Panicked. They didn’t even understand they held the better ground.
“Hey!” Guttural shouting rang out. “I foun’ dis!”
Alicia moved again, tree to tree, gaining ground. The slope was steep and still hazardous. She stepped over roots and ankle-breaking delves in the earth. A bullet smashed into the tree trunk at her back, the impact passing through her body with a judder. Russo followed, firing constantly. More screams. She peeked around the rough bole and spied the next haven — a body-length delve in the rock. She ran, fired and dived headlong, twisting her body to the shape of the delve and rolling inside. Bullets pounded the area around her. The pirates were slow, but they caught up eventually. Russo took a slightly different route, moving ahead now and making sure she knew it.
“Wanker,” she mouthed and rolled to view her next piece of cover. She saw Healey and Caitlyn moving up the hill too, heard Jensen’s attack, saw Crouch carefully aiming and picking off the more reckless pirates. Already, they were clearing a gap.
Alicia rose and ran. Two trees this time, and the last before the top of the hill, which now lay about fifteen feet above her. A pirate charged recklessly, cleaver and rifle held above his head. Alicia could hardly believe his stupidity until spotting the fevered light in his eyes; then took a second to put him out of his misery forever. There was no place in the world for men that shunned compassion, that reoffended their sins without remorse or regret, that cared nothing for humanity.
She spied more cover, probably the last before the summit, but it was good. A cave, a yawning mouth large enough to admit a crouched woman. She had no intentions of exploring, but could use it to make ready for the last assault. Firing now she ran, heard a bullet whizz past her head and another strike a tree three feet to her right. Not great shooting but these guys were more likely to hit her by accident as they aimed for Russo or even Crouch back down the hill. She saw three more fall and roll toward her. Russo knocked down another, now only three steps ahead. The man looked pissed.
Alicia gave him the finger and rolled to her cave; striking a rock with her knee and feeling the fire. She grunted. Dirt rolled off her body. Her tendons ached from the strain and her head hurt with the constant focus required to pull this off. Heat caused sweat to drip into her eyes which she wiped away with earth-caked fingers.
She took a last look at the summit. Glanced over at Russo. “We ready?”
Down the hill Healey and Caitlyn were advancing more slowly, but thinning the herd just as proficiently. Crouch hadn’t moved but looked ready, still dispatching the pirates. To their credit the men above had finally realized they were sitting ducks, ranged in a circle as they were, and had found several areas of shelter. But the team — and Jensen’s — had taken a fair portion of them down.
Alicia fired above and ran, taking a snaking route and laying down her own cover fire. Crouch helped. And then Russo, doing the same. Bullets shredded the earth at the top of the hill and any foreheads that were crazy enough to pop up. Alicia pressed on, confident she could reach the top before her mag ran dry and already thinking about drawing the handgun. She saw several dangers; pirates to the far left of her trying to crawl into better positions. She diverted her spray momentarily. A head popped up, dispatched by Crouch. She approached the very summit now, ready to engage.
A root caught at her ankles, sending her headlong. She held on to her gun and turned the sprawl into a roll, managing to spin her body right over the curve at the top of the hill, coming around on flat ground and with a full view of the wide, level summit.
She’d left two pirates at her back, but Russo came bounding over the top and soon dispatched them. Alicia took the moment to take it all in. The outlandish tree stood at dead center, a gray, deformed phenomenon. Several figures dug all around it and the pirate leader stood up to his waist in a wide hole, head bent and only his bare back showing. Two pirates sat with their backs to a tree, talking and smoking, guns at their sides, adding to the confusion and sheer peculiarity of the scene. Twelve pirates ranged around the lip of the hill, most now turning their weapons toward her and all at the same time.
Jensen and his three lieutenants burst over the other side of the straggly rim, snagging attention.
Alicia and Russo ran hard for the center of the hilltop, the only logical way to go since it would stop the pirates from shooting as they neared their own men. Healey then crested the brow, Crouch a few steps back. All four of the Gold Team opened fire and felled pirates. The leader popped his head up from the hole and the rest of his body followed.
In his filthy hands he held a strongbox.
Alicia felt her heart drop and her stomach lurch as she leapt into the fray. Jensen ran in from the right with just three men now, the stress showing clear across his face. The assault on the hull had decimated his force, or perhaps some of the mercs had deserted, preferring not to risk suicide.
Whatever it was, Alicia grabbed the shoulders of the pirate in front of her, knowing he would use his machete to attack. She shimmied her body aside, saw the blade pass by, then headbutted the man, spun him to the side and kicked him to the ground. Another came at her, gun up. Alicia ducked low, then came up hard, head under his chin so forcefully she lifted his feet a foot off the ground. He fell hard, unconscious.
Pirates still ran at them from all sides. She dropped her expended rifle and slipped out the all-black Walther. Two men fell, the third barged into her, knocking her off her feet. Alicia rolled and struggled, finding it hard to get a grip of his bare, sweaty skin. Then she saw his hair flapping around in a thick bob and grabbed a handful, jerking it as far back as she was able. He cried out, striking ineffectually with a knife. Alicia shot him and rolled away, rising to her feet.
Only a few strides from the pirate leader now.
Russo came past her. Healey covered Jensen and his three cohorts, who fought the last of the pirates on that side, not as efficiently as the Gold crew it seemed.
The pirate leader held the strongbox above his head. “Wait!”
Clods of earth dropped from his arms and shoulders and the box itself. His face was filthy, his hair hanging rank. Two men lay dead at his side, blood seeping into the grass that surrounded the lifeless tree.
Russo came close to the edge of the recently dug hole. Others lay around with pirates half-crouched inside, hands black with dirt. They had assailed the area fast and hard, mindlessly it seemed. But their frenzied efforts had paid off.
“Wait,” Crouch echoed as he came over the brow of the hill, weapon aimed steadily at the leader’s heart. He brought Caitlyn with him, who moved over to Healey’s side and pointed her small Glock at Jensen.”
“We have to know what’s in that box.”
“Then wait,” the leader of the pirates repeated.
Alicia raised her gun.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Tension formed a net over the hilltop as concentrated as a localized rain shower. Dozens of pairs of eyes flicked from one face to the next, one trigger-finger to another, evaluating each scenario and every chance. The pressure and friction grew so thick it might form lightning over the warped sentinel that towered above and bore witness to it all, but lightning would never dare strike such a custodian for fear of what it might uncover.
Because the tree still existed at all, it had to exist for a reason.
Ghost Island, Alicia thought as she assessed every angle. Well, now you have a far larger membership.
She saw the remaining half-dozen pirates lower their guns. Saw the leader unarmed and unprotected in the hole. Watched as one of Jensen’s lieutenants — Forrester she thought — drew down on Healey and fell with a hole through his chest. That left Jensen, now angrier than ever, and two men. She saw Crouch advancing from the corner of her eye, heading straight for the strongbox. She saw Jensen strain his every sinew to get a better view. Silence descended again for a long minute.