For Layla and Kerry, that meant splitting up and hitting one site each, which was far from ideal, but neither was carrying any timers, mainly because they didn’t carry anything that could be triggered by one. The only explosives they carried were grenades, and the sites were too far apart to hit one, then run to the other without breaking cover and giving themselves away.
“All right,” Layla said before they crept out of hiding again. “We stay together as long as these trees last, then split apart to reach each of our targets. I’ve got four grenades. You?”
Kerry agreed, holding up four fingers.
“Good. We toss three, arm and toss one, then get the hell out. Rendezvous at this point,” she said, pointing her finger downward to indicate the spot where they were currently hunched down.
Kerry held up ten fingers, but Layla grimaced. Ten minutes could be an eternity on the battlefield. And once the first grenades went off, that’s exactly what the estate would become. She held up seven fingers in a compromise. Kerry shrugged, but nodded her agreement.
They adjusted the heavy packs on their backs, made sure everything that needed to be reachable, was, and the rest was secure, then bumped fists and started down.
The first part of the descent was uneventful. The trees provided excellent cover and she and Kerry both wore clothes that had been selected to blend in to the expected terrain. When they reached the split point, they bumped fists once more and set off in separate directions, Kerry to the site they were just above, while Layla continued through the tree cover to the previous quadrant, which she calculated would take her five minutes more than it would take Kerry to reach hers.
She moved as quickly as she dared, climbing a few feet higher into the trees, so she could cross the horizontal distance faster. Either no one was watching, or she did a good job of it—probably a little of both—because she was above the dump spot with two minutes to spare. The next bit would be tougher. The site where Kerry was headed had considerable dried brush on the hillside above it, and the dump itself, with its surrounding sandbags containing the boxes of guns and ammo in tight circle, had been almost flush against the hillside. The one she was headed for had the same dried brush for cover, but only halfway down the hillside. After that there were two small . . . “shacks” was too kind a word for what she was looking at. They were sagging and weather- beaten, with peeling paint and, from what she could see, no windows. She couldn’t fathom what they might be used for, but wasn’t willing to assume they were abandoned or harmless.
Out of long habit, she touched her various pieces of gear like a multipart talisman, and left the security of the trees behind.
The shrubs had looked the same from up above, but were somewhat different than what they’d used for cover previously. These had fucking long thorns. Hell, they were like tiny needles that clutched at her clothes and dug into any bare skin, including her fingers in their fingerless gloves. Every time one managed to hit flesh, she had to bite her cheek to prevent cursing out loud. She couldn’t risk making any noise until she knew for sure what, or who, was sitting in those damn shacks.
When she reached the first one, she moved with silent steps up to the back wall and just sat there for the count of ten. She’d have preferred to wait longer, but didn’t want the delay. Eyes closed, she tuned out every other sense, listened, and heard nothing. No rustle of cloth to give away movement, no breathing to indicate a sleeping occupant. Pulling her knife—a gunshot would give her and all others away—she snuck around to the front, mindful of every footfall. Then crouching low, she slipped her head around the corner, caught a quick look inside, and covered her mouth to keep from retching.
It was a dead animal—a goat from the split second look she’d managed. It wasn’t just dead, it was long dead and appeared to have been deliberately dried. Not mummified, but skinned and dried. Was it some sort of religious thing? Or just a weird and unsanitary way of making goat jerky? Who the hell knew?
More importantly, who cared? It was dead and posed no danger to her mission. She moved on to the next shack with slightly less caution, wanting to avoid detection from below, but not expecting to find anything different.
Another dead goat discovery later, she was back to creeping through a final patch of those damn needle plants before reaching the point where she could reliably throw a live grenade and hit her target. Settling herself behind a cluster of the despised shrubs, she picked her target within the dump, slipped three grenades from her vest, cocked her arm, and hearing Kerry’s double explosion, she threw the first three in rapid succession, then picked her target for the fourth and last one carefully, pulled the pin and tossed it.
By the time it exploded, she was already running up the hill, counting on the enemy’s confusion after the side-by-side attacks to give her a short head start. Unfortunately, while the two guards standing right next to the magical ammo dump were taken out by the explosion, one of the two patrol guards came racing around the building and fired on her as she climbed. Ignoring the needle plants for now, she concentrated on staying low, which meant doing all but a slow creep up the hill on her belly, while still trying to vary her path to avoid a tell-tale straight line. Two more shooters joined the first as they began randomly peppering the hillside with bursts from automatic rifles.
She was forced to a stop after one round came close enough to nick her calf just above her the boot, while another came so close to her head that she’d have sworn she felt her hair move when it flew by. She lay there unmoving, trying to control her breathing, trying to hear something—anything—above the uncontrolled gunfire. When it finally stopped, it was followed by something even worse—the sound of boots crunching the damn shrubs as someone climbed the hill.
Having only a few seconds to decide what she was going to do, Layla turned on her back and aimed her pistol, prepared to kill whoever appeared, then make a run for it. Her chances of escape were slim, but there was a chance she could get up the hill and over the wall before someone else managed to scramble up, check on his buddy, and start after her. Of course, that was assuming the guards liked each other well enough, and/or were poorly trained enough to stop and check their wounded before continuing their pursuit.
But when a lone guard, rifle pointed downward, appeared in the sights of her weapon, she fired, then jumped up and ran.
Chapter Eighteen
XAVIER STARED at the human male standing in front of him. Brian Hudson, Layla’s lieutenant and longtime friend clearly understood the magnitude of what he was saying, and was just as clearly expecting Xavier to kill him on the spot for saying it. Layla and Kerry had not returned to the rendezvous site, nor had they communicated. Brian was of the opinion that the two women, while behind enemy lines, had not been captured, but were unable to contact him or anyone else for fear of discovery.