He was maybe thirty feet behind the last assailant when he spied Kat’s lithe form ahead, slender and dark, sprinting through the trees. She dodged bushes and tree trunks with incredible agility, and the armed men fell back slightly. But then the lead guy raised his pistol.
“Incoming fire,” Jeff bit out frantically. He was too close to the hostiles to be talking on the radio, but he had no choice. If they heard him and turned to fire on him, so be it. Unfortunately, he was too far away to tackle the guy with the gun.
He expected Kat to dive for the ground, to reduce her target profile to practically nothing, maybe even for her to roll on her back and fire back at the shooter. But instead, she picked up speed and literally ran up the trunk of a tree, momentarily going horizontal about six feet off the ground. She sling-shotted back down to the ground with an extra dose of momentum, zipped across the shooter’s field of fire and took a running start at a medium-size palm tree. She ran the first eight feet or so up the trunk, then in one smooth move, slung a short rope around the tree, grabbed the free end as it whipped around the trunk, and used the rope and her feet to shimmy up the tree as fast as any chimp.
Jeff stared in disbelief. He’d never seen anything like it. Apparently, neither had the hostiles, for they both slowed to an incredulous jog, staring up into the treetops where she’d disappeared.
A moment later, a black shape hurtled out of a neighboring palm tree, swinging down and out on a long frond, landing lightly in the path well ahead of her pursuers. Then Kat was off and running again, this time with enough of a head start to duck into the deep shadows and vanish from sight.
Belatedly, the men took off running again. They slowed and peered into the area where she’d disappeared, but after thirty seconds or so of fruitless searching, gave up and turned to run for the road, where their buddies were shouting. Sounded like the other team wanted these two to join them already.
Jeff was stunned. He’d seen enough cheesy martial arts movies in his youth to know Hollywood’s images of ninjas, but he’d never dreamed that any of the spectacular feats portrayed on film might actually be real. Had he not just seen that with his own eyes, he’d never have believed it possible.
A vehicle roared away, its sound disappearing into the night. Sounded like the Ghost was making his getaway on a motorcycle.
Kat panted into his earpiece. “Who are these guys?”
“No idea. They’re acting military. Say status,” he bit out.
“A van just pulled up. The men are getting in. I’m taking the car.”
Jeff swore and veered toward the main road. He was in time to see their compact sedan peel out from behind the shrubs where he’d hidden it and take off down the road at high speed. Across the street, the last black-clad man piled into an unmarked white van, and the vehicle gunned its engine. Its tires spit gravel, and the rear end fishtailed as it pulled out onto the road, accelerating hard.
“They’re giving chase,” he called. “White van. Rear license plate obscured. Blacked-out windshield. You shouldn’t have trouble spotting it. It’ll be the only thing on the road behind you doing a hundred miles per hour.”
“Thanks,” Kat retorted.
“What in the hell were you thinking, leaving by yourself?” he demanded over his radio as he took off running futilely down the road behind the fleeing vehicles. Christ. She was out there by herself now, caught between the Ghost and those commandos.
“I was thinking about not losing the Ghost,” she replied tartly. “I’ll let you know where he leads me. I just passed a moped rental place. It’s about a quarter mile from the mansion. Hot-wire one if you can’t wake up the owner. I might need backup.”
“Ya think?” he snapped.
He cursed her roundly as he ran for all he was worth. His mind churned as fast as his legs. Who were those guys? He’d lay odds they weren’t cops. D’Abeau knew they were staking out Shangri-La. The detective’s men wouldn’t have pulled weapons on him and Kat. Private mercenaries, then? Maybe hired by the homeowner to protect his art? But then why had they given chase to the Ghost and not stuck with the art collection? What private citizen bothered to or could afford to hire a half-dozen hard-core mercenaries, anyway? Such men did not come cheap.
Who, then?
They’d moved in when the Ghost came out of the house. Enemies of the thief’s, perhaps? What did an art thief do to merit such enemies? Had he robbed the wrong man? Maybe stolen something besides art in a former job?
All that came into his mind were questions and more questions. He wanted some answers, dammit! He humped the quarter mile to the moped stand in about a minute. Not long in the real world, but a lifetime when his team was split up and an op was going to hell fast. After determining that the owner didn’t live there, it took him another minute to break a flimsy chain lock on one of the mopeds and hot-wire it. A two-and-a-half minute head start for the Ghost, Kat and the mystery commandos. More than a lifetime. An eternity.
Swearing under his breath, he peeled out of the stand and threw the throttle wide open. The lights of Bridgetown twinkled in the distance and a salt breeze whipped in his face, making his eyes water. He kept his mouth shut to avoid swallowing bugs and confined his cursing to silent epithets in his head.
Far ahead, a line of flashing sirens came into sight, racing down the highway toward him.
“He just turned off the main road,” Kat announced. “Avoiding those cops, no doubt. Turn right after a supermarket sign-green letters on a white background. I didn’t catch the name.” Exertion strained her voice, and squealing tire sounds came over the radio along with her voice.
“Don’t kill yourself chasing the bastard,” he cautioned, his heart in his throat.
“Are you kidding? Offensive driving is a blast. I’d love to do this in the middle of a bunch of New York City cabbies sometime-show them what combat driving really looks like.”
Jeff couldn’t help grinning. She did sound like she was having fun. “Did the van make the turn behind you?”
A pause. “Looks like it. I see a cloud of dust behind me.”
Kat continued to call out turns and mileages over the next several minutes, and he actually started to close the gap between them. Urban driving was as much about maneuverability as it was speed, and his Vespa was extremely nimble.
He spied a pair of taillights partially obscured by dust ahead and yelled into his radio, “I’m approaching the van. Where are you?”
“Just coming into Bridgetown proper. He’s heading straight through the city. He knows we’re back here. This could get ugly.”
He snorted. Like it wasn’t already? Would those men assume Kat was the Ghost’s accomplice and take her out, too? He dared not risk it, no matter how bad he wanted to bag the Ghost. “Pull off the chase, Cobra. Lose the van. Make sure it’s following the Ghost and leaves off you.”
“This may be our only chance to catch the thief! I’m not stopping now. This island isn’t that big. We’ll corner him.”
“And the guys behind you may kill you both. If you get in their way, they may very well shoot through you to get to him.”
“I have been known to shoot back, you know. I’m not defenseless.”
“One-on-six, you are.”
She retorted rather sharply. “I’m a Medusa, not some average infantry grunt.”
He swung wide around a corner, keeping his speed up and drawing a few more yards closer to the van. He supposed she was right. If she were a SEAL or a Ranger, he’d be a lot less worried about that van full of gunmen. She deserved the same benefit of the doubt as her male counterparts. At least that was what his head said. His heart screamed in denial. She was small and weak and female and he wanted her for his own. It was his job to protect her and keep her safe from jerks with guns.
“I stand corrected, Madam Medusa,” he replied reluctantly.
“Watch the left turn in front of the school-you should hit it soon. It’s a greater-than-ninety-degree turn and the road slopes away from you. Take it slower than it looks like you ought to.”
“Roger.”
