Yves and Harlan had grown weary of the hunt within two hours. Stopping on a rise overlooking a narrow branch of the river running through the property, Yves opened his canteen and downed several large gulps of water.
“We’re getting old, my friend,” Harlan said as he eased himself down onto a small smoothly rounded boulder rising out of the ground. “These wilderness hunts are a young man’s fun and games.”
“I agree. And where is the sport in using a tracker? Malcolm never resorted to such unsportsmanlike conduct. I believe I shall stay at the lodge after lunch today. Let York and Linden have their fun.”
“Quite right, quite right. I’m in complete—” Harlan stopped midsentence when he heard gunfire. “Listen. Do you hear that?”
“I imagine York has spotted one of the captives,” Yves said.
“No, I don’t think so. Listen. The gunfire is continuing.”
“
Mon Dieu!
What do you think is happening?”
“It must be York’s guards firing at someone.” If that was the case, it could mean only one thing. “They must be under attack.”
“By whom?”
Harlan shook his head. “Someone other than our unarmed quarry, that is for certain.”
“But how is this possible?”
“I don’t know. The hunt was a by-invitation-only event. But if the lodge is under attack, it means someone betrayed us, betrayed York.”
“Should we return to the lodge or—?”
“The gunfire is coming closer. They are closing in all around us.”
With his rifle drawn, Yves turned in a circle, searching in vain for the raiders. And then from out of nowhere, a shot rang out and Harlan felt the impact of the bullet as it entered his shoulder. Another pierced his leg. Screaming in pain, blood pouring from his wounds, he couldn’t manage to hold on to his rifle as he dropped to the ground.
The last thing Harlan heard before the third and final bullet hit him was Rafe Byrne’s voice shouting, “Bouchard is mine.”
Luke Sentell tossed Sanders a rifle, an M-4 Carbine, like the one he and the two members of his twelve-man team carried. Nic noticed that each of the two soldiers also had an M16 hung over his shoulder.
Nic motioned to Luke, indicating that she wanted a weapon.
“Give her the M16,” Luke ordered one of his team members. The guy immediately handed her the rifle, the M16A2, a lightweight, simple to operate general assault weapon with a thirty-round magazine.
“Got one for you, Dr. Meng, if you want it.” Luke said.
“I—I don’t know. I’ve never fired a gun.” Yvette stared at the weapon the soldier offered her.
“Take it,” Nic told her. “I’ll give you a quick tutorial on the way.”
“On the way where?” Yvette asked.
“To help Griff and Rafe,” Nic said. “We can’t leave you behind and we can’t spare anybody to stay here with you.”
Nic grabbed the other soldier’s M16 and handed it to Yvette. “Odds are you won’t have to use it. But just in case.”
“Thank you.” Yvette’s hand brushed Nic’s as she accepted the rifle. “Oh ...”
“Yeah, you got it, didn’t you, what I’m feeling?” Nic offered Yvette a closemouthed half smile. “When this is all over, you and I are going to be friends.”
Before Yvette could respond, Nic turned to Luke. “I assume the other members of your team are busy taking care of the rest of York’s guards. Griff and Rafe are more than a match for the hunters, but with Rafe the only one armed—”
“Griff’s armed,” Luke told her. “A couple of my guys found him and Byrne. They took out Harlan Benecroft. Now, Griff has gone after York. And they turned Bouchard over to Rafe.”
Yvette gasped.
Nic glanced at her. “Don’t think about it.”
“But Rafe will butcher him,” Yvette said.
“Do you really care?” Nic asked. “Bouchard is scum of the earth.”
“I care for Rafe’s sake, not for Bouchard’s,” Yvette explained.
“I think it would be best if you two stayed here.” Luke glanced from Nic to Yvette. “You’re both armed and I’ll leave Cusimano here with y’all.” He hitched his thumb toward the grizzly, rawboned warrior sporting a thick black beard and mustache. “You’re obviously pregnant and I’m sure Griff would skin me alive if I let you—”
“You’re not letting me do anything,” Nic told him. “This is my fight as much as it is Griff’s or yours. I’m the one York has held captive for months. I’m the one Anthony Linden kidnapped. If you think I’m going to stay here and do nothing, then—”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Powell,” Luke said. “For a minute there, I forgot who I was talking to.”
They separated into two groups. Sanders joined up with the two men from Luke’s team, while Nic and Yvette went with Luke. As they hiked back along the same trail they had originally taken, Nic felt uneasy, some sixth sense warning her of danger. Although there were only two hunters—York and Linden—unaccounted for, there were more guards, their exact number unknown. Half an hour out, they began running across dead bodies. By the time they reached an open field spreading out toward the mountain range and guarded by sky-high, golden tamarack sentinels, they had passed four bloody corpses, each no doubt one of York’s hired men killed by Luke’s elite team.
Nic had no objection to Luke taking the lead. After all, he was the one with all the experience, a former Special Forces soldier. Her only objection had been Luke’s intention to leave her behind with Yvette and a bodyguard.
Yvette was scared, but she hid her fear well. Nic was afraid, but not as much for herself as for Griff. Anthony Linden was a highly trained assassin. If Griff went after him ...
He would go after York first, but what were the odds that Linden wouldn’t be stuck to York like glue? York and Linden would know by now that the game was over, that the Big Valley Hunting Lodge had been invaded by a trained team of rescuers.
Staying together, single file, at least five feet between them, Luke led and Nic brought up the rear, leaving Yvette in the middle. As they neared a small clearing along a lake surrounded by thick, heavy woods, Luke halted. He glanced over his shoulder, looked past Yvette, and made direct eye contact with Nic.
Luke said, “Let’s backtrack a piece and—”
Nic strained to see what Luke was trying to hide from them. And then Yvette screamed.
Damn it!
Nic grabbed Yvette and shook her. “Shut up!” Nic told her in a rough whisper. “We’re already visible enough as it is in these damn orange jumpsuits, even if we did coat them with mud. You don’t need to announce our presence.”
Yvette trembled, shivering as if the temperature had suddenly dropped to zero. “I’m sorry.”
Nic released her and walked up beside Luke who had gone into protective mode, his M-4 Carbine ready for attack. And then Nic saw why Yvette had screamed. Lying there on the riverbank, like a gutted and cleaned fish, lay a man, his rather handsome face unmarked. He had been partially skinned, leaving bare muscles exposed. His body had been ripped open, possibly while he was still alive, and his penis had been cut off and stuck in his mouth. Fresh blood covering the area around where his scrotum had once been indicated that the man had been castrated shortly before they had come upon his mutilated corpse.
“Bouchard.” Nic said his name under her breath. Rafe Byrne’s doing, no doubt. Yvette was too late to stop Rafe from exacting his barbaric revenge.
Yvette heaved a couple of times and then vomited. Nic walked over to her, grasped her arm, and led her up the riverbank and away from Bouchard’s butchered remains. When they were more than thirty feet from Luke, halfway hidden behind a couple of new-growth pines, Nic knelt and used one hand to scoop up some water. And then she gently splashed it into Yvette’s face.
“Take some deep breaths,” Nic said quietly.
Yvette wiped the cool water drops from her face. “I’ll be okay. It’s just ...”
“Yes, I know. Not a pretty sight, was it?”
“How could he—?”
Gunshot.
Close by. Upstream.
Luke?
“Stay here,” Nic whispered.
Wide-eyed, Yvette stared at Nic and mouthed the words
I will.
Nic slipped into the woods, circled back around, and crept close enough to see that Luke had been hit. Blood oozed from his shoulder as he crawled on the ground toward the thick underbrush. She blamed herself. Luke had been so preoccupied with watching over her and Yvette that he probably hadn’t been fully alert to an approaching enemy. She searched for the shooter. A flicker of movement caught her eye. Just as the man took aim to fire again, she saw him.
Got him.
Did he plan to wound Luke again, to make him suffer, or did he intend for this to be the kill shot?
Nic said a prayer, ironically asking God to make her aim accurate as she brought the M16 up against her shoulder.
Anthony Linden was less than fifty feet away on a wooded rise that sloped toward the lake. Without a second thought or a moment’s hesitation, Nic aimed and fired. The bullet hit Linden in the side of his neck, tearing his jugular in its upward trajectory. She sucked in deep breaths as her heartbeat boomed and her steady hands began to tremble.
Mercy God.
Had Linden not seen her and Yvette? Had he come up on Luke after they had gone downstream so that Yvette could compose herself away from Bouchard’s corpse? Or had he mistakenly assumed neither she nor Yvette was a threat to him? The man might have been a sadistic assassin, but he was no fool. But then again, maybe he hadn’t done any in-depth research on her and didn’t know that she was a crack shot.
What did it matter now? Linden was dead, wasn’t he? He couldn’t have survived.
She intended to check Linden’s body, just so there would never be any doubt in her mind. But first she had to find Luke. She didn’t want him taking any potshots at her by mistake.
Circling back around halfway to where she’d left Yvette, Nic emerged from the wooded area into the clearing by the lake and, rifle in hand and ready to defend herself and her party, she moved toward the last spot she had seen Luke. She found him, a few feet away, lying on his belly, his shirt blood-soaked, his M-4 aimed straight at her.
“Luke,” she called to him.
He lowered the rifle.
She hurried over and knelt beside him. “How bad is it?” She shoved back his jacket and tore at his shirt, ripping it apart so she could inspect the wound.
“Went through my shoulder,” Luke said. “Hurts like hell.” He looked up at Nic. “Where’s Yvette?”
“Downstream a piece.”
“I didn’t see it coming,” Luke admitted. “I should have—”
“It was Linden, not some two-bit guard,” Nic told him.
Luke grimaced. “Did you get him?”
“Yeah.”
“You’d better make sure.”
“I will, but we need to take care of your shoulder first.” She zipped up his thick, fleece-lined jacket and pressed her hand down over the wound. He winced as she applied pressure. He lifted his hand and slipped it under hers.
“Go get Yvette.”
“I’ll take a look at Linden on my way.”
When she found Linden’s body, she kept her rifle ready, but once she got a good look at him—and checked his pulse—she didn’t waste any time moving on toward Yvette.
As she approached the spot where she had left Yvette, she didn’t see her, but she heard an almost indiscernible sound coming from nearby. Damn it, surely one of York’s men hadn’t—
Yvette and Rafe Byrne came out in the clearing. Nic released a relieved huff. “Where’s Griff?” she asked.
“Gone after York,” Rafe said. “I saw Linden. You take him out?”
Nic nodded.
“Revenge is sweet. Isn’t it, Nicole?”
Griff tracked York into the foothills and down through the woods and grassland, all the way back toward the log-cabin lodge. The afternoon sun splattered light and warmth in every direction, no doubt bringing the temperature up to somewhere near fifty. The sunshine felt damn good. His feet bled from gravel cuts and underbrush scrapes. His stomach growled with hunger. And not one minute passed that he didn’t think about Nic. Was she safe? Was the baby all right? Where was she right now?
York had to know that he couldn’t escape, that it was only a matter of time before his elaborate hoax would come to an end. Did he actually think that if he made it back to the lodge, he could get away and escape punishment? Griff had no intention of allowing Ellis Benecroft to beg and plead his way out of a death sentence. The man was responsible for the deaths of Powell agents and members of their families. He had ordered Nic’s kidnapping, put her through months of torment, endangered their child’s life, emotionally tortured Yvette and Sanders, and had forced Griff to jump through hoops for his personal pleasure.