Loyalty in Death

"Wait until I land." A spear of panic arrowed into his gut as he understood what she meant to do. "Goddamn it, Eve, wait until I put down."

She watched the ground come, felt the speed slow. "Clock's ticking," she told him and jumped.

She kept her knees loose, absorbing the shock. Still, she felt the bright pain careen from her boots up her legs as she hit and rolled. She came up, weapon drawn, and ran in a zigzag pattern for the statue's entrance.

A stream of heat singed past her. Eve hit the ground, rolled again, and returned fire. Even as she came up, she released the harness on her calf, pulled her clinch piece. She hit the door with sweeping blasts from both weapons and dived through.

The return fire came from above. Eve saw Clarissa in full combat gear, an assault laser in her hands, two hand blasters strapped to her side.

"It's done!" Eve called out. "It's over, Clarissa. We found your room, your data. Your transmissions to Montana are going to lead us right to Henson and the rest. There's a hundred cops on their way to this location."

A huge blast rocked the ground. Light exploded outside the door. Roarke, Eve thought with a cold smile. He'd come through. "There goes your transpo. You can't get off the island. Give it up."

"We'll take it out. We'll take it all out. There'll be nothing left but the ashes." Clarissa fired another round. "Just as my father pla

"But you won't be there to take his place." Eve plastered herself to the wall. Across the room was the first device, set in a slim metal box. She could see the red lights blinking. Time? she thought. How much time?

"It falls apart, everything he wanted falls apart if you don't take his place."

"I will take his place. We are Cassandra." She laid down a stream of heat and light as she raced up the stairs.

Sucking in a breath, Eve pounded after her. The heat burned her lungs, had tears streaming from her eyes and blurring her vision.

She heard Clarissa screaming for her husband, calling for death, for destruction. For glory. The old metal stairs circled, circled up the body of the statue. She saw the second device, hesitated for a heartbeat with some thought of deactivating it herself.

And hesitating saved herself a laser blast full in the face. The blast shrieked past her and blew out three of the metal treads.

"He was a great man! A god. And he was assassinated by the Fascist forces of a corrupt government. He stood for the people. For the masses."

"He killed the people, killed the masses. Children, babies, old men."

"Sacrifices of a just war."

"Just, my ass." Eve swung from cover, fired high and blind toward the shouts. She heard a howl of rage or pain; she couldn't be sure which. She hoped it was both.

Then they were racing up again.

She saw the third device. Roarke had already dealt with the first, she told herself. Had to. She could hear no sounds of fire or struggle from below. He was in the clear, doing what needed to be done.

She took a quick look at her wrist unit. Six minutes to backup.

Her calves burned, her breath came short. For a moment, her vision wavered and the weapons clutched in her hands grew weighty and awkward.

The crash was coming on. She leaned back against the wall to catch her breath and her bearings. Not now, not now. She could hold out against it, would hold out against it.

Finally, she heard movement behind her. "Roarke?"

"The first is down." He called up the stairs, his voice brisk and cool. "Moving on to two. We're on timers with these. Set for eighteen hundred. Locked and loaded."

"Okay. Okay." She scrubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. It was seventeen-fifty.

She pushed away from the wall, climbed. She didn't give the fourth device so much as a glance. Her job was the Bransons.

She was ru

"Clarissa."

"Cassandra."

"Cassandra," Eve corrected, shifting slightly, trying to scan as much of the area as she could manage. "Dying here isn't going to finish your father's work."

"It will be a great moment in history. The destruction of the city's most beloved symbols. She'll crumble in his name, and the world will know."

"How will they know? If you're buried under tons of stone and steel, how will they know?"

"We are not alone."

"The rest of your group is being searched out and picked up right now." She looked at her wrist unit again, felt sweat slipping down her spine. "Henson." She tossed the name out, hoping it would shake her quarry. "We know where he is."

"You'll never take him." In fury, Clarissa fired. "He was my father's most trusted friend. He raised me. He completed my training."

"After your father was killed. Your father and your brother." Roarke was moving up, she told herself. They'd take out the last device together. There was time. "You weren't in the house."

"I was with Henson. Madia died for me. It was right that she did. We heard the explosion from blocks away. I saw what those pigs had done."

"So Henson took you under. What about your mother?"

"Worthless bitch. I wish I could have killed her myself, watched her die. I would've enjoyed that, loved it, remembering all the times she berated me. My father used her as a vessel, nothing more."

"And when her usefulness was over, he left her, and took you and your brother."

"To teach us, to train us. But I was his light. He knew I would be the one. Others saw me as just a pretty little girl with a soft voice. But he knew. He knew I was a soldier, his goddess of war. He knew, as Henson knew. As the man I chose to marry knew."

Branson. Eve shook her head to clear it. Dear God, she'd forgotten about him. "He's been in on it all along."

"Of course. I would never give myself to a man who wasn't worthy. I could make them think I would – like Zeke. What a pathetic boy, starry-eyed, gullible. He made those last steps work. The Bransons dead, most of the money in closed accounts, me ru

"But that's over now." She heard feet slapping the stairs beneath her. It was time to move.

"I'm not afraid to die here."

"Good." Eve dived across the opening, firing a sweeping blast. She saw the impact knock Clarissa down, and the blood bloom on her thigh. She came in low, kicking the weapon from Clarissa's still shuddering hand. "But I'd rather you live in a cage for a long, long time."

"You'll die here, too." Clarissa gasped for breath as Eve disarmed her.

"The hell I will. I've got an ace in the hole."

Roarke came through the door. She started to grin at him, then saw the movement behind. "Your back!" she shouted.

He pivoted, swung out. The flash from Branson's weapon smoked his sleeve. Eve saw the line of blood, sprang to her feet. They were already struggling, locked in close hand-to-hand. With no way to get a clear shot, she prepared to leap.

Clarissa swung her legs out, caught her behind the knees, and sent her sprawling. Eve was cursing when the next blast shattered the glass. Wind poured in, and the roar of copters, the scream of sirens.

"It's too late!" Clarissa shrieked, and her lovely eyes were wide and wild. "Kill him, B. D. Kill him for me while she watches."

Roarke's hand slipped off the weapon. Pain fired up his arm. The scent of his own blood had his teeth bared. From somewhere behind him, he heard Eve shouting, the sound of racing feet. But all he could see was the vicious thirst for death in Branson's eyes.

The weapon swung again, shot blasts into the ceiling. Debris rained down, whirled by the wind into his face like tiny bullets. When a hand closed hard over his throat, he saw small stars and spun his body into Branson's. The impact sent them both over the rail and through the jagged glass.