Well. “We come back to the moment we inject them. Even the slowest person in the world will yell in surprise and pain if stabbed with a three-inch needle. That’s bound to get the others very interested in you!”
“Hmm.” He rubbed his two-day beard, sexy and crazy and the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen. And nonchalantly planning their deaths. “How about we create a diversion, something loud enough to drown any shouts?”
Her body throbbed with his nearness. She forced herself to focus, raised her eyebrows. “How?”
“I have no idea.” He actually grinned and she just wanted to devour that smile.
“I haven’t thought that far. I thought if we got rid of three, and only five remained on this floor, it would encourage anyone who could get up to join us in charging the militants. I thought that if the militants shot us, the gunfire would make the security forces take a chance, bring them storming in from outside, changing the plan, rattling the outside agents, who would probably hesitate to act without their leader’s order. My bet is until they inform him of the development and get his order to strike, it will buy enough time for the security forces to end up saving far more than two people.”
As plans went, this was one desperate piece of insanity. But as crazy as it sounded, it was the only thing that might end in less than total loss.
But wait—he’d said they needed a diversion, a loud one, and it had just occurred to her…If that idea could work, it would be just what they needed. And why shouldn’t it? Still, she’d better run it by him, work out the bugs together.
He was already loading the Valium into their largest syringes. She joined him. “I think I have an idea for that loud diversion we need.”
She rubbed her cheek over the nearest part of him, his shoulder. “What I’ll do is let the Azernians know that we need them to chant one of their patriotic songs. You know, pretend to be bidding us an emotional farewell. The hundreds of people around would be deafening at full blast. Now, even if they don’t have enough lung-power they will probably make enough noise to drown out a couple of shouts. Even if they don’t, the shouts may be interpreted as ones of outrage. This I can tell you, hearing the Azernian anthem will make the Badovnans real mad.”
The gleam in his eyes lit her up. “Which will also keep their attention off us.” His caressing pinch melted down her cheek to her lips. “You’re more than a genius, bellezza. This is an incredible idea. Do it. And be very clear when we need them to start chanting. We have to time it just right for it to work. The second Anyan is hauled up, they should burst into song. We probably won’t have another chance.”
He moved to continue filling the syringes and she stayed his hands. “What happens after we dispose of the first three?”
He pressed her to him for a precious moment. “If and when the others turn on us, we’ll have their comrades’ weapons in our hands and their comrades themselves in front of us as shields.”
“You expect me to hold up an unconscious man?”
“I’ll hold him up. You hide behind me.”
Her eyes traveled down his formidable proportions. In normal conditions, she’d bet he could hold up all three he was bent on knocking out. Normal conditions these weren’t. Another thing made her skeptical. “And you think it will give them pause? That they wouldn’t shoot anyway, comrades or no?”
He handed her another Valium ampoule. “I hope it will make them at least hesitate. When they do, we explain their leader’s betrayal, give them a chance to survive this. If they start shooting then, it’s back to plan A and my hope that the forces outside come charging in.”
“And what will we be doing in the meantime?”
“You find cover, you stay down, and you don’t hesitate to shoot anyone who seems to be a threat to you or to others.”
“And you?”
“I’ll cover you.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll do what you just told me to do.”
“We may not need all this. We may get the militants to surrender.”
“Yeah, sure. Promise me, Dante. No crazy heroics!”
He finished loading his syringes and raised warm eyes to hers. “I’ll only do what needs to be done.”
“That’s not good en—”
His thumb on her lips didn’t silence her. His eyes did. Eloquent. Decisive. Final. “Now, pretend to be doing a final check-up of the people you treated, pass your message around. Tell them to be careful not to arouse the militants’ suspicion. Then come back to me.”
The way he’d said that! Oh, God. It wasn’t fair, not having more time with him. But she’d come back to him. They’d make their last stand together. It would be all that mattered.
He gave her hand one last bolstering squeeze and she swayed up to her feet, went to deliver her message, set the stage for the showdown.
The Azernians were wary, didn’t want to antagonize their captors. She found no way around telling them what awaited them if they didn’t co-operate.
Anyan was all for it. He hadn’t been shot but beaten up. He had a fractured scapula and a shattered femur. Now loaded up on morphine, he felt invincible, and wanted to do whatever it took to take their oppressors down. She explained their plan to him, again and again. She didn’t like the recklessness in his eyes.
Too late now to change their plans, to pick someone else. She left him and headed back to Dante. Dante. Even his name was magnificent. She wondered what it meant. And now she’d never know.
He had gathered all his stuff, closed the bag and was standing there, tall and indescribable, waiting for her to reach his side again. The militants by now considered her his, were no longer keeping an eye on her.
She smiled up at Dante, way up. It was the first time they’d stood up next to each other. He made her feel so petite. So feminine. So alive. Oh, Dante…
“All set?” She nodded and revealed the syringes stuffed into the waistband of her pants. His eyes rose from the sight of her naked midriff, tempestuous, locked with hers for an endless moment, everything exchanged and said. It could be the last glance. Probably was. “Gulnar, whatever happens, it’s been an honor.” He took her hand, raised it to his lips, caressed each finger with a lingering kiss. “You make me proud to be human.”
She couldn’t hold back. She surged into him, encircled his body with both arms, ignoring the pain in her left one, the stiffness. Let the militants think it was gratitude for having chosen her for salvation. Or maybe as a bribe, a promise of favors to be bestowed if he chose her to save. Let them think whatever they wanted. They probably thought the worst by now. And it could only help their plan.
He pressed her head hard to his chest, over his booming heart. Steady, powerful. It was all there. His spirit, his virility, his humanity. She knew them all, down to the last detail. It had been three hours, and for ever, since she’d first laid eyes on him. She’d known what he was with that first look, against all damning evidence. It felt so good, made her so smug, knowing she’d been right about him.
Their embrace lasted for priceless seconds more, then they separated and he gestured towards the quarreling militants. “Shall you do the honors?”
Without another look, she preceded him to the militants. He picked up his bag and fell into step with her. She stopped a few feet away from the militant pair, and explained Dante’s wishes.
They called three of their underlings, the three Dante had predicted. They came lumbering over, sullen and sweaty, but it was clear they didn’t even consider contesting their order.
They shuffled after Gulnar and Dante towards Anyan. Dante’s gaze remained fixed ahead. They were getting what they needed, the militants’ total disregard.
Their three helpers stood around considering Anyan’s huge body and how to haul him from the floor without breaking their backs. Gulnar told them not to expect any help from him, warned them against causing him further damage, stressing their immediate and overall leaders’ orders.
They fidgeted and gestured to Dante that they need a fourth for a safe lift. He pointed at his heavy bag. Giving up, they bent to the grinning Anyan. It took them half a dozen false starts to at last get a hold on him, their guns slung on their backs and their legs quivering beneath them under his unwieldy, flaccid weight.
The next second, every hair on Gulnar’s body stood on end.
She’d been expecting it. But she couldn’t have expected anything like this. The hostages’ voices rose. But it wasn’t singing, it was prayer. A requiem of defiance. Their voices rose, swelled, in impossible harmony, in soul-wrenching unison. The lyrics became holy, the melody magical. It was daunting, what they, with just their voices could do.
The Badovnan militants froze, spooked. Gulnar didn’t wait for their paralysis to dissolve. Neither did Dante. They stabbed their targets with the tranquilizer. The militants’ enraged cries were swallowed in the crashing waves of their hostages’ passive aggression.
Dante barely caught Anyan before he crashed to the floor, dropped from limp arms. Then he and Gulnar snatched the rifles from the collapsing men. Dante managed to hold the biggest man up, hissed for her to stay behind him. It was all going according to plan.