by Terry Odell
*****
Confident that Dalton would take out the two coming from the other direction, Ryan lay on his belly, burrowed into the mulch, his rifle pointed down the trail. Waiting. So much of the job entailed waiting. Quick and quiet. Blackthorne's specialty. He wondered what he was protecting, and decided he didn't give a damn. It had to be important, and that was enough.
When he settled into his mind-clearing rituals, he realized exactly what he was protecting, and it reverberated through him like a plucked guitar string. Frankie and Molly. Dalton and the rest had their objective. If saving the intel he'd been holding coincided with keeping the two people who had entwined themselves around his heart safe, so be it. He'd do what he had to do, but if push came to shove, he wouldn't sacrifice them for some classified whatever he had. Fuck, anyone could get instructions to build a nuclear bomb off the web. Today's secrets were tomorrow's Internet downloads.
Enough. Do the job. He slowed his breathing. He concentrated on the night sounds, listening for anything that signaled the approach of an intruder, all the while alert to an update from Fozzie.
Someone—or something—approached. He couldn't hear it, really, or see it, but he knew it was coming his way. He squinted into the darkness, the goggles giving everything an eerie green glow. A man approached, carrying an assault rifle, and he wasn't Dalton. Once Ryan had his target pinpointed, he yanked the goggles off, letting his eyes adjust. Wearing them, a strong flashlight pointed his way would blind him.
Calm now, immersed in the job, he took aim.
A double tap to the head, and his target went down. He forced back the inevitable nausea and reached for the goggles. Scanning the area, he saw nothing. Heard nothing. Dalt must have intercepted his two. A peek at his watch told him they had about ten minutes before the second wave arrive. What had Fozzie said? Chinese? Koreans? Dammit, what were they holding, to bring out an international crowd?
His headset crackled. "Heads up, mates."
He whipped his head around. Nothing. Wait. In the trees. He focused on the movement. Goddamn raccoons. His palms sweated. One at a time, he wiped his hands on his jeans. Without conscious direction, his body performed the ritual moves, checking the knife strapped to his ankle, his weapons, and his supply of flash-bangs.
"Watch your six." Dalton's words came through the trees. "On my way."
He cursed under his breath and scrambled for the rocks again. Seconds later, Dalton slid in beside him, panting and clutching his arm.
"You're hit," Ryan said. He reached for Dalt's arm.
"Just a scratch. I'll be fine."
As if Dalton would say anything else, regardless of his injury. Before Ryan could press, gunfire sprayed their position.
Reflexes took over. Ryan followed the muzzle flashes and returned fire. So much for quick and quiet. Dirt spat. Rock chips flew. A tree above them shattered. He ducked, covering his face against the raining bits of wood and pine needles. As if their last mission together had been yesterday, he and Dalton slipped into their rhythm, anticipating moves, passing loaded magazines as needed.
"There's more than three of them," Ryan said after a barrage of fire came at them from all directions.
"Seems Team Three let a few get by. Afraid I only got one of mine."
"Where the fuck is Fozzie?"
His headset crackled to life. "No need to swear, mate. Cavalry's on its way." At the controllers voice, relief surged through Ryan. An instant later searchlights lit up the forest.
Ryan pinpointed three tangos and opened fire. Two went down. A boulder chip whizzed by his ear. He ducked. A series of explosions, then a fireball filled the sky. He squinted through a gap in the rocks. His heart filled his throat. His gut twisted. Bits of Josh's cabin drifted down through the smoke and flames. Only Dalton's vise-like grip on his belt kept him from racing headlong down the mountain.
Five lifetimes later, which according to Dalton was really seven minutes, silence filled the mountain. Leaving the aftermath to others, Ryan flew down the trail to the blazing cabin.
"Frankie! Molly!" He ripped off his shirt and tied it around his face. Stamping on flames, he fought his way through the smoke-filled living room toward the bathroom. Or where the bathroom had been. Tears streamed down his face, not all from the smoke.
He stumbled over a small hard object on the floor. He crouched down below the smoke and felt for it. His hand jerked away at the touch of hot metal, but not before he recognized it as a camera. Frankie's. He yanked the shirt from his face, and using it for protection, picked up the Nikon. He choked back a sob. She wouldn't leave it behind.
"Outside, sir." A muffled voice echoed in his ear. Hands gripped his shoulders.
"Two more," Ryan gasped. "Inside. Woman. Little girl. Find. Them." Ryan's head swam. He tried to breathe, but collapsed in a paroxysm of coughing.
"Outside," the man repeated.
On limbs that refused to obey his commands to search for Frankie, Ryan was pushed into the cold night air.
He fought an oxygen mask, but the ape holding it against his face overpowered him. He struggled to remain conscious, finally understanding the words floating through the mist that threatened to overwhelm him.
"Easy, Harper. There was some sort of gas in the house. You've been out for almost ten minutes. A few deep breaths and your head will clear."
He pushed the hands away and stared into the blurred face of Hank Cooper, another of Blackthorne's operatives. Damn, whatever was in the house had knocked him for a loop. He clutched the mask to his face and sucked oxygen.
"Frankie. Molly. Did you find them?" he said as soon as he could get the words out.
"Sorry. Not unless Frankie was about six-three, two-fifty and had a beard. Nobody else was in there. But there's a lot of rubble."
His gut twisted tighter. "Great. Another FUBAR mission." But if they hadn't found bodies, maybe Frankie and Molly had escaped before the explosion. He allowed himself a scintilla of hope.
"Not exactly," came a Texas drawl. "Blackthorne twelve, tangos zero. Of course, there's still the missing intel."
He turned his head toward Dalton's voice and regretted it immediately when a hot knife of pain inserted itself behind his eyeballs. "Shit, what was that stuff?"
"Not sure, but you don't want to breathe much of it," Cooper said. He held out a canteen. "Here."
Ryan poured some water into his hand and splashed it over his eyes before swigging great gulps of the cool liquid. "Thanks." He passed the canteen to Dalton. "It's going to be a circus here in a little while." On shaky legs, he shoved away from his former teammate and walked to the clearing behind the house where Frankie would have left her car. Four slashed tires and a shattered windshield dashed his last hopes that she'd escaped.
Numb, he sank to his knees. Another bout of coughing jackhammered through his head. He clutched his throbbing temples.
He sensed Dalton behind him, but knew the man wouldn't intrude until Ryan could handle it. Which is what he did. Handled things. He scrubbed his hands across his face and stood. Dalton's arm sported a fresh bandage, gleaming white against the dirt that caked the rest of him.
Ryan met his gaze. "What now?" God, please don't let him tell me they found the bodies.
"You should go home. Get some rest. Let us take care of the cleanup."
"No. It's my place. The locals will want to talk to me. I'm surprised they're not here yet."
Dalton closed the distance between them and put his hand on Ryan's shoulder. "Leave it to Blackie. He'll put his spin on it and keep the media at bay. A training mission, things got out of hand, flammables in your cabin. Your sheriff will probably be glad to have it off his plate. And that assumes the locals even find out what's gone down. We're off the beaten path out here."
"And they can explain away—what did you say?—twelve bodies?" Even as he spoke the words, he knew Blackthorne's clean-up crew would have whisked the bodies away. Dalton was right. The sheriff's department would prefer to look for poachers and t
respassers, not get embroiled in international espionage. Without manpower or finances, they'd accept the easy explanation, even if they knew it was an incongruous one. The media would be trickier, but he knew Blackthorne had ways of greasing skids. He squeezed the bridge of his nose. "Dalt—I don't have the energy to flatten you right now, but what do I—did I—have?"
"Genetic code for a chunk of mutated smallpox virus. They can splice it to a more common variety, make a new bug. All I know is it's double ugly."
Double ugly was right. A pandemic could devastate millions. "Shit."
"Yeah. Nobody'd want to release it until they came up with a vaccine, but they need the code first."
"And that's what Alvarez gave me?"
"Apparently so. I retrieved your laptop. I'll take it to the techies, but my guess is it's fried. Your DVD collection looks like that Dali clock painting. We assume we got everybody before they found the right one."
Questions circled around Ryan's brain like horses on a carousel, but the brass ring remained out of reach.
Dalton tapped his headset and swung his mic into position. "Say again, Fozzie."
Chapter 28
Guided by faint moonlight and a lot of luck, Frankie picked her way to a passable hiding place. They'd walked for at least twenty minutes, she estimated, and even half-carrying Molly, hampered by the vest Frankie insisted she wear, they'd put some ground between them and Ryan's cabin.
"Okay, Molly. Get behind that big tree. We can hide here now."
"This is not hide and seek," Molly insisted. "You're not allowed to change hiding places."
"Shh," Frankie said. "I told you grownups play different."
Molly fisted her little hands on her hips, then shrugged out of the clumsy vest. "Well, I don't want to play anymore. I want to go home."
Much as she'd wanted to get into the car and race off the mountain, her gut told Frankie she'd be safer on foot for now. More places to hide. They'd spend the night in the woods if they had to. She'd raided Ryan's supply of blankets, and the two of them had stolen away like gunmetal-gray ghosts.
In the distance, she heard gunfire, then another sound, much louder and closer. She crept from behind the bushes and gaped at the heavens ablaze with color. Bits and pieces of what had to be Ryan's cabin drifted from the sky.
Molly covered her ears. "Is it fireworks? Can we see?"
She pulled Molly against her. "It sure looks like it. But we have to find another place to hide. Remember to stay very close to me, and no talking."
This time Molly seemed to understand, because she did exactly as Frankie asked. They walked, using the glow of the sky to pick their way through the trees, avoiding the easier footing on the road. Molly stopped whining about being tired and hungry, but Frankie knew she had to be exhausted. What had seemed a reckless move at the time, sneaking out the back door of the cabin, had saved their lives.
They were back in the shadows, and her fear that one of them would trip and twist an ankle, or worse, made her call a halt. "We're going to hide in the woods until it's morning and we can see again. Ryan wanted us to hide, and we have to be nice and do what he asked."
Using what little light the fire cast, she found a clear spot, kicked rocks and sticks out of her way and spread a blanket on the ground. "Lie down. You can sleep here. I'll snuggle with you and we'll stay warm."
"Are we going to die, Mommy?"
Frankie blinked back tears. "Of course not, Peanut. Go to sleep, and it'll be morning before you know it." What they'd do then wasn't clear yet, but she'd think of something. Ryan would find them. She gazed at the sky. If he hadn't been blown up.
Molly curled up on the blanket, and Frankie covered her with another one. Soon, Molly's breathing evened. Frankie wondered if she'd made a really stupid mistake. One more look at the fading glow in the sky told her no. She might not be in the best situation right now, but it sure as heck beat being burned to a crisp.
Somewhere far above, a helicopter circled, illuminating bits of the forest with its searchlight. Frankie huddled in the last blanket, one hand holding Molly still, trying to look like a rock, trying not to breathe. The lights moved away and the whup-whupping faded into the distance. She counted to a hundred before daring to stretch her cramped legs.
She listened to the night noises, trying to filter out normal woodsy sounds from approaching danger. Then again, some of those normal woodsy things could be dangerous, too. When one of those noises got closer, she thought her heart would explode through her chest. She reached for Molly. Or should she move and lure whatever it was away? While she'd gladly sacrifice herself for her daughter, how would Molly get back to civilization alone? No time to think.
Trusting her instinct, she moved close to Molly and lay flat, pulling the blanket over them. Her heart pounded into the ground beneath her, its drumbeat echoing in her ears.
She remembered Ryan protecting her with his own body. His warm, hard body. Was it this afternoon? And last night they'd made glorious love. New thoughts of Ryan surged like a tidal wave through her brain. This was normal for him. Before she could sort her thoughts, she felt a tug on the blanket.
A cold nose tickled the back of her neck. She swallowed a scream. The creature whined. She smelled dog. Definitely dog. She braved a peek from under the blanket.
"Wolf. You do have a way of showing up when you're needed, don't you, boy?"
She crawled out from under the blanket and wrapped her arms around his warm, furry body. He licked her face and sat beside her.
"I guess we should all get some sleep."
He thumped his tail and curled up between her and Molly. Knowing she had a sentry on guard, she relaxed. "In the morning, you can lead us out of here, right?"
With the dog's added warmth, she grew drowsy and drifted in and out of a fitful doze. Whether it had been seconds, minutes or hours, she wasn't sure, but Wolf sat up and barked. She strained her eyes into the darkness.
"Wolf." Molly's voice was a sleepy mumble.
"Shh." Frankie grasped Wolf's neck. He shook free and trotted a few paces away, still barking. She fumbled for the Kevlar vest and covered Molly. "Don't move, Peanut."
*****
"You're positive they're still there, Grinch?" Ryan crouched behind Grinciewicz and checked the display one more time, needing to see the two forms in the trees. The helo circled a small clearing about fifty feet from the spot Fozzie had reporting finding Frankie and Molly.
"What's the matter, Harper?" Grinch pointed to the blobs of color on the screen. "A little time off and you forget how to do the job?"
"Step on it, will you," Ryan said. "It's cold out there."
Fozzie's voice came through the radio in Ryan's helmet. "You sure you're up for this? Manny or Hotshot would be happy to do it. Nothing like being harnessed to a woman to wrap up a mission."
Ryan adjusted the jump suit Manny had given him. "I told you I'm going. You keep the damn bird steady."
"Now you're hurtin' my feelings, mate. Have I ever let you down?"
"I'm more concerned with you getting me back up," Ryan muttered. Dangling below the belly of a helo ranked about a minus three on his ten least favorite ops list, but he damn well knew what he was doing. It wasn't jealousy that kept him from allowing anyone else to do the rescue. Never mind that to hoist them up, they'd be strapped together belly to belly. Manny and Hotshot might be more experienced in helo rescues, but this mission was his.
When Fozzie had reported locating two individuals, alive, Ryan's world stopped. His throat tightened. Blood rushed in his ears. Dalt had forced him to the ground and shoved his head between his knees before he'd actually passed out. When Ryan could breathe again, he insisted Fozzie delay the rescue long enough to come back for him.
Fozzie hadn't exactly identified them as Frankie and Molly, but it had to be them. Apparently they were hiding, and quite effectively, unless someone looking had a helo with night vision, infra-red and God-knows-what-else that could pinpoint a squirrel's balls at a hundr
ed yards. But Wolf, bless the dog's heart, had given their location away. The dog would eat steak for the rest of his life.
Ryan quelled the butterflies zipping in formation through his gut. Frankie and Molly were alive. But until he was standing in front of them, until he could touch them, it wasn't real.
He crouched by the helo's open bay, checked his harness and the one he'd use for Frankie. Again. He sent his mind elsewhere while the preparations continued. The noise of the helo made conversation difficult, even with the radio sets, but they didn't need words to communicate. Everyone had a job to do, and the routine eased Ryan's anxiety.
Hotshot snapped glowsticks and taped them to Ryan's hands, boots and helmet. He clapped him on the shoulder and tugged on the line attached to his harness. Ryan gave him a thumbs up and circled his hands. The glow sticks, which would give Fozzie a way to track him and make hand signals visible, painted green loops in the darkness.
Hotshot leaned his helmet against Ryan's. "Chill. The tangos are gone. This is no HALO op. Not even fast roping. Sit back and relax. The winch will do it all."
Knowing didn't make him like it. So what if he wasn't free-falling from 30,000 feet? He couldn't shake the nerves. Thinking about Frankie made breathing an effort. He tapped his helmet to Hotshot's as if toasting the mission. With one last deep inhale, he clutched the rescue bag to his belly and slid into the night.
Trusting his buddies to lower him at a rate appropriate to the terrain, he stared straight ahead until tree trunks told him he was near the ground. He made sure of a clear spot beneath him and signaled to the helo. Line played out and he'd barely hit bottom when Wolf raced to him, barking a frantic welcome.
He signaled Fozzie to hold steady and broke into a run, almost before he unclipped his line and grabbed his Maglite. "Frankie! Molly! Come on out. It's over."
"Two o'clock, about fifty meters," came over his headset. He veered right, still calling their names. Wolf led the way. Ryan turned on the light and kicked up his pace.