Night Game
Page 33
Obviously their enemy wasn’t exactly like Kadan. Kadan would never have opened his mouth and given away his location.
Flame suddenly slammed all her weight against him, taking him underwater. Bullets spit around them, boring through the water like angry bees. The shots had come from above, slanting down, indicating the shooter was in the treetops. She kicked away from the reeds, tugging at his hand to bring him with her. They swam out to deeper water, going against the current in the middle of the waterway as they looked for safer ground. The easiest and most logical thing was to let the current aid them, but the hunters would know and expect that.
The water was murky and it was nearly impossible to communicate even with hand signals so they used touch as they kicked strongly heading around the length of Burrell’s island. They swam for several minutes until their lungs forced them toward the surface. There was no real cover, so both only allowed their mouths and noses above the waterline to suck in the precious air before sliding back down into the depths again.
Twice they came up for air, circling around the island until they were certain they could approach without the hunters’ knowledge. As they began to move into the shallower, reed-choked water, Flame felt something grab hold of her arm. It squeezed like a vise, yanking her down, rumbling her into the rotting debris and muck on the bottom. She actually heard the snap of her bone as the force of the spin broke her arm. All without conscious thought she pulled the knife from her belt loop and began punching the leathery hide as hard as she could with her free hand, the hilt of the knife tight in her fist as she pounded her way up the head of the animal to the top. She sank the knife as deep as she could, going for the eye, driving it deep with every bit of strength she had.
Gator saw the tail of an alligator rise to the surface and then the water roiled and churned, debris, blood, and muck rising like a boiling volcano. Immediately he pulled his knife and dove below the service, his heart in his throat. The alligator was coming out of its death roll, surfacing, jaws still clamped around Flame’s arm, dragging her to the surface with it. She gasped for air, still pounding on the thrashing head. Gator struck from below, slamming his knife repeatedly into the underbelly. The alligator opened its jaws wide and Flame jerked backward away from the bellowing reptile.
Gator caught her around the waist and, kicking hard, took her toward the shore. She was still wildly swinging with her good arm, trying to punch toward the alligator, almost fighting him to go back. “Stop it,” he hissed. “You’re safe, cher. Safe.”
“I’m killing the damned thing. It broke my arm. He can just die for that.”
Gator dragged her up the muddy embankment, through the weeds and brush, a safe distance from the water where he could examine her injuries. She jerked away from him, furious, in shock, blood running into the ground, her feet kicking toward the water as if she could attack the alligator.
He trapped her with his legs, holding her still, tearing his shirt with his teeth. “Stop fighting me, Flame. I’m on your side.” Damn it, Kadan. Where the hell are you? We’re in trouble here. I need a medic now. He tied his shirt around the wound. She was lucky. The alligator had been big enough to have pulled her arm off.
“That hurts. The son of a bitch broke my arm.”
“They hunt for food in the early morning. He’s a big boy and we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hold still. You’re bleeding all over the place. This is going to get infected. You know that. I have to get you to a hospital.”
If she could turn any whiter, she managed. “No. Once I’m in their computer system Whitney will find me. No way. I can handle this. Take me to your grandmother’s friend.”
“There’s no way that attack wasn’t heard for miles. I didn’t mute it and neither did you. We have to move, and we have to move fast. Can you do this?” He used directional sound, throwing voices, the sound of running and heavy breathing to the east of them, trying to buy time.
Flame didn’t respond. She swayed against him, looking pale and frightened.
Gator cursed under his breath, spewing Cajun cuss-words as fast as he could think of them, expecting a sniper’s bullet any moment. She was shaking uncontrollably, in shock and not even realizing it. “Listen to me, Flame.” He caught her face and turned it toward him. “Listen to me. We’re in trouble here. There are several of these hunters and they aren’t just going to let us waltz out of here. I have to find them and take them out so I can get you safely out of here. They’ve probably rigged the airboat, so we can’t use that. I want to move you to a safer place and then I’m going after them.”
She blinked rapidly, her body swaying against him, the fight going out of her. “It hurts like a son of a bitch. Do you have a medic kit on you? If I have something for the pain, I can back you up.”
“I want you to stay quiet. Kadan and the others are on the way and we’ll have help in a few minutes.” He could feel her body beginning to stiffen again. Again there was that brief flare of suspicion she couldn’t hide from him. He couldn’t blame her. Their stalkers were ghosts, unseen, unheard, only felt and that was suspect. He’d called in the others without consulting her and she was extremely vulnerable.
Flame flexed her fingers to see if she could move through the pain. Her arm and hand were useless to her. “Let’s go then. I’ll feel safer a bit farther from the bank.”
Gator hadn’t expected cooperation. She’d lost a fair amount of blood and her arm was definitely broken. The teeth had gone through her skin and, between the muddy water and the alligator’s diet of rotten meat, there was bound to be major infection. She needed medical attention immediately whether she wanted it or not. He didn’t wait for Flame to change her mind, but helped her up. She clenched her teeth, no sound escaping, and it occurred to him she hadn’t made a single sound during the attack.
“Come on, cher.” His tone was on the husky side, but he couldn’t help it. Everything about Flame appealed to him-even her fierce independence and her stubborn streak and her unfailing courage. They moved over the uneven terrain as quickly as possible, her breathing labored and her face twisted with pain, but she didn’t say a word. “This looks good.” It was a small area, covered in brush. Flame would be hidden and he could go on the attack.
Gator helped her settle onto the ground and crouched beside her. “This won’t take long. You goin’ to be all right without me?”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” She waved him off. “Just watch your back.” She didn’t meet his eyes.
He caught her chin. “I’m coming back for you, Flame.”
“I know.” Her voice sounded strangled and she leaned forward to press her lips against his. It was no more than a brief touch, very light, but he felt it through his entire body.
Gator stood up and looked around. Watching him, Flame noted his entire demeanor changed. He looked fluid, powerful, and suddenly very much a warrior, not at all her charming Cajun. His expression was hard. Resolute. His eyes were as cold as ice. He turned and ran lightly through the brush-and she didn’t hear a sound.
What goes unseen, unheard and unknown. Gator repeated the mantra to himself. He was a GhostWalker. It mattered little that the hunter was a phantom. So was he. The bayou was his backyard. He’d been born and raised n these waterways; he’d hunted the islands and gone to school in a pirogue. More than anything else, the woman he was falling in love with was injured and needed his help. He wasn’t going to play field games anymore. Things had taken a serious and deadly turn.
He worked his way back toward the other side of the island where the hunters had been, stopping several times to listen. Sometimes it was the lack of sound that could betray presence. The rain fell steadily, small animals scurried, and the leaves rustled. He couldn’t hear a heartbeat, not even Flame’s and that meant she was shielding the sound.
Dropping into the brush, he used deference tones, projecting the murmur of voices coming from the opposite side of the water. The sound was muted as if the slight wind had picked up whispers. Instantly a hail of bullets from several semiautomatic weapons burst out over the water toward the sound. He listened carefully, trying to sort out the various sounds and which direction each came from.
Gator pulsed high-power, very low-frequency sounds straight toward the shooters, keeping the field narrowed toward the locations he thought each of the men were most likely to be. The sound waves could easily produce blunt force trauma or death to anything in its path. He’d seen the results after he’d lost control once and it had sickened him. He’d promised himself he’d never go for a kill using sound again, unless he had no other choice. He’d never gotten over the nightmares and now he’d be sweating the full force of night terrors after using the weapon again.
He heard the sound of repeated retching, even as bullets slammed into trees all around him. More vomiting. Coughing. Another spray of bullets. The hunters were shooting blind, but their instincts were good. Several bullets splintered tree branches around his head. Fragments of wood embedded in his skin. Gator dropped to his belly and began to worm his way through the weeds and brush toward the area where the most firing was coming from. He thought maybe there were three men, not more than four and at least two of them had stayed close together.
Sound ceased again. The hunters were back in control of themselves and one of them was shielding, masking the heartbeats of his team members in the way Kadan did for the GhostWalkers. The game of cat and mouse had begun in earnest. They all knew it was life or death for them. There could be no mistakes. Gator moved with infinite patience and care, uncertain what he was facing in the way of enhancements.
Peter Whitney had bought orphans from various countries and enhanced them first. No one thought he had tried his experiment again until a few years earlier when he was backed by the military- but they found they weren’t the only ones. There had been a second military team. There had to be a third. Had Whitney created his own private army? It was beginning to look that way. And if Peter Whitney was dead, who was in command and what was the agenda?
Gator sent another blast of sound, along with a silent prayer Flame had stayed where he’d left her and wasn’t in the target zone. He had to keep the hunters off balance, sick, and on the move. He didn’t want to give them a chance to surround him and he wanted to push them toward the marsh, out of the interior of the island. The outer edges of the island were far spongier and more treacherous. His familiarity with the bayou gave him a huge advantage over his enemies.
He pulsed sound through the thin layer of ground covering, looking for what he needed. Setting a trap for psychically enhanced soldiers had to be done with precision timing; the slightest shift in the wind could tip them off, anything could. When he found the spot he was looking for, where the ground was thin and just barely covering the high water table, he worked his way out about ten feet and deliberately twisted a leaf and snapped the tip from a weed. He left a very small drag track, no more than his heel sliding in the mud and a splatter of muck on a rock. He found a hollow reed and cut the ends off right before sending out another pulsing call, this time directing it to the water and shore in search of alligators.
Gator lay in the mud, his body stretched out in the muck waiting. The rain fell steadily adding to the already high water table. Within minutes he heard the brush of clothes against plants. The shield was coming apart as the two men hurried back toward the center of the island. Grunts and bellows began almost at once. The pad of reptilian feet hitting the spongy ground. Snapping jaws. A curse. The protection was gone. He’d gotten lucky. One of the men was the shielder and he was distracted.
Gator sent out another pulsing wave, directed at the alligators in the area. The sound traveled through water and over land herding several of the reptiles right at two of his enemies. Once he was certain he had the reptiles on the move, he sent wave after wave of low-frequency sound to keep the hunters sick and disoriented. The men moved inland, their attention divided between the powerful jaws of the alligators and the continual assault on their nervous systems.
Flame suddenly slammed all her weight against him, taking him underwater. Bullets spit around them, boring through the water like angry bees. The shots had come from above, slanting down, indicating the shooter was in the treetops. She kicked away from the reeds, tugging at his hand to bring him with her. They swam out to deeper water, going against the current in the middle of the waterway as they looked for safer ground. The easiest and most logical thing was to let the current aid them, but the hunters would know and expect that.
The water was murky and it was nearly impossible to communicate even with hand signals so they used touch as they kicked strongly heading around the length of Burrell’s island. They swam for several minutes until their lungs forced them toward the surface. There was no real cover, so both only allowed their mouths and noses above the waterline to suck in the precious air before sliding back down into the depths again.
Twice they came up for air, circling around the island until they were certain they could approach without the hunters’ knowledge. As they began to move into the shallower, reed-choked water, Flame felt something grab hold of her arm. It squeezed like a vise, yanking her down, rumbling her into the rotting debris and muck on the bottom. She actually heard the snap of her bone as the force of the spin broke her arm. All without conscious thought she pulled the knife from her belt loop and began punching the leathery hide as hard as she could with her free hand, the hilt of the knife tight in her fist as she pounded her way up the head of the animal to the top. She sank the knife as deep as she could, going for the eye, driving it deep with every bit of strength she had.
Gator saw the tail of an alligator rise to the surface and then the water roiled and churned, debris, blood, and muck rising like a boiling volcano. Immediately he pulled his knife and dove below the service, his heart in his throat. The alligator was coming out of its death roll, surfacing, jaws still clamped around Flame’s arm, dragging her to the surface with it. She gasped for air, still pounding on the thrashing head. Gator struck from below, slamming his knife repeatedly into the underbelly. The alligator opened its jaws wide and Flame jerked backward away from the bellowing reptile.
Gator caught her around the waist and, kicking hard, took her toward the shore. She was still wildly swinging with her good arm, trying to punch toward the alligator, almost fighting him to go back. “Stop it,” he hissed. “You’re safe, cher. Safe.”
“I’m killing the damned thing. It broke my arm. He can just die for that.”
Gator dragged her up the muddy embankment, through the weeds and brush, a safe distance from the water where he could examine her injuries. She jerked away from him, furious, in shock, blood running into the ground, her feet kicking toward the water as if she could attack the alligator.
He trapped her with his legs, holding her still, tearing his shirt with his teeth. “Stop fighting me, Flame. I’m on your side.” Damn it, Kadan. Where the hell are you? We’re in trouble here. I need a medic now. He tied his shirt around the wound. She was lucky. The alligator had been big enough to have pulled her arm off.
“That hurts. The son of a bitch broke my arm.”
“They hunt for food in the early morning. He’s a big boy and we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hold still. You’re bleeding all over the place. This is going to get infected. You know that. I have to get you to a hospital.”
If she could turn any whiter, she managed. “No. Once I’m in their computer system Whitney will find me. No way. I can handle this. Take me to your grandmother’s friend.”
“There’s no way that attack wasn’t heard for miles. I didn’t mute it and neither did you. We have to move, and we have to move fast. Can you do this?” He used directional sound, throwing voices, the sound of running and heavy breathing to the east of them, trying to buy time.
Flame didn’t respond. She swayed against him, looking pale and frightened.
Gator cursed under his breath, spewing Cajun cuss-words as fast as he could think of them, expecting a sniper’s bullet any moment. She was shaking uncontrollably, in shock and not even realizing it. “Listen to me, Flame.” He caught her face and turned it toward him. “Listen to me. We’re in trouble here. There are several of these hunters and they aren’t just going to let us waltz out of here. I have to find them and take them out so I can get you safely out of here. They’ve probably rigged the airboat, so we can’t use that. I want to move you to a safer place and then I’m going after them.”
She blinked rapidly, her body swaying against him, the fight going out of her. “It hurts like a son of a bitch. Do you have a medic kit on you? If I have something for the pain, I can back you up.”
“I want you to stay quiet. Kadan and the others are on the way and we’ll have help in a few minutes.” He could feel her body beginning to stiffen again. Again there was that brief flare of suspicion she couldn’t hide from him. He couldn’t blame her. Their stalkers were ghosts, unseen, unheard, only felt and that was suspect. He’d called in the others without consulting her and she was extremely vulnerable.
Flame flexed her fingers to see if she could move through the pain. Her arm and hand were useless to her. “Let’s go then. I’ll feel safer a bit farther from the bank.”
Gator hadn’t expected cooperation. She’d lost a fair amount of blood and her arm was definitely broken. The teeth had gone through her skin and, between the muddy water and the alligator’s diet of rotten meat, there was bound to be major infection. She needed medical attention immediately whether she wanted it or not. He didn’t wait for Flame to change her mind, but helped her up. She clenched her teeth, no sound escaping, and it occurred to him she hadn’t made a single sound during the attack.
“Come on, cher.” His tone was on the husky side, but he couldn’t help it. Everything about Flame appealed to him-even her fierce independence and her stubborn streak and her unfailing courage. They moved over the uneven terrain as quickly as possible, her breathing labored and her face twisted with pain, but she didn’t say a word. “This looks good.” It was a small area, covered in brush. Flame would be hidden and he could go on the attack.
Gator helped her settle onto the ground and crouched beside her. “This won’t take long. You goin’ to be all right without me?”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” She waved him off. “Just watch your back.” She didn’t meet his eyes.
He caught her chin. “I’m coming back for you, Flame.”
“I know.” Her voice sounded strangled and she leaned forward to press her lips against his. It was no more than a brief touch, very light, but he felt it through his entire body.
Gator stood up and looked around. Watching him, Flame noted his entire demeanor changed. He looked fluid, powerful, and suddenly very much a warrior, not at all her charming Cajun. His expression was hard. Resolute. His eyes were as cold as ice. He turned and ran lightly through the brush-and she didn’t hear a sound.
What goes unseen, unheard and unknown. Gator repeated the mantra to himself. He was a GhostWalker. It mattered little that the hunter was a phantom. So was he. The bayou was his backyard. He’d been born and raised n these waterways; he’d hunted the islands and gone to school in a pirogue. More than anything else, the woman he was falling in love with was injured and needed his help. He wasn’t going to play field games anymore. Things had taken a serious and deadly turn.
He worked his way back toward the other side of the island where the hunters had been, stopping several times to listen. Sometimes it was the lack of sound that could betray presence. The rain fell steadily, small animals scurried, and the leaves rustled. He couldn’t hear a heartbeat, not even Flame’s and that meant she was shielding the sound.
Dropping into the brush, he used deference tones, projecting the murmur of voices coming from the opposite side of the water. The sound was muted as if the slight wind had picked up whispers. Instantly a hail of bullets from several semiautomatic weapons burst out over the water toward the sound. He listened carefully, trying to sort out the various sounds and which direction each came from.
Gator pulsed high-power, very low-frequency sounds straight toward the shooters, keeping the field narrowed toward the locations he thought each of the men were most likely to be. The sound waves could easily produce blunt force trauma or death to anything in its path. He’d seen the results after he’d lost control once and it had sickened him. He’d promised himself he’d never go for a kill using sound again, unless he had no other choice. He’d never gotten over the nightmares and now he’d be sweating the full force of night terrors after using the weapon again.
He heard the sound of repeated retching, even as bullets slammed into trees all around him. More vomiting. Coughing. Another spray of bullets. The hunters were shooting blind, but their instincts were good. Several bullets splintered tree branches around his head. Fragments of wood embedded in his skin. Gator dropped to his belly and began to worm his way through the weeds and brush toward the area where the most firing was coming from. He thought maybe there were three men, not more than four and at least two of them had stayed close together.
Sound ceased again. The hunters were back in control of themselves and one of them was shielding, masking the heartbeats of his team members in the way Kadan did for the GhostWalkers. The game of cat and mouse had begun in earnest. They all knew it was life or death for them. There could be no mistakes. Gator moved with infinite patience and care, uncertain what he was facing in the way of enhancements.
Peter Whitney had bought orphans from various countries and enhanced them first. No one thought he had tried his experiment again until a few years earlier when he was backed by the military- but they found they weren’t the only ones. There had been a second military team. There had to be a third. Had Whitney created his own private army? It was beginning to look that way. And if Peter Whitney was dead, who was in command and what was the agenda?
Gator sent another blast of sound, along with a silent prayer Flame had stayed where he’d left her and wasn’t in the target zone. He had to keep the hunters off balance, sick, and on the move. He didn’t want to give them a chance to surround him and he wanted to push them toward the marsh, out of the interior of the island. The outer edges of the island were far spongier and more treacherous. His familiarity with the bayou gave him a huge advantage over his enemies.
He pulsed sound through the thin layer of ground covering, looking for what he needed. Setting a trap for psychically enhanced soldiers had to be done with precision timing; the slightest shift in the wind could tip them off, anything could. When he found the spot he was looking for, where the ground was thin and just barely covering the high water table, he worked his way out about ten feet and deliberately twisted a leaf and snapped the tip from a weed. He left a very small drag track, no more than his heel sliding in the mud and a splatter of muck on a rock. He found a hollow reed and cut the ends off right before sending out another pulsing call, this time directing it to the water and shore in search of alligators.
Gator lay in the mud, his body stretched out in the muck waiting. The rain fell steadily adding to the already high water table. Within minutes he heard the brush of clothes against plants. The shield was coming apart as the two men hurried back toward the center of the island. Grunts and bellows began almost at once. The pad of reptilian feet hitting the spongy ground. Snapping jaws. A curse. The protection was gone. He’d gotten lucky. One of the men was the shielder and he was distracted.
Gator sent out another pulsing wave, directed at the alligators in the area. The sound traveled through water and over land herding several of the reptiles right at two of his enemies. Once he was certain he had the reptiles on the move, he sent wave after wave of low-frequency sound to keep the hunters sick and disoriented. The men moved inland, their attention divided between the powerful jaws of the alligators and the continual assault on their nervous systems.
