“Dead?” her father supplied. “I don’t know.”
It broke her heart to see her pa with his chin on his chest, slumped in despondency. “Don’t you worry. I’m going back to find out—”
“No!”
She was already out of the cab. Tracing the reassuring bulge of the gun in her pocket, she walked briskly up to the towering gates in front of the slaughterhouse.
~~o0o~~
“Dante, we have a problem—”
“Tell me,” he insisted, drawing to a halt at the side of the road.
“It’s bad,” Miguel rapped, his voice crackling over a bad connection on the phone. “Our contact at the Garda has been overruled by someone on the take. There won’t be any backup for Rose.”
“What? That’s not possible. We’re here at the invitation of the Irish government.”
“Communication between departments is unreliable,” Miguel explained. “That’s all I can tell you at the moment.”
“Where is she?”
“One step behind the thugs at the slaughterhouse. As you suspected, some got away, and they’re heading for her father’s farm. They know they’re being hunted and they can regroup there. They’ll be in a strong defensive position by the time she gets back. Taking the animals was just a ruse. When Rose and her father return, their farmhouse will be a fortress with killers in command.”
Rose!
“Do we attempt to cut her off?” Miguel asked him. “Or do we go straight to the farm to neutralize the remaining gang members?”
Rose was driving into a hornet’s nest. She was a courageous woman, but she had no idea what she was up against.
He had never been split two ways on a mission before, but he had to make a choice. Save Rose or complete the mission? He couldn’t guarantee success in both.
~~o0o~~
Rose found no horses in the corral in the slaughterhouse yard. The slaughterhouse itself appeared to be abandoned. She could only find one confused old man in the office, and he seemed to be in a worse state than her father. He’d certainly been badly frightened by someone. When she couldn’t get any sense out of him, she called the Garda to send someone to care for him. She waited until they arrived. The police were as good as their word and were with her within ten minutes. She explained as much as she knew and then told them she’d take her father home as he’d been badly shaken. None of the police offered to go with her or to call by the farm later, which was strange, bearing in mind what the cabin attendant had told her about Dante arranging protection for her from the Garda until he arrived.
The second sign that something was wrong was when they arrived back at the farm to find the gate closed when she knew she’d left it open. And the horses were back in the paddock. Well, that was a relief, but it didn’t make sense. Frowning as she climbed out of the cab, she then opened the gate, and the next thing she knew, a gun was being held to her head.
~~o0o~~
Dante dumped the bike at the top of the hill overlooking Rose’s family farm and ran the rest of the way. The gang didn’t need more warning of his arrival. They’d be wired enough already. His team would be following in vans, but with Rose and her father in danger, he couldn’t take the chance of waiting for back-up. He flew down the slope, using trees and shrubbery as cover. He’d seen Rose and her father arrive and the man take them both captive. He’d been tempted to take the goon out permanently, but Rose’s father had stepped in to protect her, which prevented Dante from taking a clean shot. And now both were in his line of fire. He skidded to a halt when one of the sentries the gang had posted heard a twig snap, then slipped silently into a ditch. “In position,” he murmured into his mic.
“Roger that,” Miguel replied, making him smile grimly at the thought of his comrades, as reliable as ever and present as always, but again, as always, unseen. They’d be on foot now, he guessed, having left the vans out of sight but close by.
He tensed as a gang member emerged from the house and the man covering Rose and her father made a threatening gesture with his gun. “I’m going in,” he murmured. “Cover me, but hold fire until you receive my signal. There are two friendlies with our target—and there may be more captives inside the farmhouse.”
He had a split-second decision to make. Her father or Rose? Rose made the decision for him. When all hell broke out, she pushed her father to safety and pulled out the gun he’d left in the glovebox. Thank God she’d thought to bring it.
He went in firing and brought his team in behind the gang with a couple of his men flanking the criminals. Smoke grenades, gunfire, and confusion created enough of a diversion for him to push Rose’s father out of the line of fire, hustle him to the transporter, and
bundle him into the cab. “Drive down the road until we have things under control here,” he instructed. He glanced up to see the first helicopter circling overhead. The aircraft belonged to his team. There was no sign of the Garda. He couldn’t wait for them. The safety of Rose and her father was paramount.
Rose used the confusion to race to the paddock. Scrambling over the fence, she sprang down amongst the ponies. The noise of gunfire and shouts had sent the animals crazy. Rose was unruffled. With an expression of grim determination on her face, she singled out a handy-looking bay. His team covered him as he raced to help her.
“Stargazer?” he asked as he vaulted the fence.
“What kept you?” she exclaimed dryly, springing onto the horse’s back as Dante held the others off.
He blocked her path. “I can’t let you do this. It’s too risky.”