down. Now she stood there in nothing but a loincloth that was way too skimpy in the back—just a stringy thing, really, revealing way too much sagging and wrinkly skin.

  Not that Melanie would have criticized her for anything. She was so grateful for help she could have wept.

  Jase, who’d stared at first, then turned away, not knowing where to look, snapped back to the task at hand at last. “Where are the towels?”

  “I have fresh sheets in my armoire.”

  He shot out of the room.

  Mochi just kept grinning, a pleased look on his face. All was well in his book. They’d been saved and he’d somehow even gotten a medicine woman here. He didn’t seem uncomfortable with the whole giving-birth thing.

  Melanie had the sudden thought that being a child of a close-knit village, the boy might have seen dozens of babies born. Certainly more than she and Jase.

  His optimism was beginning to rub off on her. He really was an exceptional little boy.

  “Any mother would be proud to have a son like you, you know that?” she told him in between contractions.

  The medicine woman seemed to be done with her preparation, because she came over to the bed and looked into Melanie’s eyes. And for a moment the room and everyone else disappeared. Melanie felt pulled into a swirl of soothing murmurs, although the woman’s lips didn’t move.

  Oh, God. Exhaustion was making her loopy, she thought, more than a little discombobulated.

  Then the woman broke eye contact, and the strange dizzy sensation immediately disappeared. She said something to Mochi. The boy left the room.

  Jase checked in with those sheets, still looking nervous around the edges.

  The woman motioned him inside, then did the eye-lock with him next, cocking her head to the right, staring at his face unblinking as if wanting to see inside him. He looked almost hypnotized, as if compelled not to look away.

  The strange spectacle lasted only a few seconds. Then the woman gestured to him, indicating that he should pick up Melanie and carry her to the cloth she’d laid out. She made him sit down, too, his back braced against the corner of the room. Then she manipulated Melanie until she was sitting between Jase’s pulled-up knees, her back braced against his bare chest.

  She would have much rather stayed in the bed, but she was beyond protesting. A contraction gripped her. She couldn’t breathe for a minute.

  “It’s too early.” The woman simply nodded, reached into a pouch that hung from a cord tied a
round her waist, and sprinkled some dried herbs around them while muttering the same few words toward the north, east, west and south.

  Mochi came back with water, then went out again.

  The woman put a different kind of herb into the bowl, mixed it up with her hands. The water turned red. Then she removed Melanie’s pants and underwear without ceremony, pushed her legs up and began to wash her. Her skin turned red wherever the herbal water touched it.

  Talk about embarrassing. She couldn’t look at Jase. Hoped he had his eyes closed.

  “What is she doing?” she asked him under her breath.

  “Whatever it is, her people have probably been doing it for thousands of years. She’s probably using some astringent plant juice to fight against bacteria.”

  Whether he was right or not, it sounded good. The room was far from sterile.

  By the time the medicine woman finished, the contractions came one on the heel of the other. The baby seemed to be in a rush. Was that a good sign or a bad one?

  “Where is the evacuation team?” she demanded, expectation mixing with fear.

  Jase held her against his body, held her up. “On their way. Hang in there. We’ll do this together.”

  If embarrassment didn’t kill her first. She only hoped that where he sat behind her, he couldn’t see her naked bottom half. She tried to move her head into position to block his line of vision and make sure.

  But when the medicine woman finished with another batch of incantations, she grabbed the edge of Melanie’s T-shirt and pulled it over her head before she had a chance to protest.

  “No, no, no.”

  Too late.

  Another contraction gripped her, and she was helpless as the woman divested her of her bra, which had been her very last stich of clothing. This was so wrong on so many levels. She couldn’t protect herself. All she could do was wrap her arms around her chest.

  “Relax,” Jase said from behind her. “You’re okay.”