CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

October 4, 9:00 A.M.

Cusco, Peru

BEFORE THEY MADE the last turn leading to the dead-end chamber below La Catedral, Cash halted. “Marjorie, give me your machete and scarf.”

She quickly handed Cash the requested items and he wound the colorful cloth around the blade, resulting in a wad of fabric roughly the size of a human head. He held the massive knife out toward Pete and motioned him closer. He thought about tasking Marjorie, but Pete was the agent and she a civilian, a fact he found more difficult to remember the longer he spent in her company.

“Wait until just before we emerge into the dead-end chamber. On my signal, stick the machete out to the right as far as you can and yell at Marabout. I’m counting on him being nervous and trigger happy. Hopefully, he’ll focus on the decoy while I approach from the opposite direction. I’ll try to take him down without killing him. He’s more use to us alive if we need to smoke out Zara.”

Pete nodded and Cash was relieved the scientist no longer looked like a deer caught in the headlights every time he gave him instructions.

“Marjorie, you still got your gun?”

She lifted her shirt enough to pull the weapon out.

“Be ready to back me up. If something goes wrong, it’s up to you to take Marabout out of the game and get Olivia out of here. Pete’s hands will be full with distracting our target. Besides, he couldn’t hit the side of a barn--unless a mule resided inside.”

“Wait a minute.” Pete started to object, and then realized Cash was right. He still didn’t know how he successfully completed firearms training. He hated and feared guns, but he loved his career. He never expected to do anything in the field that required him to use a weapon, and now he wished he would have taken the course more seriously. So far, he’d used technology to fight terrorism and had always been able to do his job from the safety of his office or the lab in Virginia. That lifestyle seemed like a distant memory, and he wondered how it would feel to go back to such a mundane existence.

The group crept forward, lights out until just concealed in the darkness of the tunnel’s end. A faint illumination from the open trap door gave them enough light that once their eyes adjusted, a man’s silhouette standing in front of them below the opening in the ceiling above came into focus. Cash stopped and waited for everyone to catch up. “Ready? On three.”

“One, two, three.”

As the last word came out of Cash’s mouth, he spied the colorful bundle shoot out to the right and he heard Pete shout Marabout’s name. As predicted, Marabout fired in the vicinity of the noise as Cash leapt quietly out of the shadows in the opposite direction. He dove, rammed his target, and both men landed, Marabout’s head hitting the hard-packed dirt with a sickening thud.

The body under Cash went limp. He hoped Marabout had been rendered unconscious, but as he let go, rolled back on his heels, and flipped on his headlamp, he saw empty open eyes focused on nothing, and a seeping of dark fluid edging out from under the man’s skull. Cash searched for a pulse, but was unable to locate any sign of life. Rolling the body slightly, he spotted the jagged stone protruding from the ground, which had turned a solid hit into a fatal landing. As he eased Marabout’s eyelids shut, Olivia’s soft hand touched his arm, and the desire to be somewhere else, anywhere else—as long as she was near—consumed him.

He stared down at Marabout, but said nothing. He couldn’t remember another mission where everything went wrong and absolutely nothing unfolded according to plan, except for possibly the sting operation in Hong Kong, and the common denominator was Zara. Cash was sick of it. Tired of this assignment and weary of all the killing. No matter what terrorist he took out, ten more waited to take his or her place, bent on destroying innocent lives. Ridding the world of monsters intent on evil seemed hopeless, but until Zara was dead or captured, he had to press on.

“Help me up,” Marjorie whispered. “I can hear someone coming through the tunnel, no doubt to check out the gunshots.”

Marjorie’s voice snapped Cash back to reality. He knelt down and she got on his shoulders. He stood under the door that Marabout had left open.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Go,” she replied.

Cash cupped her feet and pushed, propelling Marjorie upward. She catapulted, caught the ledge of the opening, and pulled herself topside. Reaching for Olivia’s outstretched arms, Marjorie helped her through. With each person successfully on the main church level, it became easier to tow the remaining members of the group out of the underground chamber using the priest’s sash.

Soon they all stood behind the silver altar trying to catch their breath. Cash held up his hand and all fell silent and everyone flipped off their headlamps. They listened as Mustafa tried to rouse Marabout.

“Zara will go crazy,” he hissed when he finally acknowledged Marabout’s death.

Cash doubted Mustafa could climb through the opening without assistance and suspected he would take up the guard duty, removing the corridor as a possible escape route for Cash and his team. Olivia’s hand clutched his arm. Looking up, he read the fear in her swollen and teary eyes. He touched the cut next to her right eye and she flinched, and then she forced a weak smile. He couldn’t imagine what kind of animal could strike such a compassionate face, or commit the horrible atrocities against the Asháninka people. Rage boiled inside him, demanding revenge.

He should shut the hatch and pull something heavy on top of it and get out of the cathedral as quickly as possible. He had no doubt that Zara and Heinrich were either on their way topside or en route to back up Mustafa. Either way he needed to act before they arrived. Cash took several steps toward the opening, intent on being reasonable. Making the mistake of glancing over his shoulder at Olivia’s battered face, he jumped.

Cash landed on Mustafa, dislodging the man’s flashlight from his hand, rolling out of reach but still providing enough illumination for Cash to see the look of fear in Mustafa’s eyes. Cash rolled the dazed man onto his back and straddled him. His fist slammed into Mustafa’s jaw. He threw another punch and another, until his victim teetered on the verge of consciousness.

“How do you like beatings, now?” Cash said as his fist smashed into the side of Mustafa’s head and the man stilled.

Cash stood and wiped his bloody hands on his pants. He wasn’t proud of himself, but couldn’t deny the satisfaction of venting his anger on one of those responsible for so much death and for hurting Olivia. Mustafa continued to breathe, but he wouldn’t be a problem for a while, and when he woke up, the pain would ensure he paid all over again for his mistakes.

He searched Mustafa and retrieved his weaponsa small dagger and an older forty-five. Cash shook his head. Who do you think you are, Dirty Harry?

“Hurry up. We need to get the heck out of here before Zara finds us,” Pete stated as he hung over the lip reaching for Cash.

Cash grabbed Pete’s outstretched arms and worked himself back up to building level. He slammed the hatch shut and they quickly slid a heavy wooden communion table over the opening. Mustafa wouldn’t be waking up for a while, but the way everything had been going, Cash wanted to be sure to eliminate any possibility of a threat from below, in case Heinrich or Zara approached through the tunnel.

“Okay, let’s get out of here and find Diane.” Cash moved around the altar and jogged toward the back of the church, with his team in tow.

Before they reached the exit of La Catedral the door swung open. Cash drew, fired, and Heinrich hit the floor as Cash skidded to a stop.

“Don’t fire,” Zara’s calm familiar voice made Cash pause.

He watched as she stepped through the doorway, the sunlight silhouetting her as she spared only a glance at her fallen colleague while keeping her gun trained on him.

“You shoot me, and you will never find where I stashed all the relics and they may fall into another’s hands even more deadly than mine.”

“I doubt that’s possible,” Cash replied.

She smiled as if his words were a compliment. “Besides, I’m sure your scientist is dying to find out what happens when we bring the crystals together.”

“No, not really,” Pete offered.

“Drop the gun and put your hands where I can see them,” Cash demanded.

Zara laughed and took several steps closer, her aim never wavering.

“You won’t shoot me. You thought you killed me once before, and the remorse ate away at your conscience until you discovered I was still alive. And, without those relics you have failed again. The only thing that bothers you more than living with guilt is accepting failure.”

“Just because I have a conscience doesn’t mean I won’t pull the trigger,” he said as he stepped to the side, hoping to sway Zara’s weapon away from the other three.

“Yes, it does. You want to grow old in a nice little suburban neighborhood with dear Olivia. I can read the desire all over your pathetic face. You’ve lost your edge, Cash. You’re more like Washburn than you think. You’re tired of the killing, and you’re fed up with regrets.”

“But I’m not.”

Zara swung around to face the voice as a bullet tore through the shoulder of her shooting arm.

Cash recognized the error in Diane’s placement an instant too late, knowing her intention was to just disable the threat. The speed in which Zara switched her gun from one hand to the other didn’t surprise him. He had seen her ignore pain that would bring the strongest man to his knees and she was just as deadly a shot from either side. As the barrel of her pistol raised and took aim at Olivia, the percussion of his and Diane’s shots exploding simultaneously in the interior of the building shook the walls. One bullet lodged in a wooden statue next to Zara and the other tore a hole through her heart.