Ready to Kill (31 page)

Nathan used his pack like a shield and lay flat behind it. Raven fired a short burst of four or five rounds.
Well, at least he’s consistent.
The bullets slammed into the wall of the T junction and more shrapnel whizzed over his head. Thankfully the thunderous roar was tolerable at this distance. Nathan took the short burst to be an indicator that Raven didn’t have unlimited ammo. Nathan remained motionless for several more seconds before reaching into his pack for water. His mouth was super dry.

He chugged the water, making sure to leave plenty of bloody prints on the bottle, then set the bloody bottle down and rummaged around inside his pack until he found what he needed. He put the two M84 stun grenades into his pants pockets, but he didn’t like how they felt, so he moved them to his thigh pockets. If he had to do more crawling, they’d still dig into his legs but not as badly. So be it—he’d deal with it. He decided to keep the two M67 frag grenades in his pack. Using high explosives inside a mine didn’t seem like a good idea.

As he prepared to move, a better plan suddenly came to him. Better, yes, but it involved even more risk. He closed his eyes as his mind worked overtime, visualizing what he needed to do. It was a great idea if he had time to set it up.

Nathan picked up the bloody water bottle and darted across the T junction over to the left-hand crosscut. Listening for any sounds, he walked a few steps, took a knee, and went to work.

CHAPTER 34

Franco didn’t relish going in after the guy, but he had little choice. When he’d first ordered his men to shoot, he’d seen the guy’s night-vision goggles. They were hard to miss. Franco had initially assumed he was Viper, but the guy had a strong
norteamericano
accent. He’d also been too tall to be Viper. Now Franco had more immediate concerns—such as avoiding a bullet.

Whoever this intruder was, he was dressed in the same way that Antonia had described Viper: a special forces soldier. Antonia hadn’t said anything about Estefan having a friend with him. He’d need to have a little chat with her about that. Whoever this mystery man was, he knew his way around a handgun. He’d dispatched two of his best men with relative ease. More remarkably, he’d seemed to appear from nowhere. Could he have hustled up the canyon after hearing the helicopter? It seemed unlikely but no other explanation fit. Franco didn’t doubt it could be done, but there weren’t too many people with the stamina to pull it off and still be functioning at the top. He included himself in that elite group.

And now, although Franco had the stranger pinned down in the mine, the stranger had his gold—and the ability to protect it. Seeing the blood-stained bar had rattled Franco. He’d been stockpiling his private stash for years, constantly moving it around so it never remained in the same place for too long. As a supplement to his pay, Macanas let him keep 10 percent of all the gold extracted from Santavilla’s mines. The problem was he’d amassed closer to 20 percent, and if Macanas ever found out he’d been skimming, he was as good as dead, or worse. Macanas had criminal friends in high places all over Central and South America, and Franco knew he’d die an agonizing death if his secret leaked. Over the last few months, he’d considered cashing it in, but the spot price of gold had really plummeted.

Which left him here, facing one of his worst fears: someone had stolen his retirement money. And he’d have to chase this jerk into the mine to recover it. Not an easy mission, especially alone. Franco would have preferred to conduct a leapfrog advance down the mine’s main gallery, but one of his men was unconscious and the other couldn’t walk. The two men he’d dropped near the wooden bridge were headed for the lumber mill, and their orders were to stay there until relieved. At the time he’d given that order, he hadn’t known the lumber mill had been compromised and his gold stolen. Other than his bleeding cousin, which could be total BS, Franco didn’t know the status of any of his men permanently stationed in Santavilla. Right now, he was strongly motivated to go in there, kill the guy, and find out what the hell was going on in town. He’d deal with Estefan Delgado then.

For a moment, Franco forced himself to imagine what it must feel like to be trapped in the mine, facing the business end of his M-4. It had to be hellish at best, pants-pissing at worst. He knew the foreigner had taken at least one bullet before going in there. Lucian had reported seeing the guy fall down and hobble into the opening. Franco couldn’t be sure, but he believed he scored another hit with his second-to-latest salvo. He didn’t know the seriousness of the stranger’s wounds, but it must add to the pressure he was feeling in there. Alone in the dark, bleeding and trapped, the guy’s outlook was bleak. Franco knew a hopeless situation often forced a man into making reckless decisions. He’d need to be mindful of it. A trapped and wounded animal could be unpredictably vicious.

He turned his goggles to maximum gain, aimed his M-4 from the shoulder, and silently slipped inside the mountain.

After finishing his task just inside the entrance to the left-hand crosscut, Nathan approached the ore car he’d seen before. Moving past the light stick, he held a hand out to block its brightness. Three yards short of the car, he pulled a ten-foot length of fine fishing line from the small spool he always carried with him on ops. Even though the light stick remained ten yards behind him, it provided plenty of light to work with. He tied one end of the line around a fist-sized rock and repeated the same procedure on the other end. Before placing the rocks, he dabbed his thumb and forefinger into his thigh wound and coated the length of fishing line with blood to darken and dull its surface. He also bloodied the areas where the fishing line encircled the rocks. Then he scooped up some powdery material from next to the rail and sprinkled it along the wet line. Next, he rubbed the rocks in the powder, camouflaging the fishing line around them. Finally, he smoothed the area he’d disturbed and covered it with gravel.

After placing one of the rocks inside a waist-high crevasse in the wall, he looked for a similar place on the other side of the crosscut and found one at knee level, a little closer to the ore cart. Perfect. He didn’t want the trip wire to be level or straight across the tunnel. His initial plan had been to string the line across the top of the rails and connect it to a stun grenade, but that plan assumed Raven would be walking between the rails, not on top of them. Nathan had used the rails to move silently and believed Raven would too.

He finished rigging the trip wire and checked his handiwork. Both rocks were secure and wouldn’t fall out of their small alcoves without being pulled. He placed a small flat rock on the rail eighteen inches short of the trip wire, so he’d know where to step over it when he returned. Moving silently, he eased back toward the T junction and picked up the light stick. Hoping Raven wasn’t looking, he threw it across the junction and into the right-hand crosscut. It bounced three times and came to rest about halfway between the junction and the other light stick. Both of the light sticks now lay in the right-hand side of the crosscut tunnel.

Nathan kept going and slowly peered around the corner down the main tunnel. He thought he saw movement just past the overturned car but couldn’t be sure. He turned around and eased along the rail back toward the other ore car. With no light sticks left in this side of the crosscut, the available light kept decreasing with every step. Soon, the telltale speckling in his goggles returned. Just ahead, he could see a dimmest outline of the ore car and a few ceiling crags, but the floor of the tunnel was pitch-black. When he closed to within ten or twelve feet of the car, he began sliding his foot along the rail, feeling for the rock he’d left.

And couldn’t find it.

Where was it?
It should have been right here. Could it have fallen off the rail? He didn’t think so but wasn’t 100 percent certain. Refusing to second-guess himself any longer, he dropped to his hands and knees and extended his sliced arm. Realizing his mistake, he quickly withdrew it and rolled his sleeve back down to avoid dripping any blood on this side of the crosscut. With the wound covered, he extended his hand again.

Still nothing.

Was he looking on the wrong rail? No way. He’d placed it on the left rail on the low side of the trip wire.

His Sig.

He could activate its laser for a split second without creating too big a flare. To be even safer, he put his left forefinger over the laser’s aperture and pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

What the hell?

Then he remembered turning it off after leaving the tool alcove to avoid accidentally activating it while he crawled. The mistake hammered his nerves. He’d just forgotten something that might’ve cost him his life. Pursing his lips, he flipped the button on the base of his Sig and pressed the button a second time. The tip of his forefinger brightly glowed and an image from the movie
E.T.
flashed, unbidden, in his mind.

There. Just beyond his reach, the flat rock sat on the rail. Feeling relief that he was still grounded in some sense of reality, he pushed the rock off. Leaving the laser on, he held his glowing finger tight against his body to minimize the light and carefully stepped over the trip wire.

Before moving past the car, Nathan took off his pack and gently placed it where he couldn’t possibly trip over it later. He leaned his rifle against the far side of the car so none of its form could be seen from the junction. Just past the car, he found the opening into the secondary crosscut where the huge slab of rock had been removed from the ceiling
. . .

And stepped inside.

Now came the hard part.

Franco advanced to the overturned ore car and saw something flash at the end of the tunnel. He froze, not wanting to create any discernable movement. The ore car offered him cover, but he’d hoped to keep his presence inside the mine undetected.

Whatever flashed seemed to have come from the end of this main tunnel, but it had happened too fast to see properly. The glow down at the end looked about the same as it had before. This cat-and-mouse game would be much more difficult if it migrated deeper into the labyrinth of passages. He would have to guard against letting the stranger slip out behind him undetected, a difficult task given the nature of this system of tunnels. Although Franco hadn’t been in this mine in several months, he had a fairly good idea of its layout. This main entry tunnel ended at a T junction, branching to the right and left. The left side held more secondary passages and would offer more places to hide. It was likely his prey would set up an ambush on that side. Even though he couldn’t know where his enemy would conceal himself, Franco felt he had the advantage. He wasn’t wounded, possessed a fully automatic M-4, and had a state-of-the-art pair of NV goggles, complete with an IR illuminator for pitch-black environments.

One thing was certain, the guy was bleeding and from the look of things, pretty badly. Blood was smeared everywhere. He smiled. With a little luck, he’d walk up to a dead body. If the guy carried through with his threat and hid the gold, finding it shouldn’t be difficult. This linear environment didn’t offer many hiding places. Franco wasn’t worried.

He
was
worried about that damned light stick fifteen yards farther down the tunnel. Its presence prevented a stealthy advance. Shooting it from here wouldn’t be easy. Throwing it down the mine had been a smart move on his enemy’s part
. . .
On closer inspection, though, it also afforded him an opportunity. The light stick had ended up on the outside of the left rail, nearly up against it. If he hugged the right side of the wall, he’d be in the shadows when he got closer to the light stick. He considered a balls-out run to the light stick so he could hurl it back toward the entrance. Shoving it in his pocket wasn’t an option because his opponent’s NV would see the light through the fabric. He might as well paint a bull’s-eye on his crotch—not an appealing visual.

Because of the light stick up ahead, Franco concluded the best way to advance down the gallery was a low crawl. He left his sniper rifle in the tool alcove, slung the M-4 over his shoulder, and pulled the pistol he’d taken from his mortally wounded man.

Feeling like a snake entering a gopher hole, he began slinking down the tunnel.

Nathan knew his way around rock climbing, but he’d never attempted it in total darkness. From this point on, he’d be caught in the clutches of a silent, black world. The dust on the walls presented a problem. Nathan would never be able to climb into the opening over his head without leaving handprints and scuff marks. The good news was, Franco wouldn’t be able to see the disturbed areas without an artificial light source, and the instant Franco activated his IR illuminator—assuming his device had one—Nathan would have the upper hand. Brutally, the reverse was also true.