Instead, he slowly turned to face her.
“Who’s out there?” he asked.
“Friends,” she replied, “of mine, not yours. Now, move or you’ll die here.”
Dilya had betrayed them.
Rather than turning around, Storm stayed facing her with his hands raised and took several steps backward into the light. He moved deliberately, and just before he stepped from the cave, he stopped.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked her.
“Why does it matter?” she snapped.
At that second, Storm turned sideways, causing the bright spotlight to flash into her eyes. Storm had been intentionally keeping his body between the blinding light and Dilya’s face, shielding her with his shadow.
In that same instant, Storm grabbed Dilya’s wrist with his right hand and the gun with his left hand turning its barrel away from him. It was a rudimentary disarming technique taught by U.S. Special Forces, and it, and Dilya’s momentary blindness, resulted in Storm taking the upper hand.
Freeing the pistol from her grasp, he pushed her in front of him at the cave’s entrance.
“Now, let’s go say hello to your friends,” he said.
Dilya walked from the cave into the spotlight, with Storm holding the pistol against her head with his free hand.
“What do we have here?” a man’s voice asked.
“A hostage,” Storm replied.
“And I have three.”
Storm looked to his left and saw the red dots from laser-guided gun sights dancing on the chests of Showers, Oscar, and Casper, who were standing in a line at the cave’s opening.
“You can have the gold,” said Storm. “In return, we go free and we take Dilya with us until we reach the border.”
Dilya yelled something in Uzbek.
“Do you know what she just said?” the man asked.
Because of the spotlight in his face, Storm still couldn’t see the man, and he had no idea how many others were out there with him, although he’d counted four red dots aimed at his team members. Two of the lasers had been pointed at Casper.
“She just told me to shoot her,” the voice said. “This is how loyal she is to our cause. And do you understand why she is willing to sacrifice herself? Because she knows she will be martyred. I don’t expect you to understand that kind of faith.”
“I have faith in what will happen when I pull this trigger,” Storm replied.
Agent Showers jumped into their conversation. “Who are you?”
“The Jihad Group,” the man said. “And the American who is pointing his pistol at my sister’s head once tried to track me down.”
“The Viper,” Storm said aloud.
Dilya again yelled something in Uzbek.
The Viper replied with a single command in Uzbek, and the crack of a rifle broke through the night air. Oscar collapsed on the rocks, shot through the chest. It had happened so quickly that Showers and Casper, who were standing on either side of him, didn’t have time to react until the Russian’s dead body hit the ground.
“The next to die will be FBI Agent Showers,” the Viper said.
“Go ahead,” Showers said. “You’re going to kill us anyway.”
“Actually, you are more valuable to me alive right now,” the Viper said.
“I’d rather die,” Casper announced, “then have my head cut off on YouTube by a bunch of camel-screwing Hajis extremists.”
Storm looked at Showers and saw that all four red dots were now on her torso. The Viper wasn’t bluffing. She would be the next to die unless he released Dilya.
He made eye contact with Casper, and for once, the two men seemed to be on the same wavelength.
“Now!” Storm yelled. With his left hand, he grabbed Dilya’s throat and pulled her sideways toward the ground, as he began firing his pistol at the spotlight illuminating the cave entrance. Everything instantly went black.
At that same moment, Casper threw himself in front of Showers, shielding her with his own body while knocking her down, as the Viper’s men began firing. Bullets ricocheted off the rocks, making pinging sounds.
In the sheer darkness, Storm felt Dilya’s body become limp and felt warm fluid flowing onto his left hand that was still clutching her throat. She’d been fatally shot in the neck.
For a second it was completely quiet, and then the booming sound of Casper’s shotgun erupted. The first boom was followed immediately by another and another. The well-trained killer was using the red laser sights on their enemies’ guns to identify where they were hiding in the darkness. Casper’s final blast was answered with the primordial scream of a man whose body had just been ripped into by buckshot.
It became silent again, and Storm noticed there were no longer any laser sights aimed at the cave.
The Viper yelled out in Uzbek. And when one of his men replied, Casper fired his shotgun at the man’s voice. His shot drew a round of rapid return fire from the Viper’s pistol. Storm immediately answered that with his own handgun, aiming at the muzzle flashes.
And then there was silence.
Out of habit, Storm had counted his shots, and he knew he had only one round left in the gun that he’d taken from Dilya. He had no idea if Casper, Showers, or the Viper and his men were still alive.
No one wanted to speak, because that would reveal location. The evening’s already faint moonlight was now obscured by clouds. Storm slowly crawled in the direction of Showers and Casper, picking his way around the chest-high boulders that edged the cave’s entrance. When he reached the spot where he had last seen his teammates, his hand touched a body and he froze.
Was it her?
He felt a man’s hair and glasses. Oscar.
“April?” he whispered.
“Over here,” she replied.
Using his hand as a probe, he felt a boulder rising up in front of him and made his way around its edge. Tucked between large rocks were Showers and Casper. They’d taken shelter on the ground.
“You hit?” Storm asked softly.
“No, but Casper is. Bad.”
“How bad?”
“One in the leg. One in my abs,” Casper replied. “But I can still shoot.”
“How many are still left?” Showers asked.
“Can’t tell.”
As if on cue, they heard a man screaming and then the rapid fire of a gun. It was followed by another man crying out.
“What’s happening?” Showers asked.
Storm carefully inched up from where the three of them were hiding and peered over the huge boulder in front of him, in the direction of where the sounds had come from. He saw nothing distinguishable, only boulders. He inched his way out of their hiding place and crawled several feet forward, then stopped behind another large stone. Using it to shield his body, he peed over its jagged surface. Nothing. And then there was a movement, but it was so slight that he questioned whether his mind might be playing tricks on him. He hadn’t seen the outline of a man, rather it appeared as if one of the boulders ten feet in front of him had actually moved, as if the ground around him were coming alive. He picked a single rock and locked his eyes on it. Two minutes later, he was just about to write it off as paranoia and exhaustion, when the rock seemed to rise up and move forward, ever so gradually.
Storm raised his pistol and aimed it at the stone. If it moved again, he was going to fire.
As he stared at the rock, he felt the blade of a knife pressed against his throat and the warmth of breath in his ear. The words were in Russian, but Storm didn’t need to understand the language to know the meaning. He released his grip on the pistol.
The man holding the knife at his throat forced him to his feet and called out in a loud voice. Another Russian
