Eve (24 page)

*   *   *

TIRE TRACKS.

Joe dropped to his knees and examined the marks to the side of the trail. Fresh tracks. The driver was in a hurry. He had peeled onto the road. Heavy truck or van, probably an off-road vehicle.

How fresh? He listened, tuning out the night sounds. The sound of an engine, faint but …

Yes.

And that driver had to be John Gallo.

He felt a rush of fierce satisfaction.

He jumped to his feet and scrambled up on the shoulder of the slope, drawing his gun. Damn I wish I had my rifle. But his Beretta had a fairly long range for a handgun. It might be enough if he could get close enough to shoot out one of the back tires.

He ran to the top of the incline.

A Jeep Cherokee, descending the twisting mountain road, was coming into view around the curve a short distance below him. Not short enough for Joe. Gallo would have to come around the next curve at an angle closer to where Joe stood for him to use the Beretta.

That meant Joe had to get at least fifty feet down the mountain to reach that next twisting level of the road.

He threw himself off road. He skidded down the loosely packed rocks of the slope, falling, picking himself up, and skidding again.

Twenty feet.

He slipped and rolled down the incline until he was stopped by some low shrubs.

He caught his breath and jumped up.

Ten more feet.

Not as slippery as the incline above. No falls.

He was there.

And Gallo was coming around the curve only twenty feet below him!

He
had
him.

Go slow. He had maybe a minute until Gallo was out of sight again. The shot had to be right. He aimed carefully at the right-rear tire.

He started to squeeze the trigger.

Pain.

His arm jerked as a bullet tore through his forearm!

Shit.

Not from Gallo.

The shot had come from above.

Rage tore through him as he saw Gallo disappear around the curve.

Another shot. Grazing his ear. He had to get out from the middle of the road and into the pine trees on the slope.

He glanced up the mountain as he dove into the trees.

Two men. One short, thin, the other taller and burly. They were separating, fading into the trees on the slope, and coming down the mountain after him.

Good.

He was bleeding. He took off his shirt, tore it in two, and wrapped one piece tightly around his forearm. Now forget it and go on the hunt.

*   *   *

WHERE WAS THE BASTARD?
Hanks wondered. He knew he’d hit him with that first bullet.

Hanks’s phone vibrated.

“He’s disappeared,” Brock whispered. “Dammit, Hanks, I’ve searched this slope, and he’s not here. Did you see him? Maybe he’s unconscious or something and fell off the slope.”

“No, keep looking.” He was uneasy. Quinn was more than they’d bargained for. He’d been seconds away from putting a bullet into Gallo’s Jeep, and now they couldn’t locate him. “I saw him go into those trees, and he’s wounded. He can’t be moving fast.”

“All I can say is that I haven’t seen him, I haven’t heard him and I’m damn spooked about— Shit!”

Hanks stiffened. “Brock? Are you—”

The sound of metal on shale. Brock’s phone dropping? He didn’t know, but he’d better get over there.

Fast.

When he reached him, Brock was lying crumpled on the ground.

Dead? No time to check. Hanks moved into the trees, his gaze searching the darkness.

“Quinn,” he called. “This isn’t necessary. We don’t want to kill you. We had orders to stop you, and we did it. Give up, and we’ll talk. That’s all I—”

Quinn dropped down from the trees, knocking him to the ground.

Hanks struggled desperately beneath Quinn’s weight, trying to position his gun to fire.

“No way.” Quinn’s left arm was around his neck, jerking his head back. “Now we’ll talk.” His voice was low, fierce. “Tell me where Gallo was heading.”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not the answer I want to hear. I’ll give you thirty seconds, then I’ll break your neck.”

“I don’t know. John never told—”

“Fifteen seconds.” Joe jerked Hanks’s head back farther and angled it. “I’m pissed. Can you tell? I’m not—”

“Let him go, Joe.” Eve Duncan came into his line of sight. “You don’t want to do this.”

“The hell I don’t.”

“Then I don’t want you to do this,” she said. “Everything is crazy, but I don’t want more violence added to the pot.” She suddenly saw the bloody shirt wrapped around Joe’s arm. “And you’re hurt, dammit.”

“Let him go.” Catherine stepped out of the shadows, her gun aimed at Hanks. “I’ll take care of it. He won’t be a problem.”

Joe hesitated, then reluctantly released Hanks’s neck. “He’s already been a problem.” He got off Hanks. “I would have been able to stop Gallo if he hadn’t interfered. I had that Jeep in my sights.”

“And John’s Jeep might have gone off the road and tumbled down to the valley,” Hanks said as he sat up and scooted quickly away from Joe.

“I was aiming at the right tire. Gallo could have controlled the Jeep if he didn’t lose his head. I didn’t want him dead … yet.” He turned to Catherine. “You said you’d take care of him. Get him out of my sight. My arm’s hurting like hell, and I want to make him hurt, too.”

Catherine gestured with the gun. “Move, Hanks. I need to get you away from here.”

Hanks didn’t move. “Did you kill Brock, Quinn?”

“Brock?” Joe gave him a cold glance. “He’s the other one with you? No, I had to work quickly, and I didn’t want to shoot and give away my position. He’ll be waking up soon.”

Hanks felt a rush of relief. He had had an idea that they had barely tapped the skilled savagery in Quinn, and they’d been lucky. Damn lucky. “Then I want to take him back with me.”

“You’re pushing your luck, Hanks,” Joe said. “Get out of here.”

Eve was standing next to Quinn. “You should be the one getting out of here. I need to take a look at that wound as soon as we get back to the house.”

Joe nodded absently, his gaze still on Hanks. “Don’t let him go anywhere until I can talk to him, Catherine. He might know where Gallo was going.”

“I don’t have any idea,” Hanks said roughly. “Do you think John would tell me? Not likely. Not that I’d tell you if he did.”

“Go,” Catherine said. “You’re being stupid, and I’m through with dealing with stupid, macho men tonight.”

Hanks hesitated, then strode up the path.

*   *   *

“HOW BAD IS IT?” EVE ASKED,
as Catherine and Hanks disappeared in the trees.

“I could function,” Joe said. “Probably not too bad.”

But he wasn’t sure, Eve thought, and she’d seen Joe close out pain and focus efficiently many times before. It was part of the discipline and experience of his SEAL training.

And the instinct of the warrior in battle. “Is it still bleeding?”

He impatiently shook his head. “Stop fussing. I need to get back to the house and search it. We may be able to find something there that will lead us to Gallo.”

“I’m not fussing.” She felt a ripple of irritation that overcame the concern and worry she had been feeling. “By all means, let’s go back and search. I want to find Gallo as much as you do.”

He shook his head. “No you don’t.”

“You listen to me, Joe,” Eve said fiercely. “No one wants to talk to Gallo more than I do. I know nothing about Paul Black, and John seems to be the only one who can tell me anything about him. I might have had a chance of persuading him to talk to me, but you put him on the run. Do you think I won’t do anything on earth to find him and make him tell me everything he knows? Bill Hanks isn’t going to be able to help. He as much as told me when I first met him that John didn’t often confide in him. And Hanks preferred not to know.”

“He could have been lying.”

“I don’t believe he was.” She took his elbow and nudged him forward. “You and Catherine are both working and analyzing this as if it were an objective problem. Well, I’m not objective. So you do your thing, and I’ll do mine. But don’t expect me to approve when you go running down a mountain and get yourself shot and then—” She drew a deep breath. “To hell with it. Let’s get back to the house and take care of your arm.”

*   *   *

JACOBS WAS SCARED, NATE
Queen realized, as he held the phone a few inches away and listened to the spate of curses and questions. He should have expected it. Thomas Jacobs always fell apart when the going got tough. Queen sometimes wondered why he still kept Jacobs on as a minor partner instead of ridding himself of the coward. But Jacobs had been with him a long time, even at the initial recruitment of Gallo. He knew more than was comfortable for Queen. Besides, he was willing to set up all the little deals with which Queen didn’t want to bother.

“I know all that,” Queen said. “I didn’t handle it well. But are you telling me you would have been able to handle Catherine Ling and Quinn? They were nasty as hell, and there was no way I was going to end up dead.”

“Of course not. But there should have been a way to stop them.”

“It’s done. I only told them what I had to tell them.”

“You said you gave them the map.” Jacobs paused. “What are the chances they’ll get into the compound?”

“I wouldn’t bet against them. They disabled my security system, and it’s fairly sophisticated. They’re both tops in their fields, and they work well together. After they get in, it’s a different proposition. They’ll have to deal with Gallo.”

“But you said Quinn is lethal. That could be a problem. We can’t afford to have Gallo dead before we get our hands on the ledger.”

“I’m sending a team to Utah to move into the compound if we hear Gallo has been killed.”

“It may not even be in the compound. Gallo warned us it would go straight to the
Washington Post
if you moved against him. It may be in a damn lawyer’s office somewhere. You blundered big-time, Queen.”

The prick. He was getting pissed. “How was I to know that he’d go after Eve Duncan after all these years? He kept talking about Ling. Who the hell could tell what he was thinking? Ling is CIA. Duncan was no threat.”

“Then why did he take her?” Jacobs was silent, thinking. “Was it to frighten her into keeping silent that he was still alive and might be a suspect? Or was it something else? As you say, he’s unstable. Who knows what’s going on in his head?”

“Frighten? Gallo doesn’t bluff. She may be dead by the time Quinn gets to her. Serve the bastard right.”

“And if she is dead, we’ll have to do a cleanup for Gallo. You’d better hope that she’s still alive. So what do we do?”

“We find out what’s going on in the compound. Who’s our man on the payroll there?”

“Lon Davarak. He’s a perimeter guard. It’s as close as we could get to Gallo. Hanks is damn careful of the guards for the house.”

“Then call Davarak and get him to scout around and see if he can find out what the hell is happening.” He was silent again. “Eve Duncan…”

“What are you thinking?”

“He had a kid with Eve Duncan. When he made no attempt to approach her after Korea, we assumed that she was nothing to him, just a good lay. Even the reports on her he demanded could have been just to protect himself.” He paused again. “But we know he’s emotionally disturbed. What if those emotions are focused on Eve Duncan? It could be an Achilles’ heel.”

“I don’t think so. He’s not vulnerable in that way. He’s cold as ice.”

“You have no imagination. We have to accept that Gallo’s temperament can change like a weather vane and take advantage of it.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?”

“Why, if Gallo hasn’t already cut her throat, we might do well to look deeper into the possibility of Eve Duncan.”

*   *   *

JUDY WAS IN THE STUDY,
emptying the contents of desk drawers into boxes, when Eve and Joe came into the house.

“What are you doing?” Joe asked.

“What I’ve been told to do.” Judy glanced at his blood-soaked arm. “Got yourself hurt, didn’t you? It wasn’t Hanks’s fault. He was only protecting John.”

“Where are Catherine and Hanks?” Eve asked.

“In the living room. She tried to stop me from packing up, but I told her she’d have to shoot me. I do my job, and Gallo told me he wanted these out of the house before those military guys decided they’d come calling.” She straightened her gaze on Joe’s arm as she added grudgingly, “But I guess I could bandage that up for you first. There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen cabinet.”

“I’m going to do it.” Eve’s eyes were on the boxes. “Why doesn’t he want Queen to see those records?”

“We’ll see for ourselves,” Joe said. “And the only thing in which I’m interested is Gallo’s name and address.”