“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.
Then it all went wrong.
One of the militants turned around, and he turned already firing.
No!
His gun spewed thunder and yellow bursts. Bright red exploded from the man in front of Dante, splattering her face, her left arm. He had just shot his colleague! There’d been no hesitation. No hesitation! And he kept firing. More crimson showered on her.
Dante!
Hearing the gunshots, the crowd hushed for a second then exploded on a sustained crescendo of desperation. Their effect was mind-bending. Their captors went berserk.
Then the rescue attempt started, the security forces blasting in. She saw Dante still standing, still holding up his murdered shield, firing back, saw the militant shake and convulse in a macabre dance, his body spewing blood.
“Dante! Get down!”
He couldn’t hear her. Or wouldn’t. Bent on protecting those flat on the floor, helpless. The security forces finished off the three militants at the door, turned on all the others who’d come rushing from their posts on the upper floors and roof.
Then an explosion brought half the ceiling hurtling down in boulder-sized chunks. The singing had stopped, a cacophony of panic and agony rising instead.
“Dante!”
She screamed his name. Wailed it. He didn’t answer her. She couldn’t see him any more. What if the security forces mistook him for a militant? What if he hadn’t ducked out of the way of the debris in time? What if—what if…?
She scampered on hands and knees, frantic, crazed. And saw him. Dante! Standing and uninjured. Relief was brutal, enervating. Then it all went wrong again. The woman militant.
She’d circled behind them, was firing at him. No. No, she won’t. Gulnar would shoot her first. And she did. Saw her stagger, red stains blossoming on her chest. Then she fell.
Dante turned to her, letting go of his bloodied shield. She erupted to her feet, flew towards him. He gestured with the gun, adamant, ordering her to stay there, stay down. Then his other hand went to his chest, came away drenched in blood. His eyes returned to hers again, stunned, questioning. His lips moved on her name. “Gulnar?”
Then he collapsed to the floor.
CHAPTER FIVE