The Mercenary (22 page)

Everything was quiet.

Keeping Tory at his back, Marc walked carefully toward the stairs. If anyone came now, they would be

in one hell of a bind. There was nowhere to go. The wall sconces, spaced every twenty feet, cast dim

amber light the length of the corridor. While the numerous shadows and recessed doorways could hide

them, they could just as easily hide the tango’s men, too.

He glanced at Tory out of the corner of his eye. Her face was stark white, and her eyes dark and

terrified, but she was on her feet and moving. The automatic hung from her hand—away from her body

as if she felt the damn thing would bite.

He used his own weapon to tilt the infrared up. “Keep it there,” he said harshly. She nodded, gripping

the gun more firmly between both hands. The damned cast interfered with the grip, but at least it looked

as if it was at a usable angle.

The stairs ahead were curved and dangerous, and he motioned for her to stay directly behind him as he

climbed steadily. If anybody decided to come down, they would be at a distinct disadvantage.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the light at the top.

Still moving silently, he motioned for her to follow him as he kept to the wall, heading for the sitting room

where he’d first seen her last night.

Finally reaching the double doors, he opened one and motioned her in behind him, then closed it silently.

The room was empty and quiet as he moved to the door at the other end.

He cursed. The palace was enormous, with doors everywhere and a million places to hide.

Unfortunately that meant there were hiding places for the bad guys, too. The only way out was through

the main foyer and out the front door—if they were lucky enough to pass through undetected. He’d

disabled the motion detector when he’d come in for Lynx, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t some

conscientious guard out there.

He thought of Lynx in the chopper, waiting for them like a sitting duck. How the son of a bitch thought

he could fly in the condition he was in was beyond him. But he wasn’t leaving without his sister.

Marc could understand the sentiment.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. The silk Paisley scarf tying back her hair had slipped, loosening the

long strands, and her eyes were wide with fright. His gut tightened at the smudged tearstains on her pale

cheeks. When she moved the barrel of the gun up a notch and tilted her chin, he almost smiled.

Bowed but not beaten. Damn, what a woman.

Admiration swelled his chest. He brushed the red mark on her cheek with a gentle finger while in his

heart murder glowed like a fiery ember. He was going to enjoy killing these bastards.

Enjoy every fucking

minute of it.

“Let’s go.”

It was one in the morning, the household was asleep and the foyer was blessedly empty.

He heard the

scuff of her shoes behind him on the slick marble as his eyes scanned the wide-open expanse. The heavy

front doors were about forty yards ahead of them. Beyond that was the drawbridge, then the formal

gardens and finally freedom.

Marc dipped his head close to her ear and whispered that they were going to take a chance on cutting a

diagonal across to the door. It was a calculated risk, made even more of a challenge when the scent of

her hair distracted him for a millisecond. Keeping to the walls would give them more cover but would

also take longer, and time was of the essence.

Ready to run, she mouthed. Her magnificent hair trailed down her back, one sleeve of her white shirt

was still pushed up, and Marc could see the bruise made by the needle. A red haze of fury threatened to

blind him. Oh, yeah. He was going to enjoy like hell coming back to take care of those bastards. But first

things first.

Gritting his teeth, he scanned the foyer one last time. Grabbing Tory’s elbow, he sprinted across the

slippery marble tile. He felt her skid and paused briefly to steady her, then dragged her close behind him

again. Heat emanated from her body as she pressed close.

They reached the door and he quickly slipped its bolts. They groaned and rattled, but the door opened.

After a quick reconnoiter he went through first.

In front of them was an immense courtyard. Marc held her back with his arm as he scanned the

shadowy open ground between them and the gate in the far wall.

In the center was an enormous three-tiered fountain. There was no water spouting from it, and the

moonlight glistened off the green moss and slime in the basins. The cover of running water would have

helped silence their progress, but that was not to be.

High walls surrounded them on three sides; the dark windows of the castle were at their backs. The

walls made good, deep shadows and he took her arm, pulling her past the shrubbery along the side of the

castle, keeping in shadow.

She followed him closely, stopping when he stopped, keeping the same distance between them. He

breathed easier when they had traversed the unprotected space between the castle and the surrounding

wall. His feet flattened the tall weeds, making a path through the overgrown garden beside the wall. They

were almost there.

He dared not take the chance that Ragno had snipers positioned in the windows. Tory followed him,

silent except for her ragged breathing.

Her face was deathly pale and streaked with dirt, with strands of hair plastered to her sweat-dampened

skin. Marc cursed silently and nodded toward the pedestrian gate beside the tall portcullis that led

outside.

She lifted the gun in her hands higher. They came to the small door in the wall that he’d left unlocked

when he’d come in. “Almost there,” he said under his breath, pushing it open and pulling her through

behind him. It was too good to be true. Were Spider’s men all so incompetent they hadn’t noticed that

she was missing? Marc glanced at his watch in the moonlight, surprised that it had taken them only

sixteen minutes to get from the dungeon to outside the walls.

The medieval drawbridge spanned the moat, which was more fetid mud than water.

Urging her to move

faster, he sped across the warped wood timbers and toward the gardens and the cover of the trees.

He could smell the rotten stink of stagnant water, his feet biting into the gravel of the driveway. They

would be clear targets, out here in the open. But there was no alternative; they had to make a run for it.

He stopped for a moment to look over his shoulder. “Tory, listen to me. We have to run hard for those

trees over there. If you hear anything—anything at all—ignore it and run faster. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay.” In the moonlight, her eyes were wide terrified pools.

Marc looked at the heavy gun clutched in her arms. He considered losing it so that she could run faster.

But the fact was, whether she really had to use it or not, if something happened to him, she would at least

have a chance of protecting herself. He pushed the laser-sighted gun more firmly into her grasp.

“Remember how to use it?”

She nodded, “Red light, shoot.”

“Let’s go.”

The moon, unfortunately, was almost full and it was as bright as daylight. Her white shirt was a perfect

target as they ran hell-for-leather toward the trees, the crunch of the small stones under their feet

sounding dangerously loud. As soon as they were under cover he would give her his shirt. But first they

had to get there.

The gravel driveway circling the moat was a wide, pale, unprotected swath they had to cross before they

could even get to the shrub-studded lawn and the small forest rimming the estate.

Their feet hit grass as they sprinted for the thick cover of the trees. A high-pitched whine warned Marc a

second too late that their luck had run out. The force of the bullet grazing his forehead dropped him to

one knee. The pain would come later. He ignored it.

Staggering to his feet, he felt the warmth of blood running into his eyes. Tory stopped dead, her white

shirt blinding in the moonlight as she turned.

No.Black speckles obscured his vision.No. “Run like h—” CHAPTER THIRTEEN

GRAVEL CRUNCHEDbeneath the running feet behind them. Jesus. The bad guys were hot on their

trail and closing. There was another ping as a bullet whizzed by and tore up the grass between them. “Get

the hell out of here!” he yelled, as the air near his head parted from another bullet.

He swiped his bloody face with his forearm to clear his vision. It partially worked.

Glancing over his

shoulder he saw a muzzle flash, seconds later a barrage of fire came from the drawbridge. Somehow he

managed to gather Tory under one arm, half dragging, half carrying her, twisting to spray the area behind

them with a violent burst from his Uzi.

A black silhouette tumbled over the drawbridge. The muffled splash of a body hitting the muddy water

was drowned out as another round of bullets ricocheted close to their feet. Grass and dirt sprayed as

Marc pushed Tory forward, his arm propelling her as he returned fire.

“Go, for Christ’s sake.” He hauled her up as she stumbled in the soft dirt, and pushed her hard.

“I’m not leaving without you.”

The fool woman turned back and waited for him as Marc staggered toward her, blood dripping into his

eye. He caught at her cast and hauled her as fast as he could go.

A hundred yards.

Eighty yards.

Fifty yards.

“Go. Go. Go.”

The once-manicured lawn took a beating, sod flying as bullets whizzed too close for comfort. He almost

tripped over a boxwood hedge but kept pushing and pulling at Tory to keep her abreast.

The trees swayed slightly in the breeze, dark branches beckoning when he felt a sting in his leg. Then,

twenty yards from cover, his leg folded under him and he fell to the ground.

Damn. The sons of bitches were in front as well as behind them. Surrounded, outgunned and

outmaneuvered he struggled to his elbows, pointed the Uzi at a burst of light and fired off several rounds.

There was a scream and a thud as someone bit the dust.

The Uzi was good for another sixty-four rounds times three, with the second magazine welded to the

first, but at the rate the bad guys were coming, he would be out of ammo long before they were.

Again he sprayed covering fire into the trees ahead of him. It bought Tory precious seconds as the

shooting stopped for a moment.

Staggering to his feet, Marc was in motion, aiming his weapon in an arc while in a lurching run. He had to

get her out of range and the hell away.

All he could see of Tory up ahead was that damned white shirt through the branches. As he ran he

tugged his black T-shirt over his head. The night air felt good as it cooled the sweat on his body. He

couldn’t feel the wound in his leg, but if he was capable of putting weight on it, it wasn’t broken. That’s

all he cared about right now. Being mobile.

He pulled her down behind the cover of the shrubs. The heavy scent of gardenias permeated the air as

he handed her his damp T-shirt. He blinked away the graying of his vision, doing a quick visional scan to

be sure she hadn’t been hit. “Put it on, and do it fast.” His breath was a choppy whisper. He could hear the goons thrashing about in the trees a hundred feet

away. Not nearly far enough. It was mercifully dark, the tall trees and thick ornamental shrubs hiding

them. But for how long?

Tory pulled his T-shirt over her head, then gave him a horrified once-over. “You’re hurt!” Her cool hand

moved over his face, as if she could fix him with her fingertips. “Oh, God, Marc. You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah, bullet wounds have a tendency to do that.” He dug in his pocket and then grabbed her wrist as

she tried to use the hem of the shirt to stanch the flow. “Here. It’s the ignition key to a Vespa parked off

the main road up there. Go.”

With a jerk of his head he indicated the direction through the trees. “The moped is behind the barn.

Drive it to where I picked you up in the truck, and get yourself to the grotto. There’s no way we can get

to the helicopter now. Alex is waiting for my signal. He’ll pick you up.”

“I’m not leaving without you.”

“You’ll damn well do as I tell you! Move your butt out of here. Now!” The crashing of small branches

drowned out his whispered words as men ran within feet of their hiding place. Marc put his hand over her

mouth as she started to protest.

But she shook her head, her eyes huge over his hand. She wasn’t leaving without him.

When the noise moved away, he dropped his hand and said furiously, “You’re no goddamned hero.

You’ll get me killed if you stick around.”

She flinched, but she answered flatly, “Then we go together. I’m not leaving. Warm up to the idea.”

Marc thought quickly and put a sneer in his voice. “Just because I screwed you doesn’t give you the

right to hang around like a frigging leech. Have some pride, Victoria. I only wanted your body, not a

lifetime commitment.”

He heard the sharp hiss of her breath and pushed harder. “At least Krista was trained.

She would have

been some help.”

He wished she wouldn’t look at him like that and squinted off into the trees. “When I want a woman, it

sure as hell wouldn’t be some mousy little bookkeeper from the sticks.” He looked her straight in the

eye. “Get lost, lady. Your brother’s waiting for you and I have things to do.” Ignoring the way her eyes narrowed and her chin tilted, Marc moved away from her, crawling deeper