Army of Two (17 page)

“That looks like Sharon’s Twin Otter!” she said.

“Sharon?”

“The deputy’s wife. She must have brought him here to have a look! He did come through! Mitch—”

A plume of water shot from the surface in front of the plane. Another one burst even closer. The Twin Otter exploded into a ball of smoke and fire. Debris cartwheeled across the lake. Flames shot through what was left of the fuselage.

Chantal was too numb to scream. She could do nothing but watch in horror as the shell of her friend’s yellow plane rolled to one side, tipped on end and slipped under the water.

The black helicopter circled the wreckage twice, hovered above a patch of burning fuel, then headed for the north end of the lake. It was lost from sight behind the trees. A minute later, more smoke billowed into the sky.

She didn’t need a map to pinpoint its location. It came from the place where the Waterfalls Resort was located.

No. Where it used to be. She knew in her bones that it was gone. Just like the plane.

This couldn’t be happening. Mitch had warned her they might not find any help at Waterfalls. He’d guessed that Knox had gotten to them. Now she could see for herself that he’d been right. The evil that had taken over the Aerie was already spreading. She started to shake.

Mitch slung his gun over his shoulder and pulled Chantal into his arms. “It’ll be okay,” he said.

“How? They killed…blew up…I don’t know how many innocent people. Right in front of our eyes. Sharon and Al never had a chance. Neither would Bob or anyone with him. Knox is a monster. How can we hope—” Her throat closed. She thumped her fist against his chest once, then turned her face into his neck.

The nightmare continued to get worse. There would be no help coming. They were on their own. She fought to hang on to her hope, but there wasn’t enough left.

So she hung on to Mitch instead.

Chapter 11

L
ewis strode across the lobby. His ears rang from the screams. The men who were supposed to be guarding the hostages had gotten slack and had allowed some of the women to get next to the front windows. As a result, they’d had a bird’s-eye view when Hillock had taken out the plane.

It had sent them into hysterics.

Lewis pointed his pistol at the ceiling and fired four quick rounds.

One of the overhead lights shattered. Pieces of glass fell to the floor. There were a few startled squeals before the room finally went silent.

He aimed the gun at the women. “Get away from the window. Now!”

They were frozen in place. Their sobbing had stopped, but one of the Petherick executives still had her mouth open. She was gasping for air like a beached fish.

Lewis wasn’t in the mood to be patient. He fired into the floor. The shot kicked up a cloud of wood slivers. “Move!”

The cook’s wife, Tyra, ran to put her arm around the shoulders of the gasping woman. She led her back to the cluster in front of the fireplace. Lewis motioned with his gun, and the other Petherick woman scurried after them.

Taddeo took the red-haired college girl by the arm and hauled her back toward the rest, but he was helping himself to a handful of her breast along the way. The girl’s brother lunged for him. Taddeo swatted him aside, sending him skidding across the floor and into a coffee table. The girl spun from his grip and turned on him with her nails. He tossed her to the floor beside her brother.

The men were getting as restless as the hostages. Lewis snapped an order at Taddeo, who retreated to a position beneath the gallery stairs. Meanwhile, one of the colonels rocked forward and got to his feet. Like the other army men, he still had his wrists bound in front of him with bundling ties. His hands were likely useless by now due to lack of blood circulation, but Lewis wasn’t taking any chances. Their bonds would remain until the end. He aimed his pistol warningly at the colonel’s midriff. The man looked at him stonily, then went to sit amid the crying women.

Lewis sneered behind his ski mask. Wasn’t that just like an officer, showing gallantry in the face of death. He waited until he was satisfied that order had been restored, then moved outside to the deck. He went to the railing at the top of the staircase and looked over the empty lake.

The plane had been a nasty surprise. Molitor had reported seeing what looked like a canoe strapped to one of the pontoons. It was possible they’d been ordinary fishermen, flying in for the day, but it was also possible someone had come to snoop around. There was little left of the aircraft except some scattered debris and a haze of smoke that hung over the water. A breeze was already dissipating the smoke trail that had risen higher into the air. Soon, there would be no trace of the intruders, whoever they had been.

The cloud of smoke on the horizon loomed larger than the one from the plane, but it would burn out before long. Most of the combustibles should have been vaporized in the initial explosion. Besides, there was no one left who would raise an alarm.

Destroying the lake’s other resort had been part of Lewis’s plan all along. It would buy him and his men more time to disappear. Investigators would be so busy sifting through the rubble of both places, it could be days before they pieced things together. He didn’t like having to alter his schedule. He’d intended to take out Waterfalls
after
he detonated the charges that had been set around the Aerie, but once the plane had been spotted, he’d had no other choice. Given the situation with Bamford, this was no time to take chances.

Lewis glanced at the trees that mantled the hill. They were thick enough to hide anything. Was Bamford really enough of an idiot to get himself lost? Or had he developed cold feet? Either way, he had become a liability. He pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Walsh, any sign of him?”

“Not yet.”

“How far have you gone?”

He didn’t respond immediately. “Walsh?” Lewis prodded.

“Why don’t we let Molitor look from the chopper?”

The suggestion showed how shortsighted these men were. They’d brought a limited amount of fuel. They’d already used more than he’d calculated to chase those two hostages who had escaped the initial assault. They’d burned extra again today, which left them with little to spare for the trip to the rendezvous. They couldn’t afford to waste it on a search pattern. “That’s not an option,” he said. “We clear out tonight. If he’s not found before then, we leave him.”

“Tonight? I thought we needed to wait another day.”

“The timetable’s been moved up. If you’re not back by then, we’ll leave you, too.”

“Did I hear you right, Knox? You’re changing the timetable?”

That voice had come from behind him instead of from the walkie-talkie. Lewis lowered it to his side as he turned. One of the men he’d left on guard duty stood at the door to the deck. He’d brought the hostage who’d served as their inside contact with him.

Lewis scowled. “What are you doing out here?”

Jim Whitby pulled the bathrobe his boss had loaned him more tightly around his skinny frame and walked forward. “The others wanted someone to talk to you about their living conditions,” he said. “I volunteered.”

In Lewis’s opinion, the hostages had nothing to complain about. They had been fed each day. They were escorted to the bathroom at regular intervals. He’d restrained his men from getting too rough. “What’s the problem?”

“The women wanted some privacy. Taddeo’s making them uncomfortable.”

“Tell them the next one who complains gets some privacy
with
Taddeo. Don’t bother me with these details. We’ll be moving out as soon as we confirm the ship is loaded.”

“I thought you needed to wait until it was in international waters.”

Why was everyone questioning him? He fingered his gun. “I trust you don’t object, Whitby?”

The breeze from the lake strengthened. Whitby took a deep breath of the fresh air. “Not a chance. The sooner we finish this, the better. I haven’t had a shower in three days.”

“You’re the one who wanted to keep up the farce.”

“You have your exit strategy, I have mine. The money won’t do me any good if I’m sitting in jail, but no one’s going to suspect an innocent victim.”

Lewis didn’t respond. He couldn’t respect someone whose betrayal could be so readily bought. True, Whitby had provided essential information, but if he could sell out the company he’d worked for, he could just as easily sell out Lewis and his crew. All the hostages would be sharing the same fate tonight, regardless of what this turncoat believed. He stepped forward and delivered a backhanded slap.

Whitby staggered sideways. “What was that for?”

“Your friends can see us. You want to keep up appearances, don’t you?”

“You could have used some other way. You didn’t have to get rough again.”

“Consider it more exit strategy. Don’t try to talk to me until I send for you.” Lewis motioned to the guard. “Take him back inside.”

Mitch took down the rope that he’d used for a clothesline, coiled it neatly and hooked it on the back of a chair. He paused beside the table. “That’s looking good.”

Chantal straightened, rolling her shoulders to ease their stiffness. For the past hour, she’d been doing her best to draw a schematic of the main lodge, but she was no architect. The piece of charcoal she’d been using was no drafting pencil, either. Nor was the wooden tabletop the best surface for showing detail. “This won’t be enough. You need me, Mitch.”

“I need your knowledge of the layout.”

“The Aerie is more than just a floor plan. I know it inside and out.”

“Which is why I want you to teach me what you know.”

She dropped the charcoal and wiped her fingers on her jeans. Mitch planned to move in on the Aerie at dark. He’d said he had no other choice. Even though someone was bound to investigate the disappearance of Sharon’s plane, there was no guarantee they would get here in time. If they did come, Knox might deal with them the same way.

The day had seemed endless as she and Mitch had made their preparations. Now that dusk was approaching, the time was slipping by too fast. “I thought we were a team,” she said.

“We are.”

“And we’re supposed to be focusing on the mission.”

“That’s what we’re doing.”

“So tell me, Major Redinger, if you were on any other mission, and you had a member of your team who was intimately familiar with the place you were about to—” she swallowed before she could continue “—to infiltrate, would you be leaving them behind?”

He leaned heavily on his cane as he walked to the bedroom. With the knife he’d been using to fix their meals, he cut a strip from the quilt. He wrapped it around the blade and slipped the knife and its improvised scabbard into the pocket on the outside of his right pant leg. “That depends,” he said as he returned.

“On what?”

“If I deemed them unfit for duty, I wouldn’t allow them to participate.”

“Unfit?” She pointed at his ankle. “I’m fitter than you are. You hurt yourself again when you ran to the lake this morning. You’re hobbling worse than ever.”

“I’ve had worse. It’ll pass. You, on the other hand, are not going to become a trained soldier by nightfall.” He braced his knuckles on the edge of the table and leaned over to study her sketch more thoroughly. “Where are the air vents?”

“What?”

“For the heating system.”

“There aren’t any. We have radiant heating in the floors from an outdoor furnace. That’s sufficient for cool nights. The fireplaces are vented straight to the outside. Those are only a few of dozens of details I know that you don’t.”

“I’ll be fine. This is what I do for a living. I’ll be able to concentrate better if I don’t have to worry about your safety.”

“
My
safety?” She picked up the walkie-talkie they’d been monitoring and set it down hard in the cold wood stove. “I’m not the one you should be worrying about. You heard what Knox said. His timetable’s accelerated. They’re leaving tonight. In case you’ve forgotten, that means they plan to kill their hostages. Thirteen innocent people, including a twelve-year-old boy, have only hours to live if we don’t succeed. Not to mention the thousands of people who could be killed by the missiles Knox is stealing. We’re their only chance. You couldn’t honestly believe that I would be content to stay behind, do you?”

“Chantal…”

“Because if you do, then you truly don’t know me at all.”

“You told me you don’t like to rely on anyone else, or to wait for someone to rescue you, but this is no time to let your pride overrule your common sense. Be logical.”

“I could say the same to you. You’re being too stubborn to admit you need my help. That’s not logical, either.”

He regarded the tabletop. He appeared to be memorizing the drawing.

She grasped his elbow. “You’ve said that I’m brave. You even went so far as to say I would have made a good officer. Was that only talk? Didn’t you mean it?”

He straightened and turned to face her. For a while, he regarded her as intently as he’d studied her sketch. “I meant it, Chantal. I respect you immensely.”

“Then it makes no sense to leave me behind.”

“If you’d been anyone else, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I would be doing everything in my power to persuade you to come along.”

“Is this because I’m a woman?”

“No. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve knowingly exposed a woman to danger. I’ve done it in the past. I’ve earned a reputation for doing whatever it takes in order to achieve the mission objectives.”

“So far, you’re only proving my point.”

A muscle twitched in his cheek. “I should be grateful for your willingness to help, but I don’t want to use you or to expose you to harm.”

“Mitch—”

“The truth is, my desire to keep you safe has nothing to do with the good of the mission. I’m letting my personal feelings for you overrule my logic. It’s as simple as that.”

His tone hadn’t changed. He sounded as matter-of-fact as when he’d spoken about the Aerie’s heating system. It took a moment for his words to sink in. “You admit you’re being unreasonable.”

“Yes.”