She reached with her wounded arm, tried to hold—and slipped, falling back to the hard ice. She stared up, tears of frustration running hot down her cheeks, recognizing the truth.
I’ll never make it.
9:48 A.M.
Gray knew the battle was lost.
The surprise of the initial assault faded as the enemy dug in. A round pinged off the side of the ATV, the ricochet striking Gray’s thigh, burning a line across his hip.
He signaled Kowalski.
The big man dashed his ATV over toward the bus, while Gray and Monk covered him, sweeping across the ice and laying down a fierce barrage of gunfire.
Kowalski reached the broken ice around the bus and spun a one-eighty, skidding to a stop at the crumbling lip of the shattered hole.
Atop the bus, Duncan bounded out of its rear door, ran across its slanted back, and vaulted over the open water below, opalescent with leaking gasoline and oil. He landed hard on the seat behind Kowalski—and the pair immediately rocketed away from the bus in a fishtailing path toward Gray.
As they fled, rounds peppered the side of the bus and cracked shards from the ice.
Monk fired back toward the tunnel as Gray gripped the handlebars with one glove and blasted away with his pistol in the other.
They were all low on ammunition and needed to make a final stand.
He raced toward the tunnel, seeking its cover.
Kowalski barreled behind him.
Monk hit a soldier in the leg, sending him toppling. Others scattered as Gray’s team concentrated their fire at the mouth of the tunnel. With the way clear, his group shot into the tunnel, raced ten yards in, then skidded sideways in unison.
Once stopped, they all fell to the far sides of the parked vehicles, using their bulk as a temporary shelter, setting up a roadblock between them and the enemy.
Gray took quick inventory. Kowalski bled from his shoulder and side. Duncan had an angry graze across his cheek. Monk held a hand to his thigh, blood welling through his fingers.
Still, they all looked fierce and ready to eke out every extra moment for Jada and Vigor to accomplish what they must. Unfortunately, they were down to a few shots each. They would have to make them count.
As if knowing this, the enemy regrouped for their final assault.
Gray braced for it, leveling his pistol.
Instead, a figure appeared, clutching another.
A large North Korean soldier in full body armor held Seichan, an arm across her throat, a pistol against her skull, using her as a human shield. Seichan looked defeated, the fire blown out of her.
“Throw your weapons to us!” a familiar voice called to them. “Come out with your hands on your heads or she will die before you. Just like we killed the other woman.”
The plans that had been revising in Gray’s head blew away at those last words.
. . . killed the other woman.
Monk clutched his arm, but he barely felt those fingers.
Rachel.
Frozen flashes popped through his head: the rich caramel of her eyes, the way she flipped her hair when angry, the softness of her lips, the stutter of her laughter when caught off guard.
How could that all be gone?
“Gray,” Monk whispered to him, holding him to the present with his tone as much as his iron grip.
Fire welled up inside Gray, blinding him.
At the tunnel’s end, Pak darted out, dashing into cover behind the tall Korean. “Come out now! And you will live!”
The triumphant whine of that insect’s voice snapped Gray back to himself, to his duty. They still needed to buy time to save the world, but Gray had a new purpose: to avenge Rachel.
“What do you want us to do?” Duncan whispered, holding his SIG Sauer.
Gray considered sending the man back to help Jada, but Pak would know one of them was missing and go looking for Duncan, defeating their objective here.
“Do what he says,” Gray said coldly, forcing his jaw to move. “It’ll buy us more time.”
With no other recourse, they threw out their weapons. Pistols skittered across the ice and into the sunshine beyond the tunnel.
Gray stood up, his hands on his head.
The others followed his example and climbed together over the blockage of vehicles.
Clearly knowing he had won, Pak finally stepped free as they approached. He felt at ease enough to light a victory cigarette and pointed its glowing tip at Gray.
“We will have fun, you and I.”
Gray bit back a retort, constraining himself from reacting, trying to keep this guy talking versus entering the tunnel.
He had no idea if Jada had safely scaled the frozen waterfall at the back of the cavern, but the climbing ropes were still there. The enemy would know to follow that path up.
So he only glared.
Reaching the tunnel’s end, Gray found rifles pointed at them, bodies strewn across the ice. At least they had taken out half of Pak’s forces. Others bled from grazes and gunshots.
Gray would have to take satisfaction in that.
To the left, a familiar figure hung back from the others.
Ju-long Delgado.
He glanced at Gray, then at his toes, clearly ashamed of his role here.
It was unfortunate.
The man failed to see the thin shape sail down one of the Koreans’ ropes, landing behind him without a sound—or the flash of silver as the sword pierced him from behind.
As Ju-long fell to his knees with a gasp of surprise, Guan-yin stood there, her dragon tattoo ablaze on her face, shining with fury. She raised her other hand, lifting a pistol into view, and began firing.
To both sides, figures flowed down the other ropes, shooting from above as they descended.
Her Triad.
Stunned, Gray could not fathom how Guan-yin had found them, but such questions would have to wait.
Taking advantage of her mother’s distraction, Seichan stamped her captor’s instep. While the hardened soldier was too professional to lose hold of her, it allowed Seichan to slip lower, her eyes fixed to Gray.
He was already moving, running toward her. The man fired at him, but Gray dropped and slid on the ice. As rounds blasted over the crown of his head, he grabbed the only weapon at hand.
Reaching the soldier’s knees, Gray lunged up with a shattered length of icicle in hand. He drove it past Seichan’s ear and through the man’s exposed throat.
The soldier fell back, dropping his weapon and clutching his neck with both hands.
Gray turned to Duncan. “Go help Jada! Now!”
They were down to a handful of minutes.
9:53 A.M.
With a fire lit under him, Duncan sprinted, not bothering with the abandoned ATVs. He vaulted over them and ran, stretching his stride, trying to stick to the windblown dry snow versus the slick ice.