by Cindy Dees
“He mumbled and moved a bit when I was carrying him in here,” she told Aleesha, who’d knelt beside her.
The doctor nodded. “That’s a good sign. Don’t worry. I won’t let him do anything stupid like go and die.”
Karen said wryly, “He’s no fool. He’s nice and cozy wrapped in those Sami furs while we do all the work.”
Aleesha smiled. “He’d do the same for you.”
“Yeah, I know. And that’s why I’m doing it for him.”
“Good thing you were here. You’re stronger than any of the rest of us.” Aleesha shrugged. “Without you, I don’t know if we’d have gotten him out of there in one piece.”
Karen’s cheeks heated up. “It’s no big deal. You would have done what you had to and pulled him out.” Someday she had to learn how to take a compliment. But not today.
“Ready to go, ladies?” It was Vanessa. “I’m antsy being out here unarmed like this.”
Karen nodded. Yup, that had been a hell of a lesson for them all. Even in training, they needed to go ahead and suck up the extra weight of carrying actual ammo.
Larson mumbled some more when Karen carried him outside. But when they laid him down on the skid and tucked the Sami’s furs in around him again, he settled quickly. C’mon. Wake up already.
The remainder of the night passed in a blur. It was cold and dark, and heavy going. But eventually, they made it back to camp. Sleepy Sami women stirred the fires, and kettles of stew were put on to heat.
Aleesha and Karen lifted Larson onto a sleeping bag, and they stripped off most of his outer clothes. Karen couldn’t help but notice what a gorgeous body the guy had. As in gorgeous. Even Aleesha remarked, “Whoa. Nice specimen.”
Karen laughed. “Don’t let Michael hear you say that.”
Aleesha grinned back. “Girlie, when me stops lookin’, me be dead and pushin’ up daisies.” She dropped the accent. “Besides, Michael knows how I feel about him. He’s not worried.”
“How’s his training going, anyway?”
“Jack said he’s having to work hard at the physical stuff but is sailing through the mental stuff.”
Karen snorted. “Everybody struggles to meet the physical standards.”
Aleesha smiled fondly. “I built a workout program for him before he went to Delta training to help him get in their kind of shape. He ignored it, of course.”
Given the blush staining Aleesha’s cheeks, Karen could guess what sort of workouts Michael had preferred. Must be nice to have that kind of relationship with a guy as great as Michael Somerset. Aloud, Karen commented, “Anders is one of the Olympic medalists from the Norwegian team.”
Aleesha nodded. “That explains it. Even for a Spec Ops guy, he’s ripped.”
“An unconscious Spec Ops guy. Why isn’t he awake yet?”
Aleesha laid a hand on his forehead in the age-old gesture of a healer. “He’s starting to move around and showing neurological activity. Give the anti-inflammatory a little more time.”
Karen sighed. “I’ll stay up and watch him. I couldn’t sleep anyway. You go get some rest.”
Aleesha replied. “I’ll take a quick nap and then come sit with him so you can get some sleep.”
“Take a decent nap. I’ll be okay for a while.”
Aleesha snorted. “You’ve had a tougher day than any of the rest of us. I’ll let you stay up for an hour or so, but then you’re going to bed. End of discussion. As for him, don’t worry. He’s tough. He’ll wake up any time now as grouchy as a bear and with nothing more than a headache.”
Karen nodded. She was starting to feel pretty rough around the edges. Hauling around a two-hundred-pound-plus man did catch up with a girl after a while. As Aleesha ducked out into the night, a blast of cold wind swirled in. The wind was kicking up again and the temperature was plummeting even more. This climate was simply not fit for human habitation. The Sami people were either the toughest people she’d ever met or just too plain stubborn to know better than to live here.
Karen pushed ashes up around the edges of the fire and added several reindeer chips to it, and then she pulled her sleeping bag around her shoulders.
As the fire gradually beat back the cold, she studied Larson’s features in the dim firelight. He sure was good-looking. Even out cold, his face was noble. It’d be real easy to fall for him. Not only was he cute, but he was tall and muscular enough that he didn’t make her feel like a giant freak when she was around him. There was something innately appealing about his Norwegian heritage. It was a solidness. A sense of being hardworking. Fundamentally decent.
He reminded her of the people she’d grown up with, mostly farmers and likewise salt-of-the-earth souls. Maybe she and he weren’t so very different after all. Even if he was a glamorous Olympic athlete and she was a pig farmer’s kid from Iowa.
Yeah, right. In her dreams.
If only she had the supernatural abilities the Samis gave her credit for. Then she could heal him. Maybe she could get him to fall in love with her, too.
The North Sea, off the coast of Norway, March 4, 6:00 a.m.
Isa screamed into the phone, “What the hell do you mean, you were attacked?”
“You heard me, boss. At least a dozen guys jumped us. Shot the shit out of us. Slit Ian’s throat.”
“Anyone else dead?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you didn’t get shot up that bad. How’s the lab?”
“Okay. They didn’t get inside. We fought them off.”
“And the stash?”
“Well, that’s the thing. The bastards shot up most of the barrels outside pretty good. The stuff that was stored inside the cabin is okay, though.”
Isa swore violently. “How much did we lose?” he snarled.
“’Bout half of it.”
Isa swore luridly under his breath. “We’re supposed to have six hundred kilos of this stuff ready to go in two weeks. Work around the clock. And send out patrols. Make sure no one else gets anywhere close to the lab. If anyone tries, blow his head off.”
“There aren’t enough of us to run the lab and trek up and down the mountainsides looking for intruders, too.”
Isa snapped, “Make it happen. The prophet has willed it so.” He thought fast. His ass was grass if he didn’t deliver on his promised six hundred kilos. God might be magnificently forgiving, but the prophet was not. “I’ll send some more men. They’ll join you in a couple of days. But in the meantime, keep that lab running at full steam. I’m not throwing off the whole goddamned global timetable because of this attack. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Northern Norway, March 4, 4:30 a.m.
All of sudden, something grabbed Karen’s wrist and jolted her from her reverie of gazing into the fire. She gathered herself to fight when a voice murmured, “Relax. It’s only me.”
Larson. He was awake. Thank God. “How do you feel?” she mumbled as the adrenaline surge stood down, but didn’t entirely drain away.
“My head hurts.”
“Mamba said it would. Are you as grouchy as a bear, as she also predicted?”
He laughed, then winced and smiled painfully. “So far so good on that count.”
While he sat up gingerly, she tossed more dung on the fire and took a pull of water out of the water skin. His gray-and-white camo pants rode low on his hips and were sexy as hell if she did say so. He wore no shirt. He had just enough chest hair to be too sexy for his own good, but not so much that a girl would have to worry about fur on his back. And the guy had shoulders that did not quit.
The red glow of the embers took on a yellow, flickering cast as the new fuel caught fire. The light danced across his skin like an eager lover. “What happened?” he asked.
She blinked, jarred out of her musings about his attributes. “I beg your pardon?”
“How’d I end up here? How’d the fight end? Last thing I remember was three guys charging me, shooting like crazy, and the pile of barrels collapsing on you.”
She nodded and picked up the narrative. “You did the big-hero thing and shoved me out of the way. But in the process, you got knocked out by a barrel and buried under the pile. We convinced the bad guys they were about to die and they went back in the cabin. While Cobra held them at bay, the rest of us dug you out. Then we dragged you over the ridge and out of range of the cabin. From there, we built a sledge for you and hauled you out.”
“All the way back here?” He sounded impressed.
She shrugged. “Our two Sami guides caught up with us, and they helped pull you and haul the extra gear.”
He absorbed that one in silence. The look on his face morphed from surprised to definitely impressed to—if she wasn’t mistaken—respect.
“I thought you said you Medusas didn’t haul heavy things for long distances.”
“I said we didn’t like to. I didn’t say we couldn’t do it.”
“You must be sore. Any time I have to hump a hundred kilos for any length of time, I feel it the next day.”
Karen grinned. “I haven’t tried to move yet.”
He smiled in commiseration. “Roll over, I’ll give you a rubdown. Doing something will help take my mind off this headache.”
A rubdown? As in put his hands on her and touch her all over? As in learn where she was ticklish or sensitive or tender? “Uhh, that’s not necessary,” she replied, alarmed.
“It’s the least I can do. You saved my life.”
Well, wasn’t he just being Mr. Friendly all of a sudden? Of course, if someone had just saved her life, she’d probably be pretty well-disposed toward them, too. Maybe the Medusas had finally made their point with at least one of the Norwegians. “I didn’t save your life. I just carried you out.”
He skewered her with a laser-sharp look. “I’m an operator, too. Don’t bullshit me. You bloody well did save my hide.”
She grinned. “I can certainly see you learned your English from Special Forces guys.”
He snorted, unfazed by her attempt to distract him. “Those barrels were heavy. I tried to move a couple. And I remember enough of that fight to know we were in big trouble. Completely outgunned.”
“I’ll concede you that point. Our rubber dum-dums were no match for that gang’s AKs. And speaking of drug dealers, any chance you’ve got an operational radio with you?”
“No. Jack was afraid you ladies would steal it and use it.”
Karen grinned. “We would have.” Then she added, “Too bad. We were hoping you could call in an air strike and make a fireball out of that cabin.”
“Indeed. Whatever those men at the cabin were doing, it wasn’t legal. My men have radios. If we can find them, we can use theirs.”
Karen frowned. “Any idea where your guys are?”
“No.”
Was he being straight with her? Was it possible he didn’t want to give away his men’s location because he didn’t want the Medusas to show up his team? “Seriously. All training aside, do you have any idea at all where your men are?”
His eyes glittered with irritation. Didn’t like having his honesty questioned? In her book, that was a good thing. He replied evenly, “Seriously. I have no idea where they are.”
She nodded her acceptance of his answer. “Any informed guesses?”
“If I were in charge, I’d find a nice, dry cave to set up shop in. Or, if their scenario requires them to be more out in the open, I’d build igloos and camouflage the heck out of them. Trust me, they’ll be damned hard to find either way.”
“Do you know if the scenario includes them making radio transmissions?”
“I did see comm gear in their packs.”
Karen thought hard. “If we could get near even rudimentary civilization, we could probably get enough bits and pieces to rig up some sort of signal detector.”
He shrugged. “If we get that close to civilization, we can borrow a cell phone and call my headquarters.”
Karen laughed. “Well, there is that. I was still thinking in terms of pretending to be in hostile territory, I guess.”
He nailed her with a piercing look. “I don’t think being in hostile territory would slow down you Medusas much. The way you’re making friends with these Samis, you’d have the locals in any hostile territory—how do you say it—eating out of your hands in a matter of days, no matter how hostile they might be toward your government.”
He’d noticed, huh? Cool.
Larson continued. “The Samis have been treated pretty badly over the past couple of centuries. First, scientists came to study them like lab rats, and then a program of ‘Norwegianization’ was forced upon them that all but wiped out their culture. They tend to be extremely suspicious of outsiders. Yet, you ladies waltzed in here and had them volunteering to help you in a matter of hours. Extraordinary.”
Delta operators were renowned as masters of “going native.” But no matter how good their male counterparts were at it, the Medusas felt they had a special advantage in that department. Women were simply less intimidating than men.
Aloud, she said, “How soon after we make the call can your military blast that drug lab off the map?”
Larson frowned. “The Norwegian military doesn’t randomly blow up civilian structures. They’ll want verification that it’s a drug lab before they pop it.”
If an airstrike were, in fact, called in, it would do a little more than ‘pop’ the cabin. The building would be blown to kingdom come, and the largest piece left would be the size of a toothpick. In her experience, Spec Ops troops universally seemed to agree that if a thing needed killing, it was worth killing really dead.
Karen shrugged. “If you need verification, Mamba took samples of the powder from the barrels. As soon as we get somewhere with mail or courier service, we can fire it off to a lab and identify it.”
“Excellent.” Larson took a moment to stretch the kinks out of his back while Karen took a moment to gulp at the sight of him flexing his muscles. Dang, that man made her weak in the knees.
She cleared her throat. “So, we have two options. As soon as possible, we either head for civilization to mail the powder and get to a phone, or we go looking for your team and get access to their radios.”
“The weather will likely determine which one is more feasible. Up here you don’t fight Mother Nature, for you will surely lose.”
She nodded in agreement. “The good news is it’s the Medusas’ style to flow around obstacles, not try to brute-force through them.” Karen continued thinking through scenarios. Talking aloud helped her organize her thoughts. “If the Samis have weapons and ammunition, we could always pay another visit to the cabin.”
“And do what?” he asked in alarm.
“Make independent verification that it’s a drug lab. Then we torch it ourselves.”
Larson blinked at that one. “You don’t hesitate to take the initiative, do you?”
She blinked back in return. “Are you referring to the Medusas as a team or me personally?”
“Are they different?”
That gave her pause. Professionally, neither she nor the Medusas hesitated to seize the moment and go on the offensive. But personally? She was more the cautious type. At least when it came to matters of the heart. In fact, now that she thought about it, she was downright gun-shy about such things. Probably came from a lifetime of intimidated men making fun of her. It was damned hard to form a meaningful relationship with some guy who was scared you were going to hurt him.
“Roll over.”
Karen started. Dammit. She’d been hoping he’d forget about the back-rub thing.
She opened her mouth to decline again, but he cut her off. “Consider it an operational necessity. I need the distraction. And you need to be in top form. The next couple of days may be more strenuous than we originally planned. I promise I won’t get—how do you Americans say it?—fresh with you.”
Karen nodded reluctantly. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“So, don’t be a ch
icken. Lie down on your stomach.”
Okay, that did it. No hunky Norwegian operator was calling her a coward. She flopped down on her belly, bunching up the top part of her sleeping bag under her head for a pillow. Unfortunately, she’d taken off her bra when she stripped down earlier—while Larson was still out cold. Now she was stuck wearing only a far-too-revealing T-shirt and silk leggings. She hugged the sleeping bag a little closer.
Big, warm hands settled on her shoulders. After the first shock of his touch, she managed to relax fractionally. But she was still stiff as a board. He didn’t comment on her tense, knotted muscles however. He just commenced kneading her shoulders and upper back. When her irrational fear that he might attempt something stupid didn’t pan out, she forced herself to relax enough to close her eyes.
“How do you like it?” he murmured.
Her eyes flew back open. The wooden pole frame of the wall with its sinew lashings and sod arched upward in front of her. “Excuse me?”
“Hard or soft?”
“Huh?” she mumbled, shocked at his bluntness.
“Do you like it deep or light?”
Ooo-kay. That called several completely inappropriate mental images to mind. Please, God, let him be talking about a back rub. “I dunno.”
“I’d recommend a deep-tissue massage to loosen up the lactic acid and then follow-up with a light massage to increase circulation and start carrying away the toxins from your muscles.”
Whew. He’d had her worried there, for a minute. “You’re the mega-athlete, massage guy. You do what you think is best to keep me operational.”
“Karen, I have my hands on your back. Trust me. You’re a mega-athlete, as well.”
He would bring that up. It was a big, fat mood killer to any boy-girl thoughts she might be having about him.
He worked on her back for a while in silence. She had to admit, he never did anything the whole time that was the slightest bit out of line. His hands never strayed anywhere that would make her even remotely nervous. Except, she was acutely…something. Maybe not uncomfortable. But certainly aware. The guy’s hands were all over her, for heaven’s sake.