Deceptive Treasures: Slye Temp Book 5 by Dianna Love Read Free Book Online Page A

had collapsed .
    One must choose a small chance at living over sure death.

     
    Chapter Seven
     
    Tanner pulled up and stopped when Jin took a fork to the right. He wasn’t going in until he could be sure all his men made it to the new tunnel.
    Nick brought up the rear .
    Bullets struck rock walls, ricocheting just short of the group . The Norks were shooting down the tunnel blind, hoping to hit one of them. A trophy they could bring back to their leader.
    Nick was breathing hard . “We can drop a grenade, but we won’t be able to go back that way.
    “We can’t anyhow, but a grenade might bring the walls down around us. These tunnels look like they were carved when men lived in caves.” 
    “True.”  Nick took Jin’s fork and Tanner fell in behind him.
    Dingo’s voice came through Tanner’s comm set . “Jin says there’s a bend in the tunnel eighty to ninety meters in. She says the soldiers should take the other fork if we aren’t in view.”
    “Why?”
    “The other tunnel has an outlet and this one’s a dead end.”
    Then why the hell not take the other one ? Not a question he could get answered now. Maybe she thought once the soldiers passed by, his group could slip out and backtrack. But there would be more soldiers coming behind this bunch.
    The ones on his heels right now would reach him in another twenty seconds .
    Tanner was agile for his size, but eighty meters in twenty seconds in boots was cutting it too close to risk . Tanner gave an affirmative to follow Jin’s directions and Nick kicked it into gear ahead of him.
    Nick barked at Har to pick it up and get moving.
    Pulling out a flash bang, Tanner backtracked toward the soldiers whose grunting and pounding boots thundered louder all the time.
    He gave his men another ten seconds of lead then opened fire back toward the last turn he’d made.
    Shouts and the racket of chaos answered him.
    The minute it sounded as though they’d regrouped, ready to move forward, Tanner released the pins on the flash grenade and tossed it at the oncoming bodies.
    He covered his ears, opened his mouth to equalize the pressure and rushed away as light exploded behind him. When he reached the turn Jin had taken with his men, Tanner shot his weapon down the path that led the wrong way. If she believed the soldiers would take that path, he wanted to give them the impression he was still running ahead of them.
    The last thing he did was to pop a smoke grenade and throw it down that same tunnel to look like he’d kept running in that direction and had thrown it behind him.
    That was the best he could do to decoy the soldiers in another direction.
    He pumped his arms, running flat out as hard as he could . A tiny glow lit the corner of the bend. He growled, “Kill the light,” and hoped his throat mic picked it up.
    Thirty feet . Light blinked out.
    Twenty feet . Gunshots rang out and soldiers shouted behind him, but where? Were they still in the last tunnel or had they caught up and seen him?
    Ten feet.
    He shortened his step to slow his speed and dove around the corner, bouncing off the rock wall.
    Pain jabbed his shoulder and he was still flying forward.
    Nick and Dingo each caught an arm, using their bodies to block his forward momentum. He clenched his teeth to keep from dragging in gulps of breath and stood up on his own, freeing Nick and Dingo to handle their weapons with both hands while all three backed deeper into the tunnel.
    Loud jabbering in Korean was going on far enough away it sounded like it was in the last tunnel.
    Tanner waved everyone deeper behind him.
    Nick stood with Tanner as Dingo and Blade backed their physicists up quietly . Even Har wasn’t wheezing. No telling how much Albuterol Blade had given him to quiet that nasally chuffing.
    Tanner glanced around as he continued backing up and found Jin two arm lengths away, her fingers fisted and body tensed for attack . The only part that gave away her fear was the wide flare of her eyes.
    He kept