Cherry Adair - T-flac 03 (31 page)

to be that important anymore. He was very relaxed—damn. What the hell was he doing? "Delanie!"

"Hmm?"

"I want you to count for me, okay?" He let go of her, and she felt him get off the other side of the bed.

"Backwards?"

"Forwards," he said grimly.

"Hmmm. One. Two. Three…"

"Keep going."

"Four. Five. Six."

"
Seven. Eight
…" he prompted, removing a small tool from his belt and applying it with a surgeon's precision to the door lock.

Snick. Snick. Snick

"Seven. Eight. Nine. Thirteen. Five…"

"Why don't you try singing instead?" he suggested dryly.

" 'K."

Kyle paused, gripping the doorknob as Delanie started singing an old Beatles song.

Hell, he didn't want to leave her. Acid ate at his gut for what she'd endured. He bent to remove the small Beretta from its hiding place in the double seam on the back of his boot, and slipped through the opening, closing the bedroom door quietly behind him. If he didn't get them out of here fast, there'd be no payback. And he wanted that retribution so badly it was a heady flavor on the back of his tongue.

Fresh air and the adrenaline rush pushed the last bit of tranq gas out of his system. Keeping to the wall, he followed the wide corridor to the left. The sound of men's voices came from the back of the small house.

There were no surveillance cameras out here. There was no need. Isabella kept her visitors drugged. If the women she held somehow managed to revive and get past a locked door, they'd be fried the moment they stepped across the invisible boundary outside while wearing the damned necklace. He fingered the herringbone, now fully understanding Delanie's phobia about the damn necklace around her neck. He didn't like it either.

But first things first.

Elbow crooked and tight against his side, muzzle of his weapon close to his face and pointed to the ceiling, he paused outside the door of what appeared to be the kitchen. He could smell strong coffee and the distinctive smoke of Piel Rojas, the fat stubby Colombian cigarettes the people inside were smoking.

Three men were playing cards by the sound of it. From their conversation, he gleaned the next shift
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wouldn't relieve them for several hours. Kyle listened, standing dead still. Like most of the men at the compound, these were trained for simple guard duty, not heavy combat. They were loquacious, bored, and pissed because Isabella had not allowed them to play with the
virgen
.

He hoped to God the virgin was Delanie's sister. The girl appeared to be her reason for living. He desperately wanted to give her something to hold onto until he could get her to safety.

He stepped into the brightly lit kitchen. "
Buenas noches
, gentlemen." Three pairs of eyes shot up, startled. All three sprang from their seats at the same time, fumbling for weapons they should have been wearing, but had left hanging on pegs by the door. Cards and coffee mugs went flying. A full ashtray skidded over the edge of the table, spraying butts all over the floor. A chair clattered as it fell.

One man crossed himself, while coffee dripped on his boots. His friends, never taking their eyes off Kyle, started a slow circle around the table. The pincer movement might have worked, but Kyle was much too fast and wily for these three goons despite the gas.

He had the soldier closest to him in a headlock before the other two had moved three steps.

With a snap he broke the man's neck.

He was taking no prisoners. The situation had always been life and death.

But now it was personal.

Deeply personal.

He let the man's body drop. "Next?" he asked coldly, tucking the Beretta into his belt. He figured, no weapons and only two to one, the odds were about right.

They rushed him.

His booted foot shot up and out, striking the one on the left in the esophagus. The man went down without a peep, a look of surprise on his face as he crumpled on top of the body already on the floor.

Two down, one to go.

Kyle fixed his eyes on the last soldier. There was something in the eyes looking back at him that made him relish a bit more of a challenge.

"
Alto
!" the soldier warned. "
Nunca pasara! Le mato primero
!"

Kyle snorted. "I've been threatened with death by better men than you, asshole. Come on, I've got things to do and places to go." Keeping his eye on the last soldier, Kyle unhooked the three Uzis from the wall beside him. The man bent low, covering his throat protectively, circling around the bodies on the floor, almost missing a step because of the debris under his feet. His expression didn't change when he saw Kyle holding their weapons.

Kyle tossed the Uzis out into the corridor and stepped over the two bodies. The soldier moved quickly to put the table between them.

Kyle watched him toss his small Toledo steel knife from hand to hand, and recognized the
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type—vicious, lightning-fast reflexes, and no conscience. Probably no room for one in his small brain.

The kitchen was compact. Rudimentary appliances, a stove, small refrigerator, a coffeepot. A table and chairs in the center. No window. One door.

The floor was linoleum. Old, worn from dozens of booted feet, and dirty. Perfect traction. Without warning Kyle propelled himself across one corner of the table, surprising the hell out of the guy as he slammed into him.

They crashed to the floor. The force of Kyle's bulk and momentum put him on top. Just in time, he saw the flash of the knife and broke its descent to his face with a steely grip. The tendons in the man's wrist snapped under the pressure. The knife clattered to the floor.

"Donde esta la virgen?"

"Yo no'sé, Yanqui."

"Wrong answer,
asqueroso
." Kyle grabbed his hair, slamming the guy's head sharply on the floor.

"Where is the virgin?" he asked again, his fingers on the man's windpipe. The soldier's eyes rolled. Kyle eased up. Infinitesimally.

He choked; his eyes glazed. "Señra Isabella took her, Señor."

"When?" Kyle pressed gently, and the man gagged.

"When she go to
El Jefe's
house. An hour ago, Señor. No more."

With clinical detachment, Kyle used gentle pressure to cut off the man's air.

Rising, he glanced at his watch. It was practically the middle of the night. No doubt Isabella and her bag of tricks would be here first thing in the morning.

Wasn't
she
going to be pissed.

He dragged the men one at a time, dumping them in a small utility alcove off the kitchen. He took the time to inventory the contents for weapons, ammunition, and supplies. Clean uniforms were stacked on shelves above the washer and dryer. Kyle snagged a bundle before he turned off the lights and exited down the corridor, picking up the Uzis on the way out.

He paused outside the bedroom where he could hear Delanie's off-key rendition of "Eensy-Weensy Spider." Kyle knew time was of the essence.

But first things first.

Depositing the clothing, weapons, and supplies on the floor beside the door, he strode to the next room.

«^»

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Kyle opened the door and found a light switch.

He stood in the doorway for a moment, eyes raking the dimly lit room. It stunk of cigarette smoke, Isabella Montero's perfume, and Delanie's terror.

The table was at the far end of the room.

Booted feet traversed marble and carpet in ground-eating strides. He fingered a three-inch-wide leather wrist strap that had restrained Delanie as she lay there open and vulnerable, pinned, like a fragile butterfly.

Terrified.

Calmly he released the buckled strap. It flopped back on the crumpled white sheet as he circumvented the table with even steps.

A large, smoked mirror covered the wall. Even with the light out in the bedroom next door, he could discern Delanie sprawled on the bed. Depressing the button on what was obviously a speaker, he heard Delanie's watery, off-key humming as she struggled to stay awake. He felt a muscle tick in his jaw and clenched a fist, dragging his eyes off her and back into the ambient lighting of Isabella's chamber of horrors.

Next to the table stood the small brazier. Almost tenderly, Kyle plucked the slender metal rod out of the faintly glowing coals. Twisting it between his fingers, he inspected the cobra head at its tip, then hefted the weight of it in his hand.

Light. Tensile.

With a roar of pure animal rage he gripped the edge of the table, flinging it to the floor. Sheet and mattress skidded across marble, and the legs snapped off with one blow of the metal pike. Leather restraints screamed in protest as he ripped them out of each corner with his bare hand.

The brazier came under attack next, crashing to the floor in a shower of ash and live coals. Dust swirled in violent air currents. A crystal lamp shattered into a million diamond pieces with a strike of the lethal weapon applied with virulent force. A mirror came next. Fragmented to smithereens. Razor-sharp shards shattered at his feet.

The still-warm branding iron ripped through silk and satin, velvet and crystal, leaving a path of complete destruction as he systematically demolished the room. He disected the sofa and chairs, and the floor became littered with kapok, foam, glass shards, and wood fragments. Shattered vases bled water into the worthless remnants of priceless Persian rugs. The giant TV imploded. The stereo system became plastic rubble. Speakers became mangled boxes of splintered component parts.

He cleaved the giant coffee table in two with three well-placed blows of an antique chair.

He hacked. Slashed. Severed and smashed. Coldly. Ruthlessly. Until nothing in the room was recognizable.

Twisting off his ring, he tossed it into the destruction. Without a backward glance he walked out, closing the door softly on the Armageddon he'd left behind him.

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Pausing outside the bedroom, he dragged air into his billowing lungs, sweating as if he'd just completed a decathlon. Kyle focused on regulating the cadence of his breathing and heartbeat before he opened the door.

He strode over and flicked on the lamp beside the bed. Delanie blinked up at him with a dopey, and incredibly adorable, grin on her face.

He had to touch her.

Touch something
soft
. Innocent.
Clean
.

Lightly, he brushed strands of silky hair off her forehead, allowing his fingers to linger on warm, smooth skin for a moment.

"Hi." Her voice sounded raspy; she'd cried again in his absence.

"Hi, yourself, jungle girl. What say you get up and at 'em and we blow this joint?" He helped her sit up and gently swing her legs over the edge of the bed. She swayed between his hands. Kyle kept a close watch on her eyes for the first sign of pain.

The tranq gas had served a purpose; she was too looped to care. Efficiently, he reapplied the antibiotic salve he'd used earlier, then stuck the tube into his back pocket before bandaging the wound.

Delanie wasn't much help, but eventually he got her into a pair of camouflage pants and a long-sleeved shirt over a cotton T-shirt. It was pretty much like dressing a doll. She didn't fight him. A couple of times he gently removed her fumbling fingers. With her assistance they'd get out of here a week from Sunday.

"Hope these boots I found fit." He didn't offer where, and she didn't ask. He could depress the toe of each boot by a good three inches, but it beat her walking barefoot. After stuffing the toes with the leftover cotton bandages, he tied the laces.

"Stand." He held her upper arms. The pain, when the blood rushed down to her ankle, was going to be—

"Aggggg!"

Excruciating.

He held her forehead against his chest as she panted through it. Eventually she pulled away, her face shiny with perspiration. Her eyes were much clearer, but the pain was all there.

Nothing he could do about it. "Let's go."

Despite being a trifle wobbly on her feet Delanie gamely followed him down the corridor. "Where do we start looking?" she asked, her eyes becoming clearer as she glanced about.

There was no time now to coddle her. "Lauren isn't here." He opened the door to a small closet and found exactly what he was looking for. Beneath the communications control panel, gas tanks for the backup generator squatted on the floor.

A quick detour to the kitchen and he was back with a half-filled five-pound bag of sugar. Just enough of
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the sweet stuff to contaminate the gasoline and foul up the generator. Next he gutted the communications panel.

"Did you look?"

He scrutinized her over his shoulder. She was leaning against the far wall. "Yeah, I did." Her face paled even more, but he hardened his heart. It didn't matter that he wanted to cradle her in his arms and take care of her. The fact was, she was at her strongest when she was pissed. And right now she'd need all the strength she could muster.

"If your sister's anywhere on or around this compound we'll find her."

He didn't bother mentioning that he'd disabled all of Montero's choppers before he'd gone into that meeting in anticipation of the next day. If Lauren had been on this mountaintop at some time in the last twenty-four hours, she was still here.

Somewhere.

He wanted to be deep in the jungle before reinforcements arrived. If he remembered correctly from the infrared photos taken, he had erroneously thought this building part of the drug lab—therefore they were perhaps thirty, forty minutes from the hacienda through the jungle.

By the time the relief guards got here, found their friends, discovered the phones didn't work, and returned to the main house, hours would have elapsed.