“Napoleon is planning to kill Plato and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and take over the Family,” Cindy explained.
Tyson grinned. “You must have misunderstood. The only one Napoleon wants to kill is Rikki, that bastard.”
“What?”
Tyson’s face clouded with anger. “Napoleon told me how Rikki has been bothering you! Why wouldn’t you confide in me? I can help you, you know. I won’t let the son of a bitch get his hands on you!”
“Ty, Rikki hasn’t…”
“Napoleon told me all about it,” Tyson said, cutting her off. “About how Rikki wants you to go to bed with him, how he’s been pressuring you to give in or he’d kill me. Well, just let the prick try!”
Comprehension flooded her mind, and Cindy gripped him by the shoulders. “Ty, calm down. Listen. Napoleon lied to you…”
“But…”
“He… lied to you,” she reiterated, her voice rising. “He is using you to get at Rikki. I give you my word, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is not trying to force me to have sex with him. He would never do a thing like that. And besides, don’t you think I’d come to you if I really was in trouble? I’d tell you about it, and we would probably go to Blade or Hickok and let them know.
They’re our friends. What do you think Hickok would do to anyone trying to do what you said Rikki is supposed to be doing?”
“Put a bullet in his head,” Tyson answered thoughtfully.
“Right. So there’s no reason why I wouldn’t confide in you, is there? Not when we both know we could count on Blade and Hickok to help us. Do you agree?”
“Yeah…” Tyson concurred, her logic making an impression.
“So when Napoleon claimed I wouldn’t tell you,” Cindy said, her features reflecting her affection, “why the hell did you believe him, Ty?”
Tyson seemed confused. He vigorously shook his head and held his hands out, palms up. “I… I don’t know, Sis. It made me so mad when Napoleon told me, I wanted to kill Rikki. I wasn’t thinking. Napoleon said you wouldn’t tell me because you were afraid I’d do something rash and Rikki would kill me. I don’t know Rikki that well. For all I knew, it could have been true.”
“I bet Napoleon had a way you could do something about it,” Cindy surmised.
“As a matter of fact,” Tyson stated slowly, “he did.”
“What was his plan?”
Tyson’s anger was building again, only this time at the realization Napoleon duped him. “Napoleon said he knew this spot Rikki goes to sometimes to be alone. He said we should confront Rikki, and he offered to give me a gun for protection.”
Cindy’s mind raced as she tried to deduct Napoleon’s true motive. “I’ll bet Napoleon planned to shoot Rikki and lay the blame on you. He’d probably kill you too. He wouldn’t want any witnesses.”
Tyson rose, his eyes blazing. “That prick!” He looked at Cindy. “What do we do now, Sis?”
“One thing’s for sure,” Cindy said as she stood. “We can’t afford to wait until Blade and Hickok come back. Napoleon is too dangerous. There’s no telling what he may do.”
“But how can we stop him?” Tyson asked.
“We can’t,” Cindy declared. “But I know someone who can.”
“Who?”
“Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.”
Chapter Thirteen
The first and second floors of the Kalispell Regional Hospital were uninhabited.
Geronimo, standing in the stairwell between the second and third floors, paused, debating his next move. He’d spent the better part of the afternoon painstakingly searching the first two floors of the hospital, and there was still no sign of whoever was lurking in the upper stories.
Apparently, whoever it was knew they had been spotted and had seen him enter the hospital to investigate. He leaned over the ring and peered up the darkened stairwell. Either his quarry had used another exit, or they had gone higher, believing a lone man wouldn’t be foolish enough to pursue them.
How he missed Blade and Hickok! As Alpha Triad, as a functional fighting unit, they relied on one another for support and assistance. You didn’t worry about covering your back because you knew someone else was doing it, someone who would gladly give his life to defend your own.
Now, alone in hostile territory and probably outnumbered, he considered returning to the SEAL. The further he ascended, the more vulnerable he became.
He didn’t like it one bit.
Something scraped against a metallic object above him, the slight noise the equivalent of a thunderclap in the deathly silence of the musty stairwell.
Someone was on the stairs above him!
Geronimo crouched and slowly climbed the steps, one at a time, his eyes alertly probing the shadows for movement.
The stealthy pad of a foot on concrete reached his ears.
They were close!
Geronimo leaned against the wall, blending his body into the stygian inkiness of a recessed corner.
Was it someone coming down to see if he was still in the building?
The waiting was nerve racking, the seconds seeming like hours.
Geronimo pointed the FNC at a stretch of stairs descending from the third floor. If someone was coming, it would be his first…
A black form materialized on the stairs, the vague shape of a man in discernible contrast to the dusty paleness of the concrete steps.
“Don’t move!” Geronimo shouted.
The figure above him snapped three shots in the direction of the yelled command. One of the bullets struck the wall inches from Geronimo’s head.
Geronimo fired a short burst from the FNC, the slugs ripping into his target and flinging the man to the steps.
The man gasped once, then tumbled down the stairs. A pistol fell from his hand and clattered to the landing.
Geronimo cautiously moved to the body and knelt over it. He could hear the man wheezing.
Was he alone?
Geronimo patiently waited for any reaction to the gunfire: voices, footsteps, anything.
Nothing.
Good.
Geronimo reached into his left front pocket and removed a pack of matches, part of the booty taken from the Watchers in Thief River Falls.
He struck a match and held it over his fallen foe.
The man was a Flathead Indian, in his early or mid-thirties. He wore buckskins and carried a knife and a pouch on a belt around his waist. The slugs from the FNC had perforated his chest and lungs. Blood was oozing from the wounds and staining his shirt. He was still alive, but barely.
Geronimo frowned, unhappy with himself. Maybe he should have let the man come closer and tried to knock him out, to somehow subdue him without using the FNC. A commendable idea, he noted, but not very practical. The Flathead might have seen him, or sensed him, or simply resisted, and at close range one of his shots was bound to find a target.
There was no other way.
Geronimo leaned back on his heels, relieving a slight cramp in his lower left leg, and the motion saved his life.
The blast of the shotgun was deafening in the confines of the stairwell, coming from the landing above.
Geronimo felt a stinging sensation in the hand holding the match, and the wall exploded in a shower of cement and brick.
Unexpectedly, the Flathead Geronimo had shot abruptly opened his eyes and sat up, just as another deafening discharge of the shotgun filled the stairwell.
Geronimo saw the Indian’s face blown apart, the eyes and nose and mouth erupting in a crimson spray of flesh.
The match flickered out, plunging the stairwell into complete gloom.
Geronimo rolled to his feet and ran, pressing his left hand tightly against his side. He had the impression his hand was bleeding, and he didn’t want to leave a trail of blood for his opponents to follow.
“I got him!” someone shouted, elated, from the floor above.