The men left behind wasted no time in beating their retreat down the dark trail, farther underground, to their rendezvous with Martens. He and Sebastian would have to follow.
Sebastian emerged from the shadows as their adversaries disappeared, dragging a big man who was knocked out cold and securely trussed, while his other hand clutched his rifle.
“We’ll leave him here for later,” Sebastian said, as if that explained everything.
Nathan nodded. “Well played!”
Sebastian shrugged. “Surprising what you can achieve with a rifle butt if you get the jump. Your diversion was all it took.” He glanced around him. “He’ll be okay here for a couple of hours. Let’s keep moving. The sooner we get this thing sorted the better.”
“No argument there,” Nathan said and fell in behind as Sebastian moved ahead, his long limbs relaxed and fluid, a stealthy cat out on territorial patrol. A shaft of overhead light caught a momentary flash of his red-gold hair and then he seemed to fade back into his dim surroundings.
They moved on in silent single file, cautiously double checking new terrain to avoid ambush at every divergence, so progress was slow. Once or twice Nathan thought he heard men’s voices echoing off distant walls, but then wondered almost instantly whether he’d imagined the sound.
The further in they went, the more difficult the path was to see, and the colder and damper the air became. He was breathing in a stale swampy aroma that he could taste in his mouth, and he rolled his tongue around his teeth to try and clear it.
Sebastian suddenly slowed to a halt and put his hand up behind him in warning. Nathan thought his hearing was pretty keen, but his brother had picked up something he hadn’t. Seb leaned down and spoke right into his ear, “Action ahead. Wait here while I take a look.”
Before Nathan had time to respond Sebastian melted into the blackness. Nathan took cover off the path. Who knew when one of Martens’s free-wheeling henchmen might show up, he thought irritably.
Sebastian was back within minutes. “Bad news up ahead, bro. They’re expecting us and they’ve got the reception ready.”
Nathan stared, searching out his eyes in the dark. “Yeah? What kind of reception?”
“One we can’t avoid. They’ve got de Vile trussed up like bait. You can bet they’ve got him wired and fit to explode like a July Fourth fire cracker, but we can’t ignore him. We’ll have to go in.”
They squatted on the ground and examined their options in hushed voices. Regroup with the men they’d brought and come back? “Too much of a risk they’ll kill him in the meantime and then simply disappear,” said Seb.
Hide in the darkness and pick them off one by one like a sniper? “They’re in there for sure, but it’s impossible to see anyone in this light. Not sure that’s feasible as a full strategy. I mean how long can we wait them out? But might be useful as one tactic in a bigger scenario,” Seb responded.
After a while longer spent talking and drawing maps on the sandy cave floor with a stick, they’d decided. A variation on what had worked last time. A surprise diversion, more help from the black witch and her blood-freezing whistle, and they’d have to find a way to call Martens out and put him in such fear he’d be willing to trade his own skin for de Vile’s.
“Is that all?” Nathan said. “We’ll be out of here and back at the resort in time for lunch. No problem.”
“You reckon?” said Seb with a sickly grin. “I hope you’re right.”
Fifty Three
De Vile was slumped like a sack of flour against a rock in the middle of a stone circle that might have once had some ancient religious purpose, but there was nothing supernatural about the detonator-loaded bandolier wrapped across his chest in diagonal stripes from his shoulders to his hips.
The twine fuse from the monstrosity trailed between his legs and disappeared into the darkness. Sebastian hadn’t exaggerated when he’d surmised he was trussed up like a Fourth of July fire cracker waiting to be torched.
Nathan didn’t want to consider the destruction he’d set off if their wildly conceived plan went awry and he accidentally lit that fuse.
Sebastian had done his usual trick of melting into the black velvet of the cave. How a big man could insinuate himself into such complete invisibility was beyond Nathan’s understanding, but he’d never felt more grateful for a dark art.
While Sebastian reconnoitered the space and determined where Martens was to be found, he loitered behind, slipping in minute, barely discernible movements into the chamber, growing ever closer to his target, the ten-foot circle in which de Vile sat.
Stuffed under Nathan’s armpits were the wads of balled up rags soaked in saltpetre they’d cobbled together from the dead miner’s discarded kit. Clothes that had gone mildewy beside their entombed owner might finally serve life.
As Nathan inched forward, he hugged the rags close, savoring the dampness against his skin because of what it promised to provide—one helluva of a smokescreen to obscure their movements.
The space he was working his way into was much smaller than the earlier cavern, hemmed in by straight, smooth walls rising perpendicular to the circular floor. There was no obvious escape route out. As far as he could tell, the chamber finished in a dead end, and they’d need to all come out the same way they had come in.
He paused to listen for any unusual sounds but heard nothing. No indication of where Martens and his men were hiding. They’d either found a cleft in the walls that was veiled in the low light, or they were concealed in piles of stone rubble that backed onto the walls in several places. If they were smart they’d be in several places, so they could jump them from more than one direction.
He was edging into the zone he and Sebastian had discussed—the ten-foot circumference of the prisoner—when he sensed de Vile was alert and vigilant. He caught the softest whisper. “Confound those who would destroy me… Drive back those who wish me evil…”
De Vile’s rasp fell silent for several seconds, and then Nathan heard him draw a long ragged breath and begin again, “Confound those who would destroy me…” De Vile was appealing to a higher authority, in words very similar to those King David had used in the Psalms.
Nathan paused in the murk, his armpits freezing from their wet cargo, his abdomen stinging from grazing from the rocks he’d slithered over, but he could shake those things off. He felt a fresh jolt of hope knowing de Vile was conscious and capable of moving, if their plan got them that far.
The thought had just registered when de Vile raised a cry. “Martens! Willoughby Martens! Get me out of here! Get me out of here now!” It wasn’t a plea, it was a command. The voice was strong, compelling, and not to be denied. “Get me out of here now!”
Nathan thought he heard a rattle of rock against rock, of a man stumbling in the darkness over to his right, but there was no other response. And then Sebastian gave his pre-arranged signal, the eerie owl whistle which had jinxed Martens’s men earlier.
They’d agreed Nathan was to start counting as soon as the whistle began and launch his offensive after waiting exactly the same amount of time as the whistle had taken.
That way Sebastian could set the timetable for his own offensive. Five, seven, nine, eleven, fifteen seconds. Nathan focused all his attention on the spine tingling call. Then Sebastian fell silent.
De Vile began again, chanting as if he was a monk at evensong. “Confound those who would destroy me… Drive back those who wish me evil.” Pause. “Confound…”
In the dark a man screamed. “Shut him up! He’s bad luck. Mala suerte! Mala suerte!”
A shot rang out, simultaneous with another scream.
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Nathan had huddled against a small rock mound to obscure his moments as he covertly settled into a sitting position while he’d been counting. His ragball wads were lined up along his thighs. He drew out the Lucifers he kept in his watertight tinder box on his belt and lit each wad in turn.
He waited with his heart in his mouth for the sal
tpetre to catch in the wadding and then he lobbed them, one after another, circling and a few feet clear of Hector de Vile’s position.
When the last one was airborne, he dropped to the cavern floor on his belly again, just in time to miss being hit by another volley.
He counted to ten and raised his head to survey his handiwork. Out of the five smoke bombs he’d created, three appeared to have taken full ignition and were burning strongly, filling the cavern with a blinding gray vapor which reduced visibility to a few inches.
His eyes were already starting to sting at the acrid burnt-charcoal fumes. When they hit the back of his throat he tasted metal. No time to waste. With a knife thrust through his belt and revolver in hand, he sprinted fast and low towards de Vile.
Just as Nathan reached the man’s sprawled form, he heard an eruption of gunfire ahead of him, behind the smoke curtain. Sebastian would be getting to work, he knew, and Nathan silently prayed he wasn’t on the receiving end of that last shot.
He came up fast and close on de Vile’s shoulder. The businessman raised a hand to rub his eyes and Nathan saw his hands were grazed and bleeding, the nails broken and dirt encrusted. His eyes had the ferocious red-eyed glare of a man bent on revenge.
Nathan lent down to speak. “We’re doing this as quietly as possible. Keep very still. I’m cutting this explosive vest off and then we’re out of here.”
He felt for the fuse that ran into the darkness. Almost simultaneous with the sharp thrust that severed the fiber he saw a small fountain of sparks erupt over in the corner.
Someone had just tried to light the fuse, but they were too late. He slashed the vest free and brought an arm around de Vile’s shoulder and under his armpit. “Can you stand? Walk? Run? The faster we’re out of here the better.”
The magnate momentarily crumpled as he rose to support his own weight, but he was vigorous and determined. He scuttled crabwise, keeping low but moving surprisingly fast, ushered from behind by Nathan.
Within minutes they were clear of the worst of the smoke and were back at the waterfall beach where they’d left the earlier captive.
“Here, take this.” Nathan thrust a revolver into de Vile’s hand. “Keep watch on him. Anyone unfriendly, don’t hesitate. Shoot. I’ve got to help Sebastian.”
*****
An hour later Sebastian and Nathan were back with de Vile, three of Martens’s men disarmed and in handcuffs on the ground before them. The Sydney Duck, Bad Teeth, and a third sinewy Mexican Nathan had never seen before who appeared to speak little English, were in custody. But Willoughby Martens was still at large.
Sebastian shook his sooty, sweat-streaked face. “Where in the heck did he go?” He grimaced as he observed the motley crew in front of them. “Let’s face it. These guys will go down on a count or two, but we’re here to get Martens.”
By the time Nathan had returned to the smoky chamber, Sebastian had located the hoodlums from their convulsive coughs. With their mouths and noses protected by their heavy cotton jackets, the brothers had little trouble in rounding the bandits up.
Nathan suspected that once they understood they weren’t going to be summarily shot, they were only too happy to surrender and escape the suffocating cloud. But when questioned on Martens’s whereabouts they shook their heads. The big man, it appeared, had deserted and left them to it.
Nathan turned his back on their prisoners and regarded Sebastian. “Now what?” he asked in a low voice.
Seb shrugged. “Get these guys out of here, then meet up with the rest of our fellows and regroup. About all we can do.”
They were fifteen minutes into the single file trek to the surface, the Sydney Duck in front, then Nathan with Bad Teeth between him and de Vile, the Mexican and Seb coming up in the rear, when they were halted by a piercing cry.
“Nooooo… Run, Nathan… Run…” A woman’s voice. High-pitched and anguished. Graysie’s voice. Nathan halted so abruptly the man behind him pushed into his back. Everything was happening in slow motion. His heart felt as if it had stopped beating altogether, and then it started up again at a frenetic double-speed hammering.
He gazed wildly around. The closer they got to the surface, the more the dark eased to a twilight zone where shapes could be barely defined in the dim duskiness.
They were entering a narrow gravelly path rising uphill to mountains of rocky rubble on either side. Near the top the rubble came down to within touching distance of the path. Where they stood now offered a perfect line of sight from the crest. A perfect ambush site.
He caught a flash of white to his left, a good twenty feet above where they stood.
“Down!” Nathan screamed. “Down now!” He pushed the Sydney Duck forward as gunfire erupted. The man collapsed like a bag of flour, blood spraying across Nathan’s arm and face as he fell.
Every man for himself, they hit the ground and scrambled for the paltry cover available—low shelves of gravel banks left by underground flooding in previous aeons.
Nathan was gasping for breath, his sides heaving in and out as he struggled to grasp their situation. Alongside, the stamina de Vile had demonstrated through this whole ordeal appeared to be exhausted. His face was white and shining with sweat even though the cave temperature was still close to freezing. Nathan squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t faint on us now.”
De Vile hesitated. “Bastard killed one of his own men,” he said. His eyes were dazed, his voice tentative, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just seen.
“That he did. And if Graysie hadn’t warned us, it would likely have been you and me.”
Fifty Four
His arm across her voice box like an iron bar, Martens held Graysie in a strangle hold that left her hovering on the edge of consciousness. Brilliant little white dots flashed in front of her eyes, and a wave of dizziness almost swamped her. The skin on her throat burned, but her hands and feet were icy cold.
“Bitch!” he hissed in her ear. “You’ll regret you did that.”
He increased the pressure on her throat and she felt herself sagging, sinking into oblivion. A last consoling thought came to her. At least she’d warned Nathan. Then, just as she was sure she could hold on no longer, Martens abruptly released his hold. She felt the barrel of a gun pressed hard against her spine instead.
“You’re not dying on me. Not yet anyway.” He snickered as if his jest was irresistible. “I need you as a lure for a while longer.”
She searched down the slope and could make out the body of the man who had been in front, lying face down in the dirt, a dark stain seeping out from under his prone form. She didn’t recognize him, guessed he must be one of Martens’s own men, and she cursed herself again for getting herself into this situation.
She’d been freed once from Martens’s vainglorious fantasy, his Willoughby rules the world delusion. How could she have been so stupid as to fall into his clutches a second time? She really deserved everything she got. She was simply exultant that she’d had one last chance to alert Nathan. She went over it all again in her mind.
She’d waited in hiding for what seemed like an eternity after the first burst of gunfire, hoping to see Nathan and Sebastian return safely up the track they had disappeared down, but no one came.
When she heard more gunfire much farther away she resolved to steal out of her hiding place and get closer to try and see what was happening. And it was there, exposed on the track with nowhere to escape, that Martens had found her.
She had no idea of why he had become separated from his men, why he was seemingly quite some distance from the main action, but it had taken him only a couple of seconds to jump her and overpower her. He’d then half-walked, half-dragged her to the position above the exit track where they’d sat and waited for the Russell men to return.
She shivered in the dark. She’d warmed up walking here, but now she felt cold again. The wedding dress bodice chafed under her arms. She stood as rigidly still as she could, fearful she might inadvertently prompt Marten
s to fire if she moved unexpectedly.
She rubbed her hands down the outside of her legs to get warm and felt the bump of the Derringer against her thigh. She’d thrust the pistol back into her pocket before Martens grabbed her and he hadn’t searched her. She still had a chance to end this, she promised herself, but she had to time her moment perfectly or it would surely end in disaster.
She squeezed her eyes tightly to clear her head and when she opened them again the blinding white needle points danced in front of them again. She stumbled a few steps and put her hands out blindly.
“Can’t see,” she rasped.
Martens put the lock hold back around her neck with one arm while pushing the gun against her temple with the other. He thrust his pelvis against her and leaned intimately close.
“Russell, you listen up.” He yelled into the dimness. “The lady is my free ticket out of here. I’m walking, and she goes with me. Anyone tries to stop me, and she’s dead.”
There was a long silence, with no sign of movement below them. Then, to Graysie’s horror, she saw Nathan slowly rise from behind a gravel bank and put his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.
“Let her go, Martens. She’s done nothing to harm you. Take me instead.” His voice rang around the underground space, a confident steady bass note. “I’m coming in now. Let her go, I say.”
Graysie felt Martens’s body go rigid at Nathan’s voice; she could sense the hostility vibrating up her back where he touched her.
Nathan began a slow deliberate walk towards them, his eyes fixed on Martens, his hands raised. No one else moved, no one showed themselves. Graysie felt her chest clench, she hardly dared breathe. He was taking such a gamble. What if Martens just gunned him down and used her as a hostage to escape anyway?
She sensed Martens’s animosity towards Nathan was so rampant he wanted his revenge to be personal and close. A random gunning down at forty feet wouldn’t satisfy him.
As Nathan drew closer, he switched his attention from Martens and fixed it on her. His expression was intense, mournful, and she didn’t want to read what he was saying. Sorry it had to end this way. Wish it could have been different.
Of Gold & Blood Series 2 Books 1 & 4 Page 29