CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Lightspilledintothefar end of the tunnel, and Boone glanced at Lucas. They closed the distance and heard whimpering, sniffling, and crying. Water dripped from some unknown source. The deeper underground they ventured, the colder it became, and with water dripping more freely down the walls, the dirt beneath their boots had turned into mud.
A man’s harsh whisper carried down the tunnel toward them. “Shut up and move.” He spoke in Urdu, the native language of the area.
Boone held up a fist, and they stopped just about ten feet from the opening. They pressed their backs against opposite sides of the tunnel, and he risked a quick peek.
On the far side of the room, an oil lamp flickered where it sat on the ground. An oversize shadow drifted across the wall, but he couldn’t be sure it was Udall and not one of the girls.
He pointed in the general direction of where he saw movement.
Lucas nodded in acknowledgment.
Boone held up three fingers and dropped them one at a time in a silent countdown.
Three.
Two.
One.
They lifted their rifles and exploded into action, with Lucas taking the left side of the space and Boone sweeping his rifle toward the right. They both sighted in the threat at the same time.
Standing on the far side of the space, centered in the crosshairs of Boone’s scope, a man pressed the muzzle of a Glock semiauto pistol against the temple of a terrified girl who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen years old. Her body trembled, her eyes were wide with fear, and tears streaked through the dirt on her cheeks. The guy’s other arm was wrapped around her waist, using her as a human shield.
He recognized his old teammate immediately, and Udall’s eyes blazed with the unhinged madness of a desperate man who knew he was trapped in a cage of his own making.
“Well, if it isn’t my old buddy, Rancher.” Udall shifted so the only exposed part of him was a portion of the right side of his face. The rest of him was blocked by the girl’s body. “I suspected someone might be following me the other day. I just never imagined it would be you.”
“Let her go.” Boone kept his rifle on him and moved a few feet into the space, in the opposite direction of the group of girls that were now huddled together by the wall on Lucas’s side of the cavern.
“Stop!” Udall pressed the muzzle harder against the girl’s skin. She whimpered louder, closed her eyes, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “I swear, I’ll kill her.”
“And then what?” Boone just needed to keep the asshole distracted long enough for Lucas to get in position to cover the other girls. “You kill her, then I kill you. Is that what you want?”
Boone moved to the right as Lucas shifted to the left.
Udall’s eyes bounced back and forth between them and landed on Boone.
Lucas capitalized on his distraction and managed to move a few feet closer to the girls until he was only one big step sideways from them.
Udall shuffled forward slightly, keeping the girl in front of him, and kicked over the lamp.
It landed in a stream of water. The flame hissed and sputtered out, plunging the room into pitch-black darkness.
Footsteps shuffled and scuffed over the dirt, and the girls’ screams bounced off the rock.
Through the cacophony of noise, Boone heard Luna’s steady voice in his earpiece.
“Boone, your body cam’s infrared showed that his and the girl’s heat signatures faded behind where he was standing.” Her voice was the calm amidst a raging storm. “There must be an opening in the cave wall.”
To avoid being detected, he tucked his flashlight in his vest and flipped his NVGs down in front of his eyes.
“I’ll take them back the way we came in.” Lucas had his own NVGs in place and was already gathering up the girls. “Go after them.”
“Roger that.” Boone navigated his way around the chamber by dragging his hand over the wall.
“Keep going. It’s about five feet to your left,” Luna said.
