Playing for Keeps

by Cherry Adair

  “What’s the real goal here?” he asked Donovan rhetorically. “Retrieving the chip or my wife’s continuing good health?”

  “Of course both are equally important to us—”

  Yeah. Right. The damn chip was the star attraction. One small American woman who happened to be the unfortunate carrier was expendable. “Can the bomb be reused once it’s been removed?”

  “Well—”

  “A simple yes or no.”

  “Yes.”

  Ah, man. This was as bad as it got. They didn’t give a damn about Dani. Once they had their frigging prototype, that would be it. His chances of walking out afterwards weren’t looking too good, either.

  He had to ask, even though the chances of them getting anything like a scalpel near her were slim to go-to-hell. “How safe is the procedure?” Nothing less than a 200 percent guarantee would be acceptable, and even then, Raven would hesitate. He didn’t trust this bastard farther than he could throw him. “The truth.”

  “Five percent,” Donovan admitted.

  “Five percent chance that something could go wrong?” Jon shook his head grimly and thought about grabbing the guy’s throat again. Nobody was getting near Danica unless they could guarantee that she’d be fine afterward. Even if it meant he had to kill every living soul on this godforsaken spit of land.

  “Forget it,” he said, already thinking about an escape route. “Tell your medics to stand down, because it’s not happening, not with a five percent failure rate.”

  “Five percent chance of success,” Donovan corrected, albeit reluctantly. “Ninety-five percent probability of terminating the patient.”

  Eight

  Black dots danced in Danica’s wavering vision as she felt every vestige of blood drain from her head. If she fainted, Jon would have to carry her out of here while trying to fend off the soldiers. She knew, without a doubt, that she and Jon would be getting out of here soon. How soon and exactly how, she wasn’t sure. She locked her knees and concentrated on her breathing. Buck up, she told herself. Do not fall apart. Think.

  “It’s a lose-lose situation.” Jon sounded as grim as Danica felt. . .and she was feeling pretty damn grim. Oh, God. A bomb inside her? Not just inside her. Inside her head?

  Do. Not. Freak.

  “There’s absolutely no choice, Raven. None,” Donovan told him. “We might fail in trying to remove the bio-chip, but Villalba-Vera can, and assuredly will, activate it. That’s a hundred percent death warrant.”

  “It was apparently easy enough to insert. Reverse the procedure,” Jon told him tightly. “Surely to God we don’t need an operating room and a surgeon?”

  “There’s a fail-safe built into the chip. The device can’t be exposed to oxygen. It’ll detonate. The surgeon/med staff are in danger too. Not to mention rendering the chip useless, this means that they’re doing a riskier, deeper, or more extensive surgery.” Donovan’s tone was terse.

  “It’s us or Villalba-Vera. And be assured, in the unlikely event that he doesn’t detonate the device while it’s still contained, he will find you and remove it himself, and believe me, he won’t be at all concerned with Miss Cross’s survival. The race is on to see who gets you, and it, first. Time is of the essence. Surely, you can see that.”

  The bottom line was they wanted the chip-not that they wanted to protect Dani. “I do,” Jon agreed, sounding reluctant. “But I’m going in with her.”

  Danica spun around to stare at her nearly-ex-husband, who’d clearly lost his mind. “Are you out of your freaking mind? He wants to cut into me! How do we even know he’s telling the truth about this—this—thing?”

  Jon cupped her face in both hands, his palms as dry as hers were damp, his dark eyes glittering with—what? Regret? Determination? “Listen to me, Danica. We don’t have any choice but to go into that room. The longer you drag your feet, the longer we’ll be here. Once the chip’s out, we’ll be on our way home.”

  Every cell in her body shrieked a resounding “No!” She searched his face with eyes that burned. Terror grabbed her by the throat, but instead of giving in, she held on to the protective gleam in Jon’s eyes. He would be with her. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. The one thing she always felt with Jon was safe. Even though they’d drifted apart, their marriage crumbling around them, the Jon she knew would protect her.

  Please God, she prayed, let me know this man as well as I think I do. “If I die in there, I’m coming back to haunt you,” she told him as a terrible calm came over her. She’d crossed the line from unmitigated fear to a place where she’d stepped outside her body to observe herself. Two men escorted her other self to the adjacent sterile room, trailed by four armed soldiers. With Jon right beside her, holding her hand.

  Sounds muted. The floor felt unsubstantial beneath her feet, the air smelled of antiseptic as she, Jon, and Donovan went inside. The door shut behind them. Danica was aware of each individual, slow, dirge-like thump of her heart as Jon led her to stand beside a linen-draped operating table. It was a blessed relief to feel nothing at all.

  Except that, in some dim recess of her brain, she knew she had to shake this lethargy. It was hard for her to read Jon’s signals.

  He turned her to face him, sliding his hand down her numb arm, taking both her hands in his. His eyes scanned her face, and he frowned, looking worried. “I’ll be with you every second. Trust me, sweetheart. I’m not going to let anything happen to you or let anyone or anything take you away from me ever again.” She could see their fingers entwined, his hands large and dark, hers ridiculously small and pale, but she didn’t feel the contact.

  He bent his head slightly and looked directly into her eyes. She didn’t blink. Jon had lovely eyes. A deep rich blu— “Ow!” She jerked when he pinched her forearm. Hard.

  “With me now?”

  Danica blinked like a sleepwalker after a rude awakening. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Ready?” A guy in a cap and face mask asked as he snapped a rubber glove onto his left hand.

  What an irritating sound that is, Danica thought, annoyed. The brightly lit room pulsed with the low hum of machinery as Jon turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders. “One kiss before she goes under.”

  “Or my head explodes,” Danica murmured with gallows humor.

  “Ah, sweetheart, you’re one in a million.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tightly against him, his face buried against her neck. “Trust me,” he whispered on a quiet breath. “Give it a count of five and start bawling. Make it dramatic, and make it loud.”

  He lifted his head to brush his lips over hers. Danica felt a small spark of life as she parted her lips to greet his, but the spark was short-lived as he mouthed, “Four,” brushed his mouth over hers again, lingering a little, then “five—”

  Danica burst into noisy faux tears and shrieks of terror. Her own screams grated on her ears, but she kept it up, getting louder and louder and storming about the room, distracting the men while Jon did-whatever he was doing. She was too busy play-acting to look.

  It wasn’t hard to fake cry. The tears had been a hard knot in her throat for hours. Her terror and bone-deep fear manifested in raw, agonized sobs that ripped up through her throat and blurred her vision.

  All eyes turned to her, then a second later, toward the door as it burst open, slamming noisily against the wall. Four guns clicked as the soldiers spilled through, some standing, and some kneeling in the open doorway, weapons drawn.

  “Oh, for—” Donovan snarled, striding toward them. “She’s just hysterical, not being murdered. This room is sterile. Get out and close the damn door,” he ordered the soldiers. Their weapons clicked as they backed out of the room and shut the door behind them. Donovan turned.

  “Keep her quiet, for God’s sake, or we’ll have—” He turned to find Jon standing directly beh
ind him, the portable anesthesia machine raised at shoulder level. Jon’s shoulder—his face. He reached for his gun, but Jon was faster, slamming the heavy equipment into Donovan’s nose. The accompanying sound was like the snap of a stalk of celery. Then a thud as Donovan hit the floor.

  Danica didn’t even wince, but she did hastily swipe the tears from her eyes as she ran to the door, slamming home the lock, then spun around to see Jon, a gun in each hand. Face expressionless, he motioned for the medical personnel to move together, which they did with stunned, robotic precision. Danica bent to pick up the a heavy tank near the unconscious and profusely bleeding Donovan. Feeling no sympathy for him, she hefted the tank, staggering for a moment under the weight. It probably only weighed about twenty-five pounds, but she wasn’t really in any physical condition to be weight lifting.

  As a weapon, it was unwieldy, but no one was going to shoot at her when she was holding it. She hoped. “That looks like a closet over there.” She nodded in the general direction of a door across the room. Sweat rolled down her cheek. She itched everywhere. Especially behind her ear. God. . .

  “Move it.” Jon motioned the four men with a wave of the barrel of one of his guns. They trooped inside and he shut the door then wedged an IV stand into the handles, sealing them in.

  Danica blinked, glancing around the room, wondering what the next step should be. Then her eyes caught Jon’s and her calm returned. She wasn’t trained, but he was. “How do we get past the soldiers?” she asked, adjusting the tank to rest some of the weight against her thigh.

  “Guns blazing,” he told her as he checked the magazines on the guns then chambered a bullet in each weapon.

  “Isn’t that a little dangerous?” Hysteria was mixing with the riot of emotions already swarming through her body, and she felt a crazy urge to laugh. “More dangerous than this bio-bomb ticking away in my head?”

  He ran the tips of his fingers along the line of her jaw. “Soldiers first, bomb second. Assuming Donovan was telling the truth, you’re loaded with adrenaline at the moment. That should keep the bomb from detonating for now.”

  “And later?” They both knew how she handled stress. With unnatural calm. A bad thing, given the ticking bomb in her head.

  “One step at a time, honey.” He positioned the tank in her arms so that it partially obstructed her vision but covered all the vital points any decent marksman might target. “Keep this up. They won’t risk shooting you.”

  No. They’d shoot him first. Then it wouldn’t matter what the hell she was holding. “I’d feel better with a gun,” she remarked wryly. “But I’ll settle for a well-armed ex-husband.”

  “Not ex yet. Here.” He handed her the small can of hair spray he’d found in the bathroom back at the palace.

  “You think this’ll work, MacGyver?”

  “Aim for their eyes,” he told her, face grim. “We can’t afford any shooting. Can you manage the tank and the can?” Danica nodded. He brushed a fingertip briefly across her mouth. “That’s my girl. Okay—stand aside. I’m going to open the door and stick my head out.”

  She followed him across the room then flattened herself against the wall and out of the way, holding the tank on her shoulder and her finger on the trigger of her spray can. “Do you think it’s smart to stick your head in the way of a bullet?” she whispered.

  “They won’t shoot. Especially when they see you holding the that. One spark and we’ll all get blown to hell.”

  “What a cheerful thought.”

  Jon grinned. “Trust me.”

  Danica gave him an arch look, but she did trust him. Completely. She knew with every cell in her body he’d do everything in his power to keep her safe. God only knew she’d do the same for him. That would be enough. If not, then she could only hope there’d be enough time to tell him she loved him one last time, and to hear the same from him.

  Jon positioned himself and opened the door. “Hey, guys? Can you get in here a sec? Donovan needs some help.” Using his foot and leg as a brace, Jon made sure the opening was only large enough for a single soldier to rush in at a time.

  The moment she saw the soldier’s face, Danica pressed the little white button on the aerosol can. The guy shouted as the spray hit him directly in the eyes. He doubled over, his hands over his eyes. Jon felled him with a hard blow to the back of his neck then propelled him into the room with a heave of one hand.

  She watched in stunned amazement as he picked each man off as if it was an arcade game. A smashing karate chop, then a shove. One, two, three. The soldiers piled up like discarded toys, strewn facedown and motionless on the floor.

  Soldier four apparently didn’t get the playbook because he barreled inside, AK poised to shoot. Danica hairsprayed him. Fffftt—The container was empty. Damn. Tossing aside the can, she held up the tank so he got a good look. Blanching, he staggered back a step, looking confused, and swung around to see Jon. He lifted his weapon but it was too late. Jon grabbed the barrel of the rifle and used it to drag the guy closer. The soldier released his hold and kept coming forward, piling into Jon.

  They crashed to the floor, rolling around, grunting and cursing as they fought.

  If fear was a great motivator, Danica was in peak form as one of the downed men behind Jon came to life. “Oh, no you don’t!” With strength and determination, she brought her knee up, catching the guy in the chin as he started to rise. He reeled back, and she swung the tank around, smashing his temple. With a wince at the sickening crunch of metal on bone, she watched as he crumpled to the floor.

  Eyes darting between Jon and his opponent, Danica cringed every time bone met bone. She rushed over, lifted her trusty gas tank, and brought it down on the last soldier’s skull. Crack. Grunt. Silence.

  Jon shoved the guy off him, got to his feet, and offered Danica his brightest smile. He gently took the tank and set it aside. “You’re full of surprises.” He leaned forward to place a kiss on her open mouth. Tucking the pistols in the waistband of his pants, he grabbed two of the AK’s, hooking the straps over one shoulder, then grabbed Danica’s hand, and raced from the building.

  Surprised that dawn had broken while they’d been inside, Dani clutched the stitch in her side and kept pace with him as he ran.

  They reached the first truck. “Get in,” he yelled, tossing the guns on the bench seat before reaching for the steering column. In under three seconds, and with only a ballpoint pen at his disposal, he had the engine purring to life.

  “Where are we going?”

  Raven glanced over and saw, in the milky dawn light, how the color had drained from her face. Typical reaction. The adrenaline rush from the fight was wearing off. Shit.

  “Gotta get to a phone.” He gunned the engine, checked the rearview mirror for a tail, and peeled down the dirt road back to town in a rooster’s tail of dust. He ran through the cards in his mental Rolodex. “Donovan and I agree on one thing,” he told her grimly. “That chip’s gotta come out.”

  Danica grabbed the dashboard as the truck bounced in the deeply rutted dirt road. The vegetation on either side of the road was coming alive. Flocks of small birds dived and swarmed, feeding on the clouds of insects drifting like smoke between the trees. “That makes three of us. But there was that little addendum about ninety-five percent probability of the patient’s demise, remember?” Her knuckles were white as she clutched the dash, but her voice was steady.

  “I know what he said,” Raven acknowledged as he stomped the accelerator all the way to the floor. “But the chip was what he wanted. You were. . .expendable.” He reached over and closed his fingers over her knee. “There has to be a way to remove the chip without harming you in any way.”

  “And until then?”

  Yeah. Until then. . . He narrowed his eyes against the brilliance of the rising sun. He’d let this incredible woman down more times than he could co
unt.

  His security business had always been his 24/7 priority, to the exclusion of all else. He hadn’t realized she’d trip over his ambition on her way out. Nor had he realized Danica needed him too. He simply assumed she’d always be there. He hadn’t blamed her for leaving him when she did. But now he had a second chance, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to screw this one up.

  He was not going to let her die, and when this was over, he was going to prove to her exactly why they belonged together. Most of all, he’d tell her the truth. He’d been an ass to let her slip out of his life. She’d always been his number one priority; he just stupidly thought she’d sit on the sidelines waiting until he amassed enough money, enough power to make them both happy. It wouldn’t happen again.

  On either side of the narrow track, the jungle closed in around them, a hot, green, impenetrable wall of vegetation. His fingers gripped the wheel as he took the corner too fast on the unevenly packed dirt. “We’re winging it here,” he told her grimly, swerving to avoid a ragged boy and two goats who emerged from nowhere into the middle of the road.

  “I have a contact in DC; I’ll call and see what he knows about the chip. In the meantime, I know someone here who’ll hook us up with a reputable doctor ASAP.”

  “We still have an immediate problem,” Dani said, her voice amazingly calm, considering. “This thing can blow up at any time.”

  Like he could possibly forget. “Not if I can help it,” Raven said, feeling grim and manic, as though time was spinning out of control while his brain raced like a rat in a maze to come up with a viable solution.

  Dani unsnapped her seat belt. “I think I have a way around it.”

  She was too calm, he thought with rising panic. He knew his girl. The more pissed and scared Danica became, the calmer she got. This was a bad, bad, bad, freaking time for her to be calm and collected.

  “Which is what?” he asked, mouth dry as he started praying like he’d never prayed before. Help us out here, God. For the first time since leaving the tutelage of Sister Mary Angelica, Raven said the Our Father, followed immediately by the Act of Contrition. Hell, he’d recite the Gettysburg Address forward and backward if he thought it would curry favor with the Almighty.