Under the Wire (36 page)

They'd just felt their way around the first ninety-degree turn when Adam heard shouts from the other guards.

"Hurry," he whispered. "They'll be looking for him and we can't be here."

Single file, low to the ground, Manny leading the way, they moved to the base of the enemy camp. With a hand signal, he sent Ethan left, Dallas right, and staged Lily well out of the line of fire behind a beat-up van where she could guard their flank.

Manny didn't plan on it getting to that stage. They were going to take these bastards out before they ever knew what hit them.

Laughter broke out among the men lounging around the campfire. Manny caught bits of their conversation. They'd raised their voices, taunting one of the guards who had apparently gone into the cave to check on the captives and hadn't returned.

The sexual references made Manny's blood boil.

He signaled Ethan again, then Dallas, designating which of the targets they were responsible for taking out. Manny was about to give the go signal when he heard it. The unmistakable sound of a trumpeting elephant.

"Sweet Jesus Christ," he muttered when Rajah's massive silhouette came charging into the middle of the camp, running full bore.

Mounted behind Rajah's great head, Kavith lobbed coconuts to a war cry of, "Go ahead; make my day!" as the pachyderm trampled through the campfire, sending the soldiers scattering and swearing and grabbing their guns.

"Go!" Manny shouted, knowing they had to break into the melee before it got out of control and Kavith got hurt.

Manny fired on the first guard to lift a rifle, saw him spin and go down. He took aim at a second, then a third, taking each of them out with a single shot. Behind him, he heard the pop of Ethan's AK-47; then Dallas fired off a burst and mowed down another contingent of the bad guys.

Rifle still at his shoulder, Manny moved in on the downed guards, kicked their rifles out of range of their bodies, then lifted his hand to Dallas and Ethan in a signal to stand down.

"Friend of yours?" Ethan asked as Kavith and Rajah came thundering back into the center of the camp.

"What in the fucking hell did you think you were doing?" Manny yelled up at Kavith.

"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!" Kavith grinned, flying on a combat high. With coconuts, no less. "We did it, friend Manny!"

"
We
damned near got
you
killed," Manny pointed out, then spun around when shots from the ledge leading to the opening of the cave strafed the ground at his feet.

He returned fire, aiming for the fire flashes from the automatic weapon, then lunged for the cover of a boulder. "Kavith, get back!"

But it was too late. The boy took a hit. He slumped over onto Rajah's great back, then slowly slid to the side. Dallas caught Kavith before he hit the ground, then dragged him back behind a jeep.

"How bad?" Manny yelled as Ethan belly-crawled to Manny's side, both of them too busy returning fire to turn around and check.

"Hit to the arm," Dallas said, suddenly bellied down beside them in the dirt. "Lily's got it."

Manny rolled to his back with an oath, looked over his boot tops, and saw her. She'd run into the thick of things and was busy working over Kavith.

"Goddamn it, I told her to stay back!" Manny ground out, rolling to his belly again and joining the Garrett boys, who continued to hold down the shooters in the cave.

"Yeah, well, spank her later," Dallas said. "How many are we up against?"

"Based on the count down here, gotta be four—no more than five—left."

"So what's the new plan, Stan?" Ethan glanced at Manny.

"Cover me."

Manny pushed to his feet and, running hunched over in a zigzag pattern, headed straight for the cave.

CHAPTER 23

Heart in her throat, Lily glanced toward the men as she knelt over Kavith and secured a pressure bandage on his upper arm. The round had hit him clean. The bullet had only nicked him and passed on through. As close as she could figure, it was the sight of his own blood that had made him pass out. He'd be sore, but he'd be fine.

She didn't feel that confident about Manny. She searched the dark, then sucked in a breath when she saw him. "What's he doing?"

Her reply was several short bursts of gunfire as Ethan and Dallas unloaded on the opening to the cave where she'd seen the fire flashes from the barrels of the gunmen's weapons.

Manny was a dark silhouette against the tan cliff face. He was crouched low, hugging the wall of rock as he swiftly made his way up the steep, narrow slope while Ethan and Dallas laid down cover.

She held her breath when Manny stopped within five feet of the cave entrance and signaled for Ethan and Dallas to hold their fire. Then Manny shouted something in what she assumed was Hindi.

Lily ducked over Kavith, who was coming around when Manny's answer was a burst of gunfire and shouts.

Panicked for Manny, she appealed to Ethan and Dallas. "What's going on?"

"He told them to throw down their weapons." Ethan never took his eye off his rifle sight. "Let them know that their buddies were dead or wounded and their commander and his troops at Wahala-purha have been defeated. At least they should be by now," Ethan added, checking his watch. "He told them they have no cause left worth dying for."

"What did they say?" She shushed Kavith, who was trying to sit up.

"They warned him that they'd kill all four hostages if he came any closer."

Four hostages.
Oh God. Terror and joy. Lily didn't know she could feel two such raging emotions simultaneously, but both rolled over her like a freight train. Adam wasn't dead. Joy leaped in her heart. For a brief second, it bypassed her terror for him.

Adam was alive. He was still alive.

The relief was overwhelming. All this time, in the back of her mind she'd fought, scrapped, and brawled to beat back the notion that he was already gone.

But he was alive. And in the midst of the gunfire and the lingering threat, a calm settled over her.

They hadn't gotten this far to lose Adam now. And she hadn't come this far without complete trust that the man who would lose as much as she did if these killing bastards won was going to see to it that their son stayed alive.

"Kill them and I guarantee your death," Manny shouted when the gunfire stopped. "It will be slow and it will be painful. This I promise. Now put down your weapons and walk out. Hands up."

Manny waited for his words to settle. Gave them time to consider their chances. Weigh the consequences.

While he considered his options if they balked.

He had to assume that Adam and the Muhandiramalas were in there somewhere. It only made sense for the bad guys to head for their hostages. Hostages whose life spans grew more precarious with each passing moment. And each moment that passed now was one too many.

"You have thirty seconds," Manny shouted, then without waiting the span of a heartbeat, charged the opening.

He had the element of surprise on his side, the rock at his back as he dropped and rolled. Rifle shouldered, he aimed in the direction of the fire flash from an automatic weapon.

He heard a shout of pain, the thud of a body hitting the ground, then a frantic, "Surrender! I surrender!"

"Out where I can see you!" he ordered, and rose to one knee.

Two men, hands above their heads, took tentative steps out of the mouth of the cave.

"The others!" he demanded. "Where are the others?"

"Dead," the younger soldier said, and glanced back over his shoulder.

"Got 'em," Dallas said, and Manny realized he and Ethan were suddenly beside him, flex-cuffing the Hindi soldiers.

Peripherally aware that Ethan led them away at gunpoint, Manny stepped into the cave, the stock of the Dragonov pressed flush against his shoulder, still sighting down the barrel.

Inside, he spotted one downed soldier. The other was nowhere to be seen. Call him crazy, but he wasn't convinced that the other guard was dead.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Manny said in a low, lethal voice, then tightened his finger on the trigger when he saw a slight flicker of light emerge from deep in the cave. The light grew brighter and a shadowy figure appeared.

It was the fourth soldier. Not dead. Possibly wishing that he were, though, as he walked slowly, holding his hands high above his head. Behind him, wild-eyed and beat all to hell, was a young man wielding an AK-47 from his hip.

The boy's expression stalled somewhere between fierce determination and stark terror.

And Manny knew—bone deep, blood thick—that for the first time in his life, he was standing face-to-face with his son.

"Drop the gun," Adam ordered shakily, his gaze tracking wildly from the surrendered soldier to Manny, whom he clearly regarded as hostile.

"Whoa, Adam," Manny said, as calmly as he could manage, around the lump that had lodged in his throat. "Easy on the trigger there, bud. It's okay. I'm one of the good guys. We've come to take you home."

"I said drop it!" Adam shouted jerkily as a young woman, her eyes as wild and as determined as Adam's, joined him, a knife in her hand and blood in her eyes.

"Minrada?" Manny ventured, keeping his tone calm. "Are your mother and father with you?"

"Drop the fucking gun!" Adam roared, and jerked the rifle to his cheek. "I swear to God I'll shoot you."

Lily came out of nowhere, rushed past Manny and into the line of fire. "Adam. Oh God. Adam."

"M . . . Mom?"

Tears of joy and relief and days of terror filled her voice as Adam lowered the rifle and Lily ran toward him.

Too late for Manny to stop her.

The Hindi soldier grabbed her. He jerked her up against him and turned so she was directly in the line of fire. Before Manny could act, the soldier pulled a knife and held it to her throat.

"Mom!" Adam cried, and wilted with panic.

"Okay. Easy. Easy now," Manny said in his best impression of a man in total control. Then he repeated the words in Hindi.

"Let her go," he ordered softly. "You are one against many."

The guard drew Lily closer against him and pressed the knife to her throat.

Manny sensed more than heard Dallas ease up behind him. He wasn't sure what Dallas had in mind, but he was ready. When he heard a rock whiz past his ear, he understood.

The rock hit the ceiling of the cave, startling the sleeping bats. They screamed and screeched, and wings flapping against rock and one another, thousands of the flying rats rushed out of the cave in a great swooping swarm.

The guard, startled, ducked.

It was the opening Manny needed.

"Go!" He moved in high and grabbed the guard's knife hand while Dallas dropped, rolled, and kicked both Lily's and the guard's feet out from beneath them.

The soldier screamed, then dropped to his knees, doubled over in pain when Manny snapped his wrist. Manny caught Lily against him for a brief second. Long enough to make certain she was okay. Long enough to let his hammering heart adjust. Long enough to know she needed to hold her son.