Quinn shrugged. “Could be. They’re getting power from somewhere. Probably generators venting to the outside to diffuse any heat signature.”
He stopped to readjust Ronnie’s weight over his shoulder. She was facedown, buttocks in the air. His left arm wrapped around the crook of her knees. The posture pressed against her lungs and wasn’t optimal for her injuries, but it was the only way he could move with her quickly and shoot. He not only had to carry her, but he had to check her constantly to make sure she was still breathing.
Another volley of gunfire rattled down the tunnel, zinging off the rock walls with yellow sparks.
“They’re in the room on the left between us and the door,” he said.
“I’m going deaf from all the racket,” Hunt said. “But I think I hear footsteps.”
She did a low quick peek, stooping to thrust her head around the corner for a split second before pulling it back again.
“I count three. They’re inching along the wall trying to work up the courage to rush us.
“Think you can bounce a couple of rounds at them?”
“On it.” Hunt set her jaw and nodded.
She held the Kalashnikov parallel to her chest, with the barrel angled slightly toward her. Thrusting it quickly around the corner, she fired three controlled bursts.
High-velocity bullets shot at such an angle tended to bounce away a few inches and travel in a relatively straight path down a flat surface. A muffled cry came from around the corner, along with the unmistakable clatter of a gun hitting the stone floor.
Seizing the moment, Quinn and Hunt rounded the corner, each finishing off a downed guard. Hunt paused long enough to grab a hand grenade from the belt of one guard as they ran past.
Heavy footfalls echoed up the corridor from the way they’d come. There were cries of protest from the boys, followed by a prolonged volley of gunfire.
“Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that,” Hunt sighed. She looked over her shoulder at the last few pops.
“Must have had orders to silence them if the place was compromised,” Quinn said. Garcia was still draped over his shoulder, her arms trailing down his back. He reached to feel her pulse, inside her pant leg and above her ankle. It was weak, but palpable.
A screaming wind yanked the door from Quinn’s hand as he pushed it open. He turned to Hunt.
“Ready?”
She pulled the pin on the grenade and held it in her hand. “Ready.”
Quinn felt Ronnie stir at the fresh slap of cold air. “Stay with me, kid.” He patted her tenderly on the butt, took a deep breath, and stepped into the darkness.
“We have a saying here in the Stans.” Hunt tossed the grenade into the door behind them as they trotted away. “Caves are graves.”
Quinn charged into the black storm, cutting left toward where he hoped the yurts and horses were waiting. Behind him, the mountain roared. Fire belched from the door. Tiny, slit-like windows glowed like rows of red eyes in the night.
Men poured from the yurts nearest the mountain. They scanned the blackness with feeble beams of battery-powered lights.
Quinn ran on, depending on surprise and night to help his escape.
The horses were right where he’d left them. Rumps turned toward the storm, they munched contentedly on a pile of hay Quinn had dragged from the feed yurt. He lay Garcia on the ground long enough to bring the horses to the leeward side of the structure out of the direct blast of wind. As gently as he could, he lifted Garcia’s thigh over the larger animal’s back. Hunt held her in place while he climbed up behind and let her slump back against his chest. With no stirrups and only a single lead rope from a leather halter for control, the going would be tricky-but at least they were moving. The driving snow would cover their tracks.
Hunt reined up beside him in the darkness on the other runty horse. “You’re going to have to lead,” she yelled above the wind. “I was under a tarp when I came in.”
Two hours later Quinn’s horse slipped. Both knees slammed into the ice with a sickening crack. They were already headed downhill and both Quinn and Garcia tumbled over the animal’s head to land in a tangled heap on the snowy mountainside.
The raging storm and palpable darkness made it impossible to see more than a few inches. Heavy with worry, Quinn reached under Garcia’s shirt to put a hand against her ribs. She winced at the sudden chill. That, at least, was a good sign. He checked the catheter. It was still in place. Her breathing was strained but steady. The biggest danger now was the cold. None of them was dressed for this sort of weather. Without movement to warm her, Garcia’s body temperature was falling fast.
“Put her up here with me,” Hunt shouted. She coaxed her little horse down the side hill below Quinn to make loading Garcia easier. “I’ll try to warm her up while you lead the horse. Looks like yours is a goner.”
The second horse collapsed a half an hour later. Past the point of exhaustion, Quinn stooped to muscle Garcia over his shoulder. He struggled back to his feet under the press of Garcia and the howling wind. Unsure if she was alive or dead, he’d resolved to get her out of these mountains or die along with her. Trudging forward, nearly blind on feet that felt like wooden stumps, he began to hear the sweet notes of his daughter’s violin.
He remembered there was someone behind him, but who they were and why they were there escaped him. His world was one continuous stumbling movement, falling forward, catching himself, then repeating the process over and over again. He’d drawn his hands inside the sleeves of his wool coat, but his fingers were numb-likely frostbitten. He could only imagine what was happening to Ronnie.
Mattie’s violin grew louder in his head. He saw her little face in the darkness, dark hair swirling in plumes of snow and ice. She shook her finger back and forth as if to scold him. Her little cheeks pooched into a disappointed frown. She looked so much like her mother when she did that. Heaven knew he’d done enough to disappoint them both.
Quinn stopped in the trail to stare at his daughter. The sight of her made him warm and sleepy. Something bumped into his back, knocking him face-first into the driven snow and shattering his beautiful vision.
“You smell that?” A voice rose up from the blizzard behind him.
He remembered now. There was another woman with him. Hunt. That was her name. He grabbed for the fleeting thought as he fumbled with Garcia’s arms, trying to tug her limp body back up on his shoulder.
“I don’t smell anything,” he groaned.
“I’d know that stink anywhere…” Hunt shouted. “It’s yak.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Arlington, Virginia
Thibodaux stood beside Palmer’s leather sofa at parade rest, eyes intent on an angry-looking radar image on a flat-screen monitor. “So,” the Cajun said, “we’ve found him then?”
Win Palmer sat behind his desk fiddling with a computer keyboard to zoom in tighter on the image. He put the cursor over a map of western China and the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan, where a red and yellow blotch marched across the screen. Beside the blinking arrow were the letters: LKP.
“His last known point was here.” Palmer used the mouse to wiggle the cursor slightly. “This is where he called in the Hellfire strike. I sent another agent over to talk to Dr. Deuben. She sent them somewhere over here…” He moved the cursor three inches to the west. “… to talk to a Kyrgyz woman about the orphanage.
“And what does this Kyrgyz woman say?” Thibodaux moved up next to the screen, as if closer scrutiny might reveal his friend’s location.
“That’s the glitch.” Palmer frowned. “That red blob there is the storm that’s been dumping snow on the area since late yesterday. We sent a Blackhawk over Boroghil Pass from the Pakistani side. Those Kyrgyz migrate down from the high pastures every year about this time before the big snows hit. There was no sign of the camp Deuben sent them to. They could have already headed down to Sarhad to get ahead of the storm. The Blackhawk had to get back to base before it got caught in a whiteout-no time to do a thorough search. They can barely keep a bird in the air at those altitudes anyway.”