“Now touch the trigger.” The girl’s finger curled around it in a reluctant embrace. “Perfect. You’re a natural.”
“I’m scared to death.”
You and me both, Trish thought.
Letting off a round at such close range risked unpredictable, perhaps lethal consequences. The bullet could be deflected in any direction, or could burst into fragments like a miniature grenade.
“It’s no big deal.” Trish did her best to sound confidently casual. “Just squeeze the trigger-gently, and not too fast.”
“Don’t know if I can.”
“You’ve got to. Or we’ll be stuck down here.”
“I know, but … I can’t. I really can’t …”
Ally was starting to shake. That was bad. If her aim was thrown off, Trish could lose a hand.
“Come on, partner.” Trish held her voice steady. “I’m counting on you.”
Ally turned her head, brown eyes shining, wide and surprised. “You called me partner.”
“That’s what you are.”
“Wonder Woman’s partner.” The words were spoken lightly, but she couldn’t hide the tremor of pride in her voice.
“Wonder Woman didn’t need a partner,” Trish said. “I do. And you’re it. So let’s go.”
Ally nodded, new firmness in the set of her mouth. “Okay. On three.”
Trish waited, praying for this to work. If the gun jumped … if the bullet ricocheted …
Slowly Ally drew back the trigger, counting under her breath.
“One …”
Trish tensed, holding herself rigid.
“Two …”
The gun went off, the report thunderous in the confined space, and Trish screamed.
Pain lanced her wrists. Doubled over, she sucked air through gritted teeth. Stars flashed across her field of vision as she stared at her hands, looking for a red spurt of blood.
Somewhere close to her ear Ally was babbling in terror. “I’m sorry, it was too soon, I wasn’t ready-oh, Christ, did I shoot you Talk to me!”
God, it hurt. It hurt.
Trembling all over, Trish fought off the pain and assessed the damage.
Blood No. Fingers None missing. Handcuffs
The chain was still intact.
“Damn,” she breathed.
One of the welded links had been badly nicked, forming a jagged crack, but the link had not failed completely. Her hands remained manacled.
Over the ringing in her head, Trish heard herself say, “We’ve got to try again.”
“Again” Ally was aghast.
“Got to.”
“If it didn’t work the first time-“
“Second time’s the charm. Come on.”
Trish planted her hands on the wall once more. Her wrists, though sore, were unbroken. Already the pain was receding as her ligaments recovered from the sharp, convulsive twist.
Though she’d come through the first attempt without serious injury, she knew she was pressing her luck to risk another try.
Ally’s hands hardly trembled as she held the muzzle an inch from the weakened chain.
“Go for it,” Trish said.
Ally nodded. No hesitation now, only a quick count-“One, two, three”-and a flex of her trigger finger.
Trish averted her face as dust flew up from the cavern floor in time with the deafening discharge.
The pain was bad, maybe worse than before, but at least she was ready for it. A long moment passed as she stood bent at the waist, eyes shut, enduring the sizzle of agony in her wrists, gathering the courage to look.
Then she let her gaze travel to her hands, to the steel cuffs, to the two small links joining the swivel eyelets …
The weakened link had given way.
The chain had been severed.
She was free.
Blinking back tears, she raised her shaking hands. Experimentally she rotated and flexed her wrists.
No broken bones, thank God. She could climb the shaft. She could go on.
“I’m okay,” she gasped. “I’m okay.”
“You sure” Ally’s question quavered, a breathless tremolo.
Trish nodded. Purple bruises were forming around the handcuff rings still fastened to her wrists, and blood leaked from her left forearm where a bullet fragment or a sliver of the fractured chain had bitten, but it was just a scratch.
“I’m okay,” she said again. “You did great … partner.”
Ally hugged her. Trish clung to the girl with a mother’s fierceness.
It was not Marta she held, but it could have been.
47
“They got away.”
The echo of Cain’s shout rang like an anvil on the cellar walls.
Lilith’s fire extinguisher dropped from her hands. Gage made a soft, plaintive noise like the moan of a frightened child.
Cain barely noticed their reactions. His full attention was focused on the well. Rage simmered in him.
This operation had been planned for weeks. For months. Every smallest detail had been accounted for. Nothing had been left to chance. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, his passport to a better life, to a future not spent in a desert trailer or a prison cell.
And now it was jeopardized, all of it, by a rookie cop and a high school girl who didn’t have the good sense to lie down and die.
“You never know.” Tyler tried for a note of optimism. “They might’ve bought it anyhow. Shock wave could’ve triggered a cave-in.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s possible.”
“No, it’s not. And you know it. Those two whores are alive. God damn it, they’re alive!”
The anger boiled over. Cain spun and seized the nearest fragment of debris, a charred and twisted thing that might have been the leg of a table.
With a bellow of fury he heaved it into the shadows, then stood panting as he struggled to get hold of his emotions.
Screaming was bad. He remembered how Gage had screamed at the hostages, inadvertently confessing his immaturity and lack of discipline.
A leader had to remain poised, assured, unflappable-even now, when every thread of his careful planning threatened to unravel, when five million dollars was dissolving like smoke before his eyes.
“You should have iced that blue-eyed bitch in the living room when you had the chance,” Lilith said petulantly.
Cain nearly shot back an ugly answer, but no.
Discipline. Self-control.
“Damn straight,” he replied after a brief inner struggle. “I had her three feet away, dead in my sights, and I didn’t pull the trigger. Didn’t want to agitate the prisoners. I fucked up.”
His gaze traveled the room, meeting each face in turn. Tyler, Gage, Lilith-all with their masks off now, all
