by Mel Odom
Chest straining as his empty lungs tried to kick into action again, Shel ignored the burning pain in his right shoulder and reached for the SOCOM .45 holstered at the small of his back. His fingers found the grip, but the pistol felt alien to him and his hand felt too big and numb.
It’s just shock, he told himself. You’ve been here before. Just work through it. He was dimly aware of the action out in the parking lot, the shouting voices, and the traffic beyond.
Bobby Lee started turning. His pistol dropped away from his hostage, and he shoved it forward to track toward Shel.
Shel tried to bring his right arm up, but it wouldn’t work properly. Pain arced through his shoulder and chest. He gave up and managed the SOCOM in one big hand. Ruby laser sights danced over his body and lit up his left eye, but he ignored them and hoped the FBI sharpshooters held their fire.
Either way, Shel had decided Bobby Lee was leaving the picture. The young man was too unstable to deal with and more people were going to get hurt—beginning with the woman he was holding.
Bobby Lee’s mouth moved. Shel couldn’t hear the words. His ears still rang from the previous gunfire, and the pain had detached his brain to a degree, leaving only the part of him that focused solely on survival. But that part was Marine-trained, the best military training in the world.
Despite the danger, despite the fact that he’d already been shot, despite the fact that he might get shot again by Bobby Lee or the FBI, Shel held his fire until he had his target cleanly in his sights.
Bobby Lee’s pistol had almost gotten all the way around toward Shel. The barrel belched a muzzle flash that stood out bright and hard in the tattoo shop, but the bullet went wide. Shel centered his sights at the bottom of Bobby Lee’s chin just over the woman’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The pistol bucked against his palm and he rode the recoil slightly up. He fired again and he knew the second shot was a few inches higher than the first.
Without a sound, Bobby Lee fell backward. He dragged the woman down with him, or her legs gave way out of fright. Shel wasn’t sure which. He was just as surprised when the FBI didn’t open fire on him.
>> 2044 Hours
Grimly Shel marshaled his reserves and went forward. His balance wasn’t too good, and he knew he wasn’t very strong. But he had to secure the weapon.
Max got there first. The Labrador bunched and sprang into action. Before Shel could take another step, Max seized the pistol in his teeth and tore it away. He flung it to one side and stood guard over Bobby Lee.
One look at the young man’s face told Shel there was no need to guard, but the dog had been Marine-trained too, and Shel wasn’t going to break that. In fact, Shel wasn’t certain he was going to stand up much longer. But he did.
“You okay?” Shel asked the young woman.
Her face was covered with Bobby Lee’s blood, and she was seriously freaked. She couldn’t answer.
“It’s going to be all right, ma’am,” Shel said. “You’re going to be all right now.”
“Special Agent McHenry,” the loudhailer announced, “this is Special Agent Urlacher of the FBI. Put down your weapon. We’re coming in.”
Shel turned and put the pistol on the counter. He reached for the woman’s hand, took it in his, and gently pulled her to her feet.
“Come on now,” he said. “Let’s get you away from that.”
She started to look back at the body.
Shel caught her chin in his hand and gazed into her eyes. “That’s not something you want to do,” he told her gently. “Just let this part of everything go.”
The woman nodded; then she wrapped her arms around him and wept uncontrollably. “I thought he was going to kill me.”
“Yes, ma’am. But that didn’t happen, did it? You came through this just fine.” Shel stroked her hair and patted her back like he would for one of Don’s kids. Bad situations could make children fearful of everyone, and it took a gentle hand to bring back courage and confidence.
She looked up at him. Tears had tracked through the blood, but she’d smeared a lot of it on Shel’s shirt. “He was going to kill me, wasn’t he?”
Shel thought about lying to spare her from those thoughts, but he knew she’d see the truth in him. He’d never learned to lie very well except while he was undercover.
“Yes, ma’am. I believe he was,” Shel said.
FBI agents rushed the door.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome.” Shel held her for just a moment longer; then the FBI agents invaded the room.
Two of the agents advanced on Shel. Max barked at them furiously and bared his gleaming white teeth.
One of the agents pointed his pistol at Max.
“Mister,” Shel said in a cold voice, “if you hurt that dog, I’m going to put you in the hospital.”
“Call the mutt off,” an older agent ordered. “I talked to your commander. Coburn. We’ll get this sorted out in a little while, but until then I’m taking you into custody.”
“That’s fine,” Shel said. “But the dog goes with me. He’s not going to allow us to get separated.”
The agent nodded.
Shel stood still and endured the pain as one of the FBI agents secured his hands behind his back with disposable cuffs.
“Get him to a medical unit before he bleeds out,” the older agent said. He glanced back at Bobby Lee Gant lying on the floor and cursed fluently enough to impress Shel, who’d been around Navy men most of his life. “This is a total mess.” Then he cursed some more.
>> 2056 Hours
Light-headed and hurting, Shel sat on the bumper of the ambulance while the emergency medical technicians worked on him. They cut the disposable cuffs, freeing his hands, then cut off his shirt and unfastened the Velcro straps of the Kevlar vest. One of the two bullets embedded in the vest dropped to the parking lot pavement.
The EMTs kept working on him and ignored it.
“Hey,” Shel said. He had to struggle for the words, and he didn’t understand that. He’d been shot before.
“I got no exit wound,” the lanky black EMT said as he searched Shel’s massive shoulder. “Bullet’s still inside.”
“Don’t worry about that,” the blonde EMT said as she examined the massive bruises already forming across Shel’s chest. “The OR can take care of that. Let’s just get him stable.”
“Can’t get him to stop bleeding.” The first EMT threw another bloody compress into a bucket at his feet. He tore open a package to get a fresh one. “I think we’ve got a bleeder inside him somewhere.” He glanced at Shel. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I just got shot,” Shel said. “I need that bullet that fell off the vest.” He tried to lean forward, then discovered he was so woozy he almost fell over.
The EMTs braced him and shoved him back against the ambulance. But that only got Max excited and he started growling.
“I’ve got to have that bullet,” Shel insisted. “It’s evidence.” The habits he’d learned while serving with NCIS were ingrained, and he’d always been one for training.
“Lie still,” the blonde ordered. “Tony, get that bleeding stopped.”
“I’m trying. I told you that.”
Max barked more loudly and bumped up against Shel’s legs.
“He’s bleeding too much.”
“I know that. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Shel tried to speak, to remind them about the bullet; then he thought maybe he should tell them that he really wasn’t feeling very good. Before he could say anything, though, he blacked out.
>> 2057 Hours
Hands cuffed behind him, Remy sat in the back of the unmarked sedan and watched as the FBI agents secured the tattoo parlor. They were good at what they did. He had to admit that.
Still, knowing that didn’t make him feel any better about being on the wrong side of the wire mesh in the vehicle. Too many old memories sat there with him. He kept remembering his brother
, and remembering how Marcel had died in his arms.
“I forgive you, Remy. So does God. Find peace in your life. Just ask God to help you.”
The door opened and tore Remy from those dark thoughts. One of the FBI agents stood in the doorway and reached for Remy.
“Come with us,” the agent said. “We got a problem.”
Remy allowed himself to be pulled from the back of the car. “What problem?”
“Your partner.” The agent shoved Remy toward the ambulance where other agents had taken Shel. “He went down and now the dog won’t let anyone near him. The EMTs say if they don’t get to him quick, your buddy’s gonna die.”
Max’s warning growl hung in the air. Remy heard it then. The car had muffled the noise. He quickened his steps.
15
>> Spider’s Tattoo Shop
>> Doggett Street
>> Charlotte, North Carolina
>> 2058 Hours
Shel lay sprawled on the parking lot. His color was bad. His normally tan complexion had turned the color of whey. Blood pooled across the pavement from his injured shoulder.
Max stood braced over him. His fangs were bared as he growled at everyone around him.
“If you can’t get that dog to calm down so the EMT can work on your buddy,” the FBI agent told Remy, “we’re gonna have to shoot him.”
“No.” Remy looked at Max and tried to focus on the fact that he could still see Shel’s chest rising and falling. But the motion was too slow and too shallow. “You can’t shoot the dog.”
“We can’t let that man die either.”
“Free my hands,” Remy said. He turned his back toward the agent.
“You’re in custody.”
Remy cursed. “Have you got concrete between your ears? Free my hands. If I’m not free, that dog isn’t going to listen to me. Do it now.”
“Do it, McKinley,” a gruff voice ordered. The salt-and-pepper–haired FBI agent came up beside the ambulance. Max growled at him.
McKinley unfastened the cuffs.
Remy massaged his wrists and went forward. “No guns,” he told the FBI agents. “Anyone pulls a gun right now, the dog may go for you. And he won’t let anybody close to Shel.”
They stood around him. The revolving red and blue lights striped the scene.
“Max,” Remy called. “Hey. Take it easy now.”
The Labrador kept his fangs bared. He straddled the big Marine’s midsection protectively. Only a dog that big could have done that job.
“Max. It’s me. Remy. We’re friends.”
Max gave him a sideways look.
Remy held his hands up to show he meant no harm and carried no weapon. He squatted down almost within reach of Shel but no closer. Max wouldn’t have allowed anyone to get any closer without going for a throat.
“Tango, Max,” Remy said. “Tango.” It was their secret word, the one that Shel had taught the Labrador that would tell him to obey Remy. Each member of the NCIS team had a secret word. If something happened to Shel, the dog wouldn’t leave his side unless someone else with a code word commanded him to.
For a moment Remy didn’t think Max was going to obey. He’d never used the word for real, never when Shel hadn’t been right there to enforce it.
Then Max lowered his head and tail. The liquid uncertainty in the dog’s brown eyes was almost heartbreaking.
Carefully Remy reached for Max, aware that the control word might not hold under the circumstances. “Shel’s hurt, boy,” Remy said in a soothing voice. “Shel’s hurt and we gotta let these people take care of him.” He curled his fingers in Max’s fur and gently pulled him off Shel.
The dog came reluctantly and sat beside Remy. Quivering and fearful, Max licked Remy’s face. Though he wasn’t a fan of dog saliva, Remy dealt with it. He patted the Labrador’s head and stroked his fur.
“Can we get him now?” the blonde EMT asked.
“Yeah,” Remy said. “And plug that shoulder wound. You’ve got a nicked artery in there.” He tried to say it calmly, but the idea of an artery hosing Shel’s blood out with every heartbeat was scary.
The blonde started to pick Shel up from the ground. “I hardly think—”
Remy stood without a word and kept hold of Max’s fur. The dog stood with him at once. “Back off,” Remy snarled. Anger settled into him.
The blonde EMT stepped back. “What makes you think you can just—?”
“Urlacher.” Remy focused on the medical supplies in the kit beside Shel. “Back them off.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Urlacher asked.
Remy hunkered down and popped open the first aid kit. He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. “I’m a combat medic. This is a combat wound. I know what I’m doing. I’m saving my friend’s life. That’s what the Navy trained me to do.”
“He can’t—,” the blonde started to protest.
“He can,” Urlacher said. “He is. You step back out of his way and prepare to transport.”
Remy worked feverishly to pack the wound and staunch the bleeding. Once he had that done, the rest of it was in a surgeon’s hands. He blinked sweat out of his eyes as the black EMT knelt beside him to assist. When the man didn’t get in his way, Remy allowed it.
>> North Carolina Airspace
>> 2134 Hours
Tension knotted Will’s stomach as he flew through the night. He tended to the airplane’s needs out of habit and training rather than thinking, and he didn’t like that he was doing that. Flight was less risky than driving a vehicle on the ground—and, thankfully in this case, faster—but a pilot still had to pay attention.
Maggie sat beside him in the copilot’s seat. She wasn’t trained to fly, but she coordinated the communications loop so he wouldn’t have to. She turned toward him. “Director Larkin is online now.”
Before becoming the director of the NCIS, Michael Larkin had been a homicide cop and then division leader in New York City. His record and his no-nonsense handling of cases and personnel had won him his current position. Although they sometimes butted heads over procedure—especially in regard to the military way of handling things—Will liked and trusted the man.
“Will,” Larkin said quietly.
“Sir,” Will responded as he made an altitude adjustment. “Sorry to interrupt your trip.”
“It’s all right. I’m just glad we’ve got phone service out here.” Larkin had gone on a family fishing trip, and they were currently staying at a cabin in Cape Hatteras along the Atlantic shoreline. “How’s Shel?”
“I can’t tell you anything more than Maggie did, sir. Remy said the OR took Shel back about twenty minutes ago. We haven’t gotten any word yet.”
“Remy said it looked bad.”
“Shel’s been through worse.” Will had kept telling himself that from the moment after he’d received the news.
“I guess what I really want to know is how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine.”
“One of your men is in the OR,” Larkin said. “I know you’re not fine.”
Will silently admitted that. Shel’s getting shot, the severity of it, created painful echoes of the loss of Frank Billings. Frank had served with Will aboard the aircraft carrier where he had made commander, then followed him into the NCIS billet. When the business in South Korea had started up, Frank had been the first casualty Will’s team had ever suffered.
The only casualty, Will amended. God willing.
“I’m fine as I can be, sir.” Will stared through the plane’s Plexiglas windows and listened to the even throb of the dual engines. “There’s going to be some confusion in Charlotte.”
“I understand that. Apparently my answering service has already received several phone calls from Special Agent-in-Charge Urlacher. I take it he’s the point man on the confusion.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How did he get involved?”
Swiftly, with cool efficiency despite the tension inside him, Will relayed the stor
y.
“Urlacher is trying to flip Victor Gant on his opium supplier,” Larkin said when Will finished.
“That’s the way I understood it.”
“Well,” Larkin said, “I suppose there’s not much chance of that now, is there?”
“No.”
“The rest of it, whatever Urlacher’s business is with Victor Gant, doesn’t concern us.”
“No, sir,” Will agreed. “I’m just going to Charlotte to bring Shel home.”
“Do that, Will,” Larkin said. “I’ll keep Urlacher off your back. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Larkin broke the connection.
“Will.”
Will glanced at Maggie.
“I’ve got Shel’s brother, Don, on the line. I still haven’t gotten an answer at Shel’s father’s house.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Will said.
16
>> Rafter M Ranch
>> Outside Fort Davis, Texas
>> 2057 Hours (Central Time Zone)
The whole time Don drove his Toyota Camry down the long dirt road that led to the house where he’d spent all his childhood years and become a man, he felt his father’s gaze on him. The ranch house sat far enough back off the highway that no one could approach without Tyrel McHenry noticing.
It was still early enough, Don knew, that his daddy would be up. Probably watching a baseball game and soaking homemade corn bread in a glass of fresh buttermilk. That was one of the treats his daddy loved, though he wasn’t much for pies and cakes outside of the occasional piece of coconut pie.
Don still wore the suit he’d delivered his message in at church only an hour ago. He and his family had barely gotten home before he’d received the call about Shel from the NCIS.