Against the Law (22 page)

She opened her mouth to correct him, tell him she didn't belong to Dev or anyone else, saw Dev shake his head and closed her mouth. “I will.”

“Good.”

She might not belong to him, not in a permanent way,
but tonight she was his responsibility, which for once she seemed to accept.

“Tuck your jeans into your boots,” he told her. “You don't want anything crawling up your pant leg.”

Her eyes widened, but she did as he said.

As the men finished checking their gear, Dev raised his hand. “All right, you guys, listen up! We're going in softly. The best scenario would be no shots fired.”

No one disagreed.

“Unfortunately, once the chopper shows up, all hell is going to break loose. Hopefully we'll be on our way before they figure out exactly what's going on.” From your lips to God's ears,” Trace said.

Clive grinned.

“Cantrell stays above us. He'll cover our asses if we get in trouble.” Jake was Force Recon, a marine sniper. He could take a man out from a mile away. He'd be closer than that to the compound tonight. Once his job was finished and the helicopter lifted away, he'd return to the Jeep, drive back down the hill, and they'd all meet back at the mine.

“Montez is ready with the chopper,” Dev continued. If all goes well, Mercer's plane will be waiting when we get back here. We split up, head home the way we came, and we're long gone before Alvarez's boys have any notion who we are, or where to find us.”

And with any luck at all, Antonio Alvarez would be dead and his empire thrown into chaos—which would put a final end to their troubles.

“Anybody got any questions?”

No one said a word. “All right, let's go.”

S
he was nervous. God knew, inside she was shaking. But as Lark descended farther into the mesquite-and-cactus-choked ravine, she forced a calmness into her demeanor that had the men casting her surprised, respectful glances and Dev looking at her with what might have been pride.

The night surrounded them, dark and a little bit cold, a slice of moon giving them barely enough light to see. She dodged a cactus, felt the sharp jab of a spine she hadn't seen, bit back a curse and kept going. Hiking a neatly cleared trail through the mountains as she had done many times was nothing like this, but at least they were going downhill.

“You all right?” Dev asked softly as he came up beside her. She could hear the faint clanking of the flash grenade he wore clipped to his Kevlar vest.

“So far so good.”

“We're almost halfway.”

Halfway? It seemed like she had been walking forever. Behind her, a root broke under someone's foot and one of the men softly cursed, Trace Rawlins, she thought, recognizing his soft Texas drawl.

She made it another hundred yards. Her pantlegs were full of nasty, clinging little burrs and her heel was beginning to rub against the inside of her boot. The arroyo deepened, grew steeper, even more difficult to maneuver.

Mesquite limbs trembled in the breeze. She could hear the scratching of a kangaroo rat digging into the side of the hill. Then another sound intruded. The unmistakable buzz of a rattlesnake, somewhere near her feet. Fear jolted through her. She spotted the snake coiled near her boot and she froze, her stomach rolling, threatening to erupt. Metal rang in the darkness as Dev jerked his knife from its scabbard. The blade flashed downward in the moonlight and the snake's head flew into the tangle of cactus and mesquite. The body lay pinned to the earth.

Silence descended. Dev pulled his knife from the carcass and stuck it back into the sheath tied to his leg. Lark took a steadying breath, but the adrenaline rushing through her veins hit her hard and her legs started shaking so wildly she sank down on a rock in the sand.

Dev's voice floated quietly toward her. “It can't hurt you now.” She felt his hand smoothing over the top of her head. “Just sit for a minute and you'll be fine.”

“I'm sorry.” She looked up at him, looked past him to the others as they approached. “I'll…I'll be all right in a second or two.”

She felt Clive's big hand on her shoulder. “It's okay.
I hate friggin' snakes.” He squeezed, started off down the gully.

“You're doin' fine, darlin',” Trace drawled. “At least we don't have to walk back up.”

As he started after the others, Lark took a breath and shoved to her feet. “Let's go.”

Dev waited for her to set out, then moved in behind her. Silently, they continued down the ravine. Jake had broken away from the men to set up his position. The rest of the group continued to their destination, a spot with good cover about seventy-five yards from the wall around the compound. From there, the arroyo began to widen, their cover to grow meager and finally disappear.

Riggs was there to greet them. “You're not gonna like this,” he said to Dev.

“Yeah?” What is it?”

“Good news and bad. The good news is four of Alvarez's men got into a car and left. The bad news is Alvarez went with them.”

“Shit.”

“No kidding.”

“I hope you're ready for plan B,” Trace said.

Dev grunted. “At the moment, I'm working on plan C.”

Lark didn't like the sound of that, whatever it meant, and Trace didn't seem to, either.

The men fell silent, each turning to his respective task, immersing himself in the job that needed to be done. Trace set his laptop on a flat rock, opened it and began to hack into the security cameras inside the house, which,
Dev had explained, would give them a visual every place there was a lens.

As soon as Trace was satisfied and ready to begin, the Texan left with Clive and Johnnie to disarm the outside security alarm. Communicating via the earpieces all of them were wearing, once the alarm was down it was Johnnie's job to scale the wall, climb into the tower and take out the guard. After that, he would move inside the house as backup for Dev.

Clive's job was to take out the one-man patrol before any of them were spotted, unlock the back gate, then stand watch and be ready to provide cover if needed.

While the men were gone, Dev used the infrared camera, scanning the house and grounds, picking up heat-producing images on the small screen. He aimed the camera toward an area that looked like a bedroom wing, but no one was moving around. It was late and most of the inhabitants were asleep.

He scanned several of the bedrooms. There was only one figure in the largest of the rooms, which lay at the end of the hall, the master suite, Lark figured, which confirmed Johnnie's information that Alvarez was gone. Then in one of the other bedrooms, the image appeared of a small body lying in a narrow bed, but it was impossible to tell if the child was a boy or a girl.

Dev moved the camera and it picked up the heat signature of another small body in the room next door. His wide shoulders relaxed and Lark's heart took a leap. One of the children had to be Chrissy.

Dev pointed toward the screen, showing Lark the small
figures, and she nodded. He reached up and touched his earpiece, listening to one of the men.

“Alarm's taken care of,” he said to her quietly. A few minutes later, he touched the earpiece again and looked up at the tower. Apparently, Johnnie had done his job and disposed of the threat from above.

Another message came through. “Good work, Mad,” Dev said. Which meant Clive had dealt with the perimeter guard. Lark spotted Trace moving stealthily back up the hill in their direction.

She caught Dev's glance as he tipped his head toward Trace, warning her to stay close and remain out of sight. Then he disappeared into the darkness.

Watching him disappear sent her pulse speeding up a notch. So many things could happen. So much could go wrong.

Lark steeled herself, refusing to let the dark thoughts get the better of her.

Trace went to work on his laptop and she eased quietly over behind him, focusing on the tasks that needed to be done. Four different locations inside the house popped up on the screen all at once. Trace pointed at an image in the top right corner and adrenaline jolted through her at the sight of Dev moving stealthily along one of the halls.

Her heart began to thunder. There was a barracks full of Alvarez's soldiers just outside the house, and more heat images had been spotted inside. Going after Chrissy could get Dev killed, get all of them killed.

Lark fixed her eyes on the screen and said a silent prayer for their safety.

 

It was quiet in the house, the soft press of his rubber-soled boots on the red tile floor the only sound. Dev moved stealthily along the hall, listening for Trace's voice in his earpiece, ready to take whatever evasive measures were necessary to avoid an encounter. The Texan had disarmed the outside alarm system and also the motion sensors inside the house. But that didn't mean he couldn't run into a live body who would shout the alarm.

Huge potted palms lined both sides of the corridor. The walls were decorated with ornate gilt-framed paintings of Italian palaces and scenes from Venice. Dev moved past them.

Hearing a soft sound behind him, he turned to see Johnnie moving into position at his back, his UMP against his chest, his fingers wrapped around the trigger. A quick nod and Dev continued along the hall, his Browning resting comfortingly in his hand, a UMP slung over his shoulder.

From the images he had seen, the third door from the end of the corridor should be one of the children's rooms. He paused in front of it, turned the knob, quietly opened the door and slipped inside. The bed was small, a child's bed. Stuffed toys sat on top of a miniature table and chairs.

He moved quickly to the bedside, peeled back the covers, and looked down to see the face of a little boy. Drawing the covers back in place, he eased back out of the room and closed the door. A negative head shake to Hambone and he headed for the room next door.

He turned the knob and quietly stepped inside. The
bed was king-size, a guest room, not a child's room, enveloping the small figure under the fluffy down comforter. A gold satin bedspread had been carefully turned down at the foot of the bed. The figure stirred, moved, turned its head, opened its eyes and blinked up at him.

Chrissy gasped at the sight he made, and Dev clamped a hand over her mouth. “Don't be afraid, sweetheart. Your mother is here. We've come to take you home.”

She reached up and touched his face, smearing the black streaks down his cheeks.

“Uncle Dev?”

His heart squeezed, turned completely over. “That's right, sweetheart. Be quiet now so we can get you out of here.”

She nodded, understood. He slid his pistol into his holster and reached for her. She didn't say a word as he lifted her into his arms and carried her across the room. In a pair of pink pajamas that had seen better days, she clung to his neck and he told himself his heart was beating in that slow, painful way because he was worried about getting her out safely.

Johnnie stood like a sentinel beside the door, his legs splayed, his gaze sharp as Dev stepped into the hallway. Riggs spotted the child and for an instant, his hard look softened. Then he jerked his head toward the opposite end of the hall and they turned and started back the way they had come.

Dev's earpiece came to life and he heard Trace's soft drawl. “Tango at your three o'clock.”

There was a connecting hall that bisected the corridor they were in. Dev stepped back against the wall and so
did Johnnie. He felt Chrissy's arms tighten around his neck as his gun came up and he pointed the barrel toward the man about to step into his line of fire.

“He's turning around,” Trace said, “goin' the other direction.”

Dev released a slow breath. The last thing he wanted was to kill a man in front of the little girl. He motioned to Johnnie and began to move forward. He approached the side door they had come in through and reached for the latch. At the same instant two things happened: Trace sounded a warning and he heard a man shout.

Another man answered and a jumble of Spanish followed.

“They're coming!” Chrissy shouted, understanding the words.

So did Dev and he started to run.

“Keep going!” Johnnie shouted as they burst through the door and headed for the tall wooden rear gate, which Clive had opened for their escape.

Dev kept running, Chrissy clinging to his neck like a soft little monkey. A distant shot rang out from somewhere far above them. Dev saw a man jerk to a halt and crumple to the ground and knew Cantrell had hit his target. Johnnie fired a couple of shots from behind him. Dev turned and fired, pulled the pin on a flash grenade and tossed it away, pressed Chrissy's head into his shoulder, blocking the burst of bright light, and kept running. The explosion was loud and jarring, the painfully dazzling light momentarily blinding his pursuers, providing a brief distraction.

He reached the gate and raced through. In the distance
across the clearing outside, he could see the chopper descending, see its rotor blades churning. Trace and Lark were racing down the hill toward it. Behind him, Johnnie fired a burst from his UMP. Madman joined in, spraying a barrage of bullets toward the dozen, half-dressed
soldados
streaming out through the gate and those who had followed them from the house.

Dev turned and fired, getting off a couple of shots and one man went down.

“Keep going!” Clive shouted. “We'll keep 'em busy till you get her aboard the chopper!”

He watched the helo settle, saw Trace scramble aboard, reach down for Lark and haul her in, then begin firing at Alvarez's men. They were well-armed. As Dev raced toward the chopper, bullets sprayed into the ground just inches behind him and a shot ricocheted off a rock to his right.

He saw two men go down beneath Trace's bullets, saw Johnnie take a man out and Clive wound another. Dev kept running.

When he reached the chopper, he handed Chrissy up to Trace, caught a glimpse of Lark, saw her aim her pistol, heard the hard
bam bam
of shots fired. A man went down who had come out of nowhere and plunged to the ground near his feet.

Dev turned, fired a burst from his UMP, providing cover for Madman and Hambone. Johnnie turned and fired a burst as they raced the final distance to the chopper. Dev helped them aboard as it lifted away, the helo taking a spray of bullets as it began its ascent into the
air. There was blood on Clive's sleeve, Dev saw, trailing down his arm, but Riggs appeared uninjured.

Montez banked hard, using the chopper as cover. Dev heard the ping of bullets on the fuselage. Montez banked again, and then once more. It seemed to take forever until the rain of gunfire faded and they were out of range, disappearing over the peaks of the rugged desert mountains.

Crouched on the floor, Trace had the sleeve of Clive's shirt ripped open. He used the fabric to wipe away the blood to see how bad Clive was hurt.

“It's a through-and-through,” he said with relief. Dev opened the first-aid kit, took out gauze pads and a roll of tape and helped Trace dress the wound. Behind them, Lark held on to Chrissy. Seeing her soft smile and the tears in her eyes, Dev's chest tightened.

“She's all right.” He reached out and smoothed a hand over Chrissy dark hair. “She's a very brave little girl.”

The child looked up at him and her lips tried to curve, then she tucked her head back into Lark's shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, gave him a teary smile. “Thank you.”

He made no reply. They weren't out of this yet. He had promised to protect them but with Alvarez still alive, he wasn't sure he could keep his word. Plan C was rolling around in his head but he needed more information, needed to talk to Chaz.