Dangerous Ground 3: Blood Heat (10 page)
Seeing that Taylor was still waiting for a reply, he said mildly, “Why would you? It"s not a big deal.”
“What was her name?”
“Madonna.”
“Madonna? What kind of a name is that?”
“Catholic, I guess. Her family was Catholic. You"re acting kind of weird about this, in case you haven"t noticed.”
Taylor sat back in his seat. He was still eyeing Will narrowly.
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“So…you consider yourself bisexual?”
“No, I don"t consider myself bisexual. What are you talking about? Because I had a girlfriend in high school? A lot of people have girlfriends in high school and college.”
“
And
college? Were you still seeing her in college?”
Will could happily have bitten his tongue out. “It"s just a…an example.”
“Were you still together in college?”
Goddamn that persistent, ruthless investigative streak of Taylor"s.
“For a little while,” Will admitted.
“Well.” Taylor had that huffy, irritable tone he got when he was edgy or nervous. “This is certainly an interesting development.”
Will looked away from the road to throw him an exasperated look. “Why would it be? It"s nothing. It was a million years ago. A lifetime ago. I can"t figure out why the hell we"re even still discussing it.”
“So this is why I"ve never met your family?”
The sheer breathtaking illogic of that jump was only secondary to the deadly intuitive accuracy of it. Until Taylor had put it into words, it had never occurred to Will that it was one thing to admit to your all-American, red-blooded, manly man family you were gay. It was another to bring your male lover home to meet the folks. And maybe that difference was one reason he"d always managed to arrange visits to his family when Taylor couldn"t go.
“That"s the most fucking ridiculous thing I ever heard!”
Taylor said with infuriating calm, “Okay, okay. Just asking.”
From the backseat, Hedwig suddenly sucked in a sharp breath.
“Now what?” Will growled.
Her wide bespectacled gaze met his in the rearview. She swallowed. “I-I think… I"m not sure… Could you stop the car?”
“
No
,” Taylor and Will answered in unison.
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Josh Lanyon
“But I think the baby is coming!”
* * *
Hedwig was walking a big circle around the glade, hand pressed to her bulging belly, taking deep, distressed breaths.
Standing by the car, watching her, Will said, “Maybe she"s just carsick.
Considering what she put away at lunch…”
Taylor was scowling at his BlackBerry. “I
still
can"t get a signal.”
“If she
is
in labor, we could have hours, right? It can take hours.”
Taylor shook his BlackBerry. In a minute, he"d be knocking it against a boulder.
“Don"t you think?” Will persisted. “It"s not like in the movies.”
“True. I guess.” Taylor scowled across the clearing at Hedwig, who continued to make her big slow loop. “She"s got to be faking.”
“I know. But for the sake of argument, let"s say she"s not.”
Taylor shook his head. “I don"t know.”
“We"ve had training on this.”
“Good. You can deal with it.”
“I can"t remember anything about it except how to tie off the umbilical cord.”
Taylor looked horrified. “Her…uh…water has to break, right? I don"t think it did.”
“How would you know?”
“She"d have said.”
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Will nodded, relieved. That made sense. “Should we head back to Carrizozo or try to make it to Sierra Blanca?”
“I say we try to make it to the airport.”
“The airport?” Will was doubtful about that.
“Maybe not the airport itself, but Ruidoso. She"s
got
to be faking.”
“Okay. They"ll have more extensive medical facilities, anyway. It"s—” He broke off as a long black sedan with tinted windows pulled off the road, tires shelling rock as it drew into the turnout.
“I don"t like this,” Taylor remarked, planting himself squarely in line with Will. “Is this somebody we know?”
Will cast a quick look back at Hedwig. She had stopped circling the mini meadow and was standing in a pose that conveyed a creature at bay. At his quick gesture, she moved toward the stand of trees. One thing he couldn"t fault was her instinct for survival.
The passenger door of the sedan opened. A short, slender form emerged. A man with cropped, fair hair. He wore dark sunglasses and a black tailored suit.
“Is everything all right? Can we offer assistance?” Not a man. A woman. It wasn"t just the voice. Unless Will was very much mistaken, there were small breasts beneath that sexless suit.
Will politely waved her off.
“Does she look familiar?” Taylor inquired out of the side of his mouth.
“The car does.”
“It does?”
“Classic movie villain wheels.”
“True. So are the threads. They scream „Hit Person."”
Will grunted a laugh. He sobered as the driver"s door of the car swung open.
“Here we go.”
A man got out, blond counterpart of the woman.
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Josh Lanyon
“They could be feebs.” Taylor looked back at where Hedwig was hiding, then looked at Will.
“I don"t think so. They"d have identified themselves by now.” Will called to the woman, “Thanks again. It"s under control.” Under his breath, he said to Taylor,
“Shit. They"re not going to buy it. Move.”
He was aware of the man reaching beneath his blazer. Hip holster, probably.
He was aware of Taylor leaping for a cairn of rocks. That was all there was time for; Will himself was already moving. He raced for the edge of the hillside to his right, throwing himself down behind a shoulder of rock and grass, drawing his weapon.
What he wouldn"t give for one of the standard issue Colt SMGs or even a Remington 870.
“We just want the girl,” the woman yelled.
“We"re federal agents,” Will shouted back.
“Give us the girl, and no one has to get hurt.”
“You"re not getting the girl.”
A granite splinter just missed the tip of his nose, and he heard the familiar whine of a bullet ricocheting off stone. In reply came the brisk, untroubled
bang
of Taylor"s SIG.
Will rolled over and risked a quick look. The female shooter was situated behind a boulder near the edge of the road. The male shooter was behind his vehicle, wasting ammunition like it grew on trees. He was focusing his firepower on Taylor"s position, but Taylor was safely dug in and not easily flustered.
Will fired a succession of rounds at the car to give Taylor a little breathing space. He hit the gas tank twice, but of course it was only in movies that cars conveniently exploded. He nailed the front right tire and, with grim satisfaction, watched the front half of the vehicle sag.
Dropping back, Will ejected the SIG"s magazine, replaced the empty clip with a full one, slapped the magazine back into place.
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Taylor was conserving ammo, laying down just enough fire to keep the other two from advancing toward the copse where Hedwig hid. The female shooter was equally conservative, biding her time, watching closely for a clear shot.
Two on two. Well, they"d certainly had worse odds. With the road in front of them and the downside of the knoll to their rear, they were in pretty good position.
If they had to fall back, the trees and vegetation supplied plenty of camouflage. Yes, it could definitely be worse.
And it could definitely be better. Will was disgusted with himself for missing the fact that they"d picked up a tail. Even if they had been keeping well back—a big black sedan? It didn"t get more in-your-face than that. How long had he and Taylor been followed? He"d been so preoccupied with Taylor and keeping an eye out for Nemov, he"d missed the obvious. And what was Taylor"s excuse?
The male shooter made an attempt to get to the rocky incline to the right of the car, but Will held him off with three well-placed shots. The woman directed her attention his way. Taylor revived her interest in him with resumed fire.
The male shooter scrambled back into the car and blared the horn loudly. The female left cover and ran for the car, firing off a few wild shots and throwing herself inside.
The black sedan roared forward, knocking the silver SUV rental a few feet to the side and plowing past. The sedan fishtailed, screeching up the road several yards and disappearing around a bend. The engine died.
They weren"t going far. Even if they wanted to, a couple of holes in the gas tank were sure to slow them down.
Taylor was up and running for the stand of junipers. Will started for the SUV.
If it was still functional, they"d head back for Carrizozo rather than fall into whatever trap the suits in the black sedan were planning.
“Brandt!”
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Josh Lanyon
He turned. Taylor reappeared, shaking his head.
“Is she hit?” Will gasped, sick at the thought. “She"s not dead, is she?”
“Gone.”
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77
Chapter Eight
“Signal?”
Taylor shook his head. He resisted the temptation to hurl his BlackBerry at the nearest mountaintop. “We didn"t run them off. They"re either blocking the road ahead or going for a better position.”
“Or both.”
“Or both. Either way, we can"t retreat. Not without the Bionic Baby Maker.”
“She"s not going far.” Will ejected his pistol magazine, checked the clip, reinserted the magazine. That would be his second and last clip. At a rough estimate, Taylor guessed Will probably had six, maybe seven, rounds left. He hadn"t been planning to go to war. Neither of them had. He reached in his pocket, tossed Will one of his extras. It wasn"t regulation, but Taylor always carried extra extras.
Will took it, slipping it in his vest pocket. “I guess that answers the question about whether she was faking labor.”
“I guess. Listen, Brandt. If that car"s still running, I think you should take it and head for the nearest ranger station. We need some support here. There isn"t any point trying to keep this thing secret now.”
“And in the meantime, you"re going to do what?”
“I"m going to find Hedwig and go to ground with her until you show up with reinforcements.”
“The guy who thinks Descanso Gardens is a wilderness is going to try tracking someone through Lincoln National Forest? I don"t think so.”
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Josh Lanyon
“Hey, she"s no wilderness expert either. I"m the perfect choice to track her.
She"s going to think like me.”
“Very funny. We"re sticking together.”
That was the way Taylor would prefer it, but honesty compelled him to speak.
“We need some backup. We"ve got Dick and Jane ahead of us and, for all we know, Nemov coming up on our ass. Ramirez might even be out there somewhere. The situation is out of our control. We need help.”
“We"re sticking together.”
“Would you listen to me?”
“Would you listen to
me
? I"m not leaving you out here.”
What a really bad time to get choked up, but Will was glaring at him, mouth thinned to a white line and eyes so bright they were glittering. Bad timing for both of them.
“Will…”
“I"m. Not. Leaving. You. Got that?”
Taylor took a deep breath. “It"s okay. I know you"ll come back.”
To his surprise, Will"s hand closed on his shoulder and pulled him forward into a fleeting but adamant press of mouths.
“You"re right. I will. Always.” He released Taylor and turned away. “Let"s go. It can get dark fast in the mountains.”
* * *
didn’t
come this way?” They had been searching the tree-covered hills for half an hour with no sign of Hedwig anywhere. Now it was mostly a series of rocky downhill slopes. Where the ground wasn"t rock, it was covered in golden wheat. Or something that looked like wheat but was more likely weeds. There were a few scraggly pine trees and a lot of juniper and cactus. The air was sharp and clear as a crystal bell, and every
clack
of rock on rock seemed to carry for miles.
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“This is the closest thing to a trail.”
Which wasn"t saying much.
Taylor paused to look over his shoulder—which was when he felt the ground give way.
For a confused instant, he thought he"d misstepped, that he was falling down the hillside, and then he realized that he was falling
into
the hillside. The ground caved in around him, dirt and rock crumbling down on him as he sank.
He seemed to hang, suspended, clawing the thick, moist dark, trying to climb back up to air and light, squinching his eyelids, spitting, breathing out against the smothering shower of debris. It felt for a moment like he might fight gravity.
Then he plummeted. He landed in soft earth, though hard enough to knock the wind out of him.
He could hear Will yelling. It sounded like a long way away.
Taylor blinked a couple of times and began to rapidly take stock. Fingers, toes, hands, feet, arms, legs…everything seemed to be working. He gingerly lifted his head. A cone of light spilled down from the hole in the ceiling above his head.
A good twenty feet above his head.