The Texan (19 page)

It was a reminder of the differences between them that had brought them to this place. She had lived hand-to-mouth, sometimes not certain where the next meal was
coming from. He had led a privileged life, where every meal was served on china plates and eaten with silver.

“What’s that?” Bay asked, cocking her head.

Owen stopped and listened. “Chopper.”

“They’re getting away!” Bay said, as she ran past him, anxious to discover whether her brother was being flown away in the helicopter.

“Stop! Don’t move!”

Bay stopped, but not before she’d tripped a fragile wire that was stretched across the passage. “Oh, God.” She turned back to Owen and saw from his grim expression that she’d done something awful. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t move,” he repeated.

She waited for an explosion, but it didn’t come. “Why didn’t something explode?”

“You might only have tripped a sensor somewhere that would let them know we’re here. Or the charge might be delayed.”

“Delayed? Then shouldn’t we be trying to get out of here?”

“I want to look around your feet before you make another move,” he said. “Stand still.”

Bay had no idea what Owen was hunting for and didn’t like the “Aaah” sound he made. “What did you find?”

“A timer.”

Bay felt her heart begin to gallop. “How much time is on it?”

“Twenty-nine seconds.”

OWEN WISHED HE KNEW WHAT SUBSTANCE WAS ABOUT TO
explode. Was it plain old TNT? A claymore? Or a VX
nerve gas mine? He had less than thirty seconds to decide whether to give each of them a shot of the atropine-oxime antidote. He didn’t want to waste it now, if he was going to need it later.

It made more sense to run.

He grabbed Bay’s hand, and they dashed pell-mell for the sunlight they could see ahead of them. Owen was doing his best to keep an eye on the ground in front of them, but he missed seeing the second tripwire until he was right on top of it.

“Jump!” he ordered, as he yanked Bay’s arm to lift her over it.

The toe of her boot snagged the wire, and the limestone walls behind them exploded. The force of the blast threw them free of the cave, as crumbling limestone sealed the opening.

Owen wrapped his arms around Bay while they were still in the air and used his body to protect hers as they hit the ground. He landed in lechuguilla, and the thorny spines pierced his back like knives.

But they were both alive.

Owen hugged Bay tight. “Are you all right?”

“I think so. I … Owen, is it possible VX nerve gas exploded in there?”

He lifted her chin and searched her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I feel … odd. There’s something … I feel sick and …”

Owen tensed. “Red? Are you all right?” In a matter of seconds, her eyes had become red-rimmed. Her nose had started to run. She was wheezing.

“Jesus Christ.” It was definitely a prayer. Owen fumbled
in his shirt pocket for the two atropine-oxime autoinjectors.

And found only one.

He tried to catch his breath and realized his chest felt constricted. His symptoms seemed to be a few moments behind hers. Already, she was lying prone, and her muscles had begun to spasm. The VX nerve gas was at work.

She was dying.

Owen looked at the injector in his hand and realized he had to save her. Even if it meant he was going to die.

He tore her shirt open, placed the autoinjector next to her heart, and pulled the trigger. It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the foot-long needle Nicolas Cage had used in
The Rock
to keep his body from turning to mush.

But it worked. Bay immediately started breathing more easily.

Owen staggered upright and began a 360-degree search for the other injector. If he could find it, he might yet save himself. He didn’t understand why he didn’t have more symptoms, why he hadn’t succumbed as quickly as she had. Maybe she’d been exposed to more of the gas. And she was a lot smaller than he was.

But all it took was a drop.

Owen fell to his hands and knees, then collapsed facedown. And realized he couldn’t get up again.

THE ANTIDOTE WORKED SO QUICKLY THAT BAY’S SYMPTOMS
were gone within a minute of getting the injection. She remembered immediately what had happened. It felt like every inch of her body had been pummeled in a boxing ring. It even hurt to breathe. But she had survived.

She rolled over and lifted her head to search for Owen. She saw him lying facedown not far away and crawled over to him, which seemed infinitely wiser than trying to get onto her feet. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the pulse beating at his throat.

She nudged his shoulder and said, “Owen, are you okay?”

Then she realized he was wheezing.

“Owen,” she cried. “What’s wrong? Why isn’t the antidote working on you?”

“Lost … injector … find …”

“Hang on. I’ll find it!”

She shoved herself onto her feet and stumbled toward the area where they’d first fallen coming out of the cave. The sun was nearly down, and the shadows created by the desert plant life made it hard to see anything on the rocky ground. She moved in outward circles, praying that she’d find the injector before it was too late.

She nearly fell as something rolled under her boot. She saw the injector, grabbed it, and ran as best she could back to Owen. At the last second, she realized she needed him on his back in order to put the shot in his heart. She fell to her knees and used all the shoulder muscle she had to heave him over.

He was drooling, and his body was twitching. How long had it been since the explosion? One minute? Two? Three? Was she too late?

“Owen, I’m here. I found the injector. Hold on.”

She yanked open his shirt, put the injector against his heart and pulled the trigger. She held her breath waiting to see if it would work, ticking off the seconds.

Ten. Twenty. Thirty
.

The twitching stopped.

Forty. Fifty. Sixty
.

Owen opened his eyes.

Bay smiled at him. “Those are the loveliest red-rimmed eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Owen managed a wobbly grin. “Ditto.”

“I can hardly believe we survived a dose of VX nerve gas,” she said.

“Thanks to you.”

“And you.” She laid her hand on his heart and said, “I owe you my life. If I hadn’t been able to find that other injector—”

“You did. So we’re even.” He pushed himself into a sitting position and said, “Keep your hands off your clothes. There may be VX residue on them. If we get it on our skin now, it’s lights out, that’s all she wrote, say good-bye, Shirley.”

“How long does the antidote work before you can get reinfected by nerve gas on your clothing?” Bay asked.

“I didn’t think to ask,” Owen replied.

“Then wouldn’t it make sense to take off our clothes now?”

“It would if we had anything to replace them with,” Owen said. “But I don’t see how we’re going to walk out of here barefoot.”

“We won’t walk out of here at all if we get exposed to VX gas particles on our clothing after that antidote wears off,” Bay pointed out.

Owen grimaced. “Strip down to your underwear. Leave on your socks and put your boots back on after you get your jeans off.”

When Bay was done she looked down at herself,
dressed in a plain white bra, torn bikini underwear, and cowboy boots. “I feel like I’m dressed for the midnight show at the Crazy Horse Saloon,” she muttered.

Her mouth went dry when she looked at Owen, who was left wearing cowboy boots and black Calvin Kleins. The knit cotton underwear hugged him lovingly from waist to thighs. He was a female’s fantasy come to life.

They stared at each other, enjoying what they saw. And realizing just how close they’d come to losing their lives.

“You look good, Red,” he said.

“Good and thirsty,” she said, as she realized how dry her mouth was.

“I guess no one heard that explosion, since we’re still here all alone,” Owen said, as he looked around the clearing in which they found themselves. “I lost the Uzi when we got blown out of that cave. Do you still have my SIG?”

She picked it up off the pile of clothing she’d turned inside out and handed it to him. “It was mostly protected by my clothes. Do you think it’s safe to carry?”

“Let’s put it this way. I’ll feel a lot safer with it than without it.”

“I see your point,” Bay said.

“We’re going to need food and water,” Owen said. “We better see if we can find the hijackers’ camp. It’s got to be somewhere close.”

“I don’t usually go calling dressed like this,” Bay said.

Owen grinned. “Me, neither. We can worry about that when we actually find the camp.”

Bay pointed to a spot beyond Owen’s shoulder. “I think we’ve found it.”

Owen turned to look at a distant light that had appeared
in the growing darkness. “I think you may be right, Red.” He leaned a hand on her shoulder to brace himself as he rose to his feet. He tottered like a baby for a step or two, then seemed to find his balance.

“Your turn,” he said, extending a hand to her.

When she was on her feet, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to step into his supporting arms, which encircled her as she clung to him.

She pressed her cheek against his heart and said, “This is ridiculous. We can hardly stand up. How are we going to make it to that light? And why do I have the feeling that if we do get there, we’ll be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire?”

“We don’t have much choice. We need water. That camp is our only hope of getting it.”

They staggered toward the light together, sometimes one and sometimes the other bearing the weight of both.

“How long does it take for the effects of this VX stuff to wear off?” Owen asked.

“I think maybe two weeks.”

“I was hoping maybe two hours.”

Bay managed a smile. “That would be lovely, but it’s not very likely.”

“I don’t think either of us could have gotten much of a dose of gas,” he said. “I didn’t start getting symptoms until you were already down. And I don’t think my symptoms were nearly as bad as yours.”

“I feel as weak as a baby, and I have a headache.”

“We haven’t had much water over the past few hours, and it’s been damned hot. Could be just dehydration.”

But dehydration could kill them, too. Bay hoped the light in the distance really was the hijackers’ camp, and
that they would be able to remain undiscovered and still get hold of some water.

It took them half an hour to walk a distance they might have covered in five minutes if they’d been well. Owen insisted that they stop beyond the glow of the light, which turned out to be a single Coleman lantern set on a folding metal table outside a four-man tent. The entire area was covered with camouflage netting, but beneath that was a layer of something thin and silvery, like tinfoil.

“That’s why heat-imaging radar never picked them up,” Owen muttered. “They’ve got some kind of reflective ceiling over the camp, and the camouflage netting above it keeps them from showing up on satellite photographs. Whoever stole those mines knows what he’s doing.”

“Well, Brophy’s an FBI agent. I imagine the FBI knows all about that sort of thing,” Bay said.

“Yeah. But if these guys are so good at hiding themselves, how did Hank find them?”

“We found them,” Bay pointed out.

Owen shook his head. “They found us. If that FBI agent hadn’t shown up when he did, we’d have stayed on the trail and would probably be halfway back to the Rio Grande Village by now. Instead, we took that little detour, and God knows where we are now. No, there’s something here I’m missing. I wish I could think, but my head’s pounding.”

Bay didn’t suggest the obvious. That the reason Hank had been shot was because he’d recognized one of the hijackers. Maybe one of the FBI agents. Or perhaps Owen’s brother Clay.

They lay prone in the dark, staring at the camp, but Bay saw no signs of life.

“Where are they?” she whispered.

He put a fingertip to her lips, mouthed the word “Quiet,” then pointed toward the tent.

Bay’s eyes went wide as her brother stepped out of the tent. With Clay Blackthorne right behind him.

BILLY COBURN KNEW MORE ABOUT THE MISS
ing VX mines than he’d told the Texas Ranger who’d come asking questions. But he hadn’t been about to accuse his company commander, Major Clay Blackthorne, of wrongdoing, to his brother’s face. Especially when Clay’s brother was a Texas Ranger. Billy knew how the system worked. Clay was a rich man’s son. Billy was a nobody, down on his luck. Somehow, they’d turn everything around, so he ended up in jail.

He couldn’t help wondering what was going to happen when that Ranger managed to track down the thieves and discovered his brother was one of them. The incident Billy had witnessed sure had looked damned suspicious.

During maneuvers two weeks ago, he and Luke Creed had been sent by the first sergeant to pick up another crate of claymore mines. They’d come around a corner and caught Clay Blackthorne talking to a short guy in civilian clothes who looked like a wrestler—all neck, with a face that seemed flattened by one too many landings on the mat. He and Luke had only heard the end of Major Blackthorne’s sentence—“intercept them on the way to Arkansas”—before the major saw them and clammed up.