Wanna Play (Ghost Unit, Book Three) Read online

  In the truck rocketing through the night still forty miles away, Blaster swore in a vicious stream. He’d heard her gagging on her reaction to her first kills. She didn’t have to do any more, dammit. He’d take care of it, if she’d only wait. But he knew she wouldn’t. If she waited for him to get there, the target inside would realize his men outside were dead and have time to take up a defensive position. She was going in. It was what he’d do.

  His lips pulled back in a snarl that he didn’t waste time controlling. A brutal animal peered out the slits of his eyes.

  Jas used all the available cover and made the porch without alerting her prey. Cover was good there, provided by a wicker seating arrangement placed on either side of the door under wide windows. Gracious Southern living, it was Georgia.

  Silently, she crouched behind the wicker couch and watched through the window as the man inside systematically ran disks across a large magnet. He was doing exactly what she’d expected. Destroying evidence. Burning the disks in the large fireplace across the room was not half as effective as the magnet.

  Robert Larkin was absorbed in his task, never looking up or in any way indicating there was someone else in the house with him. Jas watched for several minutes, concentrating on the shadows around the room that she could see. A person could easily hide behind something in there, several persons actually. None of the shadows moved or were wrong in relation to the thing that was casting them. Was it possible Larkin was alone? Up here with just the three barely trained thugs she’d found outside?

  Larkin suddenly looked up and nodded to the left. A man strolled into view adjusting his pants. The fourth guard had been in the bathroom. The guy was in no hurry and ambled over to say something to Larkin.

  Jas glanced around calmly. She needed something to keep the door from clicking locked when the guard exited. If she had a roll of tape that would have been perfect. She could stand behind the door as it opened and stealthily slide a sliver of tape over the catches from behind with two fingers. Then take the guy out after he made it to the lawn so no noise leaked into the cabin. She didn’t have any tape.

  There was a fat decorative candle on the wicker table, matches beside it. That would have to do. Grabbing the candle and matches she used her body for cover as she set it on the floor against the wall, lit the wick as she glanced up in the window. The man was moving away from Larkin to the door. No time!

  Larkin barked out something and the guard paused to look back and answer. They exchanged a few more words. It was enough time.

  Jas blew out the candle and scooped her finger around the wick, gathering a ball of hot, tacky wax. Then she was flattened behind the door as it opened. Her finger was ready and she jammed wax into the locking prongs as the guard stepped out. It wouldn’t last long. She didn’t have the luxury of allowing the man to move away from the house. It had to be a silent kill before the little bit of wax cracked under the door’s pressure.

  The door swung shut and Jas was behind him. Delivering a brutal blow to his temple with her left fist, she stunned him for the kill stab. In smooth motion her left hand covered his mouth while grasping his face, yanking it to the side. Turning his head exposed the target area for easier access. Her hips twisted to add powerful body weight for the lethal upthrust, plunging the knife through his brainstem and into his skull. The blade sliced home then a wrenching half turn to finish the job.

  The intimate act of killing a man with a knife requires full body contact. She had to engage counter point and weight momentum to ensure the first thrust was a kill incision. There were no second chances, no comfortable distance a gun allowed. Blood gushed down her arm. Already stained with three kills, the warm flood was nevertheless jarring. It marked her and made her the blade, the instrument of death as surely as if it were her fingers twisting in his brain.

  Each kill cost a piece of her soul. She knew the reckoning would come, but not now. Now she had to be the shadowed hand of death. Dealing it out coldly or her life would be forfeit. These men were here for the specific purpose of capturing her. She had no illusion about what would have happened if they had managed that. Repeated rape would have been the least of her worries.

  As the thug crumpled, Jas held him to ensure there was no thud as he dropped to the porch. Her body slid down with him to drape over his back. In this, the last move of their ghoulish dance, she controlled his thrashing with her weight. She couldn’t afford the noise he’d make on the boards. Those few seconds as he violently rushed into death were the hardest. The body relaxed and she rolled up to her haunches, keeping low and scanning the night as she wiped her hands and blade on his back then turned to the house.

  Sliding in the door, she disappeared behind the first available cover—a large stuffed black bear. This was too easy. There was no alarm or warning given to the men outside. That lack of information told her she’d made the right choice in trusting Blaster. Lord knew she wanted to do a hell of a lot more than trust him. But after tonight, he might not be interested in a woman who could do this. No time to think about that. She had to remain alert.

  Larkin was still focused on his job.

  Only a single lamp burned in the opulent cabin’s interior. Last time she’d been here the interior had been a blur, this time she looked around with an eye for the details. The details told her how wrong she’d been assuming Larkin was the main man. From the outside, the cabin attempted to look innocuous as any other on the hillside. But inside it was furnished in leather and brass with onyx accents, a wealthy man’s play place.

  The front of the cabin was one large room with several distinguishable areas. Seating around the fireplace was a combination of high wingbacks and low couches. There was a dining area with a huge oak table and ten chairs. The big kitchen was open-front and she could see it was equally well appointed. Scattered around the large space were the heads of animals or the entire thing. Lion, tiger and elephant heads, an entire grisly and polar bear, various deer and antelope she didn’t recognize. Probably the global list of endangered species could be found here.

  The desk in the study alcove where Larkin worked was worth more than Larkin made in a year. It was mahogany with ivory inlays of hunting scenes. There remained no question that Larkin worked for someone. He was still in his Marine uniform as his hands swiftly passed disk after disk over the magnet. Light winked off the brass on his collar and Jas grimaced. It was time to find the real boogie man.

  “Don’t move,” she warned softly.

  Larkin’s head jerked up to face the silencer on the end of her nine millimeter. He straightened slowly in the big old-fashioned chair to smile at her. “I’ve been expecting you, Jazzy girl. But I did think the boys out front would welcome you first. They’re big fans and have been looking forward to this.”

  “Yes, they were dying to meet me.”

  One eyebrow went up and Larkin glanced at the window.

  “It’s just you and me,” Jas grinned, “again.”

  “Jumping a few trolls outside doesn’t impress me. They weren’t even military. No challenge. Now be reasonable and hand over the stupid gun. I can help you.”

  “I noticed your closest friends are suddenly from south of the border. Looks to me like someone doesn’t trust you, Bobby. Who would that be?” Jas smiled at him. Pulling two pairs of cuffs she’d lifted from the sentries outside from her jacket pocket, she tossed them to him. Larkin caught them out of habit. The reflexes of a physical man who’d maintained his fighting form for over twenty-five years of service.

  “Cuff your right wrist to the arm of the chair, your left ankle to the leg,” she instructed in the same conversational tone.

  “Really, my dear. There’s no need for this. If you’ve gotten rid of my watchdogs, we can both get out of this. Obviously you’ve finally figured out that I’m not your main concern. Hasn’t it occurred to you that the boys out front were here to keep me in as much as keep you out?” Larkin tried again.

  Jas had been moving around the desk stea
dily as they spoke. She was out of reach but now stood to his side, the desk no longer between her and Robert Larkin. She knew he thought he could now lunge at her and she’d probably only get a wild shot off. She felt it was time to impress him with the error of his thinking. His lame attempts to convince her that he was on her side had been insulting anyway.

  The silencer suddenly dipped down and a soft pop went off. Larkin screamed and doubled over to clutch his right foot.

  “That was only your little toe, asshole. I’m tired of talking. Now cuff yourself while you’re down there. I want your ankle to the chair leg and your arm coming down under the armrest and cuffed to the back chair leg. Do it now.”

  “Damn!” Jackson breathed as they listened to Jas handle Larkin. “She’s good. Knew not to warn him. Just went for it.”

  Blaster grunted. His grim face appeared pinched.

  She was doing everything right. How long could it last? She wasn’t Unit trained. She had a solid Marine background but would that be enough? This was her first real action after all. Raw recruits were usually nut jobs during their first taste of blood and guts. She seemed cold as an old professional and he’d think she was one if he didn’t know about her barf sessions tonight. Damn, damn, damn.

  Blaster wasn’t sure who he was praying to, but he pleaded with the gods of war. Just a little longer. She needed to hold on, he’d be there soon.

  He had to get there. He was her backup and his ass was still too damn far away. It didn’t matter that she’d forced him to let her get ahead of him. What mattered was she was in the shitstorm and he wasn’t there to make sure she came out of it. There was no time to marvel over her natural huntress instincts. They were serving her well so far. He grasped at the grim faith that she could hang on to them.

  “Fucking bitch!” Larkin spat at her, clutching his booted foot. Blood seeped out of the shot-off toe. He made a move to lift his torso.

  “Sit up and I’ll shoot you where it counts,” Jas warned. “Cuff yourself.”

  Larkin realized she wasn’t playing and picked up the cuffs he’d dropped by his foot and cuffed his leg and then his wrist as directed. He was bent double, his head between his knees, one arm wrenched back so his hand grasped the back leg of the big old-fashioned chair. Cuffed in that awkward position, he had to struggle if he wanted to look at her. It also cut down on his ability to plan an escape on the fly before she got his other wrist and ankle cuffed.

  Jas had his other hand as soon as he was done and quickly cuffed it so his hand gripped the top of the armrest on the other side of the chair. Jerking his left foot over, she cuffed that to the opposite leg. He was bent and twisted in an awkward position, in tremendous pain, but that was the point.

  “Let’s hear it. Who’s your boss?” she asked tightly.

  Larkin managed a wheezing laugh. “What makes you think I’d give him up, little girl?”

  Larkin screamed again. There was loud moaning and harsh breathing for a few minutes.

  “There are four more fingers on this hand. Who is your boss?” Jas repeated as she placed his pinky finger on the floor under his face.

  Larkin managed to lift his head and look her in the eye. His face was pale, sweat and tears dripped down to his square chin. He had been a reasonably good-looking man. His features were unremarkable but solid. His nose had been broken sometime in the past and never set completely straight. He looked the career Marine in every way. Now though, he looked different. There was a twisted quality to his face that matched the painful contortions his body was bound in.

  “He’s already fucked you, bitch. Don’t think your new boyfriend can Ghost your ass out of here.” Larkin laughed, it gargled and turned into a choked cough, but he continued. “You were never free, just too stupid to realize who owned you. He’s done playing with you, idiot. Bastard is done with all of us.”

  Jas stared into manic eyes and brought the knife down again. She’d been holding it poised over the next finger on his left hand. The ghost babble was interesting. It hinted at something fascinating. He’d also told her why it’d been too easy getting in here. Whoever was in charge had lured them both here. Getting out was going to be the trick.

  In the truck, Blaster sucked in a deep breath. Jackson started cursing soft and low.

  “Shut up, Jackson,” Gray hissed into the earpiece.

  “Stop the truck! The cabin’s a trap!” Gray barked in quick succession.

  “She doesn’t know,” Blaster responded as he brought the truck to a skidding halt. “Jackson, you have two seconds to get out. This is where she turned off with the bike. We can’t leave it. Straight north about a mile.”

  “Shut up, she’s talking.” Gray hushed them.

  Jackson hopped out of the truck and took off at a run. He’d reach the bike in about five minutes depending on how thick the underbrush was.

  Blaster roared down the road. The driveway to the cabin was another few miles.

  “Don’t you pass out on me, you fucking white bastard, in yo creepy rich man’s cabin!” Jas yelled “Why do all y’all white folk need to plaster the walls with moldy old dead animals? You tell me that, bastard. Feel like they watchin’ me an’ shit. Beady dead eyes lookin’ outta carcasses.”

  “She doesn’t talk like this,” Blaster said quietly. “She’s telling us there are eyes in the cabin.”

  “You’re sure?” Gray asked skeptically.

  “Yeah. She did it when we were being followed once. Sounds like conversation, but it’s a message. She’s as good as I am at seeing the details in her surroundings. I couldn’t catch her when she didn’t know what was different than it should be.”

  Blaster pulled the truck off the road before he reached the cabin drive and turned it off. The cabin was a trap. The person in charge was running a delicate operation that depended on human behavior playing out normally. They’d correctly pushed Jas’ buttons to bring her to this place.

  The complexity of the plan was erupting and none of them could afford to be sloppy. One thing had gone wrong with the plan, Larkin had known about it or guessed it. Amusing that human behavior was the only thing that tripped up a plan that had worked so flawlessly depending on the predictability of behavior.

  In any case, roaring up the driveway is what he would have done normally. It was only logical to assume that the driveway would be both monitored and booby-trapped. He worked his way to the cabin through the thick scrub of the forest surrounding it.

  Blaster was confident Jas had picked up that she was in a dangerous situation and possibly not alone in the house.

  Jas had kept talking, apparently muttering to herself if one didn’t know what to listen for. It was a steady stream of information.

  “Gives me the damn willies. Damn dead fuckin’ animals. There’s just no need for it. Surrounding yaself with stupid crap like dis. A body walks in here and it’s a freakin’ tomb.”

  “She knows it’s a trap,” Blaster said softly to the two men listening. “She’s telling us not to enter the cabin. I’m betting it’s wired with explosives that can be detonated remotely.”

  “Only white asses think it’s fun to stuff they kills and keep the carcasses hangin’ ’bout. Must be sixty dead animals in here. Who needs that many reminders they can point a gun? He prolly didn’t even get ’em in a fair fight. Use that blind shit, so he ambushing the poor things. Larkin, are you wakin’ up yet? You stay out and I will beat you to consciousness. You hear me, hillbilly white boy?”

  “The trophies are stuffed with explosives,” Blaster interpreted her rambling. “She’s telling me it’s an ambush again and insisting we stay outside.”

  “Insisting?” Gray chuckled darkly. “I think she just threatened to beat you if you came in.”

  “That’s my baby,” Blaster acknowledged.

  “I have the bike,” Jackson interjected. “Do you need help?”

  “Naw, she’ll get out. Meet us at the jet,” Blaster responded. “Be ready to go, our tail might be hot.”

/>   “Good luck.” Jackson took off.

  Blaster remained at the edge of the yard. His concern about the possibility the drive was wired now extended to the rough yard surrounding the building. There was no way to tell, he didn’t have the right equipment.

  “Ohhhh now you went and did that!” Jas yelled again. “Pass out and you have to piss your pants. Jesus, you stank! I need some fuckin’ air and then I’m gonna hose your foul ass down. You will tell me who pullin’ your fuckin’ strings, bastard.”

  Jas came out the front door still yelling at Larkin. She was acting like a maniac, screaming threats over her shoulder into the cabin as she stepped onto the porch and grabbed one of the two smaller wicker chairs from the seating area and the matches from beside the candle.

  The loud, steady stream of expletives didn’t even hitch as she strode to the other end of the porch where a kerosene lantern rested on the other table of that side’s seating arrangement. Swiftly screwing off the top to the lantern tank, she splashed the round wicker chair back with flammable liquid. Actions done in quick, smooth movements, she put down the lamp and lit a match. The wicker chair back ignited as she pitched it over the railing.