Survival (31 page)

A chatter of rifle fire shredded through the thin metal walls of the car, forcing her hand. She rolled to the open doorway as bullets punched holes by her head and threw herself through the gap at the scrub a story and a half below.

~ ~ ~

Fernanda flipped the fire selector switch to full auto and sprayed the car with rounds, reasoning that nobody could survive twenty-eight shots concentrated in that small a space. Her ears rang from the deafening noise of the rifle, and then she blinked in surprise when she saw the unmistakable form of the woman plunging through space toward the side of the mountain. She ejected the magazine and slapped the spare Jaime had given her in place, and fired half of it at the brush where the woman had landed.

~ ~ ~

Rounds whistled above Jet as she tucked and rolled when she landed, sliding twenty feet, out of control, before she was able to stop her drop. She held completely still in the undergrowth, and then cautiously tested her arms and legs to ensure she was unhurt. Satisfied she was in one piece, she rose to a crouch, concealed by the underbrush, and looked around.

To her right was a game trail, barely discernible in the dim starlight, that appeared to lead straight up the steep face of the mountain. She waited for more shots, but none came. The shooter had lost sight of her and likely wouldn’t spot her now that she was on the ground, surrounded by bushes.

Jet made her way to the trail, her boots slipping on loose gravel before finding purchase on the track, and drove herself upward. She felt for her Glock and her hand came away empty – it had dropped from her waistband somewhere in the tumble. Jet cursed under her breath and continued her climb. The muscles in her legs burned from exertion, her calves on fire, and determination etched furrows in her brow as she summoned every ounce of strength to get to the monastery before it was too late.

Chapter 45

Jaime pointed to the main hallway in the monastery and his men moved into it, weapons held in front of them in two-handed grips. He grabbed the arm of the nearest one and pulled him close. “Go watch the cable car platform in case they somehow get around us.”

The gunman retraced his steps to the main door, then raced across the courtyard, zigging and zagging past the bodies of his dead companions in the event the archer was still watching the exterior.

Jaime took silent steps toward the first door as one of the gunmen waited on the other side of it, hand on the lever. Jaime gripped his pistol two-handed, and the gunman twisted the lever and threw the door open. Jaime ducked into the doorway, weapon sweeping the room, and stopped when he came to an ancient monk looking up at him in surprise.

“What is the meaning of this?” the monk demanded, his voice like an old woman’s, high-pitched and seasoned by time.

“Where are the man and the girl?” Jaime snarled, moving toward the man.

“Who?” the monk asked, genuinely puzzled.

Jaime smashed the butt of his pistol against the monk’s cheek, splitting his skin like parchment and knocking him back into his chair.

“Don’t play games with me. Where are they?”

“You…I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the monk whispered, his hand on his face trying to stem the bleeding.

Jaime took two steps forward and pressed the gun barrel against the priest’s forehead. “Last time, then you’re meeting your maker.”

The monk’s agitation seemed to drain from him and he closed his eyes. “I cannot tell you what I do not know.”

Jaime eyed the holy man with disgust and clubbed him with his gun again, knocking him unconscious before turning to the waiting gunman. “Come on.”

He led him further down the hall, where the other shooter was training his weapon on a room with a half-dozen monks in it, fear etched on their faces at the apparition of murderous armed men invading their abode. Jaime stepped into the chamber and pointed his gun at the nearest monk.

“The little girl. Where is she?”

“Little girl? This is a monastery. A holy place. There are no girls here,” the monk stammered, eyeing the gun.

Jaime’s eyes locked with the monk’s and he saw the complete absence of guile in them, along with shock and surprise. Much as he hated to consider it, the man didn’t know what Jaime was asking, and was confused as the other monk had been.

“If you don’t give me answers, I’m shooting you one by one,” Jaime snarled.

“Please. You speak in riddles. We don’t have any girls,” another monk said. “There’s been some mistake.”

Jaime thumbed back the pistol’s hammer and switched his aim to the new speaker. “Tell that to two of my men who are lying dead outside. You’ll be joining them if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

A loud clang sounded in the hall, metal on stone, and then the lights went out in both the corridor and the room, plunging it into darkness. Jaime cursed and whispered to his men, “The doorway. Find the doorway.”

The gunman who had followed Jaime into the room groped for the door jamb, and then he called out, “Over here. Follow my voice. I’m in the hall–”

His words were cut short by the roar of a shotgun in the corridor. He flew backward into the room with a strangled cry. Jaime froze, as did his remaining gunman, their weapons pointed to where their companion was lying on the stone floor, his breath gurgling from his chest, bloody froth bubbling from his mouth as he tried to form words.

Hearing nothing from the hall, Jaime felt his way toward the other gunman and whispered to him, “On my count, you roll into the hall and I’ll duck around and cover you. Sounds like he’s gone, which only leaves one direction for him to go.” He paused. “Are you ready? One, two…three!”

The shooter rolled across the threshold and Jaime peered around the doorway, his gun pointed down the corridor. After holding their position for a few seconds, Jaime stepped further into the dark hall. “This way.”

~ ~ ~

Matt heard the shotgun blast right after the lights went out. He closed his eyes, waiting for them to adjust, the only light the faint early starlight seeping through the high chapel windows of the chamber he’d entered.

Franco must have gotten to the shotgun.

Matt hoped the monk would find someplace safe to hide after firing the shot, because the men he was up against were killers. He opened his eyes and could make out the faint outline of the chapel’s pews – and the heavy wooden door he’d been moving toward when the lights had died.

Judging from the sound of the shot, the action was out that door and to the left, in the main area of the monastery, which made sense based on the direction the gunmen had been headed. Matt offered a word of silent thanks to the cross at the far end of the chapel that Hannah was safe in the other end of the building, but his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the hall outside.

He took cover behind one of the pews and leveled the loaded crossbow at the door, taking deep breaths, attention riveted to the doorway. He listened, ears straining for any hint of movement, and heard a whispered instruction outside before the knob rattled and the heavy door flew open.

~ ~ ~

Jet paused at the docking platform at the top of the tramway and eyed the iron pegs that served as a primitive service ladder to access the machinery in the room beneath it. A detonation sounded from within the monastery – the deep roar of a big gun, possibly a shotgun – and she pulled herself up the rungs, thankful that the area was exposed variegated brick so her black clothes didn’t stand out against the pale perimeter wall.

Her head rose over the platform floor and she spotted a man with a gun, turned toward the monastery, obviously surprised by the sound of the shotgun. Jet didn’t hesitate and climbed the rest of the rungs and charged at him before he could bring his pistol to bear on her. She slammed into his chest, knocking the wind out of him, and the gun flew from his hand and landed near the courtyard.

He hit the ground hard and she heard ribs break from her weight on top of him, her elbow serving as an effective wedge to compound the damage. He tried to punch her in the head, but the blow glanced off the side of her skull. Aware that his far greater weight and size would make up for any advantage in skill she might have, she released him and brought both her hands down on his ears in a hard clap, instantly rupturing his eardrums and earning a howl of pain. She rolled off him and moved to the pistol as the man rolled on the ground, clutching his head in agony.

She scooped it up and checked to ensure a round was chambered and, with another glance at the downed man, raced across the courtyard, foregoing the final blow that would end his life in favor of speed – seconds could count in a battle of many against one. She registered the bodies lying at the far end of the monastery as she neared the main door, which yawned open like the mouth of a cave, and did a mental count. Three out of the fight. The odds were suddenly better for Matt.

Inside, the darkness was total, and she had to feel her way through the entry to the main room, which was empty. Voices reached her from what sounded like a hall, and she followed the sound until she was in a long corridor. Muted light from a series of high windows provided just enough visibility for her to make it to where the voices were murmuring.

She swung in a crouch and found herself facing an inky blackness. A wet sucking sound came from the floor by her feet, and she instantly recognized the distinctive wheeze of a terminal pulmonary wound. A tremulous male voice whispered from a far corner, “Who’s there?”

Jet ignored the question and moved further down the hall. If anyone asking questions was a black hat, they would have shot first, making the likeliest explanation that the speaker was one of the monks.

She was taking hesitant steps toward the end of the hall, which she could see terminated in a right-hand junction, when the crash of a door swinging wide and slamming into a wall sounded from her right.

~ ~ ~

Matt waited a split second after the door opened and fired blind into the opening, hoping to hit whoever was coming for him. He heard the bolt strike the stone wall beyond the doorway and dived over the first pew, dropping the now useless crossbow as he went. His only hope was to use the darkness to somehow slip away. The gunmen would be equally blind, so even if it was a long shot, it wasn’t impossible.

A voice called out from the doorway, “Hold it. I see you in the pews. Come out with your hands up or I’ll shoot.”

Matt squinted and realized too late that the light from the high windows was brightening as the night progressed, making him just visible in the chapel – an error on his part that might now prove fatal.

A second voice, deeper and authoritative, spoke. “We
will
shoot you, you know. I suggest you do as instructed, because I’m running low on patience.”

The dark shape of a man entered the chapel, and Matt could just make out that he had a pistol in his hand. Matt waited until the gunman closed the distance and then slowly stood. The shooter didn’t see the flare gun from the survival kit in his hand until it was too late. Matt fired, and the white-hot missile streaked toward him, blinding everyone, before searing into the torso of the gunman, who shrieked and fell to the ground, where he curled into a fetal ball as the incendiary continued to burn through him.

Matt had played his last hand, and now he stood defenseless. The second gunman stepped into the room, which was now flickering with light from the flare’s grisly glow, and pointed his gun at Matt. The gunman skirted the room until he was standing at the side of the pew, where he could confirm that Matt was weaponless.

“So. The game is over. Where is the girl?” Jaime demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Matt said.

“I promised not to kill you, but I didn’t say anything about wounding you. Would you like that? To be shot in the leg? I understand that can be extremely painful.”

Matt didn’t say anything, but his brow furrowed when Jaime moved abruptly backward, next to a support column that held up the roof. Then he heard a rustle from the doorway, and Jaime spoke softly.

“Put down your weapon, or I’ll shoot him. You have three seconds. One…two…”

Jet’s pistol clattered against the flagstone tile and Jaime stepped toward her, his weapon now pointed at her chest. “Go stand next to him,” he ordered.

“You’re a dead man,” she said matter-of-factly.

“We all are, in the end. Some sooner than others,” Jaime said agreeably. The light in the room gradually dimmed as the flare burned out from the dead gunman’s smoldering corpse. “Now move.”

Jet walked slowly over to where Matt was and stood next to him. She understood why Jaime wanted her with him – two closely spaced targets instead of one. She also saw the change of expression on his face as she reached Matt.

“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” Jet asked.

Jaime shrugged. “On behalf of a friend. Who wants you dead. Which, come to think of it, I can easily take care of for her.” He shifted the pistol and pointed it at Jet’s head, no possibility of missing from less than five meters.

A scrape from the doorway drew his attention for a split second, his weapon instinctively shifting to the apparent new threat, giving Jet enough time to snap open the switchblade she’d taken from the Panamanian lowlife and hurl it at Jaime.

The knife buried itself to the hilt in the base of Jaime’s neck. Jet was a blur of motion, throwing herself at him before he could react, her knowledge of knives such that she knew he would still be a danger even if mortally wounded. His finger squeezed the trigger of his pistol, but the shot went wide, and then she was on him, pummeling his face with strikes as he grappled with her. She delivered a brutal strike to the nerve meridian in his gun hand, causing him to release the pistol, and then pulled the knife free and drove it through his eye.

Jaime stiffened, his arms convulsing around her like a macabre lover in a dying embrace, and then he shuddered and lay still.