by Dana Marton
The balcony door stood open, allowing them entry to a room with a large table and a couple of ostentatious, overstuffed couches. They moved quickly, keeping to the shadows with their backs to the wall.
The door at the other end of the room was locked, but between the two of them they solved that problem in a minute. The hallway outside led in two directions, with a steep set of curving stairs to the right. The lights were on here. They communicated with hand signals, then moved toward the stairs.
She’d expected to see guards in the house, but didn’t. She snuck downstairs first, while Mitch covered her from above. Then she covered him while he caught up with her. They crossed the waiting area at the foot of the stairs. Saw the shadow of the guard outside through the glass in the front door and took care not to make a sound.
The first room they came across was Don Pedro’s private kitchen. He ate better fare than his men, judging by the stocked shelves. Mitch pilfered a few cans as he passed through. They would come in handy on their way out of the jungle.
Down the hall, the sound of snoring came from behind closed doors. The house servants most likely, or Don Pedro’s personal bodyguards who were housed in the main building with him. It looked like they weren’t required to stand guard at night.
They left that room alone. The next door revealed a bathroom. Now that was luxury in a place like this.
The only door left stood at the end of the corridor. A solid wood door that looked at least three inches thick, with a good lock. They had to spend more time on that than on any of the other locks they’d come across so far. When they were done, they opened the door, which revealed a staircase in front of them that led down into darkness.
They had no way to tell whether a guard was on duty with the prisoners. Once Mitch closed the door behind them, they could see little, so they silently took each step with care, pausing at the bottom of the stairs.
Something moved in the back of the room. They froze, aiming their weapons blindly.
“Is Roberto down here?” she asked in Spanish, as she pushed Mitch behind the cover of the staircase. She could protect him, too. If a guard slept down here, she would just pretend that she was looking for someone named Roberto, in hopes of a quick roll in the hay. “He said he was coming up to the house.”
Roberto was a common name. And even if there wasn’t one among the house guards and servants, whoever was down here couldn’t know if there wasn’t a horny Roberto among the visitors.
“Megan?” Zak’s voice came out of the darkness, somewhere to her left, the single word mumbled. His jaw must hurt like hell.
“Sis?” another voice asked.
Billy.
She stumbled blindly forward, her heart beating out an erratic rhythm in her throat as she fumbled to light a match. She had to try three times before she managed.
“Anyone else down here?” She peered into the darkness, saw a hole in the wall and headed that way.
A cell. They’d kept him in a dank cell all this time. Part of her rejoiced over finding Billy, while another part was furious at the bastards who’d treated her brother like this.
“Just me and another guy. He’s hurt. Is that really you?” Billy’s voice came from the hole.
Mitch lit a match, too. They didn’t dare risk turning on the lights. The guards outside would see it through the small windows.
A hairy face appeared in the hole in the wall. She recognized the eyes first. She stuck her hand in without hesitation, and the next second her fingertips were touching Billy’s. A tremor ran through her, tears burning her eyes.
Her brother was alive. He was here. Sure she’d believed in that for the past year, but blind faith and physical proof weren’t one and the same. Her throat tightened. A long second passed before she could talk again.
“I’m taking you home. Hang in there. Are you okay?”
“Meg.” Regret mixed with excitement in her brother’s voice. “It’s too dangerous. You shouldn’t have come.” A deep, shuddering breath. “Oh, man. I can’t believe you’re here. I figured everyone would assume I was dead by now.”
She wanted to lean her forehead against the wall and cry. But they didn’t have time for such luxuries.
“Let me see the door.” She let his fingertips go with reluctance and moved along the wall toward the door. Then she lit another match.
“Don’t touch it. The alarm goes off if I so much as lean against the damn thing.”
“Mine, too,” Zak said from the other side of the basement, pushing the words out with effort. He needed medical care for that jaw as soon as possible.
She examined the wiring of the alarm. What the hell? Now she knew why Don Pedro didn’t think a guard was necessary down here.
She could hear Mitch swearing under his breath as he checked Zak’s door, but her full attention was on her brother. The alarm system was some sort of a homemade job, with no logic to it whatsoever. Wires, wires and more wires, all in a jumble. Her experience would mean little here. This would take more than a few minutes, maybe more than a few hours.
“I’m not giving up now,” she promised Billy, racking her brain for a solution.
“Who else is with you?”
She didn’t like how weak his voice was. “A friend.”
“Just one?”
How to explain Mitch? “He’s like Jamie.”
“He’s got no legs?”
“Funny to the last,” she murmured, barely able to understand how Billy could still joke after what he must have endured during the past year here. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have survived if he’d lost his sense of humor.
“It’s too late, sis,” he whispered through the door.
Like hell it was. “I’m here to rescue you now,” she promised. “Don’t you worry about anything.”
Mitch came over. “Can’t do a damn thing about that alarm. Everything okay here?”
“We’ll figure it out. How is Zak?”
“He’ll make it. I think we’re going to have to blow our way out.”
Having her brother within arm’s reach at last, she was so overwhelmed she could barely think. “What are you talking about?”
“You can’t get into their explosives stash.” That came from Billy. “They guard it 24/7. I got that far before. They caught me when I tried to steal some of the good stuff to blow the compound up as a parting gift.”
Knowing that he’d actually gotten out and had been captured again twisted Megan’s heart. This time, the escape would be final. She thought of the trapdoor to the crawl space below Don Pedro’s explosive storage.
“We’ve got our own VIP entrance. Don’t you worry.” She reached in through the hole again and squeezed Billy’s hand before she turned to leave. Time was of the essence. In less than two hours it would be morning. Don Pedro’s men would be waking up and going about their business, making sneaking around a lot more difficult. Not to mention that they would be coming for Zak in short order.
The four of them better be gone long before that.
“All we have to do,” she thought out loud, organizing the action, “is sneak out unseen, steal an armful of explosives, then sneak back in. We’ll blow out the cell doors, then blow a hole in the back wall that’s closest to the jungle. We’ll be gone before the dust settles.”
“Piece of cake,” Mitch said with a chuckle.
The basement was too dark for her to see his face, but she was sure there would be a glint in his eyes. The man wasn’t scared of anything.
“No,” Billy said from behind the wall, putting force into his voice. “You sneak out, get away from this place and don’t come back here. Meg? Please.”
“I’m not leaving without you.” She’d come here for him. She’d planned this moment for over a year, went to bed and woke up in the morning thinking about how she could do it.
“I’ve been in this tiny cell for too long. I’m sick, sis. I’m weak. I can’t make it out of the jungle.”
She didn’t want to hear
it. “Then we’ll carry you on our backs.”
Mitch checked the basement walls with the help of another match, looking for a good spot to put the charges. She trusted him to get it right.
“I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.” Billy’s voice filled with frustration. “Meg—”
“I’m taking you with me.” They were not going to have a discussion over this. No way.
“What’s left of me... I’ll be no use to anyone ever again, sis. There’s no point.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” She knew this mood, the dark heaviness that came through Billy’s voice. Jamie had sounded the same the last time she’d seen him. Well, she wasn’t going to let either of her brothers go out like that. They might have given up, but she was still fighting. “You just get ready.”
“Meg—”
“Don’t be stupid. I didn’t come all this way to leave you here.”
It was just like Billy to argue about his own rescue. He’d been always like that. Headstrong. Never willing to take anything at face value, never accepting her advice just because she was oldest and knew better.
“You know how much I hate it when people fight me when I’m doing something for their own good.” She tried to lighten the mood. They could all use a little of that.
He gave a sour laugh. “God, it’s good to see you again. I didn’t think I’d get the chance. I’m grateful for that, sis. More grateful than I can ever say.”
“You two can do the family thing once we get out of here.” Mitch grabbed her by the elbow and tugged her toward the staircase. “Time is running out here.”
“Don’t waste any of it on me.” Billy stayed stubborn. “If you want to get something out, get out Don Pedro’s game book. It’s worth a hell of lot more than I am.”
“What game book?” Mitch slowed and turned.
“He’s got a book where he keeps track of all his passwords to his online accounts, the location of his goods, that kind of thing. He’s got a laptop, too, but he’s paranoid about somebody hacking it. He keeps the most important information on paper. I overheard one of the guards talking about it a couple of months ago.”
Billy coughed, and she didn’t like the sound of it. But before she could ask if he was all right, he continued. “It’s in his office. In his safe.”
“I’ll try,” Mitch said. “We’ll be back in half an hour. Be ready,” he added.
“Does it have to be explosives?” Zak protested, but his jaw kept him from getting too loud. “What if you make a mistake and kill me?” He kept on going despite the pain each word must have caused him. “My father is rich. I can negotiate with people here. They won’t turn down a bag of money.”
Mitch ignored the kid and walked away, muttering something under his breath that sounded like, “Too bad money can’t buy brains.”
They needed half an hour to get the explosives and get back into the building. Possibly another half an hour to set everything up. Safe and effective demolition took a lot of careful prep work. It was right on the top of the list of things that didn’t pay to do in a hurry.
They’d be cutting it pretty close, Megan thought as she followed Mitch up the stairs. She hoped Don Pedro’s men weren’t early risers.
Chapter Twelve
Mitch stopped at the top of the basement stairs and ran through their options. His original exit plan had been to grab Zak and Billy, then shoot their way out through the front door. The jungle was just steps away behind the house. They could sprint along the fence to the hole he’d found earlier and disappear before most of the drunken camp woke up, got dressed, grabbed their guns and came around to see what all the noise was about.
Except he didn’t have Zak and Billy as he’d planned. They had to come back for those two, so they couldn’t make any noise on their way out, couldn’t be discovered.
“Back to the roof,” he whispered to Megan. The liana was gone, so they couldn’t leave the way they’d come, but another plan began forming in his brain.
They snuck down the hall, a pair of moving shadows stealing up the main stairs. But when they reached the top floor, he didn’t head for the balcony or the nearest window.
The game book wasn’t part of his mission, but he was here, steps from it. Wouldn’t have made any sense leaving it behind. He’d lost too many good friends to people like Don Pedro. If he could take one crime lord down, he was more than willing to go a few steps out of his way to do it.
Megan followed without asking any questions. She’d probably guessed what he was doing, had probably been planning on doing the same thing. Their minds worked the same way in certain regards. It made them a good team.
He could see five doors on this level. One was to the living room with the balcony where they’d come in. One of the other four had to lead to the study. He was holding his knife instead of his gun. If he needed to take anyone out, he’d do it silently.
He tried one door and Megan tried another. They silently opened them just enough to see inside. Enough moonlight came in through the windows to see the basics.
A bathroom. He glanced back at Megan and shook his head. She shook her head back at him.
They crept forward.
He put his hand on the next doorknob, heard a snort from inside. A bed squeaked as whoever occupied it turned. Don Pedro, probably. He tried the knob. Locked.
Mitch looked at the last door, the only one they hadn’t checked. It had a keypad entry. This one was a professional job, standard security. Don Pedro had been willing to spend money here, unlike on the rigged-up job on the basement prison. Ironically, that was the door’s weakness. Mitch knew just about every standard security unit inside out. Outsmarting this one only took a few minutes.
Then he and Megan slipped into the office together. He closed the door behind them and scanned the room in the moonlight. “Where’s the safe?”
The desk was a plain top with four legs. No drawers. The few shelves in the room mostly held guns. There weren’t any pictures on the wall to hide a wall safe. He circled the room along the wall anyway, looking for any irregularities.
Nothing.
“The floor,” Megan said and flipped over the carpet.
Nothing there, either.
Maybe Billy didn’t have the right information.
None of the furniture in the room looked large enough to hide a safe. Nothing on the wall or floor indicated a hiding spot.
“The bookcase.” Megan strode that way.
He helped her push the carved-wood bookcase aside, along with the small rug it had sat on. And there was the safe: an old, manual one, not electric, built into the floor. Don Pedro probably wanted to make sure he could get to the contents even if the generator went out. Good thinking.
All they had to do was guess the numbers and dial them. Mitch could take an electric keypad apart and figure it out in minutes. Very rarely had he seen an old-school strongbox like this before. On the two occasions he had, he’d blown off the door to get to the contents. That wasn’t an option here.
“Any chance the CIA offers a safecracking class?” He looked at Megan.
She gave him a mysterious smile, lay on the floor and flattened her ear against the lock, then began to turn the dial slowly.
She was very handy on a mission, he had to give her that. She did a great job and looked good doing it. His gaze hesitated for a second on the way the moonlight outlined her curves.
She worked the lock while he moved back to the door to stand watch. Then finally she opened the safe, took out what looked like a ledger book and slipped it under her tank top where the elastic of the material kept it in place.
“Here.” He helped her put the bookcase back in its place, then they were out of there.
He grabbed a granite statue on the way out, the bust of a famous South American revolutionary.
She tossed him a curious look.
He just flashed her a smile, then headed for the room with the balcony.
They made it up to the roof wi
thout trouble. At the back of the building, Mitch aligned himself with the guard below. Held out the bust. Dropped it.
At the exact time when the heavy bust cracked the man’s skull, Mitch let out a monkey screech to mask the noise. Then another to mask the sound of the guard folding to the ground.
He lowered himself down the side of the building, using window frames for support and jumping the last eight feet. He knew how to jump silently. Megan probably did, too, but he caught her anyway, just for the pleasure of being able to hold her in his arms.
Then they melted into the bushes together and headed for the building that held the explosives.
“I can’t believe we have to go back in there again.” She shuddered when they were at the hole that allowed entrance into the crawl space, a creepy, yawning mouth of darkness. No matter. He’d been in worse spots. “I’ll go. You stay here and stand guard.”
Her spine stiffened immediately. “I’m coming with you. You might need help in there.”
He shook his head. “You always want to help everyone, but you don’t want to take help from anyone. Is that an oldest-sibling thing?”
She brushed by him so she’d be first in. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not like those helpless women you’re used to, and if it makes you uncomfortable, I’m sorry.”
He grinned as he followed her.
Other than hot and trouble, helpless and clueless had been the first two words that had sprung to mind when he’d first laid eyes on Megan Cassidy. About the last two adjectives, he’d been severely mistaken. About the first two, he’d been right on the money.
A low hiss cut through the quiet, freezing his limbs and sharply refocusing his thoughts. Snake.
He pulled his knife out inch by inch, avoiding any sudden moves. “Megan?”
“I’ve been bitten.”
His breath hitched. He heard the sound of snake scales brushing against his boot, sliced down and hit flesh. He dropped the knife to light a match to see the damage. He’d cut the snake in half, but it was still trying to bite his boot. He speared the head with his knife, careful not to go too far and skewer his own toes.