Travis Justice (19 page)

* * *

Outside, Ernie carried a squirming Takeo, ignoring his protests, to the fence perimeter. The Rangers and deputies had built a makeshift bridge of heavy logs suspended from the oak tree to make it easier to get past the electricity. Ernie was tall enough to put Takeo on the bridge. He patted the boy's rear. “Go, Takeo. Your mother has one last battle to fight, and then she'll be with you for a very long time. If you promise to be good and stay with that nice lady—” Ernie smiled and gave a cheery wave to Abigail—“I'll be able to go back and help her. Okay?”

Reluctantly, Takeo climbed down the tree into Abby's waiting arms.

* * *

As he climbed down a metal ladder embedded in the limestone, Zach knew he only had about fifteen minutes left before the designated time to cut the power. Ross followed him down, and in the dimly-lit tunnel that seemed to have been carved into solid limestone, they saw two tracks leading away around a curve. They heard what sounded like metal wheels clattering. Down the other way, they heard the shouts of men preparing for battle. It was a universal sound Zach had heard many times before.

As soon as Ross had made it to the ground, Zach pointed toward the tracks stretching away into the distance. Ross shook his head fiercely, pointing at his watch, giving every indication he wanted to follow Zach.

Zach shook his head right back and whispered, “They don't know you're here. Do some intel before they get everything away and figure out how to intercept them. It's obvious they're wheeling all the evidence away. I'd go myself, but I have the katana and I have to get to Hana.” When Ross still hesitated, Zach said more loudly, “That's an order, Ross. My dad gave me authority to lead this op.”

Ross scoffed, “Surveillance only. We both know he didn't plan an incursion tonight. Who died and made you God?”

“Ask Emm that question once you get home unscathed.” Without wasting time with more argument, Zach kept to the edge of the corridor as much as possible and sidled toward the sounds of activity. But he was relieved to glance over his shoulder and see Ross heading the other way.

Zach moved fast and he moved quiet. He made it some way up the tunnel to what appeared to be a crude roundhouse. Inside were carts that looked a lot like mine cars, some disabled and in repair, but a couple still sat on the tracks and were full of various types of drug-making equipment. Workers in white coats, filthy now as they sweated and loaded, labored over the carts. One finished his load and pushed a cart toward him. Zach ducked around the corner behind a rough outcropping. When the cart approached, Zach waited until the worker was even with him and gave the man a karate chop on the back of the head. He fell limp, half in the cart. Zach lifted up his dead weight, putting him on top of the scales and centrifuges.

He did the same with the second worker bee. While he worked, a radio crackled with a harsh inquiry in Japanese. Zach knew one Japanese word and, depressing the talk button, he used it:
“Hai!”
He knew that meant “yes.” The radio went silent. Zach stuck it in his belt, feeling like a carthorse with everything he was carrying. He put the
talk
button on silent, then hovered indecisively in the corridor for a second.

He knew better than to take the katana straight to Kai. But where would he stash it? He was still considering when a man lunged at him around the corner. He was dressed in black, wearing a hood, and armed to the teeth. He barreled toward Zach to engage, but Zach had other ideas. He was taller and used his height to his advantage.

He lifted the katana out of his harness and held it high above the man's head. “Want this?”

When the man reached for it, Zach kicked him square in the solar plexus. With a horrid sound between a grunt and a whine, the man fell down on the floor of the cavern, knocked unconscious. Zach was dragging him up the corridor to the roundhouse when his gaze fell on the man's katana sheathed to his back.

* * *

Inside the cavern, Hana didn't react when Kai ripped off her hood. Their gazes locked. For a moment six years in the making, Hana stared at the father of her child. From her thoughts to her lips, the words took sound and form before she could stop them. “Don't make me do this, Kai. For Takeo's sake, I don't want to kill you. And if you kill me, he'll never forgive you.”

Kai's beautifully shaped mouth took on an ugly slant. “I won't kill you, Hana. But I can leave you so scarred your handsome, rich lover won't be able to look at you.” They'd reached the ring. Kai nodded at his men. One handed her his own katana.

Making a mockery of the courtesy, Kai glanced at his watch. Hana checked her dial, too, and she realized Kai was deliberately delaying his own escape to run out the clock.

He lifted the middle rope surrounding the martial-arts ring to allow her to scoot inside. She did so, but then she looked out at the men in various positions of stealth and defense, still building barricades and readying weapons.

They knew the attack was coming. Kai wanted to be seen by the Rangers when they got inside the cavern because he was timing his escape to engage them a few minutes before the bomb blew. Hence, the barricades, with his men manning them. The other end of the corridor obviously led to another exit.

He'd planned this, too, to kill as many of the combined law enforcement forces as possible. And he wanted Zach to arrive in time to see her scarred for life . . .

While Kai climbed in the ring, she said loudly in Japanese, “He's wired the clean room to blow with enough chemicals to cave in this cavern.” She glanced at her watch. “Forty-five minutes is all you have to live. He's betrayed you all. Escape while you can.”

Kai mocked, “Yes, run.” He pulled his own katana off his back, the wickedly sharp edge gleaming even in the dim lighting. “I would have told you all. It's for them, not us.” He looked at Hana, lifting his blade in a mocking salute, with a bow so slight it was insulting. “Your lover's afraid, Hana. Where is he? My spotters tell me he was in the pasture and disappeared.”

“You haven't asked me about Ernie, have you?” she mocked back, making her own travesty of a salute. “He's escaped, Kai. He has Takeo safe. That's the only reason he came. He played you like a fool. You'll never hold your son again!”

Then she was unable to say more, barely averting Kai's angry lunge as he engaged her. She lifted the blade just in time to defend herself against his right-hand downward slash. Deflecting the steel, she brought her own up in the left-hand upward slice, but he beat her blade away. At the same time, he spun aside so quickly that he was in position to strike her unprotected left side before she could raise a defense.

She felt the blade graze her, ripping a gash in her clothes and slicing into her rib cage, but not deep enough to do any real damage. She began to bleed. But she'd been expecting it when she saw him spin, and given his warning, she knew he'd be going for her face next. Ignoring the pain in her side, Hana lifted the katana with the blade pointing straight up and slammed it sideways as he made a swipe at her cheek.

With a
hiss
, their steel engaged in a stalemate, their blades entangled at the hilt.

Time seemed suspended, and even the men who were preparing for what could well be the last battle of their lives, paused to watch the duel. For
duel
it was; there simply was no other word.

* * *

When Zach finally crept around the corner, having disabled two more of Kai's men as he came, he saw not just a duel, but a battle to the death: The same battle he'd seen in his nightmares. He saw the shiny blood on Hana's side and no apparent marks on Kai. Instinctively, he pulled his pistol, even knowing firing it would reveal his position. He also knew it was only about five more minutes before the power was cut.

As he watched, Hana appeared to stumble as she moved backward, weakened on her left side.

His heart thudding in panic, Zach steadied his aim against the side of the cavern and prepared to fire at Kai's exposed back.

O
utside, John's little army had deployed as he'd instructed. Men were strategically placed all around the grounds—some as backup in the trees and shrubs outside the fence, others massing in several incursion points that would essentially cover the entire possible egress from any window or door of the house.

John, looking at his watch, stood next to the guy with the cutting torch. Zach had refused to take a radio in case it gave away his position, and John had doubted it would work anyway if there was a stone cavern beneath the house. So to coordinate, they could only operate on the original schedule. 0600 ticked to 12 on his watch. He lowered his hand in a slashing movement. The torch cut and they saw the few lights in the house go off. The faint humming in the current fed through the wrought iron died. Just to be sure, John tossed a twig at the fencing. It bounced harmlessly with no sparks.

“Move!” John yelled, and his men poured in, some from the oak tree, others from the rear, pulling out an entire section of fencing with their four-wheel drive truck. And the welder cut a neat square in the fencing near John, allowing the rest of them to stream inside.

* * *

Ross had followed the tracks around a long, curving descent. He heard the sound of water as he neared a growing light and knew he must be near the exit. Just in case, he pulled his Glock as he rounded the last curve. A railed mine car was being efficiently unloaded, the workers so intent they didn't see him. Bags were being piled into what looked like a jet boat, idling on a curve of the Colorado, the driver occasionally firing it up to keep it from drifting in the rough water.

With one glance, Ross saw that the cave had been tunneled to this wide bend in a way nature never intended. Even the cliffside cut had been concealed, by the look of the heavy branches tossed to the side of the exit.

Ross stepped up directly behind them. “Your hands up. You're under arrest.” The driver bleated and gunned the motor. With two shots, Ross took out the two rear engines, leaving the boat adrift. The two workers on the riverbank didn't even put up a fight. They both held up their hands.

Ross cuffed them together. Then he ripped a radio from the belt of one of them and dialed the frequency he knew.

* * *

Inside the ring, Hana was too busy fighting for her life to notice anything outside this little square of reality. She didn't see Zach's hand shaking as he hesitated, his aim true at Kai's back. She deflected yet another of Kai's strikes, but so weakly this time that her blade trembled.

Zach knew if he pulled the trigger, killing her enemy from behind, she'd never forgive him. He also knew it was a coward's act. Any cop who shot a man in the back faced a battery of investigation, no matter the circumstances. But the bitter truth was that his own safety wasn't in imminent danger. Kai didn't even have a gun.

But it wasn't the reality of law-enforcement protocol that stayed his hand.

It was love for Hana.

He loved her exactly as she was, with flaws of vanity and insecurity and stubbornness, counterweighted by pride and honor and bravery. He could not adore her for those gifts, and then deny her the right to use them. He put the gun back in his holster.

This was her destiny, bestowed on her by the honor of many Nakatomis. It was a choice a direct descendant of William Barrett Travis could understand. If he had to watch her die to share that destiny with her, he would do so.

But he could better arm her. Just as he turned toward the rear, he felt something hard and vicious conk him in the skull. He fell, a roaring in his ears, and then he knew nothing. The time on his watch clicked past 0600 but he didn't see it. Or note that he was searched and relieved of his grenades.

* * *

Inside the armored truck, which had been pulled for safety deeper into the trees, Takeo—with several sentries guarding him—was having so much fun watching all the monitors and fancy gauges he forgot to be mad. He comprehended, as only a child of the digital age could, that these weird uniformed men had access to devices even his father lacked. He kept up a spate of questions to the tech operator. That young man tried to answer patiently as he listened to his audible, viewed his visuals, and then recorded and tweaked his equipment as necessary.

Finally, as 0600 came and went, Abigail gently pulled Takeo next to her on the seat. “Let the man do his work, little boy. He's going to help save your mama, so we mustn't distract him.” She patted the “little boy's” shoulder awkwardly when he glared at her.

“I'm not little,” he said sullenly. “I know how to fight.” He scooted farther away on the seat. “My mama told me not to talk to strangers.” Folding his arms over his chest, he stared over her head.

Her hand shrinking away, Abigail cleared her throat a bit uneasily. That stalwart lady, having faced down international drug dealers, murderers, and the occasional lying lover, looked at Takeo as if he had two heads. No glib words would come; for once in her life she was totally at a loss.

* * *

Outside, John's men approached the compound in crouching, zigzag patterns, expecting fire to rain down on them from every position. No response but eerie quiet. When they reached the house, they saw metal shutters lowered over every possible opening. They tried firing at the bottom where the latches should be, but dangerous ricochets made them stop.

“Holy hell,” John muttered. “This stuff is bulletproof.” He grabbed the radio at his belt, but before he could call for the cutting torch, it crackled.

A familiar voice said through static: “John?—there? It's Ro—” John tweaked his radio and Ross's voice came in more clearly. “I'm here, Ross. Have y'all set off the flash bangs and tear gas? We're trying to get inside, but the bastard's wrapped up tight behind heavy metal shutters.”

“Forget the front of the house,” Ross said more clearly. “Go to the old windmill. There's a hatch that leads straight down. A left takes you to a hole in the hillside to the Colorado. He was loading everything to make a clean getaway. There's a jet boat drifting downstream loaded with evidence. I disabled it. A right takes you into the main cavern.”

John looked at the head of the Travis County SWAT team. He nodded and used his own radio to call for a chopper.

“Where's Zach?” John demanded. He, along with the rest of his team who obeyed his arm wave toward the windmill, ran as fast as he could away from the house toward the whirring blades of the old-fashioned water windmill.

“He went the other way. I haven't heard any gunfire or explosions. He went to find Hana.”

“Why hasn't he deployed the grenades?” John's heart was beating fast now, and not with exertion.

“I don't know,” Ross said curtly. “I'll make my way back into the main cavern from this end as soon as someone takes these guys into custody. Over and out.”

* * *

Meanwhile, once Ernie was sure Takeo was safe with Abigail, he'd given her a cheery wave and moved back toward the hatch. He hesitated. The entire cavern would soon be crawling with law-enforcement personnel and he knew Zach must already be there, doing what he could to help Hana.

Ernie had debated following, but he knew his skill set was most valuable in another area. It would aid the entire incursion more than just another set of... feet. Ruefully, Ernie looked down at his hands in the growing light, hoping he could type.

Then he turned toward his own bedroom window. He'd planned this, just in case, during one of Kai's drills. Ernie drew back his long leg and kicked high and true. The bolts he'd loosened at the bottom gave way as the metal bent. Another couple of kicks and he could squeeze inside.

* * *

Inside the ring, Kai had just made a lucky strike at Hana's right cheekbone, enough to barely graze her, when his movement in the ring led him around enough to see Zach's inert form and his jubilant sentry, his hand cradling an obviously sore stomach, standing over him. Breathing heavily, Kai stepped back, allowing Hana to swipe at the blood on her face with her sleeve. “Do you want to stop? Do you yield Takeo and the blade to me?”

“You can cut off my nose and both my ears, but I yield to you neither,” she said between deep breaths. She was breathing more quickly than he was.

He turned away, hiding his smile of glee. If his men could hold off the approaching cops and Rangers—he glanced at his watch—for another twenty minutes, he should be able to get away with his cash just as the bomb blew, burying them all. He'd save as many of his men as he could, but they had sworn loyalty to him until death, and he would hold them to it. He already had plans in motion to get Takeo back. There had been a flicker of light when the power was cut, and then the backup solar generator came on, powering only the interior of the house and the most strategic lighting and systems inside the cavern.

The assault had begun. Their timing was perfect.

Kai looked around to be sure his men were in position, but then frowned. He saw the barricades, but no one peeking above them. He peered down the corridor, expecting to see rifles braced against the cave walls, but there was nothing. He saw no evidence of activity except for the three guards around the prone Ranger.

Kai was perturbed, wondering if he'd forgotten part of his own strategy, but for now he was too busy to chastise the laggards. As for Hana . . . of her fate he would not think. He'd rather leave her marked for life, missing her son, than leave her to be killed in the cave-in, but for now, the blade had to be his priority.

He jumped down from the ring, ordering his men to keep Hana where she was. Several AK-47s pointed in her direction, but she was bent over, her hands on her knees, gasping for breath, and scarcely seemed to notice.

Then Kai was standing over Zach's inert form. He kicked him in the side. Zach groaned, and his eyes opened, uncannily blue in the blacking on his face. He blinked rapidly and then focused on Kai's face.

For good measure, Kai kicked him again. “Give me the blade, or die.”

Zach sat up, groaning, and pulled the red-wrapped katana from the side of his harness. He offered it to Kai, as if terrified. Kai noted his guns were missing and he saw the grenades his men had moved out of Zach's reach. He accepted the blade, totally distracted by the feel of it. A split-second later Kai realized his men had missed one of Zach's defenses when they frisked him because he'd been lying on his back.

With a speed that shocked Kai, Zach pulled a wicked knife from his back sheath and stabbed the knife in Kai's black-slippered foot. He drew it out to stab again, but one of his men grabbed the knife first.

Immediately, guns pointed at Zach from every quarter, and the knife was turned back on him.

But Kai held up his hand. “No! It's just a scratch. I want him to watch what I do to her. Guard him.” They hauled Zach to his feet, guns jabbing into him from both sides. The man Zach had disabled earlier was on his right, half turned so he could watch the action in the ring.

Despite his bravado, Kai limped slightly as he walked back toward Hana. As he went, he removed the red silk from the katana, baring the unremarkable black-lacquered sheath.

Just as he reached the ring and bent to climb inside, Zach stomped his foot down on the foot of the man to his right, simultaneously jabbing his elbow into his other assailant's side. When both men stumbled, the assault rifles lowering, he wrenched the real Nakatomi blade from his old foe's sheath. With him bent in pain, it was easy to grab.

He yelled, “Hana! Catch!” and tossed the heavy blade into the ring.

It landed at Hana's feet. Then everything happened at once.

* * *

Inside the ring, Hana looked up, seeing Zach for the first time. She realized Zach must have switched the blades when he'd fought with Kai's second in command, knowing the man would return to his master. She saw Kai limping and Zach grabbing at an assault rifle. She tried to warn him about the bomb, but before she could speak, Zach was too busy to listen. He was struggling with both his assailants, managing to kick one rifle away, but the other moved dangerously close to his side. Then a third man walked up behind him and whacked him on the skull with the butt of his gun. Again, Zach went down, and this time he stayed down.

Hana looked at the black sheath at her feet, the hilt slightly exposed as it loosened in its casing when it landed. She recognized it immediately and was able to grab it and unsheathe it just as Kai climbed through the ropes.

Hana only had time for one worried look at Zach's long form before Kai was inside the ring.

He was white with fury, and she saw from his expression that he, too, had read Zach's switch too late to stop it. He drew the katana in his hand free of a very similar-looking sheath. It was a good blade, but not remarkable.

He looked at Hana, and finally, there was death in his eyes. “Give me the blade, you bitch.”

With her family's legacy in her grasp, Hana stood straight, stronger and somewhat rested. “Come and get it.” The blade gleamed as she held it in one capable hand.

* * *

John and his men were moving as quietly as they could down the corridor toward the noise they could hear. He'd sent five deputies in the other direction to relieve Ross, but most of his force would be needed to fight against Kai and his men.

John was still worried because he saw no evidence of either tear gas or flash bangs. That meant Zach had been captured, killed, or disabled.

His cheek working, John pulled off his gas mask. At his gesture, they all removed their masks. Moving even more stealthily, they separated into two forces, one along each wall.

They'd only gone a short way around another curve when they saw black-garbed men walking toward them. The Rangers raised their guns and to their shock, the men—silent as wraiths—dropped their own weapons one by one at their feet and raised their hands.