Jericho did a quick peek outside the door. The hallway was empty for the time being, but it was sure to start raining guards soon enough. He’d counted at least seven when they’d first entered the mountain school-and that didn’t count the men outside in the yurts.
He stooped to cut the woman free with his Swiss Army knife, taking stock of the room as he worked. Three guards and two boys lay dead. Kenny’s scalp was awash in blood and Alan Alda still bantered away on the episode of M*A*S*H.
“Quinn, U.S. Air Force.”
“Karen Hunt,” she said. “Civilian, attached to the Army.”
“Can you walk on your own?” he asked.
“I’m fine.” Hunt rubbed circulation back into her wrists. “Your friend’s not so good, though.”
Quinn handed Hunt the AK. “Mind watching the door?”
The woman nodded, checking the weapon as if she had handled one many times.
Garcia stood, swaying slightly in the center of the room. A quizzical look crossed her oval face.
“Ronnie?” Quinn grabbed her by the shoulders. “Are you hit?”
She shook her head slowly, not sure herself. Blinking, she twisted, reaching over her shoulder to claw at her back.
Quinn’s eyes fell to the dead boy who’d been killed by one of the guard’s stray fire. To his horror, the grimy hand held a sharpened metal spike just larger than a number-two pencil. Garcia followed his gaze down to the weapon, realizing what had happened at the same moment as Quinn.
Her knees buckled and Jericho lowered her to the cushions the boys had been using to watch television. Gasps and muffled croaks escaped her trembling lips as she strained to speak. Frothy pink blood pooled on her tongue.
“How we looking at the door?” Quinn pulled Garcia toward him, rolling her on her side. He tugged up her coat. Her head lolled as he yanked the back of her shirt out of her wool pants and pulled it up over her head. She shuddered in his arms as he searched frantically for a wound.
Hunt shot a quick burst down the hall and got a string of return fire. “Doin’ just fine over here,” she said.
Quinn gave a withering look to the boys, who cowered less than ten feet away, backs to the wall. It occurred to him that more than one might have a homemade weapon.
“Are you all ready to die today?” he said.
They shook their heads emphatically. Even zealots need time to work up to the task of martyrdom-especially zealots in embryo.
He swore under his breath when he found the place where the spike had punctured her skin. Nearly the size of a dime, the wound was below her right shoulder blade in the pale flesh left by the tan line of her bikini top. Bubbles of pink blood oozed from the wound.
“Sorry, Ronnie,” Quinn said though clenched teeth. “I have to leave you on your stomach for a minute.”
Garcia nodded weakly. Her breath was reduced to shallow, labored croaks.
“Did it get a lung?” Hunt asked. She was barefoot and the translucent white robe did little to hide the swells and creases of her otherwise naked body. But she moved like a professional and the way she handled the AK was an intimidating sight.
“Afraid so,” Quinn said. He fished a black Cordura wallet from the cargo pocket of his pants. It was a simple wound kit he’d carried with him everywhere since his first deployment. It contained just four items-a windlass tourniquet he could apply by himself, a foil envelope of QuikClot, a 14-gauge needle, and an air-tight Vaseline bandage.
He ripped the seal from the bandage and applied it to the wound. It stuck well to the smooth skin over Garcia’s back, sealing the entry point.
Her eyelids fluttered when he rolled her over on the cushions. She struggled, mouthing something. Her eyes shot frantically around the room. Her hand came up and brushed his face, pulling him to her.
“West… Tex… Wes…” She swallowed, her windpipe arched unnaturally to one side. Her chest heaved in a futile effort to draw air.
Quinn touched her lips to shush her, then bent to put an ear to her chest. Her heartbeat was barely audible. Even with the seal, she struggled to breathe.
He’d seen it before.
“Okay, kiddo,” he said, trying not to sound as grim as he felt. “You’ve got an air pocket building up in your chest. I have to give it a way out or it’ll kill you.”
She nodded. Glistening eyes stared up at the stone ceiling.
“We still good back there?” Quinn asked over his shoulder. He popped the top on the red plastic case containing the fourteen-gauge needle. Anything he did for Garcia would be short-lived if they were overrun by guards.
“We’re good for now,” Hunt said. “But they’re working themselves up for an assault. We should move as soon as you get her stabilized.”
Ronnie’s eyes fluttered. A trickle of foamy pink blood dripped from blue lips.
“Stay with me, Veronica.” Quinn held the three-inch needle between his teeth while he wrestled her sports bra over her breasts and under her armpits. He drew a mental line from her right nipple up to her collarbone. Staying outside that line to be sure he cleared her heart, he inserted the needle between the second and third rib.
It went against human nature to stab a friend-especially a wounded one-but an instant after he felt the tiny pop that indicated the needle had pierced the chest wall, he heard a hiss of escaping air. Ronnie drew a deep breath as if she’d just broken the surface from a long underwater dive. She smiled softly as the color returned to her face. Her head lolled to one side, exhausted.
Quinn withdrew the needle, leaving the plastic catheter in place to let air escape. He pulled her sports bra back down, praying the tight but breathable Lycra would hold the catheter in place long enough to get her out of the mountains.
Quinn hauled the unconscious Garcia over his shoulder, then looked up at Hunt.
“Ready?” he asked.
“One minute.” She turned to a tall boy wearing a wool sweater and heavy sweatpants. “Gary, throw me your clothes.”
The boy glanced sheepishly at Kenny’s bloody face and stripped off his clothes. He threw them to her, sneering. “Bitch!” he spat.
Hunt snapped her fingers. “Shoes and socks too, kid.” She slipped the boy’s green army sweater over her white robe, tucking the flowing end into the sweats before putting on the shoes. She picked up two AKs, slinging one, and stood at the door.
“Now I’m ready,” she said.
“CIA?” Quinn said. “You’re the one who left the blood chit.”
“That’s me,” Hunt said. She turned to stare at the remaining boys.
“Where is Sam?” she spat.
They stared back with the maddeningly blank faces that only preteen boys can muster.
She threw the rifle to her shoulder, aiming in.
“We don’t know,” Gary stammered, hands folded across the crotch of his dingy shorts. “Kenny told the teachers he was starting to like you and they took him away.”
“We haven’t seen him since,” Kenny said, through swollen lips.
Hunt stood, aiming the rifle, chewing on her top lip. “These boys stood by and cheered while my friends were murdered. They’re screwed up for life. I should shoot them all right now…”
“Knock yourself out,” Quinn said. “But whatever you’re going to do, do it quickly. We gotta get out of here.”
He was pretty sure she wouldn’t shoot unless the kids attacked. As a CIA para, she’d been extremely well trained. From his experience, well-trained people didn’t talk much about killing. When it needed to be done, they simply did it without wasting a lot of breath.
Hunt kept the boys covered as she backed toward him, taking up a position beside the door. “I sure as hell hope they follow us.”
They made it down the hall as far as the T intersection where the side shaft and the main corridor connected. To their left, a row of metal barrels lined the dark tunnel that led deeper into the mountain.
“You think that’s fuel oil?” Hunt whispered, nodding toward the barrels.