Spy High (34 page)

It sounded as though the speakers were
mere feet away over the next rise, but maybe it was only the still
night air carrying the two men’s voices to me so clearly.

Shit, that sounded like Orion’s
voice.

Heart thumping, I inched my fingers
into my jacket pocket. The rustle of fabric sounded loud in the
silence and I froze again. Slowly, a degree at a time, I tipped the
tracker up to face me.

“Did you take care of them?” The other
voice sounded vaguely familiar, too. “She didn’t call the police,
did she?”

“Don’t worry, the old folks are stashed
where they won’t cause any trouble.”

My feet froze to the path. That
was
Orion. The red dot was practically on top of me.

The thunder of my heart nearly drowned
out his next words. “I’ll go and take care of them now. I won’t be
long.”

“Curse you to a thousand hells, you
were supposed have done it already!” That venomous hiss had to be
Ratboy. “Hurry up! You’d better be back at camp by one o’clock or
Mesker will finish us both!”

“Chill out. I’ll be there.”

The sound of footsteps drove my hand to
my shoulder holster. No time to run or hide. In an instant they’d
be over the rise.

My trank gun steadied on the place
where they’d appear.

The footsteps faded.

Orion’s words drilled into my
brain.

He had Moonbeam and Karma.

He was going to kill them.

I jammed the night-vision headset back
on one-handed, the fingers of my other hand tightening painfully
around the trank gun.

I’d kill him.

If he had hurt them, I’d kill him.

My feet were already in motion,
carrying me swiftly over the hill. I snapped a glance around me.
The path branched to cross the road at this point. Ratboy’s back
was just vanishing around the corner to my right.

To my left, Orion slowed his stride,
then stopped facing away from me, fumbling at his head with both
hands. Probably putting on his night-vision goggles.

I dropped to a shooter’s crouch, the
open sights of the trank pistol clear in my night vision. An
instant later the small flat report was swallowed by the dark
forest.

Orion fell without a sound.

I stuffed the trank gun back into my
holster and dashed to his crumpled body. Clamping both fists onto
his jacket, I dragged him off the path, fury and fear giving me
strength. Only a few yards away the terrain dropped off into
another little gully. Snarling with effort, I wrenched his limp
body to the edge and shoved him over.

The noise of his roll through the
undergrowth brought me to my senses. No telling how far Ratboy had
gone or when he might come back. Keep this fast and quiet.

I hurried down into the gully and
crouched beside Orion’s limp form. A quick survey of our
surroundings assured me we were hidden from the path, and I glanced
at my watch. Probably about fifteen minutes before the trank wore
off.

I searched him rapidly. A small pistol
in an ankle holster. One of the scary bayonets sheathed on his
thigh. A radio. A flashlight. A tiny device in his ear that I would
have missed if not for a moonlit glint as his head lolled to one
side. A couple of sets of nylon hand restraints that I set aside
for later use.

Ruthlessly, I stripped off his jacket
and manhandled his entire body, checking every square inch and
discovering one more small but vicious-looking knife in his boot.
When I was positive he had no more weapons or communication devices
on him, I sliced off the sleeve of his shirt for a gag and secured
his wrists behind his back. Then I put his night-vision goggles on
him and trussed his ankles with the nylon restraints. All his other
gear went into my backpack.

Panting, I flopped down on the ground,
clammy with sweat and fear. Damn, damn, damn! Why hadn’t I found a
way to tag Moonbeam and Karma? Now I had to figure out where they
were. They could be anywhere in the forest. What if they were
injured, succumbing to shock and blood loss?

A glance at my watch showed the trank
should be wearing off any minute. Should I call Kane and
Hellhound?

I eyed Orion’s still form.

Maybe I didn’t want witnesses.

Four months ago I had fooled a criminal
into thinking I was torturing him with a secret weapon that had
really been an ordinary depilator. He had told me what I needed to
know at the cost of only a few leg hairs.

But I didn’t have any beauty appliances
with me this time. And I needed Orion to talk. Fast.

I squinted at my watch and my hands
began to shake.

After eleven o’clock. In a little more
than an hour, Ratboy would start to wonder why Orion wasn’t back.
And if he found Moonbeam and Karma before I did, they would die. I
had no tricks up my sleeve this time. Nothing but brute force and
urgency.

I would do what was necessary.

And if there was a hell, I would burn
there for all eternity.

Orion groaned and moved feebly against
the restraints, and I locked away the last remnants of my humanity
and sprang. Knotting my fist in his hair, I yanked his head back
and pressed the flat of my survival knife against his throat. His
eyes jerked open at the touch of the cold steel and I leaned close
to growl in his ear.

“Keep quiet or I’ll slit your throat.
Got it?”

He stiffened and nodded, a bare
fraction of an inch up and down.

“Good.” I pulled off the makeshift
gag.

“Storm, what-” he whispered.

I pressed the knife a little harder. He
shut up, his rapid pulse vibrating through the blade and into my
hand.

“Where are Moonbeam and Karma?” I
demanded.

“I haven’t the foggiest notion.” His
British accent was much more noticeable under stress. “Probably in
their tent-”

“
The old folks are stashed where
they won’t cause any trouble
,” I hissed. “Last chance. Where.
The. Fuck. Are. They?”

“Why would I tell you that?”

“Wrong question,” I ground out. “You
will
tell me. The right question is, ‘how much do you want
to suffer before you do’?”

He pressed his lips together, and rage
overwhelmed me. I slammed my hand into his crotch, clamping down
and twisting harder with each word. “If… you’ve… hurt… them…”

“
Wait!
” The word came out in a
strangled squeak. Even in my night vision his face had gone white,
sweat beading his forehead and upper lip.

I eased off a fraction and he gulped
air.

“Where are they?” I snarled.

“You don’t want to hurt them?”

“Why the hell would I want to hurt
them? Now tell me where they are or I’ll twist your balls off and
shove them down your throat!”

“Let me explain!” He panted for a
moment. “I promise they’re safe. Please let go of my tackle.”

“I didn’t ask if they were
safe
!
I
asked
…” I gripped and twisted harder. “…
where are
they
?”

“I’ll… tell… you…” The words grated out
between his teeth. “Please…”

I eased off again, guilt prodding me
despite my attempt to ignore it. Not having testicles of my own I
couldn’t exactly empathize, but I’d seen enough guys suffer a blow
to the nuts to realize Orion was a hairsbreadth away from either
puking or passing out. Or maybe both.

I gave him a moment to recover. When
his breathing eased from jerky gasps to rapid panting, I leaned in
again.

“I’ll take you there,” he said
hurriedly before I could speak. “You wouldn’t be able to find it
even if I gave you directions.” I eyed him in silence and he drew a
deep tremulous breath. “Look, I know your real name is Aydan Kelly,
and I’m pretty sure you belong to some branch of law enforcement. I
do, too. I’m in the middle of an op and this is just a
misunderstanding-”

“Shut up.” I accompanied the command
with a convincing squeeze, and he went quiet except for more jerky
breathing.

Law enforcement. That would explain the
hand restraints. Maybe he was undercover, investigating the
renters.

Or maybe he was full of shit and
setting me up for an ambush.

I gave him a toothy smile. “Okay, sure.
I’m law enforcement. Now I’m going to read you your rights, so
listen up.”

A little of the tension went out of his
body. Interesting.

“You have the right to remain silent…”
I leaned closer. “…because if you don’t I’ll slit your throat.
Vocal cords only, so you won’t die. You have the right to take me
directly to where you’re holding Moonbeam and Karma, and I strongly
recommend you exercise that right. You’ll be pleased to know I grew
up on a farm so I’m familiar with the technique for castrating
large animals without any risk of them bleeding out.”

He tensed up again. Imagine that.

I showed a few more teeth. “If you lead
me anywhere Moonbeam and Karma
aren’t
, I recommend you
choose a place close to where they
are
because you’re going
to be extremely uncomfortable walking there afterward with your
balls cut off. If you try to signal anyone in any way, they have
the right to die instantly and I will make sure that right is
exercised.”

“You, on the other hand…” I paused and
let my gaze travel the length of his body before glaring into his
eyes. “If you double-cross me, or if you’ve hurt Moonbeam or Karma,
you have the right to scream and beg for death. It won’t do you any
good because I won’t let you die, but you can do it all you want.
Are we clear?”

“None of that will be necessary.” His
voice was faint but steady. “I’ll take you directly to them. No
tricks. And please don’t kill anybody.”

His final sentence really made me
wonder.

Not ‘don’t kill
me
’. ‘Don’t kill
anybody
’. It sure sounded like something a cop would
say.

Or somebody who wanted to sound like a
cop.

I hissed out my tension through my
teeth. Only one way to find out. I let go of his crotch and stepped
carefully around him, keeping the knife at his throat.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said
softly. “See this?” I drew the trank pistol left-handed and moved
it along his cheek so he could barely see the muzzle in his
peripheral vision. Close enough so he could identify it as a gun;
too close for him to be able to tell it wasn’t a regular
firearm.

He nodded very slowly and
carefully.

“I’m going to cut the ties on your
ankles. If you so much as twitch, I’ll shoot you. Then I’m going to
step back and you’re going to get up and take me to Moonbeam and
Karma at a nice steady pace through the woods, not on the paths. We
both have night vision, so if we see anybody at all, we’re going to
stand nice and still and quiet until they pass. If you make noise,
if you even step on a stick, I’ll shoot you. If you try to run,
I’ll shoot you. If you make any sudden moves, I’ll shoot you. And I
won’t shoot to kill, so don’t think you can escape that way.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” I took the knife away from his
throat. “Roll onto your stomach.”

He complied, and I cut the restraints
on his ankles and backed away, sheathing my knife so I could
transfer the trank gun to my right hand.

“Stand up.”

He squirmed onto his knees and hunched
there for a moment, breathing deeply, his hands flexing behind him
in their bindings. I tensed, the trank gun trained on him, but he
was apparently only taking a moment to recover. He clambered
awkwardly to his feet and stood still for another couple of
breaths.

“All right,” he said evenly. “I’m going
to walk in the direction of the garage. I’ll do exactly as you
said.”

He moved slowly into the forest and I
followed several paces behind, fervently hoping he’d do the ‘take
me to Moonbeam and Karma’ part of what I’d said, not the ‘force me
to torture him’ part.

I didn’t even know if I could have
tortured him while I was certain he was a criminal. Now that I was
wondering if he was a cop…

But dammit, he could just be a really
smart crook. Putting doubt in my mind; trying to get me to drop my
guard so he could make his move.

I eased out a silent breath and willed
my hammering heart to slow.

As we passed through the woods between
the bridge and the main building I flipped momentarily to thermal
vision to scan around us. If Hellhound was on his way to the
bridge, what would he do if he spotted us?

I really didn’t want a witness right
now; and I also didn’t want Orion to know I had allies just in case
everything went to shit and he somehow got back to his buddies on
the renters’ side.

A few distant heat signatures flickered
through the intervening tree trunks, but there was nothing close
enough to be visible in night vision. Good. If I couldn’t see them,
they couldn’t see me.

Orion kept moving at a steady pace. We
left the main part of the commune behind and began to climb the
slope to the garage, but instead of aiming toward the building
Orion veered off to circle around the hill.

My arm ached with the strain of holding
the trank gun at the ready. If we didn’t get there soon, I’d have
to switch hands. Nerves and the exertion of climbing made my knees
tremble, and the trank gun wavered. Shit, was he just leading me on
a wild goose chase until I got tired so he could overpower me?

I wasn’t sure how he might accomplish
that with his hands tied behind his back, but I was certain Kane
could do it if he was in Orion’s place. Who knew what skills Orion
was hiding?

I steadied the flagging muzzle of the
trank gun again and panted through my mouth so he wouldn’t
hear.

What if he was leading me into an
ambush? This far from the main encampment, nobody would hear the
sounds of a struggle. And Kane and Hellhound had no idea where I
was.