At the Quietest Word

by M. L. Buchman

  Hannah glanced over at him, then turned back to the road.

  Drive on by? would be her unspoken question.

  Abort the mission and don’t even turn in was the sensible option. This wasn’t just some security contractor’s Humvee they’d carjacked for a few hours. Not with an onboard armory and a half million in hard cash sitting in the back. They’d just stepped into some kind of shit it was better not to know about.

  “Here’s another caseful o’ cash,” Anton announced merrily.

  A million. Far safer to abort, dump the vehicle, and go for another. Not just bad news. These guys were going to come hunting for whoever had jacked their vehicle and they were going to come hard.

  Oddly, that made being on the base the safest place. There they’d be surrounded by the very forces they were here to fool.

  Just then a civilian Bell LongRanger swooped by overhead. He watched it for the space of three heartbeats as it turned for final approach to the airfield. No need to bother Michelle and ask if that was their team. Only a Night Stalker would fly that way. He’d ridden enough deep insertions in their aircraft to recognize Jesse’s perfect control.

  “They’re already in,” he told Hannah.

  Rather than bypassing the gate, she turned in and they were committed.

  Ricardo handed all except one bundle of cash back to Anton.

  Now it was going to get interesting.

  “I do not like the blood!” Isobel said for about the hundredth time.

  “Wimp! Besides, you still look amazing. Bet you’d even make a lovely corpse.” Michelle had her hooked up to a saline drip, because who didn’t get dehydrated in Honduras’ oppressive heat? Blood pressure cuff. Half a dozen bandages, as if for scattered cuts and scrapes. Several of them bloodied with a bag of blood they’d bought at a butcher’s shop in Tegucigalpa.

  “But I liked these jeans.”

  “Five-hundred-dollar Calvin Kleins?” They so weren’t.

  “Forty-nine at Walmart. I still think like the girl who grew up poor.”

  “Good.” Because Michelle had felt a little guilty about cutting the big slice across the thigh. “Maybe we’ll make them into cutoffs afterward.”

  “You just stay away from me with your scissors.”

  “I have shears and scalpels, but no scissors.” Thankfully she’d had her EMT med kit with her and hadn’t needed to fake anything except the blood.

  “Jesse, could you rescue me from this woman?” Isobel called out.

  “He can’t hear you. He’s too busy talking to the tower and getting us on the ground.”

  “We’re here already?”

  “Yes, the Army medics of Soto Cano Air Base eagerly await your arrival. So get ready to put on your best, oh-so-helpless-movie-star-who-fell-down-a-cliff-while-on-an-outing-from-a-cruise-ship act.”

  “Oh, yes. How did I do that again?”

  “By being an airheaded idiot.”

  Isobel scowled at her. “You’re enjoying this.”

  “Must say I am.”

  Isobel lay back with a sigh. “I guess I should have expected this.”

  “What?” Michelle glanced out the window and saw that the ground was close. A team waited with a rolling gurney ready to whisk Isobel into emergency care. She checked body temperature, oxygenation, and blood pressure again just to be ready with the vitals report any decent EMT would deliver with the patient. “You’re far too healthy.”

  “I should have expected you’d take out your anger at Ricardo on me.”

  “Oh, I’d never do that to you,” Michelle whispered fast as she repacked her gear bag. The skids touched down on the pavement.

  The cargo door was whisked aside and suddenly three male orderlies were easing Isobel’s stretcher out the door and onto the gurney.

  “No,” she told the empty cargo bay before climbing down to follow along. “Ricardo will get all of what’s coming to him himself.”

  Chapter 15

  “IDs please.”

  Ricardo passed the stolen Security Teams International’s card to Hannah, along with the CAC (Common Access Card). He hesitated a moment to see who he was supposed to be, should have read them sooner. He was Jack Harper, a former Green Beret Sergeant E-5.

  Lame, dude. Ten years in and didn’t make staff sergeant. Well, Ricardo knew enough to read between the lines that the guy had been eased out, without doing anything so heinous as to be tossed out. It certainly would explain the guy’s bruised ego.

  Ricardo was careful to keep his face in the Humvee’s internal shadows. If the guy was properly trained, he’d pull a flashlight to check his face. Ricardo might be able to pull it off with the sunglasses, but…

  Nope. Guy didn’t even try.

  “May I have the other IDs please.”

  Regular forces. Last name on his jacket: Jeffries.

  “They’re with me, Jeffries. Better not to ask questions.”

  “Uh…” the soldier hesitated for a long moment.

  Anton passed forward a Glock 22 in a shoulder harness. Ricardo made a show of shrugging it on. Once he was settled, he slid his stolen sunglasses just far enough down his nose to glare at the guard. The glasses would now shade his cheekbones as he leaned partway into the sunlight coming in through the windshield. It was okay, the corporal wouldn’t think to look at the ID again.

  Jeffries had start-of-first-foreign-tour written all over him. No one else looked so neat and precise at a foreign airbase. A bribe attempt might get them shot—the kid would still be too straitlaced to try that ploy. But a strong-arm tactic would cow him under unless he was well above the average lot.

  “Best not to ask, Jeffries. Some things you really don’t want to know.” He pushed up his sunglasses, leaned back into the shade, and waved a hand for Jeffries to lift the barrier.

  Another hesitation. Hannah played the role perfectly, kept her hands quiet on the wheel and looked straight ahead, waiting like the perfect automaton.

  Finally Jeffries signed his own demotion back to private by raising the barrier and waving them through.

  “Way too easy, bro,” Anton announced from the back.

  “You’re right. But it’s only Layer One. It heats up from here.”

  “Right or left?” Hannah asked as she slowed at the end of the short entry drive.

  The airfield lay spread out before them. A pair of single propeller, Tucano trainers painted in bright camo-green were practicing touch-and-gos on the field. Their dangerous-looking outlines were blurred by the heat shimmering off the runway.

  To the right lay the Honduran Air Force Academy. There was opportunity for some mayhem there. But souring the marginal relations with a ruthless and corrupt government wasn’t on the agenda.

  “Left.”

  To the left lay the section of the air base rented to the American Joint Task Force-Bravo. The 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation Regiment specialized in helo operations for security, narcotics, and post-storm search-and-rescue operations throughout Central America. A high order for less than two dozen helos—took some seriously good guys to pull that off. They were backed by logistics, support, and most importantly, medical elements. Also, in addition to contracted security, they boasted a Joint Security Force of MPs. They would be the toughest hombres to deal with.

  Far down the field, he could see the cluster of people rushing a stretcher from the helo to one of the buildings.

  Three big Chinook helos and a pair of Black Hawks were parked between their positions.

  :Everything okay?:

  :Busy! Go away!: And Michelle was gone. He could practically hear the door slam in his face.

  “Missy just slap your ass down, bro?” Anton practically chortled from the back seat. “Didn’t know much could make one of you silent Delta types flinch, but she’s sure got your number!”

  “Time to saddle up,” Hannah whispered softly.

  This time they’d been spotted by a security patrol. That was their route in, surprise inspection. But he had no ID to flash
except—

  That’s when he spotted how they moved. Not regular forces. They had moves that only came from Special Forces or Special Operations training. More contractors working for Security Teams International—they’d know Jack Harper.

  They’d probably know Jack Harper. Hell, they were probably waving them over to one of the open hangars because they recognized his vehicle.

  “Not good. Very not good.”

  Everything was happening too fast.

  The medics were rushing Isobel into the medical center. Michelle was trying to lag behind enough to give Jesse a lead to follow, but he had to finish shutting down the helicopter. She didn’t want to be left behind by Isobel’s medical team and risk being shut out either.

  The last thing she had time for was giving Ricardo some lame status update. They were busy doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing.

  A glance back as she passed through the swinging glass doors, and she saw Jesse was half out of the helo, mostly hidden on its far side. By the direction of his cowboy hat, he wasn’t facing her direction, instead he was looking…

  Michelle followed the direction of his hat’s gaze. A Humvee was rushing up to him—with a man in the rooftop turret aiming a massive machine gun at Jesse’s chest. But they’d already been cleared onto the base by security. Security who were nowhere to be seen because they were busy escorting Isobel and the doctors deeper into the building.

  A large portion of EMT training was triage: identify the severity of a wide variety of patients, select action priority, and take it immediately.

  The uninjured Isobel would have some explaining to do to the doctors when they removed her bandages and discovered healthy skin.

  Jesse was in imminent peril.

  Not even hesitating, she spun on her heel and was striding back out the doors as fast as she’d come in through them. Only as she crossed back to the helo did it strike her that she’d just put herself in harm’s way as well as Jesse. Too late to take it back as the Humvee’s driver swung open his door and aimed a rifle at her.

  She’d never faced a gun before. Anton had tried to teach her how to shoot, but she’d never been interested in it. Right now that seemed like a really, really stupid decision—not that she was armed with more than a medical bag.

  Michelle was so sick of it all.

  Never fitting in.

  Never good enough.

  Fucking civilian, according to Ricardo.

  She was!

  What was so wrong about being a civilian?

  Why was it so important to fit in and conform?

  And now they were pointing a gun at her as if she was some criminal low life?

  It was too much. It was just too damned much!

  She stalked up to the driver, who kept his gun aimed at her chest.

  Some crazed part of her that she barely recognized slapped aside the rifle’s barrel and she swung her gear bag off her shoulder and held it right in the driver’s face.

  “You see this?” Michelle shouted right in his face. She pulled it back enough that she could point at the big white cross on her red bag and the big “EMT” block-printed below it. “Do you know what this means? It means I’m medical personnel and you should leave me and my pilot the hell alone! Now back off!”

  It was crazy. She didn’t know if she’d ever been so mad in her life.

  Mad at them. Mad at how her life wasn’t making any sense. Even madder than Ricardo could make her—which was really saying something.

  He made even less reaction that Ricardo would have, which was saying something. She bit back on her temper and sought calm, which was damned hard at the moment.

  “Look, officer. My pilot and I are part of a security team test.” No point keeping that hidden any longer. “We’re no threat. We were just sent in to test your security and I guess it was pretty good because you caught us.”

  The soldier remained stone-faced as he studied her through his mirrored shades for a moment. Then he slowly turned to look at his buddy.

  She’d expected surprise or even anger—having someone say they didn’t trust you when you were a security force probably wasn’t the nicest thing.

  Michelle didn’t expect to see fear.

  The man turned back to her.

  What were they up to that they feared a security checkup?

  She barely saw the fist that connected with her chin. Nor did she remember falling. She did hear the sound of her head hitting the pavement, but was thankfully unconscious before she felt it.

  Chapter 16

  Once they’d rolled the Humvee into the hangar, the doors had been slid shut. The cool shadows were a relief from the blazing tropical sun.

  The leader, who’d waved them toward the hangar, leaned his crossed arms on the rolled-down driver’s window.

  “Only you, Jack, would bring some babe to a drug deal.” There was a laugh.

  Drugs? That explained the bundles of money.

  But Shadow Force was supposed to be testing for security holes, not facing down drug dealers.

  Honduran drug dealers.

  Again!

  He felt colder than a winter’s mission in the Ural Mountains.

  The shadows inside the hangar masked that Ricardo wasn’t Jack, but he didn’t dare speak—he’d lose the few seconds of surprise he had.

  Thankfully, Hannah covered for him by yanking out a handgun—that he’d never even seen her stash away—and ramming its muzzle against the underside of the leader’s chin.

  “Now, if you just take it easy, we’ll get along fine.” Her voice was Delta operator chill.

  “Right, babe. Grab a clue. Tell her to chill, Jack.”

  Then his eyes focused on Ricardo’s face and registered that he wasn’t Jack Harper.

  “Shit!” He slapped for his own sidearm.

  Ricardo thought it better not to ask if Hannah pulled the trigger or the guy’s gesture of reaching across to his own shoulder holster had slapped her hand, making her jerk the trigger. He couldn’t have heard the answer anyway as the loud report of the shot echoed inside the Humvee and left his ears ringing.

  The leader’s brains fountained out behind him.

  Ricardo rolled out the other door. As he did, he saw others in the hangar grabbing for their sidearms. He hit the floor and rolled underneath the Humvee.

  Two people had closed the hangar doors. Three more had been standing behind the leader. Possibly others, but he’d been taught to deal with the targets you could see first and to worry about the others later.

  He had no line on the trio as the leader’s body dropped to lie on the concrete and stare blankly at him. His face looked fine—if you ignore the small entry hole under his chin—it was the back of his head that was missing.

  Twisting around, Ricardo kneecapped the two still standing to the rear of the Humvee by the hangar doors. When they screamed and fell, he drilled them with another shot each to the face. He didn’t dare waste another shot just to be sure they were dead—Anton hadn’t given him any spare magazines. He just hoped that this one was the full fifteen rounds. In which case he still had eleven to go.

  He quickly scanned what he could see between the tires and the dead bodies piling up on the floor.

  Nothing doing.

  He rolled up close to dead guy Number One lying below Hannah’s door.

  :Michelle. Abort! There’s a drug deal going down here.:

  Nothing.

  :Michelle, goddamn it. This is real world, not time for emotion shit. Answer me.:

  More nothing.

  He was going to strangle that woman the next time he saw her.

  A full-blown firefight was going on above him—Hannah and Anton from inside the armored Humvee versus at least three more backup men. Thankfully the windows were also bulletproof to mere rifle fire.

  Two of the three men outside the driver’s side of the vehicle were down by the time he snaked around the first corpse to get a line on the last man attacking from that side who, as he
went down, got off a burst from his rifle. Thankfully he was set to a three-round burst rather than full automatic. Two rounds thudded into his dead leader’s body, but the third found a gap between the dead guy and the bottom edge of the Humvee. A sudden fire lit in Ricardo’s leg.

  Ricardo dumped a pair into the shooter’s already shot-up face as he hit the floor.

  Hannah and Anton by the odd grouping of shots—Hannah’s almost stacked with his, spine cutters at nose high, and Anton’s single high on the skull, possibly even skipping off the bone underneath.

  Nine rounds left in his lone magazine.

  Ricardo slapped a hand on his leg.

  It wasn’t just bleeding.

  It was spurting.

  Arterial flow!

  He jammed a finger into the bullet hole, which hurt like a firebrand—something he had too much experience with.

  But it didn’t stop the flow.

  Out of the firefight and momentarily protected by still being under the Humvee, he yanked off his belt, wrapped it twice around his upper thigh, and rebuckled it—earning him skinned knuckles as he battered them against the underside of the Humvee’s suspension. Jamming the Glock’s muzzle through one of the loops, he cranked it around three times. Ricardo couldn’t tell if the blood flow stopped, but by the amount of pain, he’d assume it was tight enough. Any tighter and he might pass out from the pain and lose his hold on the weapon.

  Another spate of automatic gunfire, this time from the front of the vehicle. If Hannah and Anton were still in the game rather than bleeding out as he was, they’d be pinned down by a shooter who could control either side of the vehicle. Humvee windshields were tough, but they didn’t last forever.

  He twisted his leg around and fought against the scream of pain that threatened to erupt forth and reveal his position. But he managed to line up his handgun, still wrapped into his belt-tourniquet, by aiming with the angle of his leg. The first shot passed between the shooter’s legs. But the second shot hit him. He dropped to one knee, but not to the floor.