In Enemy Hands (22 page)

With a cry of revulsion, Nadia took a stumbling step backward.

“Nadia! Nadia, you have to stay calm. The cat’s injured and that will make it more aggressive.”

Swallowing hard, Nadia stared at Dante’s back and tried to hold the flashlight beam steady.

Calm down
, she told herself.
Quit acting like a baby
.

“Why don’t you shoot it?” she asked, hating the trembling she heard in her voice.

“For one thing, a bullet could ricochet in here and hit one of us. For another, we’re the intruders here. I’d say that’s a mother protecting her cubs and—shine your light on her see the blood on her shoulder? This idiot’s shot her. Doesn’t look like it’s a mortal wound, but more than enough to make her want to tear us apart.”

Dante continued waving his arms and, to Nadia’s amazement, the glowing eyes retreated back into the tunnel.

“Come on.” He turned to Nadia. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Don’t … leave me,” Cahill gasped.

Nadia nearly screamed, yanking her light back to his body. She’d thought for sure he was dead. His chest—oh, God, his chest was ripped wide open.

Dante took the flashlight from her hands and squatted beside the dying man.

“Are you Catholic?” Cahill wheezed, looking up at Dante with glassy eyes. “Last rites … I need …”

“Aw, man. I’m no priest. You know that.”

“Don’t leave me,” he pleaded again. Each breath he took made a wet, sucking sound in his chest and Nadia had to turn her face away. Even a man as cold as Cahill didn’t deserve such a death.

“Are you Catholic?” he asked again.

“No.” Dante sighed. “My grandma was, but, much to her dismay, my father married a Methodist. That’s the church I went to when I was a kid. Look, I remember a little prayer my mother taught me. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes. Please.”

Dante cleared his throat. “Heavenly Father, I have erred and strayed from Thy ways. Instead of following You, I have followed desires of my own heart. I have left undone things which I ought to have done, and I have done things which I ought not to have done, and there is no peace within me. Spare thou them, O Father, which confess their faults. Restore thou them that are penitent. By Your grace I ask for forgiveness. Amen.”

Nadia was touched by the soft, simple prayer Dante recited for the man.

“One more … time,” Cahill said.

Dante repeated it, this time pausing between lines to allow Cahill to echo each verse. Moments later, he gave a deep, shuddering breath, and died.

Dante grimaced. He stood and retrieved his T-shirt.

“Are you okay?” Nadia grasped his hand. It was cold as ice.

“Yeah. I was thinking about my grandma. She gave me this when I joined the Marines.” He tugged the silver medal from underneath his shirt and held it up for her inspection. “St. Michael. He’s the patron saint of soldiers. I remember how she used to beg me to go to mass with her. And my ma, she still teaches Sunday school. She has four kids and as soon as any of us were old enough to balk, we quit going with her. I was wishing I’d gone more with either one of them, just so I’d have known what to say to that guy.”

“I think you did a wonderful job.” Nadia squeezed his fingers.

He pulled his hand away and slung his arm around her waist. Caressing her hip, he said, “Maybe when we get out of this, I’ll take you to the old neighborhood. Show you around New York.”

“Take me to meet the folks?” Nadia said with a smile.

“Yeah. I don’t know so much about introducing you to my little brothers, though. I’d have to beat them away from you with a baseball bat.”

“Are they as handsome as you?”

“I suppose,” he said with a chuckle. “But I got all the charm.”

“Ah, well. That’s seals it, then. I’m picky. I want the whole package.” Nadia wrapped her arm around his waist, both nervous and excited at the thought of meeting Dante’s family.

They retrieved the backpack and headed out of the shaft.

“I was hoping we’d get to stay in there for awhile, but now we’re going to have to move in the heat of day.”

“Do you have water in there?” Nadia asked, pointing at the backpack.

“Some. I hope it’s enough to do us until your father gets here. I have a water purifier, too, in case we find a water source.”

They ventured out into the sunlight and Nadia winced from both the sudden brightness and the oppressive heat. The wind blew, but it was scorching and felt more like a slap than a breeze.

When she could open her eyes, she surveyed the terrain.

Where did Dante think they were going? And on foot, no less. It all looked the same to her, an endless expanse of rocky hills and sagebrush.

“Hey, what’s that?” She pointed over Dante’s shoulder at the golden cloud in the east. It hovered a few inches above the ground and seemed to be moving toward them. Dante glanced around, his brown eyes widening.

“Get back to the shaft.”

She hesitated, watching it approach.

He grabbed her arm. “Run!”

When Vandergriff saw the small plane descending onto the airstrip, he pitched the radio receiver he held against the wall. It bounced off the dingy yellowed wall with a thwack, taking another chip out of the peeling paint.

What was Peterson doing back here, and where was Ca-hill, and why in the hell couldn’t he raise either one of them on the radio?

He ran outside to meet the plane.

Impatiently, he waited for the doors to open, then boarded before a sheepish-looking Peterson could climb off the plane.

“What are you doing back here?” Vandergriff demanded. “You’re supposed to be circling the target area!”

Peterson wiped a hand down his face. “We’ve got a leak in the hydraulics, or the gauge is screwing up or something. I tried to radio you, but I couldn’t get through. Cahill marked the area, though. You shouldn’t have any trouble seeing it.”

“From the air,” Vandergriff snapped. “It’ll be more difficult from land. And where is Cahill? I can’t get him to answer me either.”

Peterson shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I haven’t been in contact with him at all since he jumped.”

Vandergriff fell heavily onto one of the seats. “What happened?
How
did this happen?” His eyes narrowed. “Why wasn’t the girl tied, anyway?”

Peterson sighed. “I let her go to the bathroom, and never bothered to retie her. She’s such a little thing … I’ll be honest, I never saw her as much of a threat. I never saw any of this coming.”

Frustration made Vandergriff’s eye twitch. He was blinking like he had Tourette’s, but he couldn’t make it stop. “Did she say anything? Anything at all?”

“She said, ‘He’s going to catch me.’ Then she jumped.”

“How did she
know
he was going to catch her?”

The cell phone in Vandergriff’s pocket chirped noisily and he snatched it out. “Cahill, is that you?”

“No, boss. It’s Nelan. We’ve almost reached the coordinates you mapped us, but I don’t see a plane.”

“The plane had to come back to the airstrip. You’re going to have to locate the markers and find them yourselves. Cahill is supposed to be down there too. Maybe he’ll update us soon. They couldn’t have gone far on foot. Find them.” Vandergriff gripped the phone, hatred surging through him like an electric current. “And when you do, I want you to gut that bounty hunter like a deer. Save the girl for me.”

He snapped the phone shut and turned to Peterson. “It’s okay. They’re almost there anyway.” More for himself than Peterson, he mumbled, “We can still pull this off. I have a spy in Andreakos’ camp. He says they’re tracking the girl by GPS. Do you know anything about GPS, Peterson?”

“I’m afraid not, sir,” Peterson replied, sitting beside him.

“My man can’t get close to it. Andreakos and that McNamara fellow are monitoring it at all times. I told him to do whatever he has to do to slow them down. You need to call Baxter. We’ll be joining him shortly. He’s in charge of the second group, and we’re coordinating an ambush for Andreakos. We have to head them off long enough for Nelan to find that girl.” Vandergriff pinched the bridge of his nose. “How did they pull this off?”

He said he’d catch me.

The girl hadn’t known where he was taking her until the last moment. She had to get in touch with the bounty hunter from the plane. How?

Underwood indicated that the GPS unit was with the bodyguard. There was no way the girl could’ve gotten to the radio, no way that Andreakos had turned both Peterson and Cahill.

Vandergriff buried his face in his hands and leaned over, pulling the skin around his eyes taut to try to stop that damnable twitching so he could think.

He spotted a little silver phone lying on the floor beside Peterson’s shoe.

Vandergriff dove to pick it up, startling Peterson. He grabbed it and waved it in Peterson’s face.

“Is this yours?” he asked.

“Uh, no, sir.”

“Is it Cahill’s?”

Peterson frowned, then shook his head. “Cahill didn’t have a cell phone with him. He borrowed mine to call you when we stopped for fuel.”

Vandergriff flipped open the phone and stared at the numbers. Then he squeezed his eyes shut like he was trying to get a premonition from touching it.

“This is how she contacted them. If I press redial, I get Andreakos on the other end of the line.” Vandergriff gritted his teeth. “Maybe I should call him and tell him what I’m going to do with his precious little girl when I get my hands on her again.”

When his thumb moved for the button, Peterson grabbed his wrist.

“Wait! I think I know how we can use this to our advantage.”

Vandergriff stared at him. “What do you mean?”

Peterson shot him a crooked grin. “Why, I think I should be the one to call Andreakos. I talked to his daughter on the plane. I was nice to her. We have a connection.”

“What are you getting at?” Vandergriff asked irritably, pressing his fingers against the sides of his eyes.

Peterson shrugged and leaned back in the seat. “Your man on the inside … suppose he isn’t your only contact with Andreakos? I could tell Andreakos that I liked Nadia, and I’m sorry for what happened … and that I’ll do everything I can to help him get her back. I’ll agree to spy on you. I could be his new best friend.”

Vandergriff gave an incredulous laugh. “Peterson, that’s amazing. Really, it is.” He frowned and shook his head. “But Andreakos is no fool. Why should he believe you?”

Peterson pressed his hands together in front of his face like he was praying, then he dropped them and smiled. “We give up your spy.”

“What? Are you crazy?” Vandergriff demanded, jumping to his feet. “I can’t give him Underwood … a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Andreakos may never trust you, and I will have lost my only edge.”

“Let me do it right before the attack! Your spy is useless after he leads them into the ambush. And you said yourself, they won’t let him anywhere near the GPS. What good is he to you?”

Vandergriff stared at the phone. Peterson was right. Maybe there was something he could use here. Although he hoped for the best, he didn’t really think he could kill Andreakos in the fray. Too many men around him. This might be his next best shot.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “But not until we’re ready for the attack.”

“When will that be?” Peterson asked, and Vandergriff shook his head.

“I like you, Peterson. You show great initiative, but I learned early from my father to never reveal all my plans to any one man.” He squinted at him. “Now that I think about it, you seem awfully eager to help
me
. Why is that?”

Peterson snorted and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m awfully eager to help me. That girl embarrassed me. She escaped under my watch, so I feel like it’s my responsibility to get her back.”

Vandergriff pocketed the phone and clamped a hand on Peterson’s shoulder. “Come on then. We’ve got a lot to decide before you make that call.”

They sprinted toward the shaft and Dante wrenched her back inside an instant before the sand and pebbles began striking the outside of the shaft.

“Dust devil,” he explained, folding her against his chest. “That stuff’s a bitch if you get it in your eyes.”