Code Name: Baby (28 page)

Kit tried to focus as he reached into the back seat for a big duffel bag, dug inside and pulled out a Benelli combat shotgun with ghost-ring sights.

This was real, she thought.

They could be dead in the next five minutes. But her body seemed to disconnect. She couldn't move, frozen by the sight of the looming helicopter.

“Why are you still here?”

Izzy scowled as he slammed 12-gauge shells into the Benelli. “
Get moving.
And don't come back, no matter what you hear or see. If you think you see Wolfe or me, wait for the code to be given.”

She nodded jerkily and suddenly all her mobility came rushing back. The primitive urge for survival sent her flying over the ground, racing for the trees. The Jeep's motor roared behind her as Izzy fishtailed back onto the road, laying rubber as he headed west.

She found cover under the first cottonwood tree, shivering at the sight of the helicopter. She was almost certain there was an abandoned mine up on the ridge. Her father had brought her and her brother into the valley as teenagers, theorizing that it was better to guide them through the danger personally so they wouldn't be tempted to do dangerous exploring on their own. That year they had visited two other mines in the area, both of them carefully chosen and personally inspected by their father to teach them basic safety and orienting skills with a compass.

This particular mine had been Kit's first. She still had flashes of bad dreams about the dripping walls and twisting tunnels below the surface. Now one nightmare was leading her straight into another.

She slid down the rocky bank of a wash, landing in a sprawl with the rifle gripped against her side. Behind her the roar of the Jeep faded, replaced by the throb of a powerful motor.

A rifle shot cracked.

Kit twisted around to look back, but Baby growled, grabbing the leg of her jeans and pulling her forward. With every second the drone of the helicopter grew louder.

Where was the entrance?

She stared around frantically, then scrambled up the other side of the wash, searching the low ridge of rock beyond for any opening through the scrub. Desperate now, she stumbled past waist-high bushes and pressed her hands against the rock wall, working by touch alone.

The drone grew into an ear-splitting roar. More gunfire exploded.

Grimly, Kit crouched behind a sage bush with the dogs at her feet. “Heel,” she ordered, her voice shaky.

Baby whined and then broke away. As Kit crawled after her along the face of the ridge, the Lab disappeared. Bushes caught at Kit's legs and branches raked her face as she fought her way higher, guided by Baby's insistent barking. The other three dogs were right at her heels when her left hand hit emptiness.

One minute Kit was in sunlight, and the next she was surrounded by the heavy, fetid air of her nightmares.

 

“W
HAT THE HELL
is going on here?” Red-faced, Lloyd Ryker jumped down from a black helicopter and shoved past three anxious officers. Another helicopter was parked inside a cordon of grim security forces nearby. Ryker pointed a finger at the man with the M-16 aimed at Wolfe's chest. “
You.
What's your name?”

“Sergeant Lentz, sir.”

“Get the hell out of my sight, Lentz. Take your friends with you. Houston, report.”

“Your men shouldn't have intercepted Cruz's chopper or transferred him to that van.”

“My orders got scrambled.” Ryker's voice hardened. “Someone will be dealt with for that. What else?”

“Your people had me detained here. I haven't been able to investigate the van, sir.”

“Then get to it.” Ryker was sweating though the air was chill, damp wind pouring across the mountains.

Wolfe lowered his voice. “Sir, I think you'd better stay back near the chopper. Get the others back, too. For safety I need a clear line of sight all around the van.”

Ryker waved a hand at his men and they stepped away from the van. At Ryker's curt nod, one of them tossed Wolfe a key.

Wolfe turned the key in his hand, frowning, then checked his cell phone. He had missed four calls while he was here waiting for Ryker, three of them from Izzy. Now there was no answer on Izzy's line.

The crackle of walkie-talkies seemed very loud, like meat thrown on hot skillets. Wolfe blocked it all out—the noise, the flashing lights, the keening of the wind. With cold hands he slipped the heavy key into the first of three locks on the heavily fortified van meant to secure Cruz upon his capture.

Metal grated, oiled tumblers falling.

Wolfe moved to the next lock, his body alert, senses revved to almost painful acuity. Did he feel the sticky energy he'd sensed before in the railroad shed? Was Cruz waiting inside to attack him?

As he opened the doors, he saw a man slumped in a fetal position against the far wall. One hand stuck out beneath a thick blue blanket.

Wolfe stood motionless, listening to the shallow breathing, listening to the hiss of the wind outside the secured windowless van and tracking the faint hum of Cruz's mind.

The blanket twitched. The hand opened and closed.

Wolfe felt the drum of his pulse as he jumped into the van and pulled the blanket away. A blond-haired face and pale Nordic eyes glared back at him. Angry bruises covered both temples and most of the jaw.

Not Cruz's face. Not Cruz's eyes. Another trick.

He spun, dialing Izzy quickly. Outside in the wind the walkie-talkies cut in and out, shrill and then muted.

Ryker moved to the door of the van, shoulder to shoulder with a heavy man who scanned the interior of the truck. “See, that's him.” The man was loud, confident. “I used the pictures you sent. It was no problem at all.”

Ryker's face hardened in fury as he studied the man curled up on the floor. “He slipped through.”

Wolfe tried his phone again.

No answer.

He jumped down, staring at the officer beside Ryker. “When you caught him, how many of you were there?”

“What do you mean? Why—”

“How many?”

“Four.”

“Did one of your men leave?” Wolfe demanded. “Maybe he was hit or hurt. He'd have a good reason.”

“Yeah. Jolson did. He got a bad kick in the scuffle. Probably a fractured—”

“Where?”

“Up that hill. Ryker, why—”

“Show me where. Do it now.”

“You heard him,” Ryker snapped. “Get us to the spot where it happened.”

 

T
HERE WAS FRESH BLOOD
beside the road, pooled next to deep tire marks in the fresh mud. Boot prints crisscrossed the wet earth.

Wolfe touched one of the red stains. Instantly the thick, clinging energy wrapped all the way around his hand and up his arm, jerking at his breath with the force of its blind fury.

“Well?” Ryker glared down at him impatiently.

“He had to have switched right at the start, then transferred the images so your men never guessed anything had changed. ‘Jolson' was really Cruz.” Wolfe stared east, trying Izzy's number again. “He slipped past everyone. He was never in that van at all.”

When there was no answer on Izzy's phone, Wolfe stood up. “I'm going back to the safe house, sir. I should have heard from Izzy by now. Something's wrong. My sense is that it involves Cruz.”

“Why? Cruz wouldn't be headed there. Besides, Teague left right after I did. He refused a direct order, by God. Said he was taking the woman someplace else for twenty-four hours. ‘Sitting it out,' he said. Just in case.”

Gone, Wolfe thought. Gone with Cruz in close pursuit, if his instincts were right. Right now every cell warned him that the situation was about to tank fast.

His fingers opened and closed as if they couldn't contain their own energy. “Where did Izzy take her?”

“North, that's all I know. Up toward Chama, I think.”

“Get on the phone to him, sir.” Wolfe sprinted past Ryker toward the closest Black Hawk. “And then get someone local out there
now.
”

K
IT PITCHED FORWARD
into darkness.

The air was foul with mold and rodent droppings. Somewhere water trickled, echoing inside the broad tunnel. It was a world torn from nightmares, the last place Kit wanted to be. Even Trace had been uncomfortable when they had come here years before as teenagers.

Something scurried past Kit's foot and she bit back a scream. There were more movements in the darkness, along with what sounded like the rustle of wet leaves. Then Baby pressed against her legs and the rustling stopped. “Stay,” Kit whispered. “Diesel, come here.”

Another head brushed her leg. A tail swished across her knee.

“Butch, Sundance?”

More bodies bumped close.

Trying to ignore the acid smell of mold, Kit felt her way along one wall of the tunnel, listening to a helicopter circle low in the distance.

She dug her fingers into Baby's warm fur.

Automatic weapons spat and the helicopter circled again. This time Kit heard the sharp
whoomp
of tires blowing out, followed by the crack of breaking glass.

She thought of Izzy, somewhere outside drawing her pursuers away. What would happen to him if he was captured?

Uncertain, she looked back toward the cave opening. How could she cower here when Izzy was under attack? Diesel growled low in his throat. His teeth locked on her arm, holding her still.

Shocked, she tried to pull her arm away, but the big Lab growled fiercely. His body rigid, he tugged her back through the darkness.

Dirt rattled down the walls, and Kit heard the distant pop of gunfire. Shivering, she tried to imagine the fight taking place outside while Diesel and the other dogs herded her deeper into the tunnel, their bodies wedged against her legs.

She stumbled as the tunnel sloped downward, crossing pools of brackish water and rusted rails used by old mining cars. Another rat ran across her foot. Wincing, she stumbled sideways and the movement sent her facedown into mud that stank of rust and metal and mold. As she wobbled to her feet, Kit remembered the small carabiner LED clipped on her backpack. With shaky fingers she found the small power button.

Light bloomed.

The tunnel loomed before her like a tortured moonscape, mounded dirt dotting the curved wall where parts of the roof had caved in. Her LED cast eerie shadows of old timber supports, several of which had collapsed in broken sections.

She passed another mound of dirt and the rotted fragments of a fallen piece of timber bracing. Ten feet down the slope she stopped, coughing from the dust and decomposed debris stirred up by her feet.

Baby growled sharply, looking back toward the tunnel mouth. Holding up her light, Kit saw an opening to the left, leading to a smaller tunnel. She caught the glint of standing water and the brief red flash of a dozen glowing eyes.

More rats.

Ugh.

She was picking her way forward when Baby bumped the back of her legs. With a snarl, the dog shoved her to the left, into the smaller tunnel.

“No, Baby. Not there.” Kit turned, took a step back, and felt all four dogs around her, blocking her steps. Herding her with their combined strength, they shoved her hard in the one direction she didn't want to go—toward the rats.

As she wavered, pebbles skittered down the slope behind her. Instantly, she switched off her light, her heart drumming in her ears.

No one could have found her so soon. Even Izzy didn't know the location of the old tunnel. But someone was there, tracking her. And judging by the dogs' reaction, it was no friend approaching.

More pebbles rattled down the slope. Distracted, Kit let the dogs nudge her forward while she listened for the sounds coming from the darkness.

Something sloshed through standing water behind her—something big, and coming fast. Fear hit her full force.

Get out of sight and stay there,
Izzy had said.

No matter what you see or hear.

Teeth closed on her leg, dragging her forward. On the edge of a sob she lurched through the molding remnants of fortunes made and lost, dreams spun and stolen.

She heard the movements behind her quicken in the splash of water and scrape of boots.

“Kit,” the voice whispered, low and reassuring, completely familiar.

Wolfe.

A whimper of relief squeezed from her throat and she turned back eagerly.

Baby's growl stopped her. Diesel's teeth held her.

Butch and Sundance blocked her.

Ice wrapped around her chest, realization like a mocking chant in her pulse.

You may not recognize him. He and his people are trained in disguise. They could even pass for me or you.

“Kit, where are you?”

It wasn't Wolfe tracking her. Not Izzy either.

Someone else.

And any second he would find her.

 

“T
HERE
.” Wolfe hunched over the chopper's curved window, scouring the landscape. “That's her Jeep.”

But the dark metal was twisted and uneven, two of the tires blown. Glass glittered for twenty feet around the shattered windshield.

Wolfe's mouth stitched into a flat line as he searched for movement anywhere nearby. They dropped low, circled and took another pass, and the pilot gestured at a row of cottonwood trees dotting a small stream.

“Skids, sir. Someone's had a chopper down there. You can just make out where they put down.”

Wolfe felt his skin stretch thin, every nerve pulled like a hair trigger, registering Cruz's presence. He tracked his binoculars over the ground and saw footprints leading away from the landing area straight to a tiny stream.

So Cruz had followed the water. He'd waded in and vanished.

“Circle again,” he ordered.

Reeds and thick brush lined both banks of the stream. Wolfe searched for more tracks leading out of the water. As they banked again, he felt the tug of awareness, sticky and dark with Cruz's disturbed energy.

“Put me down beside that stream and radio these coordinates to Ryker on a secure channel. Then keep searching until you find Teague.”

“Affirmative, sir.”

Before the chopper had set down, Wolfe jumped out, tracking the unstable energy patterns he'd come to recognize as Cruz's. He let his mind slip deep into theta and followed the trail.

Along the bank.

Beneath a dying cottonwood, leaves falling like cool green rain.

Sharp turn north, down into a rocky wash.

At the far slope Wolfe froze, touching a long gouge in the dirt. He had a sudden impression of cinnamon and mango. Kit had been here, moving fast. So where the hell was Izzy? Why had the two split up, and why hadn't Izzy answered his cell?

As Wolfe scrambled up the far bank, he felt Kit's energy running north. He sensed the dogs pushing her on, driving her beneath another row of trees, her confusion and panic staining the air.

And if he felt it, Cruz could feel it, too.

Pushing through the heavy brush, Wolfe stayed low, alert for one of Cruz's energy nets. It would be just like his old friend to leave invisible booby traps along his path.

Overhead the chopper banked for another pass. Nothing else moved in the arid landscape.

He was
close
now. His blood hammered with the heavy awareness of Cruz alone and moving fast—unless this was an image distortion. As he stared up the slope, he wondered what abilities Cruz had developed in the last months. They had to be significant, or Ryker wouldn't have been so careful to conceal them.

A red-tail hawk cut through the clouds, its clear two-note cry keening on the wind.

Close.

Wolfe's sleeve caught in the spines of a cholla cactus. He sensed more than felt a dark opening in the rock face as cool air feathered over his face. He gave one quick click on his radio to alert the pilot that their target was sighted and approach initiated.

There was no need for words. Wolfe's implanted chip would guide Ryker's men better than any directions could have. He hoped they were fast. Once he was underground, he would be untraceable.

 

“Y
OU
'
RE SAFE
, K
IT
. Come on out, honey.”

She wanted to believe him. Her body strained forward in eagerness and trust,
needing
to believe. Izzy had to be wrong about the danger.

Suddenly she stopped. Her feet tried to move, following the whispered encouragement in the voice she trusted—had trusted since she was twelve—but Baby's body stopped her, wedged against her legs. When Kit tried to walk toward the splashing footsteps and whispered hope, Diesel's teeth nipped her hand.

Kit's breath caught in shock and pain. In that instant clarity returned, leaving two people inside her head—one frightened, the other a believer, ready to turn back in search of comfort and safety.

Her hip bumped the stone wall of the tunnel, and pain shot through the joint. Relentless, the dogs herded her forward. As she gripped her father's rifle, she heard pebbles skitter behind her in the tunnel.

“You know that your dogs are special. No one else can possibly appreciate them the way you do.” Low and seductive, the words lapped at her mind. “Baby is the smartest. You've sensed it since the first day you saw her. She'd follow you to hell and back—but one day you'll have to let her go. Who else cares the way you do? Who else will keep her safe? You know she can't stay with you forever.”

Kit closed her eyes, fighting the clever words. If she used the rifle, the force of the shots could bring the rotting timbers down on top of them, along with the rest of the tunnel.

Light flickered across the far wall. More words echoed inside her head. “I'll see that you can keep your dogs as long as you want, honey. We'll train them together. All you have to do is trust me.”

Trust me.

Baby gripped her sleeve, pulling her backward so sharply that Kit struck the wall and stumbled. Rocks
pinged,
the sound like small gunshots.

Fur brushed her legs and two of the dogs shot past her up the tunnel. She was about to call out when she saw a man's long shadow swim against bare rock.

Wolfe?

Kit didn't move. Then her heart closed, whispered a warning.

“They'll take them away from you forever. They're planning it already.” The voice hardened. “Don't trust any of them.”

He rounded the curve of the tunnel. Kit stared at his broad shoulders, his dark eyes, all of it familiar—and all a flawless deception.

She took another step back, meeting cold stone. The tunnel stopped abruptly, abandoned decades ago. It was a dead end.
Nowhere to go.

She swallowed a knot of fear and worked the lever action of her father's old Winchester, loading a round into the chamber. “You're not Wolfe.”

The light in his hand cast weird shadows across the ceiling. His face seemed to change in the shifting light.

Wolfe, then not Wolfe.

He didn't move. “You'd risk killing the dogs?”

Diesel began to bark, blocking the man's way. Kit racked another shell into the second barrel. “Leave now and I won't hurt you.”

Something flashed in the unsteady light. Kit gasped as pain burned along her shoulder from the dart he had shot at her. Another dart hissed past, sinking into Diesel's back.

Baby's frenzied barking filled the tunnel, then seemed to waver as if distorted by a wall.

Blurry,
Kit thought.
Drugged. Have to stay awake to fight him.

Something brushed her eyes, soft like a flake of snow. She wobbled, leaning against the tunnel wall. There was no snow here. There was nothing here except fear and lies.

She moved the rifle and tried to focus. Suddenly Diesel yelped in pain and his shadow launched against the line of black where her attacker stalked closer.

She gripped the worn wooden stock of the Winchester, aimed and fired. There was nothing human in the angry shout that followed, piercing the tunnel's silence. Without pausing Kit levered up another round and fired again.

The tall shadow leaped back and dirt rained down on Kit's face. Over her head a beam cracked loudly. Drugged, she fought to keep her eyes open, her body sinking against the wall.

“Kit.” The same voice, but this one came from a different place, sounding clear but far away.

Pounding feet. Another splash of water.

Wolfe.

She tried to stay upright, one hand gripping Baby's back.

The rifle slipped from her fingers, clattering over stone, and then the tunnel blurred. She watched one shadow become two.