Recon Marines II: Marine's Heiress, The by Susan Kelley Page A

on, Emma, I’ll walk you back to your
place.”
    “ No! Stay here. Don’t
leave us with that madman.” The prisoner rocked his chair, but
Vannie set his big foot on a rung and held it in place.
    Vin flicked the switch so the tool in
his hand whined again. It sounded worse up close.
    Emma couldn’t let this happen though
the grim-faced men in the room clearly had their minds
set.
    Vin gently forced her back a few steps.
“Do not interfere.” He turned back and took a step toward the
prisoners.
    “ All right!” the man
screamed. “We came to rob you all. We heard you had a cruiser full
of silver hidden away.”
    “ You needed all those
weapons for that?” Vin turned on his torture device so it filled
the room with its eerie howl.
    “ We only brought them
along to scare people. We didn’t even expect anyone to know we were
here. No one told us about any guards,” the man
blubbered.
    Vin turned off the tool and ran the
auger along the man’s cheek, stopping with it pressed against the
lower lid of one of the prisoner’s eyes. “But who told you about
the silver?”
    “ Underboss Lee Caoca,” the
other man mumbled. He didn’t lift his head to speak, only rolled it
side to side.
    “ Holy hell,” Vannie
cursed. “Why would Hadrason Mining want to steal from
us?”
    “ What is an underboss?”
Vin lifted the second prisoner’s head by grabbing his
hair.
    Emma hurried forward and knelt in front
of the poor man. His eyes rolled back, exposing the whites as he
lost consciousness again. She pushed at Vin, and he allowed it. “I
need to get this man into a bed.”
    “ The Underboss runs the
entire operation. He answers only to the owners of the mine,” Moe
explained.
    Emma sensed Vin tensing beside her, but
his voice didn’t change. “Hadrason is in prison.”
    “ So we’ve heard,” Vannie
said. “But he has others in business with him. I guess they’re
running things now unless they allow Hadrason to conduct his
affairs from prison.”
    “ So the orders of the
Underboss comes from the owner or these others?” Vin
asked.
    Vannie shrugged. “Could be this Lee
Cacoa acts on his own unless this gentlemen can tell us
more.”
    “ That’s all we know,” the
awake robber cried. “He told us the silver was in the basement of
the café with only two, old fat men to guard it. We expected to get
in and out without anyone knowing we were here. He told us to get
off planet by daylight.”
    “ How did you get to Hovel
Port from the mine?” Vin asked.
    The man leaned away from Vin though he
hadn’t moved closer. “We have a jet hopper parked a mile north
right on the road. We’re going to catch one of the cargo ships that
leave thrice a day. Let us go, and we’ll fly away. You’ll never
hear from us again.”
    “ Can you guard these two
men?” Vin set his torture device down.
    “ Where are you going?”
Vannie asked.
    “ To get their
hopper.”
    Emma felt the unconscious man’s head,
finding no obvious signs of a skull fracture. His breathing seemed
normal as did his color. She found the pulse on the side of his
neck, rapid but not alarming. Why wasn’t he awake?
    “ What are you going to do
with it?” Moe asked.
    Vin touched Emma’s shoulder. “I don’t
want you around them.”
    She turned and faced him. “I need this
man carried to my surgery where I have better light to examine him.
What did you do to make him unconscious?”
    “ These men need nothing
except to stay right here. Go back to your home and forget you saw
them.”
    “ Forget I saw
them?”
    Vin ignored her strident question. He
crossed the room and climbed the stairs to his loft. When Emma
looked at Moe and Vannie, they only shrugged. She shook her head at
them and walked behind the prisoners. A complicated webbing of
chains and bolts secured the men to their chairs and the chairs to
the heavy metal work bench a few steps away. Freeing the injured
man without Vin’s held looked hopeless until she noticed a long
bolt joining