Page 27 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest

But desperate cries and angry shouts filled the air on the far side of the hill.

“I’m gonna take a look,” Raven said.

“Right behind ya.”

The two operators stayed off the path, stealthily climbing the hill until they crested it, keeping low and out of sight.

A dozen young Hispanic and Haitian girls and women stood whimpering in a small clearing. One masked gunman pointed his AK at them, while another pointed his at a kneeling Venezuelan, likely the husband of one of the women. Two other men were zip-tying the women’s wrists, ignoring the corpse bleeding out in the dirt.

The young gunman in front of the kneeling Venezuelan turned to say something. The Venezuelan saw his chance. He leaped at the teenager and nearly had his hands on his throat when one of the other thugs put a bullet through his skull, dropping him into the dirt.

The women screamed in terror as the gunmen all laughed.

“Apúrate!” one of them barked at his comrades. Hurry up!

When the last girl was finally secured, the lead gunman turned onto a side trail off the main path, no doubt headed in the direction of their own camp. The other killers jammed their guns into the women’sribs and backs and pushed them along in the same direction, cursing and threatening.

The twoOregonoperators knew exactly what unspeakable things would happen to those women—and that was before they would be sold into slavery.

Linc glanced at Raven. She was a total professional. She knew the mission and she knew how to do her job, holding her own in the field as well as any other operator.

But he could see the rage welling up in her eyes.

He felt it in his own soul, too.

It didn’t matter. They weren’t here on a mission of mercy. A base camp of Iranian operators might well be planning a mass casualty event on American soil. It was their job to find that camp as quickly as possible. That was their only job. The job they were paid to do.

But Linc knew that one day he would have to give an account of the life he had lived and the choices he had made, both for what he did—and what he failed to do.

Linc nodded at Raven.

“Any chance you wear a combat leg?”

Raven grinned. “Forgot to pack it.”

“I’ve got the next best thing.” Linc yanked on his leather pants belt and unhooked it. Though he had risked their lives doing so, he had successfully smuggled in a hidden belt buckle knife, which he quickly detached. He held up the razor-sharp three-inch blade.

“One knife, four AKs. Sounds about even.”

Raven frowned. “You couldn’t butter toast with that thing.”

“You’d be surprised. Better get a move on. Follow me.”

16

Linc got to work with the knife, while Raven unraveled her two colorful wristbands, both made of woven paracord. She and Linc discussed tactical plans as she measured out lengths of the high-strength nylon cord and he cut away a three-inch strip from the bottom of his pant leg before turning his attention to a sturdy stick nearby. They worked quickly. No telling how far away the kidnappers’ camp was.

A sudden cloudburst unloaded another deluge of rain. With any luck, that would slow the killers down a bit.

Raven scrambled to the top of the hill while Linc finished up. She was careful to keep her form away from the crest in case one of the killers glanced up and saw her figure silhouetting against the foliage. She stood on the tips of her toes and wiped away the strands of wet hair smearing her face. She saw the tops of the bobbing heads of the kidnappers and their victims snaking down the steep path winding in sharp curves around the hillside. Two kidnappers were up front, two took the rear. The thirteen bound women shuffled and stumbled in between them.

Raven made a quick calculation and scrambled back to Linc, who had finished up his handiwork in just seven minutes flat.

He handed her a club. Linc had found a two-foot stick with three smaller branches at the top. He cut those down and formed a three-fingered prong, then tied a heavy stone into the cleft with the paracord.

She felt the weight of it. Liked the heft.

“Gonna get my Fred Flintstone on. Where’d you learn to do this?”