“I know you’re banged up, but how does a long walk sound to you?”
Chen looked at Payne in the flickering firelight and grimaced. “You tell me, sir. How does a long walk sound?”
“It’s just what the doctor ordered.” Payne slipped his good arm around Chen’s waist and helped him to his feet. “Don’t get any wrong ideas. This isn’t going to be a romantic stroll. That last blast opened a fissure in the wall, and I’m hoping it’ll lead somewhere safe.”
The duo trudged through the waist-deep stream for several yards while keeping a constant eye out for crocs. Luckily, the giant reptiles were just as uninterested in a skirmish as the MANIACs were, and they did their best to stay far out of the humans’ way.
“Okay,” Payne said once they had arrived at the crevice. “Let me check things out before we get you in there. Will you be all right for a few minutes on your own?”
Chen nodded as he slumped to the ground, exhausted.
“Just holler if something starts to eat you.”
“Don’t worry, I think that’s probably the natural reaction.”
Payne grinned as he checked his weapon then leaned inside the cavelike opening, which extended from water level to nearly three feet above his head. The darkness of the interior prevented him from seeing much, so he was forced to use one of the chemical torches that he carried in his belt. After breaking the cylinder’s inner seal, he gave the liquids a quick shake, and the phosphorescent mixture filled the man-made grotto with enough light to read a newspaper.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Chen. “Don’t go anywhere.”
By using the green glow of the high-tech lantern, Payne was able to figure out what he had stumbled upon. It was the tunnel that the Posse had used for their escape. The cylindrical shaft started somewhere to his right, deep within the bowels of Kotto’s basement, and continued to his left, ending somewhere outside the fence on the western flank of the estate. Or at least it used to. Due to all the recent explosions, Payne had no idea if the route was still passable. He hoped it was, since he and Chen were looking for a way out of the moat, but he realized he wouldn’t know for sure until he explored the mysteries that lay farther ahead.
CHAPTER 63
HOLMES
and Greene laughed with childlike enthusiasm as the first few explosions tore through the house. In their minds every blast meant a few less soldiers that they’d have to deal with, and if the second part of their plan was going to be successful, they had to keep the number of MANIACs to an absolute minimum.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Drake wondered from his position on the ground. “If these troops are as skilled as you claim, will they really be fooled by something so simple?”
The comment knocked the smile off Holmes’s face. He had known Edwin Drake for less than a few hours but had learned to despise the man. “I’ll tell you what, Eddie. If you don’t want to participate in phase two of my plan, you can take off your cloak and start walking. It won’t make a damn bit a difference to me.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he insisted. “But—”
“But what? You call my plan
foolish
, then claim you didn’t mean to offend me? Fuck that, and fuck you! If you keep it up, I’ll put a bullet in your ass myself.”
The smile on Greene’s face got even wider because he disliked Drake as well. “So what’s it gonna be? Are you in or out? We gotta know now.”
Drake glanced at Kotto for some moral support, but none was forthcoming. Kotto had just watched his house detonated for the sake of the plan, so he wasn’t about to give up on Holmes and Greene’s idea anytime soon.
“Fine,” Drake relented. “What would you like me to do?”
“Just lie there quietly until Levon and I change our clothes,” Holmes ordered. “When it’s time to do something else, we’ll let you know.”
AFTER helping Chen inside the tunnel, Payne headed west in hopes of finding the exit but found something more exciting.
Payne traveled less than twenty yards down the concrete shaft when he noticed the artificial light of his lantern start to burn brighter than it had just seconds before. At first he figured the chemical compound in his torch was simply heating up, but after a few more steps, he realized that the added radiance wasn’t coming from him. The extra burst of light was shining from somewhere up ahead.
Concerned by the possibilities, Payne hid his light in his pocket and inched silently toward the source of the phantom glow. With weapon in hand, he crept along the smooth edge of the wall until he came to a strange bend in the tunnel. For some reason the passageway turned sharply to the left, then seemed to snake back to the right almost instantly—perhaps to avoid a geological pitfall of some kind. Whatever the reason for the design, Payne concluded that the epicenter of the light was somewhere in that curve.
Pausing to collect his thoughts, Payne reached into the leather sheath that hung at his side and pulled out a nine-inch hunting knife that had once belonged to his grandfather. Even though it was nearly fifty years old, the single-edged bowie knife was sharp enough to cut through metal and sturdy enough to be used in hand-to-hand combat. In this case, though, it possessed a less obvious attribute that he hoped to take advantage of: a mirrorlike finish.
By extending the weapon forward, Payne hoped to see what was lurking around the corner without exposing himself to gunfire. Sure, he knew he wouldn’t be able to see much in a simple reflection, but if he was able to get a small glimpse of what was waiting for him, he’d be better prepared to face it.
“Show me something good,” he whispered to the knife.
And surprisingly, it did.
Payne couldn’t tell how many people were gathered up ahead—they were huddled too close together for him to get an accurate count—but he had a feeling he knew who they were. They were escaped slaves, part of the
original
Plantation shipment that had been sent to Nigeria several weeks before Ariane had even been abducted. People who—
Wait a second, he thought. If these were actually escaped slaves, what were they doing
sitting
in this tunnel? If they’d somehow gotten free from Kotto’s house, why weren’t they running down this passageway toward the outside world? Common sense told him that was what they should be doing. And what was keeping them so damn quiet? Were they afraid to speak, or was there an outside factor that was keeping them silent? Something, perhaps, like an armed guard? That would explain a lot, he reasoned. Plus, it would clarify the presence of their light. Payne figured if the slaves were hiding, then they wouldn’t be dumb enough to use a lantern. That would be an obvious giveaway in this deadly game of hide-and-seek.
No, the slaves’ silence, coupled with their ill-advised use of a light, suggested only one thing: Someone was trying to get these people noticed.
Thankfully, Payne was way too intelligent to fall for the ploy—especially since he’d taught the maneuver to many of his men during their initial training. And since he had taught the tactic, he knew exactly how to beat it.
“Yoo-hoo!” he called loudly. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Several seconds passed before Payne heard the reply he was expecting.
“Captain Payne?” shouted Haney, one of the missing MANIACs. “Is that you?”
“It sure is, princess. I’ve come to rescue you from the evil dungeon. Are you alone?”
“No, Kokoska’s with me, but he’s unconscious. He took a bump on his head during the first blast. He’s been fading in and out ever since.”
Despite the conversation, Payne moved forward cautiously, just in case he was overlooking a foot snare or something more diabolical. “And the prisoners? Where’d you find them?”
“In a basement cage. Can you believe that shit? They’d be buried under tons of rubble right now if we hadn’t gotten to them. The assholes were just planning on leaving them in there with tiny bombs strapped to their legs.”
“Tiny bombs?” he asked. “Were they silver?”
“Yeah!” Haney showed his face and held up one of the devices to prove his point. “How’d you know their color, sir?”
Payne grabbed the explosive with disgust. “They used the same thing on the Plantation.”
After taking a few seconds to examine the mechanism, Payne smiled at the hostages, trying to reassure them that their lives were about to return to normalcy. None of them smiled back, which wasn’t surprising. As a group, they’d been through so much in such a short amount of time that Payne knew it would take more than a smile for any of them to start trusting the world again. He realized it would take love and friendship and a shitload of therapy to get them back on track, but he hoped that they’d be able to get over this eventually.
“Sir?” Haney blurted. “What’s the status topside? Did everyone make it out okay?”
Payne shook his head. “Chen’s resting in the tunnel behind me. He took a nasty fall into the moat, but he’ll live.”
“What about Ariane? Did she get out all right?”
Payne took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, that still remains to be seen.”
“Sir?” he asked, slightly confused.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m confident she made it out before the blast. But my guess is there are still some loose ends that need to be taken care of before she’ll be completely free.” Payne paused in thought. “Thankfully, loose ends are my specialty.”
JONES tried to reestablish contact with Payne but met with little success. With no more time to waste, Jones decided to change his priorities and forge ahead without him.
“Team one,” Jones uttered into his headset, “what’s your status?”
Shell answered. “We’ve got the Indians surrounded. We can move on your word.”
“What’s the risk to the cowboys?”
“Higher than it was a moment ago.”
The comment bothered Jones, who had lost visuals on Holmes and Greene a few minutes before. “Please explain.”
“Everyone’s dressed the same. Long white cloaks with hoods that cover their faces.”
“Give me the numbers, Lieutenant. How risky are the odds?”
“I wouldn’t bet my dog on ’em, sir.” Shell paused to speak to one of his men before he continued his transmission. “By our count we’re looking at three black and three white, and one of the whites is definitely a woman. And two of the blacks are supersized.”
“The big ones are probably Holmes and Greene. They’re the ones we want the most.”
“Maybe so, but there’s a problem. Their size doesn’t stand out anymore.”
“Why not?”
“The six have gathered in a tight cluster, so it’s tough to tell where one person ends and the next begins.”
“In a cluster? How badly do they blend?”
“They look like a giant marshmallow, sir.”
Jones cursed before he spoke again. “What are you telling me? No go on the snipers?”
“That’s affirmative, sir—unless you can put out the fire. It’s messing up our ability to see.”
“How so, Lieutenant? It didn’t bother my sightline.”
“That’s because it’s at your back, sir. The frontal glare prevents our night vision from working properly. Without ’em, our snipers don’t have enough light to shoot.”
Jones couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Each man was equipped with enough optical equipment to see a lightning bug fart from a half mile away, but they couldn’t see a 275-pound man in the light of a raging inferno. “Let me get this straight: You’re telling me it’s too bright and too dark for you at the
exact same time
?”
Shell grinned at the paradox. “Ain’t it a fucked-up world we live in?”
WHEN Payne reached the end of the passageway, he gazed through the thick wall of vines that had obscured the tunnel’s presence from the outside world and studied the scene before him. The six people who had escaped through the corridor were now dressed identically and standing in a compact huddle—their arms around each other’s shoulders and their heads tilted forward in order to obscure each other’s height.
“Damn!” he growled. Even from point-blank range, there was no way he could risk a shot.
“D.J.,” he whispered into his radio, “where are we positioned?”
Jones smiled at the sound of Payne’s voice. He knew his best friend would pop up eventually. It was just a matter of when. “We’re in a semicircle with a radius of twenty yards. We’d surround them completely, but the fence cuts off their route to the east, so there’s no need.”
“Have they attempted to make contact?”
“No, which is kind of puzzling. They obviously know we’re out here, but they haven’t come forward with any demands.”
“That is kind of strange,” Payne admitted. “Almost as strange as their formation. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Me, neither . . . Out of curiosity, where are you right now?”
“Me? I’m about ten feet to their rear, watching them from the door to the escape tunnel.”
“Did you say you’re
in
the tunnel?” Jones shook his head in amazement, stunned at Payne’s ability to turn up in the damnedest of places. “How did you pull that off?”
“Long story. Oh, and just for the record, I stumbled upon our missing brethren. They’re a little banged up but very much alive.”
“Thank God! I was worried about them. Any need for emergency evac?”
“Nah, they’ll be fine until this crisis is over. By the way, how are you planning on ending it?”
Jones laughed at Payne’s choice of words. Both of them knew who was going to put an end to things, and it certainly wasn’t going to be Jones. “Thankfully, that’s not my decision, Jon. Now that you’re back as team leader, I can sit back, relax, and watch you work your magic.”