the role of a missionary? Of someone who helps others? Was that all a lie, too? A front?
A gasp caught in her throat as she realized they’d never returned to a village. Why? Because he’d committed atrocities? How many girls had he sold without her knowing?
The men in the shadows moved through the trees. Toward the mine.
Dean was in there. She had to warn him. But how? How without being heard?
Dean was a Marine. Though the military no longer used Morse code, they’d used it when Dean was enlisted.
She tapped her walkie-talkie.
She heard nothing in response. No Morse code, no voices, nothing.
“They’ll be ambushed,” she whispered to Clinch, itching to go into the mine and warn them.
Clinch put his hand on her shoulder. “Stay,” he whispered.
The men stepped out of the trees and scurried into the mine. They had guns in hand.
Sonia rose to her feet, rock in hand. She threw it as hard as she could toward the mine. It hit the wall with a
One of the men emerged.
Her father.
He looked in her direction. God, did he see her?
Then he turned back toward the mine. She heard his voice, “It’s nothing. Animals.”
She jumped up and fired her gun, aiming into the high branches of the pine trees.
“Shit!” she heard from the mine.
The two men emerged and hunkered down behind a stack of old lumber outside the mineshaft entrance.
They were at a standstill. Sonia whispered to Clinch, “Get Callahan and the others.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Dammit, we need them now!”
“Believe me, they heard your gun. They’re on their way.”
Dean stopped walking. “Did you hear something?”
“No.” Cammarata stopped and shined his light on the door. “This is it. It’s padlocked.” He knocked on the door and spoke in Chinese. The women inside started shouting and crying.
“Can you tell them we’re here to help? They need to quiet down,” Dean said.
“They’re scared.”
“They’re going to be dead if Marchand is here. I need to listen.”
His walkie-talkie was making noise, but with the noise in the room he couldn’t hear it.
Someone was alerting him to danger. Was someone approaching the mine? Or was it the mine itself that was the danger?
“Charlie, someone’s coming.”
Charlie spoke firmly in Xiang through the door. The cries didn’t stop, but they quieted a bit.
“We have to get them out. Several are sick. They need water. Shoot the lock.”
“Wait. There’s danger. Someone upside is trying to reach me using Morse code.”
A faint echo hung in the air.
“That was a gunshot,” Dean said.
“We have to get them out. Now.”
Dean didn’t have a choice. He shot the lock.
They were at a standstill, the two killers behind the trees. Sonia inched closer, staying under cover.
The darker man made a run for the entrance only five feet away, then fired his gun in Sonia’s general direction while Marchand followed.
“They’re going back in!” Sonia exclaimed. “Dammit, Dean is in there.”
“And he gave us explicit orders-”
“To watch the entrance. Not to let that bastard breach it! How far away is Callahan?”
Sonia couldn’t wait for the answer.
She slid out of hiding. “Marchand!” she shouted. “Dammit, you motherfucking bastard, show yourself!”
Silence.
Then her father stepped out from the mine. She wanted to shoot him right then. Be done with him and the misery he caused.
“Sonia. I somehow knew you were here.”
“Sergio Martin, aka Noel Marchand, aka Pierre Devereaux and any other damn identity you use-you’re under arrest.”
He laughed. Her finger itched to pull the trigger. But she couldn’t kill him in cold blood.
“Put your hands up!” she shouted. He laughed and dove behind a tree. But at least he was away from the mine. Away from Dean and the others.
She stood, obscured by brush, listening to the moving laughter. Where was the second man?
“Clinch, number two, where did he go?”
A volley of gunfire came from the mine.
The ground shook, but Sonia stayed on her feet. “Shit, Clinch, that was an explosion.”
Before Clinch could respond, the entrance crumbled, the sound of the collapse tearing at Sonia’s heart. Dean. No, no, this couldn’t end in death. She couldn’t lose the victims. She couldn’t lose the man she loved.
In the woods behind her, the laughter continued. “Are you going to try to save them? Please do. I’ll find you, Sonia. Next week. Next year. I will kill you after I kill everyone you care about. And I will enjoy every minute watching you suffer.”
Sonia inched toward the voice, which was too close. “Don’t.” Clinch put his hand on her arm. But he didn’t understand. No one did.
The ceiling began to cave in around Dean, and the women inside the room screamed. Cammarata pushed open the old door and spoke rapidly in Chinese. He pushed past them, and a chunk of granite slid loose and blocked part of the doorway behind him. The smell of rotting food and feces clogged his nose and lungs.
“You’d better be able to get that elevator running, because I don’t think we should go back up the stairs.”
“Why?”
Dean pointed his flashlight at the staircase.
The last ten feet were gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Marchand was on the run.
Sonia glanced back toward the mine entrance. She had no tools to dig them out. Callahan was nearly here, with equipment and reinforcements. She could wait here, but her father would get away. Disappear into another country, waiting for her to let her guard down so he could kill her family.
If they didn’t catch her father now, he would escape and go back to exporting people. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if he went back to his old ways. She wouldn’t be able to sleep, waiting for him to make his move.
She ran after him, ignoring Clinch’s command to cease.
