"Well?" The guide asked.
Rebecca checked the ground. There were no shoe prints or indications of which way the pair had gone, so Rebecca chose the largest of the tunnels to go through. It should lead the deepest into the glacier, to where those supposed special runes would be carved.
They hurried down the tunnel, Rebecca only slipping occasionally. The tour leader made sure she didn't fall. He was a pretty burly guy. Nothing compared to Brandt, of course, but who did?
Coming to another fork in the tunnel, Rebecca again chose the larger of the two, and was rewarded by finding Nordic runes carved into the ice. They were on the right track. After several more forks, Rebecca stopped.
"Turn off your light," Rebecca instructed the guide.
As soon as he did, Rebecca noted a glow further down the tunnel. She'd learned the trick from spending so much time underground with Brandt's team.
"Keep it off," Rebecca instructed as she inched forward. The guide tried to pass her, but she grabbed his arm and tugged him back. "We've got to proceed with caution."
"Why the hell should we?" the guide argued.
"It's complicated," Rebecca said, not overstating the situation.
Sneaking up, she could hear the rise and fall of voices. Unfortunately, the words were bouncing off the ice walls, distorting their meaning. Was Bunny begging for her life?
If she was talking, though, she was alive, and Rebecca would take it.
They finally arrived at the mouth of the next junction.
"Oh, this is ridiculous," the guide said, and burst into the large cave.
Rebecca followed, hot on his heels, to find Bunny taking pictures of a large set of runes.
"Rebecca!" Bunny exclaimed, rushing over to her. "I didn't want to wake you, but look what we've found."
Relief washed over Rebecca. She was so glad that her worries were unfounded. "It's three o'clock in the morning," Rebecca chided the younger woman.
"And you?" The tour leader said to the guide. "Do you know how much trouble you are in?"
From the way the younger man's eyes were downcast, apparently he did.
Bunny pointed to the wall. "The Vikings were a chatty bunch, and they insisted on thanking a benefactor who wished to remain anonymous. I think we can guess who that would be."
Glad to be talking ruins instead of a Disciple kidnapping, Rebecca asked, "You've documented it all?"
"Yes, but there must be dozens of these caves. Even if we split them up, it could take us days to document it all."
"Oh no," the tour leader said. "No one is coming back here." The man tried to herd them out. "This area is off-limits to everyone."
"And if we sign a waiver for your company?" Rebecca asked.
The man's eyes squinted. "And pay a fee?"
"So be it," Rebecca said.
The man, again, urged them to the exit. "Until then, you are still my responsibility, so let's get us all nice and safe back to the bed-and-breakfast."
"I'm sorry," the guide said, "But I can't let you do that."
Rebecca's stomach sank as the younger man pulled out a gun. She hated being right. "You're a Disciple?"
"A what?" the guide asked, seeming genuinely confused. "I got offered ten thousand to detain you," he said, indicating to Rebecca. "And five thousand for her. So I settled on bringing you out," he said to Bunny.
Even with a gun trained on her, the redhead's eyebrows shot up. "Settled?"
Brandt shifted on his heels. They had taken up position near the mine's entrance, waiting for the French to attack and distract the guards away from the mine so they could sneak in and set the explosives.
However, there were still a good twenty guards at the entrance. They were going to need a seriously large distraction to get past them all.
The French were going to have to act quickly if they wanted to attack before the sun rose. The skies were blushing a bit of pink at the horizon. He didn't blame the French for waiting until the last moment, since early morning raids were the most effective. Best to attack when the people were in their deepest sleep cycle of the night. Disorienting the enemy was the key to a rescue mission.
Brandt wished the French the best of luck.
A shot rang out from the center of the village, then more. The attack was a go. Brandt nodded for Levont to take them in. Before he could, the little girl stepped in front of him. How could a child dressed in orange keep sneaking up on them?
Brandt passed Lopez, joining Levont at the head of the column. He tried to urge the little girl out of the way, but she refused to move. Worse, a middle-aged woman in bright green had joined her.
"It is suicide to go in there," the woman said, putting her hands on the little girl's shoulders.
"We're used to those odds," Lopez snorted, softly.
"Vakasa wants to show you the way up to a ventilation shaft. You can come in from behind the guards."
Ventilation shaft? This was the first any of them had heard of another entrance nearby. "Your daughter knows the way?"
"She is not my daughter. I am only her guardian., But yes, she explores all around the area. I trust she knows the way."
Brandt did not like using a child, but if she truly knew a back door into the mine, he had to take it. The woman wasn't wrong. Even now, with the chaos in the village, the guards were standing strong at the entrance. They were not being luring into the skirmish. Which did pretty much mean it was a suicide mission, and he had a wedding to get to.
"Lead the way," Brandt whispered, nodding for Levont to follow the child up and into the jungle.
Davidson watched through his scope as Brandt and the rest of the team climbed higher into the mountain. Something had changed, and they had gained two more people. Finally, the figures disappeared into the jungle. He had to rely on heat signatures to tell him where they were going.
With the team safely, for the moment, tucked away on the mountainside, Davidson turned his attention to the mess that was the French rescue operation. The "rescuers" were pinned at the north end of the village. They hadn't even gotten close to where their teammate was being held.
And Davidson would know, since he had scoped out the small hut the soldier was being held. He swung his rifle around to spy though the cutout window to find one of the captors getting ready to shoot the soldier.
He was under orders not to pull the trigger, possibly revealing his nest, until Brandt gave the signal that they were leaving. However, Davidson couldn't allow another special forces man to be shot in cold blood. He felt certain Brandt would agree. Plus, with the raging firefight, who was really going to notice a stray shot?
Lining up the crosshairs, Davidson fired. The captor fell face down in the dirt. The captured soldier looked up, expecting his teammates to come through the door. While Davidson couldn't make that happen, he could help the guy out. Taking another carefully aligned shot, Davidson shot through the chain binding the soldier to the post. Rubbing his wrists, the soldier looked out through the window and nodded his thanks.
Davidson turned his attention back to his team. Brandt and the rest were still hiking upward to an unknown location. Davidson hoped they hurried. The firefight, and the diversion it caused, was dying down rapidly. Especially once the French soldier rejoined his team, they would melt back into the jungle, leaving all eyes on the mine.
Once that happened, any shot Davidson took would be noticed. He could only hope that the little dot leading Brandt knew what they were doing.
"They're on their way," the guide said, his gun hand shaking. This was not a Disciple. This was simply a greedy young man in way over his head.
"The Disciples, the people who hired you, aren't going to pay you," Rebecca explained.
"They are going to kill you," Bunny finished.
Rebecca had been trying to work up to that, but it was true.
"No, they already transferred two hundred thousand into my account as a deposit."
"Which you won't be able to spend, once they dispatch you," Rebecca explained. "Do you think they are going to leave any witnesses to our kidnapping?"
The man had no idea who he was dealing with. He hadn't been hounded across several continents by the religious fanatics.
"Even with a special forces team," Bunny stated, "we barely made it out alive."
"You normally travel with a special forces team?" the tour leader asked.
"Yeah," Bunny answered. "Duh."
And they sure could use them right about now. But Brandt had been in jungle camouflage and had said that he was going to get a good night's rest on the plane, so he was more than likely an entire ocean away. It was just her, Bunny, and the owner of the tour company. Against a man with a gun and a cadre of Disciples on the way. Not great odds.
Their only advantage? The guide looked scared out of his mind. "They just want to talk to you," the man said.
"Who pays fifteen thousand to 'talk'?" Bunny demanded. "They mean to kill you and torture us."
Again, the redhead wasn't wrong, but Rebecca was trying to calm the guy down so she could reason with him and Bunny wasn't helping.
"Let us go, and we won't turn you in."
"Speak for yourself," the tour leader grumbled.
And Brandt would probably hunt the guy down and let him know exactly how displeased he was with the man who had held a gun to his fiancee, but the guide didn't need to know that.
"Just put the gun down, Erik," Rebecca urged. "We can talk this through."
"I can't," the guide insisted.
"Erik," the tour leader barked. "You have to."
"And what?" the guide asked. "Go back to minimum wage wrangling of snooty Europeans and pushy Americans? I need the money. I want the money."
The younger guide's feet took on a stronger stance as he raised the gun higher, his decision made.
"I can't let you," the tour leader said before he sprang forward and grabbed the guide.
The gun went off in the struggle. The tour leader grabbed his belly as blood gushed between his fingers. Bunny used the moment to put an elbow to the guide's nose, then snatch the gun away. Guess Brandt's hand-to-hand training came in handy.
Rebecca dropped to her knees beside the tour leader. "Why did you do that?"
"Just trying to protect the women," the man choked out then spit up blood. "Like your special forces buddies."
The only difference with that was that Brandt would have pulled it off. His act was definitely one that should not be tried at home.
Erik dropped to his knees next to his boss. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean..."
The bright red blood on the ice didn't care what the guide meant to do or didn't mean to do. Rebecca kept pressure on the belly wound the best she could.
"I think I hear footsteps," Bunny warned from the mouth of the chamber. A bullet whizzed past her head, digging deep into the ice behind her. "They are here."
"Erik, help me get him on his feet," Rebecca said.
"There's a small tunnel in the back," Bunny added, leaving the mouth and hurrying across the cave.
The guide tried to help, but the tour leader shook his head. "I can't." Rebecca tried to argue, but the man gripped her arm. "You know that I can't."
Rebecca had seen enough wounds to know when one was fatal. By the man's ashen, gray features, he was not going to recover-and, in fact he would slow them down.
"Give me the gun," the tour leader said. "I will hold them off for as long as possible."
Rebecca would have liked to have argued, but she knew this was the only way. "Bunny."
The redhead handed over the gun. "We've got to hurry."
To Rebecca's surprise, Erik didn't get up to leave.
"Bunny isn't exaggerating," Rebecca urged.
"I'm staying here too," Erik said. "I started this mess. Let me help fix it."
There was no fixing anything.
"That is straight-up suicide," Bunny added. "Once he starts shooting, the Disciples won't stop."
"I know," the guide said. "All's we can do is buy you time."
Again, Rebecca would have loved to argue, but the only slight chance they had to escape was to haul ass now. "Thank you," she said, squeezing the tour guide's hand. "Thank you both."
"Rebecca," Bunny urged from the back of the cave.
As another bullet zinged into the cave, chipping the ice, Rebecca got up and did what she did best.
Run.