Читать книгу Bullseye - Jessica Andersen - Страница 8

Early September in Montana was chill and damp, like fear.

Derek Horton paused at the dark, rocky opening and a shiver crawled down his back. It’s just the drizzle, he told himself, but it was more than that.

The mouth of the abandoned mine beckoned with the promise of safety, of supplies and a place where the eight fugitives could light a small fire undetected. But the darkness beyond seemed to shift with something else.

A tall man with slashing scars on his face, a scruffy beard and his hair drawn into a warrior’s ponytail paused at Derek’s side. “Problem?”

Derek shook his head quickly, lest Boone Fowler think him weak or disloyal to The Cause, both of which could be fatal. “No problem. Just taking a quick breather.”

“Well, take it inside.” The leader of the Montana Militia for a Free America—MMFAFA—jerked his head at the six men strung out in a quiet line behind him. “We need to get out of sight. Those bounty hunter bastards might not be looking in the right places yet, but you can bet they’re looking.”

Boone’s command overrode Derek’s dislike of the cavern they had hidden in since their escape from The Fortress—the Montana State Penitentiary. He stepped through the gaping rock maw, into the strange warmth the cave seemed to ooze like sweat.

Rough hands grabbed him the moment he crossed into darkness.

Derek shouted and struck out, but missed. His brain shouted, Bounty hunters!

“Get in here, all of you!” a man shouted. “Now!”

His accent was clipped and foreign. Not the bounty hunters, Derek realized as dark-clothed men swarmed around Boone and the others.

Something far worse.

“Let me go!” Panicked, Derek thrashed, then gargled when his captor tightened the arm across his throat, cutting off his breath. His vision grayed, but not before he saw that the others had been similarly subdued.

Boone stood in the center of the small cavern, hands held away from his sides. Two black-clad figures held automatic weapons on him, according him the respect of a leader. Six other ninja types surrounded the remaining MMFAFA members. Derek saw Lyle, Boone’s second-in-command and the hothead of the group, spit at one of the gunmen.

The bastard rammed the muzzle of his weapon into Lyle’s stomach, sending him to his knees.

Another dark figure stepped into Derek’s view, this one unarmed, though he radiated power and grace. Leadership.

Derek held still, heart pounding. This had to be the man Boone had made a deal with, the man who had helped break them out of The Fortress in exchange for…favors.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Boone said, staring the cloaked figure in the eye and speaking leader to leader, even though he was being held at gunpoint. “We were unable to complete our first mission. But I have an idea about—”

“Your ideas don’t interest me,” the black-cloaked man interrupted with a vicious hiss. “I am here to tell you what you will do next. This time it will be done correctly, do you understand?”

After a cold, frozen moment, Boone nodded. “I understand. Tell me what you want us to do.”

“Not yet. First, I believe a lesson is in order.” The figure nodded toward the man behind Derek.

“No. Don’t…please don’t!” Icy fear splashed in Derek’s veins when the dark man’s cold gaze fixed on him. He struggled, but to no avail. His captor remained immovable, like the stone surrounding them. Derek reached toward the other militiamen, toward his leader. “Boone, don’t let them! Don’t!”

But the leader of the MMFAFA said nothing.

The dark figure gestured for Derek’s captor to take him deeper into the cavern and said, “You and your men have failed once. That cannot and will not happen again. Understood? If it does, you will face a fate similar to the one your friend is about to meet.”

“No-oo!” Derek thrashed madly as he was dragged backward, deeper into the shadows. His heels gouged the soft soil on the cavern floor, sending up a rotten, coppery smell.

“Quiet.” Derek’s captor tightened the arm across his throat. The lack of oxygen quickly brought dizziness, then the gray of tunnel vision.

Through his narrowed cone of focus, he saw the dark leader step into view, calmly screwing a silencer onto the barrel of a semiautomatic pistol. The man barked a few syllables in a harsh, unfamiliar tongue and tossed Derek against the rock wall with bruising force.

The gunman shrugged and answered in heavily accented English. “I do not wish to bring this whole godforsaken place down around our ears. I simply wish to teach these idiots a lesson.”

With that, he lifted the weapon and fired.

Derek heard the puff of a silenced bullet.

Then nothing.