Chapter 8
Kasha was still shivering inside even though Levi drove them home. It was not so much the shock or the fear of the last twenty minutes, but just hearing and seeing the results of all that shooting earlier—the personal losses—well, it was devastating. They hadn’t killed all those villagers, but how could they prove that to those left behind? She didn’t know. Then this was weapons dealing. What the hell did anybody expect?
Things like this just went bad from the beginning.
It made her long for a normal life back home, whatever that meant. It seemed so long ago that she had lived that life. Since working for Bullard, her life had been an ever-changing landscape, and, in the last few months, she’d wanted something different. Only she had no clue what that was. What else would she do? Maybe she could go back to school, but she had no idea what she wanted to study. She had money, after all; she’d had little to spend it on over the years here, and Bullard was very generous. The truth was, if she wanted to get a degree, she could. But it had to be meaningful. It had to be worth the years of effort, and it had to give her something she wanted at the end. The trouble was, she didn’t know what she wanted. Yet she had this void inside.
She admired Ice. That woman was incredible, but was that what Kasha wanted for herself? It was tough. So much death. Seeing that woman with her baby, … that had to be devastating for a mother. To know what had happened made it that much worse.
She tried to figure out a way forward. “I guess the military will take this over and find out what happened to the men,” she said out loud.
“Not necessarily,” Ice said. “I’m not sure they weren’t part of that group.”
“What makes you think that?”
“The soldiers never once asked where the weaponry was that the gunrunners had sold,” Ice said. “Did anybody else notice that? It’s as if they already knew. The only way they could have known is if they’ve been there.”
For the rest of the way home Kasha contemplated the ramifications of their trip. “Do you think they know we’re onto them?”
“That’s why Flynn and Rhodes haven’t shown themselves. They are following the soldiers.” Ice gave her a grim smile. “We need to know what they are up to. My guess is, no good.”
“How does a country run with that level of corruption?”
“A lot of countries have the same issues. They steal thousands to millions of dollars from companies, government coffers and anywhere else they can rob. Nobody is the wiser because no watchdog is keeping track of it. There’s nobody to look over their shoulder, or, if there is, often they’re just paid to look the other way.”
“I guess honor is a thing of the past.”
“I don’t think it is,” Ice said. “I just think there’s less of it. A lot more assholes are running the world. They were always there, but it’s more about a balance. Finding who and what works, not just in a relationship but also for a government.”
Kasha laughed. “Oh, my goodness, that’s awesome.”
Ice shot her a devilish look. “It boils down to people, relationships, communication. Don’t forget we’ve been doing this for a long time.” As she returned her gaze to the road, the windshield exploded. Both women screamed, but Levi kept driving forward.
Kasha twisted to look over the back of the seat, and, sure enough, the back window had been shattered. “Brandon?” she screamed.
“I’m okay,” he yelled. “Stay down.”
Kasha lay on the bench seat as Ice was jammed down in the footwell on her phone. “We were just shot at. We’re fine but coming in fast and hard.” She dropped the phone beside her and, with weapon in hand, popped up and searched their surroundings.
“It had to have been a sharpshooter but from where?” Kasha asked. “There’s no place to hide.”
“Camouflaged, lying flat on the ground,” Levi said. “It doesn’t take much to have a small stand, enough to lift up for beautiful long-distance shots like that.”
“Well, I hope he doesn’t get another chance.”
Levi didn’t bother answering. He shifted gears, turned the corner and then the stronghold was ahead of them. They raced forward at full speed.
“Don’t you want to slow down for this?” Kasha asked.
“Hell no,” Ice answered for Levi. “Hold on. We’re going to brake, and we’re going to brake hard.”
In another thirty seconds they peeled down the road toward the garage. Harrison and Bullard streamed out of garage, rifles at the ready to ward off any attack. Levi drove in and hit the brakes hard, turned the wheel and spun the vehicle around so it faced the way they came. Kasha barely understood what had happened, and suddenly the garage door was down, and they were safe.
Bullard raced over. “Kasha, are you all right?”
She sat up, a little shakily, brushed the glass off her clothing and gave him a smile. “I am. Levi is a hell of a driver.”
Bullard nodded. “He is at that. Like Ice is a hell of a pilot.”
Kasha watched as Ice helped herself to one of the semiautomatics from the cabinets. Then she grabbed the ammunition she needed and loaded the clips. She turned around and said, “Levi and Brandon are going out. I’m going up. The military is behind us.”
Bullard, with Ice and Kasha right behind him, ran to the rooftop walkway. There they could see the plume of a second vehicle way off in the distance.
“That’s the military in front, right? So who is coming behind the military then?” Kasha asked Ice.
“Stone and Merk.”
Kasha did a head count and realized that only left Harrison with Bullard—not many people here while they did their recon in the village. At least all were converging back again here. She did a quick lap around the top of the wall, watching for any other disturbances from any direction. The last thing she wanted was to have her attention on one corner and allow somebody else to sneak around another. Sure enough, when she came around the next corner, she saw two men crawling along the ground.
She called out to Ice and Bullard, “Two coming up behind us.”
Bullard was already there. He still looked weak, but she knew him better than to believe he’d lie down while everybody else worked to defend his newest holding. He stood beside her, raised his rifle and shot at the ground in front of the men. Dirt flew in their faces. The two men bolted backward. She looked at Bullard and said, “Was that just a warning shot?”
He nodded. “They get one chance,” he said grimly. “If they choose to not see it as that and try again, I won’t hold back.”
Considering what these men were likely to do if they got into the place, she had to agree. She, Bullard and Ice stayed in place for another twenty minutes with no new movement on the grounds. Then the men disappeared into the hills and kept on going. When the first vehicle showed up clearer in the distance, Kasha pointed out the plume of dust. But Bullard had already seen it. “Hopefully those are the military. Our guys should be right behind them.” He frowned. “Or more men thinking to come back after that shipment.”
“If the military is involved in the gunrunning, like Ice is afraid they are, we already gave them all the information they needed with our interviews, didn’t we?”
“No,” he said cheerfully. “I already sent the documents off to people I trust. They’re considering it from their end. It doesn’t matter what these guys try to do. They’re small fish. They have been paid either to stay silent or to help smooth the process. There will be a penalty for their treachery. It’s the bosses above them we need.”
Brandon walked up behind them. “We’ve got word of an approaching vehicle.”
“Good. We’re keeping track of that plume in the distance. Wondering which group is arriving first,” Kasha said.
“Bullard, why don’t you go downstairs and lie down,” Brandon said.
Bullard shot him a hard look. “I’m doing just fine.”
Brandon nodded. “You might be. But nobody’s downstairs handling communications.”
Bullard looked torn, so Kasha took the decision away from him. “You know it’ll take two of us to keep things running smoothly,” she said. “Brandon, are you okay to handle this here?”
He looked almost as insulted as Bullard had. “Of course I am.”
She chuckled and said, “Bullard, come on. Let’s go.”
He shrugged and let himself be led downstairs. She was surprised but happy with Brandon’s suggestion. Bullard looked a little on the frail side and still had to be throwing off those unidentified drugs that Tahlia and the villagers had given him. It was a fight that would require time. Downstairs they realized it was a good thing they had come. They’d missed several important messages.
Bullard made the return calls. “Sorry, Konrad. I wasn’t here for your call. What’s up?” He put the phone on Speaker.
“We have information on the group selling the guns.” Konrad’s deep voice filled the room. “We need to set up a sting to make sure we catch these men. We’re highly suspicious there could be military police involved too.”
“Well, I can give you the names of the two just here. I’m pretty sure they are involved. They also followed a reconnaissance mission that we sent into the local village. To see what was going on. I’m expecting them back at any moment.”
“Are you thinking they’re involved, or are you thinking they’ve been taken out?” Konrad asked.
Kasha listened in on the conversation. She winced and said in a low tone, “I can see both happening.”
Bullard gave her a long look and then said, “I agree. I suspect they were involved.”
She heard the withdrawn breath on the other end of the phone. “Okay, I’m on my way. I’m sending down four men to sort this out.” Konrad rattled off the names. “Don’t let anybody else in there.”
“Wasn’t planning on it. But they better identify themselves as soon as they are visible. We had armed invaders last night. I’ve got my men all around this place. Then the two women who went to the village on my behalf first thing this morning were shot at. If one of those bullets had hit either of them, I would have gone in there and taken out that village. You know that, right?”
“We don’t raze anything to the ground just because we’re angry. Let’s make sure we get the people shooting, not the innocents.”
Bullard nodded, his tone terse. “Like I said, make sure they identify themselves.” He hung up. He glanced at his watch and said, “It’ll be at least four hours until Konrad’s men arrive.”
Kasha rubbed her temple. “So, stand watch until then?”
“More or less. But I suspect we’ve got another attack coming regardless.” He looked around. “We’ll need food. Are there any rations?”
She chuckled. “Well, there’s food. Although not much, but I’ll find something for us to eat in a pinch.”
“The men are all good cooks too. If you need a hand, just shout.”
She made her way to the kitchen. There were huge stoves, both wood and electric, plus large fridges and coolers. The kitchen had been modernized and should have been well stocked. But, because they hadn’t had a chance to do even a basic shopping trip, it wasn’t. She did an inventory. Found lots of bread. A whole ham. As soon as she saw that, she shrugged. “Sandwiches it is.”
She set out to make a couple dozen sandwiches. She wasn’t sure how many people she would have to feed, but given the number of men so far, she figured there wasn’t enough for two sandwiches each. Salad fixings were in the fridge, but they lacked substance. Regardless she’d serve it anyway. She found some eggs, which she hard-boiled, and cooked some potatoes. She was humming away in the kitchen, finishing off the potato salad, when a hand slapped over her mouth, and an arm choked her windpipe.
Her heel went up and crunched down on her attacker’s foot. She realized she was up against steel-toed boots but managed to get her teeth clear, and she bit down hard on the fingers at her mouth. The man roared and smacked her on the side of the head. But she was free. She turned and caught him in the jaw with a high kick that snapped his head backward. She was on him in an instant. It took another thirty seconds to subdue him using some of the strongholds Bullard had shown her—certain nerve centers she could press to knock out a man. Thank God she knew them.
Shakily she stood and stared at the intruder. “How the hell had he gotten in?” That was what worried her the most. And if there was one …
She pulled out her cell phone and called Bullard but got no answer. She sent a message to Brandon. Attacked in kitchen. No answer from Bullard.
She got a text right back. Coming.
She looked around the kitchen for something to tie up the intruder. But there was damn little available. Using a kitchen knife, she cut off the lower part of his T-shirt. With that she bound his hands behind him and then his feet and then tied the two together behind him. It still worried her that he might not have come on his own.
Had his partner gone after Bullard? With her weapon in her hand, she moved quickly to the war room.
Bullard was arguing fiercely with somebody. Then she heard a hard smack. She realized some asshole had hit Bullard across the face. Inside her stomach churned, and her anger boiled. She was more than fed up with these assholes. As she peered around the corner, she caught sight of Brandon standing at the other entrance to the room, his face equally grim as he studied what was going on inside the huge central room.
He caught her eye and held up two fingers. She assumed that meant there were two men. Then he held up three for a long moment. Then dropped one, then the next. A countdown. As soon as he dropped the final finger, he moved and fired twice. Bullard threw his hands up in the air and dropped to the floor out of the line of fire. She followed Brandon into the room. She raised her gun, found a target and pulled the trigger. Twice. Crouching low, Brandon checked to make sure there was nobody else.
Bullard called out as he rose off the floor, “There were just the two.”
Brandon stood over the two dead men and smiled. “You’re a good shot,” he told Kasha.
Kasha stared at the two men, both sporting double bullet holes. “So are you.”
He grinned, but his smile fell away as he looked at her. “I am sorry. Life’s a bitch now and again.”
This was not how she’d expected her afternoon to go. She turned to Bullard. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “With you two looking after me, I’m doing just fine.” And he grinned at her.
She shook her head, looked again at the two dead men and asked, “Who’s going to take out the garbage?” She glanced around, but Brandon was already gone. Bullard laughed out loud. “He’s gone to see if there are any other intruders.”
“Which is something I should have been thinking about.”
“I’m hoping you had enough time to get some food rustled up. These guys gave me an appetite.” He cracked his knuckles together, bent down, grabbed the collar of each guy and dragged them across the floor.
She watched in awe. Talk about brute strength. Bullard was like the others. He just didn’t think anything of the kind of muscle he commanded. For her to move just one of those men would have been a major effort. She could’ve done it, but she’d have been exhausted at the end of it. She wished she knew where Brandon had gone because she should’ve gone after him as backup.
“Which way did they come from? Do you know?” she called after Bullard.
“From the section you came from.”
“Right. That makes sense. I was attacked in the kitchen.”
Bullard dropped the two men and turned to stare at her. “What?”
“I left him tied up in the kitchen.”
“He’s alive?” Bullard asked with a grin. “Damn, that’s good. Let’s go have a little talk with your visitor.”
Two minutes later they were in the kitchen, and Kasha screamed in outrage. “He’s gone. I left him tied up right here.” She pointed. “He’s gone.”
Bullard shook his head and said, “Then chances are, there are more.”
*
Brandon did a quick sweep of the upstairs rooms floor by floor, then came back down to the kitchen. He stopped when he saw Kasha and Bullard snapping at each other. “What’s the matter?”
Kasha turned, obviously upset and said, “I left one of the intruders tied up here, but now he’s gone.” She raised both hands in frustration. “He couldn’t get out of it on his own.”
Brandon didn’t say anything. He had seen some artists escape from the damnedest setups. He looked around and said, “They aren’t upstairs, so we need to find out if they’re on this floor and how they arrived.”
“I suspect there’s an entrance we don’t know about,” Bullard said. “As much as I really like that idea, it really pisses me off that they found it before I knew of it. That’s why properties should come with decent blueprints.”
Together the three searched the kitchen. At the pantry, Kasha walked in, looked around and shrugged before stepping out. “Don’t know what we’re trying to find. We’ve been through here many times, and it all looks the same.”
Brandon opened the first cupboard door and whistled. “Did you see this before?”
She peered over his shoulder and gasped. “No. I didn’t. We must have missed opening this one.”
Instead of shelves, there was a staircase. With his weapon in front of him and Kasha behind him, they swept down the stairs to a small tunnel. There were no lights, and it was dark, but he could touch it from side to side. It was well made and appeared to be extremely old.
He glanced back to see Bullard looming behind him, his grinning teeth flashing in the dark. For men like them, this was priceless—a way to get out when under attack was huge. Brandon turned on the flashlight on his phone and picked up the pace, lightly running, racing forward. He doubted there would be any sign of the invaders, but, if they thought they still had a secret entrance, they could come back or possibly take their time getting out. The tunnel seemed to go on forever. Eventually Brandon saw a light up ahead. He figured the outer door to the tunnel was open, letting in sunlight. He shut down his cell phone and pocketed it.
As he got closer, he heard voices. He turned and held up a hand, warning the other two. He crept forward, Kasha right behind him, as he tried to listen to the conversation. She interpreted with her mouth right against his ear. “They are waiting for two more men. They heard the gunshots upstairs and assumed two of their men were gone. They’re wondering now if they can wait until nightfall and move the guns to the tunnel.”
He nodded and whispered, “That would make sense on their part.”
It wouldn’t work, but he didn’t tell her that. What he wanted was to wait for the other two men to arrive and then take down all four of them. He crept another step forward. It was hard to see anything, and there was an odd reflection with the light. They stood on sand, but, at the same time, there were rocks.
The voices suddenly stopped.
Kasha grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. He froze.
Then the voices resumed.
Kasha stepped forward and whispered against his ear again, “They’re arguing about the best way. The other man wants to come back inside and shoot everybody here, so they don’t have to worry about it. They can just take back the fortress.”
Brandon raised his eyebrows at that. It was nobody’s property but Bullard’s. However, in places like this, possession was often nine-tenths of the law.
The argument rose louder. Then finally one made a hard sound, and the two arguing men both fell silent again.
Brandon twisted to look at Kasha for an interpretation. She shrugged. “No solution. They’re waiting for the two others.”
It was nearing nine in the morning. It was sunny and bright outside as evidenced by the light filtering into the tunnel. The invaders had had trouble getting across the huge open spaces surrounding the holding last night in the dark with everybody on guard. Brandon wondered how long before they gave up now in the daylight. Then suddenly he didn’t have to wonder because they were arguing yet again.
In a low tone Kasha whispered, “They’ve decided to come back in and take out everybody on the lower floors. They only saw Bullard and me. So they think they can take us both out and then go to the rooftop and pick off the rest one by one.”
He nodded. There was no place to hide in this narrow dark tunnel. He searched the long tunnel looking for an answer to their predicament. If the two men standing outside decided to enter the tunnel, he and Kasha had no place to go. Neither did Bullard, but he was still behind them. If a defensive move wasn’t an option, then he’d accept an offensive one.
Making a sudden decision, Brandon ran up to the tunnel’s entrance and flattened against the wall just out of sight of the two argumentative men near the entrance.
As soon as one of the men turned to enter the tunnel, he had twisted his head slightly to talk to the man behind him.
Perfect. Brandon shot the second man in his gun hand, who had seen Brandon but couldn’t react fast enough. After a second shot from Brandon, both men went down. One man screamed, and Brandon pointed the gun at his face and yelled, “Shut up.”
The man was reduced to sobs as he held his injured hand against his chest. Brandon nudged him with his foot and said to Kasha, “Tell them to get up. We want to talk with them.”
She translated. The man stumbled to his feet, and, sobbing quietly, he tripped over his friend and crumpled to the ground again. With Bullard keeping an eye on the first man, Brandon leaned over to check on the second. Instantly the man came off the ground and swung at him, a knife in one hand. Swearing softly, Brandon kicked at the guy’s knife hand and twisted, narrowly avoiding being stabbed.
The confines of the tunnel didn’t allow for much movement in the way of avoiding contact; there was just no room to maneuver. He knew Bullard and Kasha couldn’t shoot in such close quarters, but Brandon hadn’t spent as many hours on the streets as he had for nothing. With his feet and his fists moving hard and fast, he quickly subdued the second man, and, with a final hard upper cut to his jaw, he knocked him out cold. He stood there swearing fiercely.
Then he caught sight of the first man swinging a gun around toward Bullard. Brandon didn’t wait. He pivoted and swung, dealing the gunman a hard upper right to the jaw too. The man went down in a heap at Bullard’s feet. Bullard looked at Brandon in horror. “Couldn’t you a least let him walk through the tunnel on his own? This way we have to carry him.”
Brandon rolled his eyes. “In that case I guess it’s my job.”
Bullard snickered. “Nah. I got one, and you got one, but I’m going to eat whatever Kasha had time to make when we reach the kitchen.” He pointed at the two injured men and said, “Interrogating them can wait. Or I’ll go through that bloody fridge and haul out anything edible because I’m starved.”
Brandon smirked. “You’re right. You go ahead and eat while Kasha and I wait to capture the two new guys at the kitchen end of the tunnel.”