Medusa’s Master

on slowly flexing beneath her weight. As the angle of the limb grew steeper and steeper, she prayed silently.

Hold a few more seconds. Don’t crack.

Thankfully, the sap-filled wood remained silent, and the shadow moved on. She switched quickly to another branch and wrapped both arms around the trunk, supporting most of her weight that way.

“Where the hell are you?” Jeff murmured.

“I went vertical. One hostile just passed beneath me,” she breathed back.

Misty murmured, “I have one moving past me, away from the park entrance.”

Isabella spoke next. “I have one examining the downed man.”

Frustratingly, no one reported sighting the last man. Kat was startled when Jeff breathed, “Ops, say location of hostiles.”

A new voice came up on their frequency. “Two hostiles, immobile, sixty feet east of Cobra. One moving northwest, one-hundred-ten feet north of Sidewinder. One hostile moving west-by-southwest, approximately fifty feet from Python’s location.”

Kat mapped the locations in her head. Nobody was about to stumble across her hiding spot.

The voice continued. “A new hostile moving between Adder and Mamba’s positions. Field-of-fire conflict between Adder and Mamba. Maverick, another tango is heading toward you. Should pass twenty to twenty-five feet in front of you, moving left to right. If you have cover and hold position, you should be clear.”

Six men were out here? Those last two might have successfully ambushed the Medusas had the H.O.T. Watch combat observers not warned them. Handy, having an infrared picture from God’s- eye view like this.

Jennifer Blackfoot came up on frequency. “Visual shows one more hostile back in the parking lot. He appears to be tampering with your vehicle.”

Kat’s jaw dropped. Okay, so the H.O.T. Watch folks were more than handy. They were lifesavers.

“Copy,” Jeff murmured. “I have my man in sight.”

The woods and the radios went silent as the hostiles calmed down from their initial panic and went into hard- core hunting mode, creeping stealthily through the lush tropical foliage.

It was a deadly game of cat and mouse. For the most part, Kat, Jeff and the Medusas held their positions, hunkered down to wait out the hostiles as the H.O.T. Watch observers occasionally murmured a position update.

And then Jennifer announced, “Problem, folks. We just got a momentary visual on one of your hostiles. We enhanced the image, and he appears to be wearing night-vision goggles. We cannot confirm, but have to assume they’re infrared.”

Kat’s stomach dropped. That meant they also had to assume that their trackers could see them now, and would shoot them on sight. The rules of this game had just changed completely.

Jeff breathed into the radio. “Request permission to go full offensive.”

Chapter 15

Kat held her breath while a long pause ensued. Then Jennifer spoke crisply. “Pull out of there. Attempt not to kill them, but shoot your way out of there as necessary.”

Jeff murmured, “Copy. Medusas, rendezvous at Point Alpha.”

The Medusas always established several rendezvous points in case they got separated on an op.

Jennifer spoke again. “Cobra, if possible, please confirm your kill and search the body. Who are those guys?”

Kat shimmied down out of the tree quickly, her gloves and shoes sticky with sap. She raced for the man she’d shot. She stared when she got to his body. His pockets were already turned inside out, his left wrist flung wide-and minus a watch. His weapon was gone. He wore no ammunition belt, and she thought she remembered glimpsing the bulge of one when she’d taken the shot. But she’d been firing from a wacky angle. Maybe she was wrong.

“This guy’s been stripped of all identification,” she reported.

Jeff ordered, “Converge on me, ladies. Ops, if you’d vector them in?”

The H.O.T. Watch controllers obliged, and Kat followed their directions toward her teammates. She thought hard as she ran lightly through the trees. Her kill’s identity had been sanitized by one of his buddies. Which was pretty sophisticated behavior for common thugs. These guys were pros.

Jennifer Blackfoot came back up. “We just picked up a phone call to the Bajan police. Gunshots were reported. Time to leave the area. ETA on police-five minutes.”

Dang. The H.O.T. Watch had the capacity to monitor local phone calls, too?

Jeff started, “Raven, about our vehicles. The cops-”

Jennifer cut him off. “Carter’s calling the police now to tip them off anonymously that the cars may be rigged to blow up.”

“Thanks,” Jeff replied.

Kat was close to their rendezvous point and reached it in about a minute. She topped a steep outcropping of rock and spotted a crouching figure before her. A hand signal flashed. Jeff. She flashed back an all’s well and he waved her in. She moved to his side while they waited for the others to join them.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, off radio.

She was startled to realize that the very same question had been on the tip of her tongue to ask him. Thing was, she already knew he was uninjured. And yet, she felt a need for reassurance. Her hands wanted to run over his limbs and torso and face, to check for injuries. Weird. She answered, likewise off radio, “I’m fine. You?”

“Fine. Why’d you shoot that guy?”

It did not escape her that he was giving her the benefit of the doubt-that he was assuming she’d had a good reason to disobey his order not to shoot and giving her a chance to share it with him. “The tango stood up, took aim, and started to fire at one of you.” She shrugged. “There was no time to ask for a modification of your order.”

He nodded briskly. “Okay. You’ll need to write it up, of course.”

She nodded, profoundly relieved. No questions. No second-guessing. He believed her story. Trusted her judgment. The paperwork of making an unauthorized kill was routine.

Karen and Isabella popped over the ridge next, and as sirens became audible in the distance, Aleesha and Misty joined them.

Jeff looked around. “Who’s your pacesetter?”

The slowest runner always set the pace, and the others stayed with her.

Aleesha answered. “Me or Isabella, depending on who’s carrying the most weight.”

Isabella grinned. “Hey, I’ve been working out like crazy.”

Aleesha grinned back. “I’m it, then. Let’s go.”

Kat fell in behind Python in the Medusas’ usual retreat order. Not surprisingly, Jeff assigned himself to bring up the rear-the most dangerous position in a fighting retreat. They ran steadily until they emerged from the park. Aleesha found a narrow road, and took off down it.

They ran hard for nearly an hour before the lights and noise of a village came into sight ahead of them. Jeff called a halt. They pulled off the road into a clump of tall weeds. He pulled out a map and spread it out on the ground between them. “I place us here. Do y’all concur?”

Kat glanced at the map and nodded her agreement.

Jeff continued. “It’s too far to run to any major town from here tonight. We can either obtain wheels or find someplace to camp.”

Kat spoke up. “I vote for wheels. I want to see what the Ghost gave me and we’ll need a computer to do that.”

Jeff stared at her. “He gave you something?”

“Looks like a computer disk. He said he found it by accident. It’s why he wanted to meet me.”

Jeff nodded. “Wheels it is, then. Who’s good at hotwiring cars?”

Aleesha laughed. “Boy-o, we be de Medusas…Lay dem baby blues on how we do business.”