“Nothing so mundane. This one is the devil you know.” As he led her away from the door, he quickly related everything he had learned from Turino. The first time he mentioned her grandfather, he sensed embarrassment but he did not give her an opportunity to posture herself as an unwilling member of the crime family, and when the tale turned to satanic monks and unholy relics, her discomfort was forgotten.
“Do you believe any of this?”
“I believe there are some pretty ruthless bad guys who don’t want to let us leave. And the guy leading them is…” He trailed off as they pushed through an interior door to reveal a vast garage, housing several recreational vehicles. In between a twenty-foot ski boat and a brace of Bombardier four wheeled all-terrain vehicles, was a Honda XR650R Enduro motorcycle. The Enduro was a street legal bike designed for off road use, which in simple terms meant that in addition to its heavy-duty suspension and knobby tires, it was equipped with head and tail lights. “I think we just got lucky.”
He had no sooner uttered the words than the harsh crack of gunfire broke the relative stillness inside the garage. Someone was shooting through the door. Capri grimaced at the sound. “You were saying?”
4
The door exploded open and instantly, in a flurry of snapping jaws, the dog pack rushed into the outer hallway. The gunman who had shot the lock open lingered cautiously out of view, but when the expected retort of gunfire did not occur, he edged beneath the lintel.
Kismet hit a switch and bathed the hallway in the glare of the Enduro’s headlight. He and Capri had rolled the motorcycle into the hallway and hid behind the open door long enough to misdirect the Dobermans. Now, with Capri’s arms around his waist and the Colombian transfixed in the blinding beam of light, Kismet stomped on the kick-starter.
The engine sputtered weakly but did not engage.
No problem. Sometimes it takes a few tries to catch. He pushed the starter again… and again.
The gunman, still shading his eyes with one hand, raised the gun and fired blind. The concussion of the discharge thundered in the narrow confines of the hallway. Kismet reflexively ducked and in the same motion, flicked the lights off. After the harsh illumination, the darkness engulfing the small enclosure was all the more profound, punctuated only by the muzzle flash of the Colombian’s machine pistol. Kismet felt something slap his left arm, followed by a blossom of pain. He tried not to think about it.
Suddenly, the engine caught and the roar of the motorcycle drowned out the sound of gunfire. Kismet squeezed the front brake and let the rear tire spin until the smell of burnt rubber overpowered the stench of cordite. “Hang on!”
He let go of the brake and the Enduro shot forward. There was a sickening crunch as the bike struck something, then rolled up and over whatever it was. Kismet didn’t need the light to know what he had hit, but once they were out in the open air, he switched it on anyway.
Sporadic gunfire was still echoing over the treetops, but the ferocity of the initial attack had faltered. The paved drive beckoned enticingly, a two-mile ribbon of smooth road that could deliver them to safety in a matter of minutes, but Kismet instead steered back toward the tree line. The driveway was well lit and would almost certainly be a focus for the Colombian gunmen as they mounted their counterattack. Navigating the horse trails through the forest might take a good while longer, but hopefully it would spare them a trip through the gauntlet.
A path, lined with wood chips, marked the way from the stables to an open field where a steeplechase course had been laid out, and continued around the perimeter to woods beyond. The exercise area was less well kept than the grounds around the house; evidently the current tenants’ hobbies did not extend to equestrian activities. Kismet opened up the throttle to make the crossing as quickly as possible; he knew he would have to proceed more slowly in the woods.
He winced when Capri gripped his biceps, and only then did he realize that she had been shouting something. “What?”
“You’re hurt!” Her small voice was barely audible over the roar of the engine.
“It’s just a scratch! What’s wrong?”
“They’re coming!”
He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and saw two separate sets of bobbing headlights in the vicinity of the garage they had just exited-the quad ATVs. Less distinct were four smaller shapes, moving alongside the vehicles. Kismet bit off a curse as he swung his attention forward and geared down to enter the forest.
The trail started off straight and broad and dived quickly into the heart of the woods, but after a quarter of a mile, the path began to shrink and the canopy of branches drooped down like threatening tentacles. After the first turn, they could no longer discern the glare of lights from the pursuing quads. That was the good news. The bad news was that the trail was deeply rutted, which not only forced him to further reduce his speed, but also revealed that the trail had been used extensively by off-road vehicles. The Colombians had been entertaining themselves during their stay by exploring the horse trails with the ATVs, so there was a good chance that the men chasing them knew these trails well.
Before long, they began to descend along a trail that cut across a hillside which formed one wall of a deep ravine. It was a single track, barely wide enough to accommodate the motorcycle, and Kismet was hopeful that the ATV riders wouldn't be able to follow. At the bottom of the slope, he glanced back to see if their pursuers were still on the hunt, but saw nothing. Somehow, the lack of activity was more troubling than if the Colombians had come charging down the hill. In the absence of any other option, he gunned the bike up the opposite side of the gully.
They were waiting for him at the top.
The Colombians had killed their lights and set an ambush. Their intimate familiarity with the trails cris-crossing the forest had enabled them to circle around to lay the trap. With their engines at a low, quiet idle and no lights showing, all they had to do was wait for the dancing beam of Kismet’s head lamp to get a little closer.
The headlight speared up through the darkness like a searchlight as Kismet reached the crest of the hill and unknowingly entered the kill zone. He was just starting to accelerate when Capri let out a shriek. He felt her hands clutching fiercely at his waist, but then she was gone, yanked backward off the Enduro’s seat. Without thinking, he laid the bike on its side and rolled clear of its uncontrolled slide, just in time to see-barely visible in the impenetrable night-the last of the Dobermans closing on Capri; one of them was already menacing her, with jaws locked around her forearm. It was in that instant that the gunmen sprang their trap.
In a curious sort of serendipity, the attack of the silently trailing dog pack had stymied the careful planning of the human predators. Their weapons were trained on the place they expected the mounted pair to be, not where the encounter with the canines had placed them. When the guns thundered from out of the trees, the bullets came nowhere near Kismet and Capri.
The kukri flashed twice and the Doberman savaging Capri’s arm released its victim in order to emit a tortured howl. Deprived of its forelegs, the wounded animal writhed away in a panic, but its brethren were quick to move in. Kismet grabbed Capri’s hand, and slashed his way back toward the edge of the ravine, even as the two gunmen began to shift fire in their direction. A second Doberman went down, decapitated with a single swipe from the kukri, and then they were gone, tumbling down the steep embankment.
Kismet knew they were a long way from being, both literally and figuratively, out of the woods, but when their downhill plummet ended in a tangle of bruise limbs, he risked a hasty question. “Are you all right?”