The Spy Who Left Me (34 page)

Little did he know how close he was to the device he wanted. Blow off her head and he blew up the software in her hair.

“Give it up, Ty. I have a gun on your girlfriend’s head. Step out where I can see you before I kill her.”

Someone pulled the flashlight from the water. The next thing she knew, the beam shone in her eyes.

“I’m right here,” Ty said.

Zulu loomed behind him, a dark shadow slowly rising to his feet.

“Trying to blind me won’t work,” Bang said without a trace of concern. “I don’t need to see to kill point-blank.”

They all knew that if Ty had come up with the gun, he’d be using it.

“You okay, Zu?” Bang called.

“I’m fine.” Zulu breathed heavily. “Never mind her, shoot him!”

“No!” Treflee screamed. “No! I’ll tell you where it is. Please, please don’t kill him.” She was too afraid even to cry.

Zulu came up behind Ty, grabbed the light, and kicked him in the back, sending him face-first into the sand. “Where is it?”

Treflee wished she possessed a spy’s mind-set and more than the limited self-defense training Ty had given her during their marriage. She’d opened her mouth with no real plan except to save Ty.

Where could she send Cong, Bang, and Zulu where they wouldn’t hurt an innocent bystander? Someplace far away from camp and the others.

Zulu stared at her. “I’m waiting.”

“Let him go first.”

Zulu scanned the cave floor with a beam of light and retrieved his gun, which he aimed at Ty. “No.”

“Then no deal.”

“We outgun you.”

“Fine, shoot me.” Treflee shrugged. “That’ll just guarantee you won’t get what you want.”
Especially if they shoot me in the head.

“Why would I shoot you? I have a hostage,” Zulu said. “How would you like to watch him die? Does a nice, slow bleed-out appeal to you? I know where to shoot him to make that happen.”

Treflee’s mouth went dry. She tried to think like Ty. “It wouldn’t be the best show I’ve ever seen. I’m not a fan of bleeding out.”

Zulu laughed. “You think he’ll moan and cry?”

I think he’ll go down like a hero and it will break my heart.

“Let’s take Ty’s death off the table. Before I tell you where that thing is, I need some reassurance you won’t simply kill us after I do.”

Zulu’s diabolical laughter filled the cavern, echoing and blending with the ocean surf. His tone tinged with amusement, he uttered a string of curses. “Shit! I expected more out of a master spy.” He laughed again. “Why would I kill you?”

Until he has what he wants,
Treflee added silently. He’d kill her for sure then.

She was in the proverbial no-win situation. Either she resisted and Zulu killed Ty before her eyes or she told him what he wanted to hear and then he killed them both. Any way she turned it, they came up dead. It was just a matter of now or later. Later, however, held the possibility of escape or miraculous rescue. Plus it might allow her to make a few amends with Ty. Better to die with a clear conscience.

“Here’s the deal,” Zulu said. “You lead me to the device while Bang here guards Ty. When I have the device, I’ll order Bang to let him go.”

Treflee shook her head. “No. No way. For all I know, Bang will kill him the minute I walk out of here.”

Bang’s arms trembled from exertion, but he still held her midair with an iron grip.

A wave rolled in. It splashed at Zulu’s ankles and lapped at Ty on the ground, coming up just short of where Bang held her farther into the cave. The tide was coming in quickly.

“Let’s be honest about things,” Treflee said. “There’s no way you’re going to let me live once you have that device.”

Zulu didn’t jump in to dispute her.

“But you can’t kill me until you do. I’m not going to tell you a thing until I have a deal that will give me a fighting chance at surviving.” She tried to stare where she thought his eyes would be, which wasn’t easy with him shining the light in hers.

“Here’s my proposal—I tell you where the data card is. You leave us in this cave with a hope of getting away before we drown in the incoming tide.

“No mess, no fuss for you. If we don’t make it out, we simply wash out to sea. You have what you want. We’re all good.”

Zulu studied her. “And if you’re sending me on a wild-goose chase?”

She shrugged. “I’m not. But if I was, you’ll just have to hurry. Work fast enough and you’ll still have time to come back and try again before I drown.”

Zulu considered a moment, then shrugged. “What the hell. Bang!”

Zulu nodded toward a volcanic outcropping that rose out of the cave floor. “Cuff them together around that.”

Zulu stared at Ty with a merciless look. “Face to rock so they can’t sit.” He tossed Bang a pair of cuffs.

Bang pulled another from his pocket as Zulu held a gun to Ty. Bang worked quickly, handcuffing her right hand to Ty’s left and his right to her left as they hugged opposite sides of the rough rock.

“This is what you call giving us a chance?” Treflee said as Bang walked away.

“Put the key on the top of the rock,” Zulu instructed Bang. “I call this a very fair chance. Volcanic rock has plenty of foot- and handholds. Easier to climb than your basic climbing wall.

“Climb up, get the key, free yourselves, and you’re golden.” He laughed again. “Now, where is it?”

She gave detailed instructions about hiding it in one of the catering bins she’d seen Greg load into the van. Her only hope was the van was parked far enough away from the campsite that they wouldn’t hurt anyone else searching for it. And that it gave Ty and her enough time to get free.

“You better be telling the truth.” Zulu waved his gun at them. “Bang!”

Treflee jumped before she realized Zulu was talking to his assistant.

Zulu laughed and nodded toward the cave entrance.

They’d tied Treflee to the side of the rock deeper in the cave. Ty was cuffed with his back to the opening. Treflee leaned her head around the rock, watching them go, taking the last of the light with them.

“Hey! How about leaving us a flashlight?” Treflee called after them.

Zulu laughed again. “Afraid of the dark? No one said I was that fair.”

Damn it! They’d duped her. How were she and Ty going to find footholds and the key in the dark?

She scowled after the jerks, watching their beam of light reflect on the waves pounding deeper into the cave. Watching the two Fuk Ching wade out into the incoming surf. Zulu and Bang reached the cave entrance in knee-deep water. Their light shone on open ocean.

She took a deep breath, trying to collect her wits just as Zulu spun his beam of light around into her eyes. He raised his gun arm and squeezed the trigger.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Treflee screamed, watching as Zulu’s arm bucked with the kick. Simultaneously, Ty crumpled, pulling Treflee into a face plant with the rough rock, dragging her shoulder and arm down as the stretching fingers of the waves lapped at their feet. Treflee listened for the ricochet of gunfire. The surf drowned it out. She had no way of knowing how many shots Zulu got off or even if he continued to fire.

“Ty!” She pulled her head away from the rock, scraping her bare stomach and legs against the rough pumice stone as she tried to rearrange and pull up his dead weight. Her arm was scratched and bleeding. Her cheek throbbed. “Ty! Don’t die on me, don’t you dare die on me.”

Zulu and Bang disappeared. Everything went pitch-black. The only sound over the surf, barely discernible as human, was Ty’s ragged breathing.

At least he’s alive.

“Ty! Ty! Talk to me.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed for reassurance. With her other hand, she felt wildly for a pulse.

Finally, he squeezed back. “Don’t tell me you didn’t expect that.”

“What? Why would I? No one expects a Chinese execution.” Treflee was so relieved by the sound of his voice she sagged against the rock and held his hand in a death grip.

“You knew they weren’t going to just let us walk out of here.” Ty’s voice was weak, but ironic.

No, I hadn’t expected them to shoot Ty.
She’d been so stupidly naïve, so smug thinking she’d done everything right. She held back a sob.

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up. You did great. Better than the average civilian. Zulu didn’t leave you much of a choice.”

Treflee lifted her head. Ty sounded sincere.

“At least you bought us a chance. Emmett will be proud. Probably give you a medal,” he said.

She didn’t want a medal. She wanted to get out of here.
Alive.

“They promised to give us a fair chance,” she muttered, trying to suck up some courage. “Where are you hurt?”

Bleeding out.
Zulu’s words came back to her. She shuddered, trying not to panic, realizing how much she couldn’t stand to lose Ty.

“My left calf. No place vital. Just a flesh wound.”

Just a flesh wound.
She pictured him gritting his teeth against the pain.

“Did the bullet pass through?”

“Maybe.”

“Are you bleeding?”

“Yeah.”

“Badly?”

“I have my right shin pressed up against it. It’s sticky with blood, but I’ve got good pressure on it now.” He squeezed her hand.

She poked her head around the rock, trying to get a look at him, but the dark was so deep she couldn’t even see the rock in front of her face.

“Where’s the SD card you stole from me?” Ty sounded as if speaking took effort, but his tone was casual, normal, almost reassuring. His mother was the only other person who knew him well enough to detect the edge of hurt and anger in it.

Treflee didn’t bother with denial. What was the point? “In my hair, safely tucked into my braid.”

“Good thinking.”

A wave rolled in, soaking Treflee’s taffeta flip-flops, splashing and stinging the scrapes on her legs like a brush with nettles. Ty stiffened and squeezed her hand. Hard. She pictured him wincing.

“Salt water,” he said tightly. “We’re going to have to get moving. You know what they say about pouring salt in a wound.”

He was talking about more than his bullet wound. His tone was clear—he was talking about her.

“I was going to put it back. Ty, you have to believe me,” she pleaded, fighting back tears of fear and frustration. “I wanted to see this thing that’s going to save the world. I wanted to know for sure I was making the right choice by giving us a second chance. I was just turning to come back in when Bang jumped me.”

“Yeah, bang! That’s how it felt to me, too.”

The wave rolled out. Ty relaxed the grip on her hand. She kept squeezing. His voice and touch were the only things keeping her sane in the black void. If she let go, she’d lose everything.

“Orders be damned, when we get out of here, I’m giving you that divorce. Who am I to fight the tide?”

“Orders?” She was confused. “What orders?”

Ty laughed weakly and humorlessly. “Emmett’s. Not to divorce. To win you back.”

Treflee felt as if she’d just taken that shot, but to her heart. “Orders? That’s what that was at the waterfall? Orders?”

He didn’t answer.

“Ty!”

“Whatever you want to believe, baby.”

No, she didn’t believe it. Yes, she believed the imperious Emmett would order Ty not to divorce. The man had gall. An ex-spouse was a dangerous loose end. She just hadn’t really thought about it before. But no, she didn’t believe the waterfall was about orders. Or the pearls. She couldn’t believe it or she’d lose it right here and lie down to drown.

Ty was angry. Trying to hurt her. Not that she blamed him. She’d think about it later.

“Can you stand up straight?” she asked him.

He inhaled deeply. “Yeah.”

“And still keep pressure against the wound?”

“I’ll have to.”

Somehow, with a lot of hand-holding and maneuvering, they managed to return to the starting point, which took the pressure off her shoulder. From the relative slack in the cuffs between them, Treflee assumed Ty was leaning heavily on the rock.

“Zulu was right. This
is
porous rock. There should be plenty of footholds,” Ty said. “We just have to find them.”

His hand felt clammy in hers.

“How are you going to climb with one leg pressed against the other?”

“I’ll use my arms. I have plenty of upper-body strength. The legs will just be for balance. What kind of shoes are you wearing?”

She tried to lighten the mood with a little humor. “Is that a dirty question? What kind of shoes are you wearing?”

“Slightly soaked athletic shoes with good treads.” Ordinarily, he would have laughed and flirted back, but instead he remained serious. “Either one of us slips, the other goes down, too. Look how I brought you down when Zu shot me. Shoes?”