A Warrior's Return (20 page)

Through gritted teeth Katie spit out, “Put
me down now or I start cutting you down to my size starting at the
knees!”

Titus frowned at her and set her down as he
said, “Make that a bag of old sour patches!”

Katie was about to respond heatedly when
Titus cut her off, “If’n I was to throw you up there do you think
you’d be able to cut the tails off them monkeys?”

Katie turned abruptly serious and looked
upwards at the open balcony to their left that lay situated ten
feet up higher than they were, not including the open rail running
along it that added another two feet to be cleared. She unclipped a
second short barreled automatic carbine from her gun harness and
put a new clip in the one she already held.

Tucking the butt plates of both carbines
tightly under her arms she faced both carbines forward. Tucking her
chin down she said, “Pull!” As if asking for a clay pigeon on a
trapshooting range.

Titus’s big hand gripped the back of her
shirt and gun harness in a tight hold and he swung with her in tow
around the side of the pillar, as the group of gunmen making their
way along the upper walk came broadside of their hiding
location.

Titus, with an explosive grunt, let go of
Katie, who sailed upward toward the upper balcony. As Katie rose up
above the railing the shocked gunmen had no chance to react before
the ends of both carbines started blinking with hot yellow
color.

Blonde hair flowing out from beneath her
cap, Katie had the presence of mind to tuck her feet up under her,
even then she barely cleared the top of the railing. She landed on
her butt in the middle of the group and quickly kicked out with her
feet against the floor pivoting herself on her butt, as she spun in
a semi circle, her guns hammered out lead. An abrupt silence
followed.

Titus hauled himself up over the railing,
which bent under his weight.

Katie lay moaning flat on her back and with
real concern Titus called out to her, “You okay Miss Katie?”

“I think you broke my butt!” Came her pained
reply.

Titus went to her and picked her up off the
floor in the middle of the chaotic mess she had made of the group
of gunmen who were all down and out for the count.

Titus couldn’t stop laughing, as she brushed
off her rear eliciting another moan of pain and a sharp retort,
“It’s not funny!”

“Oh yes it is! Come on foxy lady we’ez need
to find another chicken coop to throw you into!”

The odd couple made their way down the
walkway as Titus continued to chuckle at her expense. They reached
a small circular courtyard of sorts. A hail of bullets rained down
upon them suddenly.

Katie screamed and fell hard to the floor.
Titus grabbed a hold of her and dragged her with him, as he ducked
into a pile of barrels and boxes. Bullets chewed up the wooden
crates and ricocheted off the metal barrels all around them.

Staying low Titus ran his hands over
Katie.

“It’s my leg!”

Titus found the freely bleeding hole in her
thigh and where it exited out the back side of it. He ripped the
sleeve of her over shirt off.

“Just a little itty bitty flesh wound Miss
Katie, wouldn’t be a problem, if you didn’t have such an itty-bitty
little leg to start out with.”

“Just tie it off you big overstuffed meat
patty!”

“Now that’s no way for you to be talking to
me! You ain’t ever going to get yourself a man talking the way you
do with that sharp tongue of yours. No Sir!”

“Ahhh!” Katie screamed in frustration, as
well as with the pain of her wound.

They were pinned down by enemy fire.
Suddenly heavy gunfire came from somewhere else and there was a
lull in the amount of fire being directed at them. Talaric was
suddenly standing before them.

“I’ll cover you, run!”

Titus grabbed at Katie and made to lung to
his feet and was halfway there when Talaric forcibly shoved him and
Katie back to the floor just as a savage flurry of bullets kicked
up debris all around them.

Tucked back down in amongst the rapidly
disappearing cover of crates, Titus looked from the bullet hole
through his forearm over to Talaric.

“This ain’t looking good boss!”

Talaric nodded his features grim. They
needed a break of some kind. Grenades would have worked, but he
didn’t have any more. Then he heard a muted sound different from
the rest of the gunfire. A sound that he had never wanted to hear,
especially not right now.

Unmindful of the bullets spraying all around
and slamming into their protective hiding place he started to lunge
up out of the space, but Titus grabbed a hold of him and jerked him
back down to the floor, “Leave that girl be! She can take care of
herself I’m ah thinking!”

Talaric strained forward against Titus’s
grip on him and peered around the edge of a metal barrel. He
watched, as Eva walked into the gallery with both machine pistols
chattering.

She walked out in an ever-changing approach
into the center of the courtyard. Bullets kicked up debris all
around her and any second he expected to see her riddled with
bullets and the life he had wanted to spend with her would be
over.

Her quick and slow movements and spins
followed by abrupt stops and changes in direction had bullet trails
following in her wake or chasing too far ahead of her.

Her moves almost seemed choreographed
somehow as graceful as they were. Then it dawned on him what she
was doing.

She was performing!

The act she was pulling off was an
approximation of the same act that he had seen her perform in that
strip bar in Columbia, only with a few of the more suggestive moves
cut out.

As one pistol clicked empty she would deftly
flip the release lever with a finger. The spent cartridge holder
would drop out and then she would ram the butt end of the pistol
down toward her belt. Like the quills of a porcupine, extra
magazine clips stuck out from the special belt at her waist.

One gun never stopped firing and most of the
time both were flinging led. She was a virtual weapon of finesse
and graceful power. Her bullets tick tacked off walls, railings,
and the bodies of the enemy with brutal inefficiency that was still
proving effective somehow.

She wasn’t alone either in her mad fight.
Glancing up Talaric watched, as his father cleared away a whole
group of gunmen, focused on eliminating Eva on the lower floor,
with Eva’s short shotgun.

The chattering of the machine pistol came to
a close several moments later, as did the booms of the shotgun, as
there were no more available targets to be fired at within the
gallery.

Titus released his hold on Talaric, “There
what did I tell you! It ain’t good to go doubting women folks in a
fight. They can surprise you.” He said patting Katie’s head
lightly, which lay up against him.

Katie looked pale and her brow was covered
in sweat. Her usual tomboyish bravado must’ve been all gone,
because her little white hand reached out in response to Titus’s
words and squeezed a couple of the big black fingers of the man,
who had just given her a rare complement.

I breathed out slowly, as I swiveled on one
heel looking through the various levels of the gallery in search of
anyone who still needed killing. My upward gaze connected with
Talaric’s father’s gaze and I blushed slightly, as he inclined over
in a slight bow at the waist.

I let my guns fall to my sides, as I saw
Talaric approaching me with a strange emotion written across his
face.

“I’m sorry! I know you told me to stay, but
I had to come! I……”

I don’t know really what I was going to say
next, because Talaric shocked all thought from me when he seized my
face with both of his hands and smashed his lips passionately to
mine.

As I lost myself in the passion of the
moment I brought my arms up around Talaric wanting to touch him
back and hold him nearer to me.

Abruptly Talaric jumped back from me saying,
“Ouch!”

I stared at him in surprised cluelessness as
to what had just happened. Then it dawned on me. As I had folded my
arms up around Talaric I had forgotten that I was still holding the
pistols in my hands. The muzzles of both pistols were still glowing
cherry red from having just fired several hundred rounds each.

“I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed, as I jammed the
pistols back into their holsters. I started to apologize again, but
Talaric was laughing and he stopped me with a couple of fingers to
my lips.

“Serves me right for reaching out to touch
the flame. All right hot stuff we’d better get out of here.” He
said, even as he smacked my rear firmly.

I started for the exit route happy inside
that he wasn’t mad at me for disobeying him and that I had been of
help.

“Eva?” I looked back over my shoulder at
Talaric and he gave me a big thumbs up, “That was a very nice
dance! You should teach it to Titus, as he could use a little more
movement in the heat of the moment. He just stands there firing
away with his cannons, while he acts as a beacon for every bullet
in the place.” Talaric finished in a dry tone.

Titus had since gotten to his feet carrying
Katie along with him.

He harrumphed sourly and responded, “My
cannons need a firm foundation to have effect, can’t have that if
‘n I be ah hot footing it all over the place.”

I shared a grin with Talaric at Titus’s
expense. All humor abruptly vanished as the ground beneath us moved
up and down some. On the tails of that movement came Sparky and
Ellanarra bursting out of the exit tunnel.

“We’ve got to leave! Now!” Sparky hollered
out, as excited as I had ever seen him before.

As one we took off after them down the exit
hallway, as the ground shifted under us more violently than before.
It seemed like it took forever to reach the entrance to the
surface. Talaric’s mother looked at us in concern as we rushed into
the space.

We all felt the hot blast of air coming down
the hallway at our backs. Sparky fiddled with a panel and amazingly
two doors opened to reveal the harsh midday light of the Saharan
sun outside. Blinded by it, we never the less, rushed outside into
the blinding light and dove off to the sides of the exit.

Seconds later billowing clouds of flame and
smoke shot out from the mouth of the tunnel. The flames retreated,
but we could hear the tunnel collapsing. At least we wouldn’t be
followed.

Black billowing smoke and what looked like
high pressured ash clouds were shooting up out of the desert where
the main facility had been located underground. The ground
continued to shake for a while and then it subsided. Entire sand
dune mounds cascaded into the still smoking abyss in the
distance.

Talaric after taking stock of everyone said,
“Let’s get headed back to the plane.”

And somehow knowing the direction, he headed
off for it as the rest of us followed behind. We were actually
closer to the plane than we had been before.

Cresting a dune I saw the plane ahead. There
was a sudden explosion followed by a billowing cloud of black
smoke.

My heart stopped and I stumbled the rest of
the way up the dune, as fear consumed me. My horror stricken eyes
found what they had desperately not wanted to through the
smoke.

The Saratoga was burning!

“RAF……!” I had started to scream, but a hand
came across my mouth, while an arm slid around my middle clamping
my arms to my sides.

I was jerked over backwards to the sand. My
screams were muffled by the hand, even as my eyes were blurred by
my tears. I fought to get free. I bit the hand on my face hard and
it jerked away, even as I bucked and strained to free myself.

I crashed my head backward against the chest
behind me and heard a whoosh of escaping air. I was crazy with the
need to be free. Two powerful hands came down over my mouth and
immobilized my head in the process.

I tried to kick, but whoever lay behind me
had wrapped their legs up and over mine. I continued to strain my
body burning from the effort, as I went crazy within my mind.

Didn’t they understand?

My baby was down there!

A voice came from whoever held me from
behind and I recognized it as belonging to Talaric and in that
moment I hated him!

“Are both helicopters gone?”

Titus’s grim reply came back in
response.

“Just one, the other one is still just
sitting there. I don’t see nobody moving around. Looks like there
are some bodies laying in the sand. It’s probably safe enough now
to go down.”

“Let her go, son.”

Both hands holding my mouth and head were
removed and I saw that it had been Roric holding my head still.
Suddenly I was free and I scrambled away from them and up and over
the sand dune.

Tears blurred my vision, but the still
burning plane was wasn’t hard to miss. There were bodies laying in
the sand before the plane, but I ran past them. None of them were
either Eleanor or Rafael, just more of the black clad special
forces that had stormed the underground hanger bay.

I ran up to the burning plane and around it
searching in vain for what I had lost. I stopped in front of the
open doorway, which flames were still shooting out of. I dropped to
my knees in the sand screaming with loss and unrequited anger,
which was directed mostly at myself.

I should never have brought Rafael here!

I had followed my heart instead of doing
what was best for Rafael. I should’ve taken the money and run with
him!

‘And then what?’, came the corresponding
thought. What would’ve happened when the money ran out?

There were as many, if not more, dangers
down that road than the one I had taken. I just didn’t know. I just
didn’t know.

Talaric stopped back from Eva a short
distance. More than anything he wanted to go to her, but he felt
like it would be a mistake somehow. He was grateful when he saw his
mother fall to her knees beside Eva along with his sister, both of
them reaching out to hold her.