I'm taking out his army. I can't get him, but I can hurt him, put him back several years. I don' care how much money the bastard has, it takes time to build up manpower.
The general isn't going to be happy about this. Kadan gave it one last try.
Where the fuck is the seal?
The soldiers are clear but the seal isn't finished on the street. A couple of innocents driving by. We can't take the chance. You have to hold. Kadan's tone said he expected it, didn't like it, but knew he couldn't stop the inevitable.
Ian's voice broke in. I'm taking out the four in the front.
Wait for backup, Ian, Kadan instructed. Tucker's on his way to you.
Gator's gut churned, knotted, the rage moving through him like a living entity. It was rising, much like lava needing to spew forth, impossible to contain. It was all there, swirling like a tornado inside of him. Flame believing he'd betrayed her. Whitney's atrocities. The terrible deeds done to Joy. The dead soldier.
You have a go.
The note burst out, a low-level wave of infrasound invisible to the human ear. It traveled the corridor along the north side, slamming into everything in its path. It traveled through a small structure, flattening it as the sonic wave struck. It hit living tissue, vibrating internal organs. The wave remained at seven cycles per second, corresponding with the median alpha-rhythm frequencies in the brain.
They're down. They're down. Back off.
Like hell. I'm going to the south side. Eight came in that way. Let me know if our soldiers are in the clear.
Gator took a breath and let it out, trying to calm the seething rage as he surveyed the downed targets. Infrasound waves stayed close to the ground. They traveled long distances through just about anything in their path and were considered unstoppable. As the GhostWalkers had discovered in earlier field tests, without Kadan's shields, the sound waves continued to travel, destroying everything in their path.
There were eight downed targets with eight more on the opposite side of the building. If the other GhostWalkers were able to take down this sizable force, it would be a significant blow to Whitney. Even paying for an army meant finding good men and if Whitney was enhancing some of them, that took time.
Gator began moving around to the other side of the building. Moving through the front area. Don' mistake me for a target. He crouched low, rifle in hand, and eased his way through the wide row of trimmed bushes.
Go in close to the building, Tucker advised.
Gator worked his way to the southern corner of the building where the other eight mercenaries were closing in. I have a visual. I count eight. You have a shield up?
It won't work on this side. The opening is too large and the sonic wave will break through. You have to narrow the corridor, Kadan answered.
Gator studied the layout of the buildings and fences. It looked like a maze and Kadan was right. He not only would flatten several buildings, killing anyone inside, but they would be unable to contain the infrasonic wave. It would travel through the streets smashing everything in its path with the force of a volcanic eruption. He pushed back the need to strike, to neutralize the threat against Flame instantly, and forced his mind to think logically.
The best bet is to push them toward the maintenance yard. We'll have to go in and take them out.
Gunfire erupted around the front of the building. It acted as a signal and immediately the eight men on the south side began spraying the area around them, moving in a much tighter and faster formation toward the building. Four gained the wall and flung what appeared to be grenades into the bank of windows Gator knew were offices. The explosion blasted the smoke into the air, obscuring vision.
Ian? Tucker? Check in, Kadan demanded.
Two down in the front. Two to go, Ian reported.
Tucker interrupted. He's hit.
I'm not hit--well, maybe a little hit, but no problem.
Gator swore under his breath. He'd been the one to pull the soldiers back. He had eight men swarming one side of the building with at least six more front and back. Ian was hit and there were men on the roof. For one brief moment insanity rode him hard and he contemplated wiping them all out. One long pulse would do it. Whitney's army would be gone and Flame would be safe, at least for the time that it would take Whitney to rebuild. In the meantime, the Ghost Walkers could actively search out their enemy.
He brushed away the idea, refusing to give in to temptation. He couldn't hurt innocent people, not even to keep Flame out of the hands of a madman.
Tucker, stay on Ian, take out the other two and get around to the back. Gator and I will work our way to the southern side.
The four men at the windows, threatening to gain entrance to the building had to be removed. Gator moved like a silent wraith through the tall hedges, utilizing the cover to get close to the first of the two-man teams. One man dressed in black signaled his partner to come forward to use him as a human ladder to gain entrance into the building. Gator took them both, two shots, two kills. A bullet spit into the wall next to his head and he spun around, spraying covering fire as he dove toward the ground behind a two-foot wall of cement.
Coming up behind them, Kadan informed him.
Gator held his fire, afraid of hitting Kadan. He waited, eyes searching out the second two-man team nearest the building. They'd gone to ground at the first gunfire, but at least they hadn't gotten into the building.
Kadan moved like a phantom, so fast, so silent, he was a blur as he crossed Gator's line of vision. Gator blinked twice wondering if he'd really seen him.
You're clear. Two down.
Tucker reported in. We've got two more down here and are going around to the back. Ian's bleeding like a stuck pig.
It's a scratch.
Tie it off, superhero, Kadan ordered.
Gator crawled through the shrubbery, careful to keep from moving any of the foliage. He could just make out a boot and part of a leg. In the shadows it looked like a fallen log. The leg moved as the enemy propelled his body forward toward the building. Gator heard the whisper of an order on a radio. He only caught three disjointed words, but it was enough to have him rolling to his right. Bullets thudded into the ground right where he'd been. The shots came from above and the fire continued, pinning him down.
They've got a sniper on the roof of the laboratory. He warned the others. He's using infrared.
I've got him, Ian said confidently.
A single shot rang out and Gator saw the sniper fall. As the noise cleared away, he heard another sound and his heart nearly stopped. Maudit, Kadan. I hear them going into the vent. Warn Flame. I'm going in after them.
Flame. Kadan reached for her immediately. Gator hears the enemy in the vents. Can you hear them?
Yes. We'll take care of it.
Gator's coming in after them. Don't shoot him, no matter how angry you are with him.
I can handle this myself. She didn't want Raoul risking his life for her. She didn't want any of them to do that. Flame turned to Nonny. "I want you to get into the bathroom and lock the door. Don't open it unless you hear either Gator or me tell you to, understand?"
"I can use a gun. I've been hunting all my life," Nonny said. "I don' want to be in a bathroom hiding when they come. I wouldn't know what was going on."
Flame handed her the semiautomatic. "Have you ever used one of these?"
"Gator showed me how. If it's a gun, I can shoot it."
"Then you get into the bathroom and stay there. Leave the door open if you prefer, but stay undercover. It will be easier for me to consider everyone in the room an enemy. Don't fire unless you have to because you might hit me."
"I'd rather stay out here with you and just gun them down as they come."
"I'll have the advantage, Nonny. They don't want to kill me. That's why it was so easy for me in the swamp. Raoul told me the sniper had tranqs in his gun. If someone tranqs me, feel free to shoot them."
Nonny took the gun. It looked too big and heavy for her but th
ere was a no-nonsense air about her that gave Flame added confidence.
Flame rolled the blankets in the bed and jerked the top sheet over them to make it look as if a body were asleep in the bed. She waved Nonny to the bathroom as she plunged the room into darkness. She went to the wall with the ventilation opening and crouched down, listening. It always amazed her when sight was taken away how acute all other senses became. She faced the grate as she detected the sliding of clothes along the inside of the ducts.
She sent a single note through the grate, a low pulsing wave that raced through the ducts. She kept it nonlethal, not knowing who else might accidentally be in the way of the sound wave. Stepping back against the opposite wall, she waited, knife in hand. Gator had provided her with an array of throwing knives, and she was grateful. She was accurate with them and trusted them much more than she did a gun.
Nausea came in waves, cramping her stomach. She broke out in a sweat, weak and sick. Chemo had a very bad effect on her; it always had. It didn't make sense to go through it all again if the cancer was going to return. Maybe she'd have to talk to Lily and ask a few hard questions.
The sounds coming from the air duct were getting louder. Whoever was in there seemed pretty sick and disoriented, thrashing wildly at one point. She held the gun against her thigh with her broken arm and the throwing knife clear of her body with her good arm. Maybe she'd get lucky and not have to kill him, and they'd have a chance to find out where Whitney was hiding out.
The grate was pulled off from the inside and the muzzle of a gun appeared, a small red dot shining around the room, searching the corners, the door, dwelling on the bathroom door. Flame willed Nonny to stay very still. Finally the red dot went to the bed and the stranger slipped into the room, gun held steady.
For the first time, Flame was unsure of herself. She thought there were three men in the ducts, but she couldn't be certain. She was too sick to be able to concentrate properly. She was fighting the dry heaves and even her vision blurred. She felt behind her for the wall and the hilt of her knife scraped against it.
The man spun back, the red dot centered on her chest. "Drop it."
She swayed. She wasn't going to be able to do this. She couldn't bring up the gun or the knife. She didn't drop either weapon. Two men wiggled out of the duct behind the first one. They trained their weapons on her as well.
"Put it down," the first man repeated. He held up one hand, softening his voice. "No one wants to hurt you, ma'am. Just put down the weapons and come with us."
The other men had spread out and were beginning to go through the room. One neared the bathroom. Flame shook her head and pointed the gun at the one closest to Nonny. "I'll go with you, but I'm keeping my weapons." She tried to push off the wall and the movement caused her stomach to cramp. There was no way to stop from getting sick. She turned away from them, resting her head on the wall, her finger on the trigger of her gun, hand up to her head.
Even in her misery, she heard the whisper of a body in the air duct followed by the impact of a knife hitting a target. She managed to turn her head to see Raoul, arm around one of the enemy's neck, holding the body in front of him like a shield, gun trained on the man near the bathroom. The body of the third man lay on the floor practically at her feet.
Instantly a red dot appeared over her heart. "Put it down or I'll shoot her." The stranger backed up toward the cover of the bathroom.
Nonny. Flame sent the warning to Raoul.
Hit the floor. Gator squeezed the trigger three times, rapid fire. One bullet in the head, two in the heart.
The stranger fired from reflex, but Flame had dropped down and the bullet went into the wall where she'd been standing.
The man Gator had in a headlock stabbed down with a knife, driving it into Gator's thigh. He fell backward, stumbling, tracking with his gun a heartbeat too late.
Flame threw the knife from a prone position and the sound of a single gunshot echoed through the room. The enemy went down, knife in his kidney, bullet in the back of his neck. She turned her head to see Nonny lowering the semiautomatic.
Flame crawled to Gator, shouting to Nonny to bring something to tie around the wound. She pressed hard with both hands, ignoring his orders to get the hell out of his way. Nonny returned with towels and her rifle. She put the gun in her grandson's hands and took over. Flame slid back until her head was in Raoul's lap. She closed her eyes, feeling his hand in her hair and she gave in, allowing the blackness to take her.
CHAPTER 20
Two months later
Flame sat on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, her knees drawn up, head down, resting before the next wave of nausea struck. She kept the overhead light off. Her eyes were too sensitive to bother.
"I had dreams the other night. Nightmares, really." The woman sitting next to her shifted closer and rubbed Flame's back. "I'm beginning to remember sitting on the floor of the bathroom with you. We did it a lot, didn't we?" Dahlia Trevane said.
Flame nodded without lifting her head. She never thought she'd see Dahlia again. Whitney had hated her almost as much as he had Flame. "The one good thing about this is that I got to see you again," Flame said. "I thought you were dead when I read about the sanitarium in the bayou burning down. I knew it belonged to the Whitney Trust and I was pretty sure you were locked in."
"It was my home for a lot of years."
"I know it's hard for you to be around so many people, Dahlia. I really appreciate you coming, but you don't have to stay with me."
"I want to be with you. I missed you. I missed all the girls. I thought for the longest time you all were figments of my imagination. Lily said Whitney tried to erase our memories."
"Do you believe Lily when she says she isn't working with her father?" Flame's stomach twisted and she knelt up to the toilet.
Dahlia waited until she finished and handed her a washcloth. "What's all over the floor? I can't see but it feels like strings of silk . . ." She trailed off, suddenly comprehending.
"My hair." There was a catch in Flame's voice.
Dahlia reached out and touched Flame's face, felt the tracks of tears. "This isn't the first time for that either." She knew better than to pull Flame into her arms and try to comfort her that way. "It always grows back more beautiful than ever."
"You didn't answer me."
"About Lily?" Dahlia sighed. "You always get upset when we talk about Lily. You have enough to worry about without thinking about that."
"Tell me, Dahlia."
"Lily is our sister and friend. She saved your life years ago when she told Peter Whitney you were planning to escape and she's saving your life now."
"Maybe. We don't know that. Whitney only put the cancer in remission. It always came back."
"She knows that. She worked on new meds to knock it out completely."
Flame rubbed her aching head. She couldn't remember how it felt to be normal, not sick every day. Sick and weak and unable to take care of herself. She couldn't remember the other Flame. Confident, independent Flame. There was only the bathroom floor and the daily shots and the terrible weariness. Days went by. Weeks went by and every day it was the same.
"I hope you're right. I hope she isn't working with Whitney." Because Flame couldn't do this again--never again. She was so strong in so many ways, but this was asking too much--even of her.
"Lily's suffered more emotionally than any of us, because we knew Peter Whitney was a monster. We knew he was a liar. She didn't. He kept her from knowing for whatever purpose. I've read his letters to her. I've talked to Arly and Rosa, two of the people who were there when she grew up in that house with him. He acted the part of her father. She believed she was his biological child. This is all terrifying to her. It's like she woke up one morning to discover her father was a madman and everything she believed in was a lie. At least we knew all along."
"Nonny says the same thing about Lily," Flame said after a long silence. "The thing about Nonny is she's very good at reading people
. She says Lily is suffering." She pressed her fingertips to her aching head. "Everyone is suffering thanks to Whitney." Flame rinsed her mouth out several times.
"I'm not."
Flame looked up. "What?"
"I'm not suffering. I have a good life. It isn't perfect, but then whose life is? I'm not letting Whitney dictate my life to me. I draw energy to me and I can't be around people for very long. You and Lily are anchors so it's easier. Nico makes it much easier to get rid of the buildup, but I still have to be careful and that's all right with me."
"Whitney isn't after you, Dahlia. He isn't shooting up the swamp and killing innocent people. I put lives in danger. Nonny. Raoul." Just saying his name made her ache. He'd been so good, so patient with her, but she'd refused to talk to him. She hadn't wanted to hurt like that ever again. He came every day while he recovered from his knife wound. He conversed as if she answered him. He'd been the one to tell her the press had issued a huge story on terrorists attacking the compound. He'd been the one to bring her books and music--especially blues. He had been the one to talk to her night after night when she couldn't sleep--and she hadn't answered him. She had refused to offer him forgiveness.
Flame pressed a hand to her mouth, choking back a sob. How pathetic could a woman get? Just because she'd lost her hair and she felt lousy, she didn't have to sit and cry about it. Just because she'd sent away the man of her dreams, the love of her life, the one person who mattered most to her. Now he was really gone--not home to be safe in the bayou, but on a covert mission somewhere halfway around the world. He'd left without a word of comfort or love from her and all she could think about was that he could be killed.
"You aren't putting those lives in danger," Dahlia pointed out. "If they're in danger, Peter Whitney is the one responsible. All any of us can do, Flame, is to try to live our lives the best way we can. That's what I'm doing. If I don't, he wins. To me it's that simple. I'm not letting him dictate my life or my happiness."
"Why do you think he keeps coming after me?" Flame took another sip of water.
Dahlia shrugged. "We've all tried to figure that out. We might never know the answer, but maybe when Lily succeeds in knocking out the cancer once and for all, you won't be so valuable to him. He's a madman. I'm sure there's some logic to his thinking, but it's all his own."