Terror Stash (37 page)

He nodded.

Ria looked at Montana and her eyes were dancing with good cheer. “Here is your chance to take command of a new form of power, one that will be yours from now on. The power over life and death. Shoot him and prove to all of us your loyalty, your unflinching dedication to your new cause.”

Montana looked at Caden. He stared back at her, his face bloody and scraped raw in places, but there was life in his eyes—the same raw, animal power she had seen in the Pink Galah, when he had been facing five men with knives.

Montana swallowed, her heart hammering and her mind screaming at her to think of something, anything, to get her out of this. Every second she hesitated would add to their conviction that she was not one of them. Then they would both die.

Caden lifted his chin. “Do it,” he said clearly.

Finally, Montana understood the difference between her and Caden. He freely broke laws and was infamous for spreading anarchy and chaos, but he did it for a purpose. He had a mission that drove everything he did. He did it not for himself, but for others.

Regardless of how he pulled it off, Caden made a difference to people’s lives. A good difference. All her life, she had thought she wanted to serve her country, to pay it back for saving her life, but she wasn’t doing it for anyone else. She had been doing it just for herself, to off-load her guilt and to pay back Vinnie’s death. There was no noble purpose in it anywhere.

No wonder it had failed to work out for her.

She stared at Caden. “I can’t,” she said softly. “Not you.”

“You have to.” He wiped blood from his eye with the sleeve of his tee-shirt. “You’ll be doing me a favor. Do it.”

She shook her head.

“Do it, you hear me?”

She knew what he was saying. Only one of them needed to die here. Ria would never trust him. It had to be her that lived. But she couldn’t do it.

Ria stamped her heel on the table. “Come, come. He’s a flawed, unwanted piece of flotsam. You need to prioritize here, Montana. Quickly now. I grow tired of waiting.”

The tension was beating at her, in audible waves that roared and receded. She lifted the gun, aiming it at him, knowing she had no other choice. Her vision blurred. Tears. Hastily, she wiped them. She must be able to see clearly.

Caden’s black eyes were all she could see. “Do it,” he said, and it was as if he had whispered in her ear.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered back and fired.

The impact of the bullet flung Caden into the air. He landed like a stringless puppet. His hands and feet lifted up in the air and fell down, bouncing off the rock. The sight would live with her the rest of her life.

He lay very still.

She lowered the Glock. Her hand was shaking.
She
was shaking. Violently. But the cavern had erupted into cheers and catcalls, the men dancing around her. They crowded around her, blocking off her view of Caden’s body.

Ria held up her hands, commanding silence. She looked at Montana with open contempt.

“Tie her hands,” she said.

“What?” Montana’s voice was trembling as much as she was.

“I wondered how far you would take this. You surprised me. I lost two thousand dollars when you pulled that trigger.” She got down from the table, step by careful step and lifted her brow at Montana. “You didn’t
believe
me, did you? That
I’d put a
woman
in charge of this band of traditionalists?”

There was a roaring in her ears. Sound was beating at her, a white noise. She was afraid to say anything. Afraid to speak. She wished she was dead.
Soon, you will be
, she told herself.

Ria patted her cheek with avuncular pleasure. “But you
were
fun to play with, my dear. How delicious it has been. Altogether a wonderful day’s entertainment.” She took a deep breath and let it out with a contented sigh and looked at the men around them.

Someone grabbed Montana’s wrists. Wire was wrapped around them. It dug into her wrists and numbed her hands almost instantly.

“Why?” she asked Ria. Her voice was a croak.

Ria spun to face her, surprised. “Why?” she repeated, her brows lifting high.

“Why any of this? Why? You were respected, a legend. You saved people—a whole country. Saved them! Now you’re tearing down lives. More.”

“
Exactly
, my dear. That is why I do it.”

Montana shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I do it because I
can
do it. Power, my dear.” Ria smiled, her eyes sparkling.
“Do you know how many history books, encyclopedias, how many chronicles my name appears in? None! Not a single tract anywhere in the world, in any language, acknowledges what I have achieved, what I did achieve in Tahir. But I will be recognized now! I will be applauded. My name will go down in history. Just you watch!”

“You’re doing all this because you weren’t famous?”

Ria gave one of her tinkling, trilling laughs. “In four days or less, I
will
be famous. Everyone will know my name! They will all acknowledge my power over their lives.”

Montana shook her head.
She couldn’t seem to hear properly. The pressure in her head was like a staccato rattle.

The gabble of Arabic and tribal dialects checked, then halted. They were looking at each other.

Then the sound came again. It wasn’t just in her own mind. It was real. It sounded very much like real machine-gun fire would probably sound if it was in an enclosed space.

“That’s the sentries!” Bob cried. “We’re under attack!
To your positions
!”

The mob about her swirled and moved. Suddenly it was no longer a mob, but streams of men racing away through the five means of access to the cavern, tripping over each other, shouting at each other. They had been caught in their own warren with their guard down. Panic was close.

Ria frowned and whirled to Ghenghis Bob. “To the boat,” she declared in Arabic.

“That is where the fire is coming from!”

“Nevertheless, you must see me through to the boat. I cannot be caught here with these men.”

The cavern was nearly empty now. The machine gun fire was drawing closer. Montana could hear the sound of many voices shouting. Bob glanced at the seaward exits, then back at Ria. He dumped the Glock on the table next to her, dug into his pocket and slapped the remaining bullets beside it. “As they say,” he said in rough English. “Knock yourself out.” He turned and ran for the inner passages.

Montana hurried over to where Caden lay.

“Stop!” Ria cried. “Or I will pull the trigger, too.”

She halted and looked over her shoulder. Ria was pointing the Glock at her.

“You’re out of bullets, remember?” There hadn’t been time for her to refill the clip. Montana would have heard it if she had.

“There’s still one in the chamber.”

Montana backed up a slow step, considering. It was possible Bob had left a bullet in the chamber when he’d stripped the others from the cartridge. It was possible to hold an eleventh bullet in the gun, that way. Bob was the sort of man to take that extra caution. It was attention to details of that type that gave him the nine lives of a cat.

She took another step back and jerked her thumb towards the sea. “That gunfire is getting very close. It’s not all machine guns, either. Someone is coming, Ria. Someone with guns and they sound really pissed to me.”

Another step back.

Ria followed her, the Glock not moving off her midsection. “Who are they?” she demanded.

“How the hell would I know?” Another step.

“It has to be something you did,” Ria insisted, closing in on her fast. “I demand you tell me. I refuse to be out-foxed by a mere girl.”

Despite the numbness in her, Montana almost laughed. “Going to stamp your foot again, Ria?”

The Glock pushed up against Montana’s stomach. “I had you entirely cut off. It’s not possible that you arranged anything. You were completely alone.”

“The world is a big, magical place. Your power doesn’t reach everywhere. Perhaps that’s the cavalry coming to my rescue.”

Ria’s face flushed red with fury. “I’ve power enough to shoot you!”

Caden sat up and yanked Ria’s tiny foot out from under her. Her back and head took the impact of the flat landing. Her head connected square and hard with the solid rock. The Glock bounced and slithered away.

“I’d much rather you didn’t,” Caden told her, his deep voice rumbling in the hollow, empty cavern.

Ria’s head rolled to one side, the eyes closed.

Montana sank down onto the rock beside him. He was sitting up, but his right arm hung limp. Blood soaked the tee-shirt at the shoulder.

He looked at her. His pupils were dilated with shock. “I’m still alive.” His tone held a wonder.

“Of course you are,” she said, trying to sound casual. She ripped her shirt out of her jeans and pulled the buttons undone. A couple flew off the shirt, the cotton snapping. She slid it off and bundled it up. “Can you get your tee-shirt off?”

He blinked at her. “How come I’m still here? You shot me.”

She realized he wasn’t functioning at full throttle. Physical shock could do that. So she reached into his pocket and pulled out the folding knife—they’d taken the big knife, of course. She ripped the cotton away from his shoulder with the blade, bundled up her shirt again and packed it against the wound on either side of his shoulder. Entry and exit. She clamped both hands on it, front and back.

“I aimed for a non-vital point,” she told him. The sound of firing was very close now and she had to lift her voice above it.

“You’re a crack shot, too?” He sounded peeved.

She gave a tiny shrug. “At archery,” she admitted. “I’ve never fired a gun before.”

It took him a moment to respond and then his eyes snapped fire. “You could have killed me!” He was genuinely outraged.

Laughter shook her, but she held it back. “You’ll just have to get even later. Don’t move for a bit, Caden. Whoever had the guns out there is about to come tearing through here and anyone moving is likely to be shot. I’m sure you don’t want to go through this twice.”

He swallowed. Swallowed again. “Very thirsty,” he croaked.

“That’s the shock.”

“I’m in shock. Right. Recognize it now.” He was muttering to himself. Montana suspected he was trying to get his mind clear by forcing himself to process the situation and assess his surroundings. He slowly scanned the cavern, then cocked his head to listen to the approaching force.

Finally, he looked at her. “Hey.”

“You’ll be fine,” she assured him. “It’s a straight through and through. As non-lethal as a bullet shot can get.”

“You’ve got courage, Montana Dela Vega.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re really not scared of me?”

“No, Caden. You don’t scare me anymore, except when you get in trouble. Then I’m scared.”

He seemed to think about that for a moment. Then. “Hey....”

She couldn’t help smiling. “What?”

“I’m in shock, so you have to discount for that, ‘kay?”

She nodded.

He swallowed again. “You’re under my skin, Montana Dela Vega.”

Her heart jumped.
She
jumped.

“Like a tick?” she suggested, keeping her tone light and her eyes on what her fingers were doing.

“Under my skin and getting deeper every day,” he added. “I realized it when you were pointing the gun at me, with Ria driving you into pulling the trigger. I don’t think anything has ever been so clear to me as that was, right then.”

Montana licked her lips, feeling oddly like she was the one in shock.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he added. “It’s just that I’ve started to like this warts-and-all truth telling. Never had someone I can do that with, you know?”

“I guessed,” she said softly.

“Still takes guts to say it. Couldn’t do it if I was straight.” He was looking at her steadily, his gaze not sparing her. “You’re the one with the real courage.”

As he spoke, there was a muffled thud of rubber-soled boots. Shadows moved across the face of the sea-passages. Then dozens of men poured into the cavern, all wearing different uniforms, carrying a range of weapons, but all sweeping their gazes across the cavern looking for the enemy.

Montana was simultaneously overjoyed to see them and annoyed at their terrible timing. All she wanted was another few minutes alone with Caden.

A tall man in fatigues and carrying a XM177
Colt Commando rifle
slowed to a jog, waving the others on. He stopped in front of them. “Montana Dela Vega. What the hell are you doing here? Is that a bra you’re wearing?”

She looked up at the jungle-painted face, peering closely. “Peter Tymchuk?”

Caden looked up at him, back at Montana. “Old boyfriend?” he asked.

She did laugh then. “No, it really
is
the cavalry. Caden, meet Sergeant Peter Tymchuk of the US Army Rangers.” She looked back at Peter. “What are
you
doing here? And who are all the others?”

“You whistled up a hell of a storm,” Peter said. He squatted, rested his rifle butt on the floor and leaned on it. “We’ve got Rangers, Australian and Canadian SAS, local police, even a couple of Mounties, would you believe? There’s a shitload more personnel outside waiting to hear we’ve found you.”

“Me? I whistled up?” Montana blinked.

Pete pointed at Ria. “Who’s this?”

“Only the brains behind this whole thing.”

“Get out!” he said. He nodded towards Caden. “Your friend needs medical attention?”

Caden pointed at Montana. “She shot me.”

Pete lifted a brow. “Riiiight.”

Caden gave a sudden, huge yawn. “Tired,” he muttered.

“I’ll get the paramedics here,” Pete said. He touched his chest. “Captain?... Yeah, got two wounded civilians here and a third, untouched...Yeah, it’s Montana... One of the wounded is apparently the boss of the outfit... Right, thanks. Out.” He picked up his rifle. “I have to keep pushing on, but they’ll be here directly.”