Diamond Bay Read online

  Kell’s face was set like granite. This was exactly what he’d wanted most to avoid, one of his worst fears coming true. Rachel’s life was being threatened because of him. Damn! Why hadn’t he left last night, as he should have? He’d let sexual desire override his common sense, and now she was in danger.

  “Sabin!” The voice came from the pine thicket.

  He didn’t answer, but his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the thicket, trying to find the speaker. He wasn’t going to answer and reveal his position; let them find out the hard way.

  “Come on, Sabin, don’t make it any harder than it has to be!” the voice continued. “If you surrender, I give you my word none of the others will be harmed!”

  “Who is that joker?” Grant grunted.

  “Charles Dubois, alias Charles Lloyd, alias Kurt Schmidt, alias several other names,” Kell murmured.

  The names meant nothing to Rachel, but Sullivan’s brows lifted. “So he finally decided to come after you himself.” He looked around. “We’re not in a good position. He’s got men all around the house. There aren’t that many of them, but we’re hemmed in. I checked the phone—it’s dead.”

  Kell didn’t have to be told that their situation wasn’t good. If Dubois used the rockets on the house, as he had on the boat, they were all as good as dead. But then again, he was trying to take Kell alive. Alive, he was worth a lot of money to a lot of people who would pay anything to get their hands on him.

  He tried to think, but the cold fact was that there was no way out of the house. Even if they waited until nightfall and tried to sneak out, there was little available cover to use except for the bushes, which were right against the house. Away from the house, it was open for a good distance in all directions. That meant it would be difficult for anyone to catch them unawares, but it also meant the same thing in reverse. Even if he walked out and surrendered, it wouldn’t save the others. There was no way Dubois would let any witnesses live. He knew it, and Sullivan knew it; he could only hope Rachel and Jane didn’t realize quite how hopeless the situation really was.

  A glance at Rachel dispelled that idea. She knew, all right. That had been the problem from the first; she was too aware, with no veil of ignorance to shield her. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her head on his shoulder, assure her that it would be all right, but with those clear, level gray eyes on him, he couldn’t lie to her, even to give her momentary comfort. He never wanted any lies between them.

  There was a shot from the bedroom, and all the color washed out of Grant’s face, but before he could move Jane called him. “Grant! Is the kneecap where I’m supposed to shoot these people?”

  If anything, he went even whiter, swearing long and low.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” she added philosophically. “I missed, anyway. But I hit his gun, if that counts.”

  “Sabin!” the man yelled again. “You are testing my patience! This cannot go on much longer. It would be such a pity if the woman was harmed.”

  “Woman,” instead of “women.” Then Kell realized that Rachel hadn’t gone out on the porch; they had seen Jane and thought she was Rachel. They were both slim and had dark hair, though Jane was taller and her hair was a little longer, but at a distance no one would have noticed. It didn’t give him much of an advantage, but it might help that Dubois would be underestimating the number of armed people.

  “Sabin!”

  “I’m thinking!” Kell yelled, keeping his head away from the window.

  “Time is a luxury you can’t afford, my friend. You know you can’t win. Why not make it easy on yourself? The woman will go free, I promise you!”

  Dubois’s promises weren’t worth the air it took to make them, and Kell knew it. Time. Somehow he had to buy a little time. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but every extra second gave chance an opportunity to step in. Timing was always critical, and if he could stall Dubois it might throw the man off in some way.

  “What about my other friend?” he yelled.

  “Of course,” Dubois lied smoothly. “I have no quarrel with him.”

  Grant’s lips twisted back in a feral grin. “Sure. There’s no way he didn’t recognize me.”

  What a coup it would be for Dubois to capture both Sabin and the Tiger, the big tawny warrior with the wild, golden eyes who had ranged the jungle with Sabin and later been his prime agent. Each was legendary in his own right; together they had been incredible, so attuned that they acted as one man. Sullivan had had a run-in with some of Dubois’s men a few years back; no, Dubois wouldn’t have forgotten that, considering how Sullivan had made a fool of him.

  A movement in the trees suddenly caught Kell’s attention, and his black eyes narrowed. “See if you can get him to say something else,” he told Grant, sliding the barrel of the .22 just a fraction of an inch outside the broken window and keeping his eyes fixed on the spot in the trees.

  “Come on, Dubois,” Grant yelled. “Don’t play games. I know you recognized me.”

  Kell’s finger tightened slightly on the trigger as silence reigned; was Dubois really surprised to find out they knew who he was? It was true that he had always operated from the background rather than risk his own safety, but Kell had been after him for years now, ever since Dubois had begun selling his services as a terrorist.

  “So it is you, Tiger.”

  There it was again, that slight movement. Kell sighted down the barrel and gently squeezed the trigger. The report of the rifle echoed in the small house, drowning out any cry of pain, but Kell knew he hadn’t missed. He also didn’t know if he’d hit Dubois or someone else.

  A hail of bullets tore into the house, shattering all the windows and gouging long splinters out of the walls and window frames, but the steel-reinforced doors held. “Guess he didn’t like that,” Kell muttered.

  Grant had ducked to the floor, and now his head came up. “You know, I never liked that nickname worth a damn,” he drawled, then swung his rifle up. It was an automatic, and he fired it in the three-shot bursts of a well-trained soldier, making good use of his firepower without wasting his ammunition. Pistol shots came from both the bedroom and Rachel’s office; then all hell broke loose again. They were tearing the house up, and cold fear filled him, because Rachel was caught in this barrage.

  “Rachel!” he yelled. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay,” she answered, and her calm voice made

  him ache.

  “Jane!” Grant yelled. No answer. “Jane,” he yelled again, his face gray as he started for the bedroom.

  “I’m busy!”

  Grant looked as if he might explode, and despite everything Kell found himself grinning. Better Grant than him. Still, Jane’s life was in jeopardy, too, and the thought of anything happening to her was almost as hard to bear as the thought of anyone hurting Rachel.

  There was another lull, and Grant pulled out his empty clip and slapped another one into place.

  “Sabin, my patience is at an end,” Dubois called, and Kell grimaced. Damn, it hadn’t been Dubois he’d hit.

  “You haven’t made the right offer yet,” he yelled in return. Anything to buy time.

  Jane crawled out of the bedroom, her hair all mussed and her eyes big. “I think the cavalry is coming,” she said.

  The two men ignored her, but Rachel scrambled to her side. “What?” she asked.

  “Men on horseback,” Jane said, waving her hand toward the bedroom. “I saw them, coming from that way.”

  Rachel felt like crying or laughing, but she couldn’t make up her mind which. “It’s Rafferty,” she said, and now she had their attention. “My neighbor. He must have heard the shots.”

  Grant crouched low and ran through the kitchen to the back, where he could see. “How many?” Kell asked.

  “Twenty or so,” Grant said. “Damn, they’re riding right into automatic f