“I’m still here with you, baby,” he murmured, hoping his microphone worked well enough for her to hear him.
She didn’t answer. That didn’t necessarily mean she couldn’t hear him. After all, she was trying to be silent.
He tried to listen even harder, tried to hear the sound of her feet, but all he could hear was the desperate beating of his own heart.
Finally, she spoke.
“I’m across,” she said almost silently, and Harvard drew in the first breath he’d taken in what seemed like hours.
There was more silence as one minute slipped into two, two into three. He tried to visualize her moving down metal stairs, slowly, silently, moving through corridors where there was no place to hide.
Damn, this was taking too long. P.J. had been inside for close to twenty-five minutes already. She only had five more minutes before she’d reach the halfway point as far as time went. She had only five minutes before she would have to turn around and come back—or risk certain discovery when the guards’ shift changed and the men they’d temporarily put out of action were discovered.
“I’ve found the first of the hospital rooms,” P.J. finally said. “The one in the northeast corner is dark and empty. Moving to the next area, toward the front and middle of the building.”
He heard her draw in her breath quickly, and his heart rate went off the chart. “Situation report!” he ordered. “P.J., what’s happening?”
“The other room has a guard by the door. He’s sitting in a chair—asleep,” she breathed. “But the door’s open. I’m going to go past him.”
Harvard sat up straight. “Go inside and close and lock the door after you. Do whatever you can to keep them from getting in behind you, do you understand?”
P.J. pulled her lip mike closer to her mouth. “Harvard, you’re breaking up. I heard you tell me to lock the door behind me, but I lost the rest. Come back.”
Static.
Damn. What had he been trying to tell her? What good would locking herself into a room with the captain do? And she didn’t even know if Joe was in that room.
She moved slowly, soundlessly toward the sleeping guard.
She could do this. She could be as invisible and silent as Harvard was—provided she was on a city street or inside a building.
The guard’s slight snoring stopped, and she froze, mere feet away from the man. But then he snorted, and his heavy breathing resumed. She slipped through the door.
And found Captain Joe Catalanotto lying on the floor.
It was obvious he’d started out on a hospital bed. He’d been cuffed to the bed. The opened cuffs were still attached to the railing.
Somehow he’d managed to get himself free.
But he hadn’t had the strength to make it more than a few steps before he’d collapsed, apparently silently enough not to alert the guard.
P.J. quietly closed the door, locking it as Harvard had instructed. It was dark without the dim glow from the emergency lights in the hallway.
She took her flashlight from her pocket and switched it on, checking quickly around the room to make sure there was no other door, no other way in or out.
There wasn’t.
This was definitely insane. She’d locked the door, but someone on the other side surely had a key.
Holding her breath, she knelt next to Joe and felt for a pulse.
Please, God…
His skin was cool and clammy, and her stomach lurched. Dear Lord Jesus, they’d come too late.
But wait—he did have a pulse. It was much too faint, far too slow, but the man was still alive.
“Daryl, I found him,” P.J. whispered into her mike. “He’s alive, but he won’t be for long if we don’t get him out of here now.”
Static. Harvard’s voice was there, but she couldn’t make out what he was telling her. “…scribe…cation…”
Scribe? Cation?
Describe her location!
She did that quickly, telling him in detail how many meters away from the northeast corner room she and Joe were. She gave him an approximation of the room’s dimensions, as well as a list of all the medical equipment, the counters and sinks, even the light fixtures on the ceiling.
She also told him, in detail, about Joe’s condition as she quickly examined the captain’s wounds. “He’s got both an entrance and an exit wound in his upper right leg,” she reported. “And he wasn’t shot in the chest, thank God. He took a bullet in his left shoulder—no exit wound, it’s still in there. As far as I can tell, there was only the vaguest effort made to stop his bleeding—as a result he’s lost a lot of blood. His face looks like hell—his eyes are swollen and bruised, and his lip’s split. It looks like the bastards gave him one hell of a beating. God only knows if he’s got internal injuries from that. Daryl, we’ve got to get him to the sick bay on the Irvin. Now.”
Static. “…backup…ready for me!”
God knows they needed backup, but she knew for damn sure it wasn’t coming.
As far as getting ready for him went, get ready for him to do what?
“Please repeat,” she said.
Static.
“I don’t copy you, Senior Chief! Repeat!”
More static.
P.J. flashed her light around the room. The beam came to rest against the concrete blocks of the wall. She flashed her light around the room again. Only one wall was made of concrete blocks, the outer wall.
P.J. remembered Harvard telling her that all he’d need were two more SEALs and a grenade launcher and…
Back up. Harvard wasn’t talking about backup. He was telling her to back up. To move back, away from the outer wall.
The captain was much too close to it. P.J. grabbed him under both arms and pulled.
Joe groaned. “Ronnie?” he rasped.
“No, I’m sorry, Joe, it’s only me. P. J. Richards,” she told him. “I know I’m hurting you, sweetie, but Harvard’s coming, and we’ve got to move you out of his way.”
“That’s Captain Sweetie,” he said faintly. “Gonna have to…help me. Don’t seem to have muscles that work.”
God, he was big. But somehow, between the two of them, they moved him into the corner farthest from the outside wall. P.J. quietly pulled the mattress from the hospital bed and set it in front of them—a better-than-nothing attempt to shield them from whatever was coming.
This was definitely insane.
Even if they made it out by blowing a hole through the wall, the noise was going to raise a few eyebrows. Wake up a few hundred sleeping soldiers.
And then what? Then they’d be screaming down the mountain—provided Harvard could hotwire one of those trucks out front—with five hundred of Sherman’s soldiers on their tail, and God knows how many of Kim’s men advancing toward them.
If they were going to get out of here, there was only one way they could go without getting caught.
And that was straight up.
P.J. flipped to the main channel on her radio. “Blue, are you there?” Please, God, please be there.
“P.J.? Lord, where have you been!” The taciturn SEAL sounded nearly frantic.
“I’m with Joe right now. He’s alive, but just barely.”
Blue swore.
“You said you were the voice of God,” P.J. told him, “and I hope you’re right. We need you to make us a miracle, Lieutenant. We need a chopper, and we need it now.”
“I copy that, P.J.,” Blue’s voice said. “We’ve got—”
He kept talking, but she didn’t hear what he had to say, because, with a thundering crash, the wall in front of her collapsed.
She shielded Joe with her body as alarms went off and dust and light filled the air. But it wasn’t light from a fire.
It was light from the headlights of a truck.
Harvard had driven one of Sherman’s armored trucks right through the wall!
The man himself appeared through the flying dust like some kind of wonderful superhero.
�
�I’ve got Cat.” He picked up the captain effortlessly as if he weighed nothing at all. “Drive or shoot?” he asked.
P.J. didn’t hesitate as she scrambled into the truck. “Shoot.” She did just that, aiming at the soldiers and guards who were coming to investigate the crash.
Harvard was behind the wheel in an instant, the captain slumped on the bench seat between them.
“I can shoot, too,” Joe Cat gasped as Harvard spun the wheels, backing them up and out of the rubble.
“Yes, sir,” P.J. said. “I don’t doubt that you can. But right now, Captain, your job is to keep your head down.”
She squeezed the trigger of an HK MP5, firing through a special slot in the side of the vehicle. All around them, soldiers scattered.
Harvard put the truck in gear. Tires screaming, they headed down the mountain.
“I had time to disable all but one other truck,” Harvard announced. “And we got it right on our tail.” He swore.
“We’ve also got an entire army advancing toward us,” P.J. reminded him.
“I’m well aware of that,” he said grimly. He was driving with two hands tight on the steering wheel as he negotiated the steep, curving mountain roads.
There was a jolt as the truck behind them rammed them. Clearly the driver knew the roads better than Harvard did.
Harvard punched the truck into overdrive and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. They shot forward. “Get this guy off my butt,” he told P.J. “The windshield’s bulletproof—don’t aim for him. Shoot out his tire.”
She held up her submachine gun. “This thing isn’t exactly a big favorite among sharpshooters,” she told him. “I’ll be lucky if I can—”
“There’s a rifle on the floor. Use it.”
P.J. lifted her feet. Sure enough, there was a small arsenal stored there. She grabbed the rifle, checked that it was loaded and opened the window that looked out onto the open back of the truck.
It wasn’t an easy shot—not with both trucks moving. She sighted the front left tire.
Before she could squeeze the trigger, a helicopter appeared, roaring above them, tracking them down the jungle road. There was a red cross on its underside, clearly visible even in the predawn, along with a painting of the French flag.
Blue McCoy had come through with that miracle.
P.J. took careful aim at the other truck and fired the rifle.
The truck jerked, skidded and careened off the road and into the trees.
“Nice shot,” Harvard said matter-of-factly. “For a girl.”
P.J. laughed as she pulled her lip microphone closer to her mouth. “This is FInCOM Agent P. J. Richards, hailing the French medivac chopper. Captain Catalanotto and Senior Chief Becker and I are traveling south, currently without immediate pursuit, in the armored vehicle you are tracking. The captain is in need of immediate medical attention. Let’s find a place we both can stop so we can get him on board.”
“This is Captain Jean-Luc Lague,” a heavily accented voice informed her. “There is a clearing half a kilometer down the road.”
“Good,” P.J. said as she put her arms around Joe, cradling him against the jostling of the truck. His shoulder had started bleeding again, and she used a scrap of his shirt to lightly apply pressure to the wound. “We’ll stop there. But you’ll have to take us on board without landing, Captain Lague. There are minefields all over this island.”
“I can hover alongside the road.”
“Great,” P.J. told him. She glanced over to find Harvard smiling at her. “I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. She turned off her mike. “It’s just…I figured I was the only one of us who had a microphone that worked, and…”
“You did great,” Harvard said. “And you’re right. My mike’s not working, Joe’s mike is gone. Who else was going to talk to Captain Lague?”
“But you’re sitting there laughing at me.”
“I’m just smiling. I’m really liking the fact that we’re all still alive.” His smile broadened. “I’m just sitting here absolutely loving you.”
“Uh, H.?” Blue’s voice cut in. “Your mike’s working again.”
Harvard laughed as he pulled up next to the open field. “Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know that I’m crazy about this woman?”
“Admiral Stonegate probably didn’t know,” Blue drawled.
The chopper hovered, and Harvard lifted the captain in his arms. Several medics helped Joe into the helicopter, then Harvard gave P.J. a boost before he climbed in himself.
The door was shut, and the medics immediately started an IV on Joe. The chopper lifted and headed directly for the ocean and the USS Irvin.
The captain was fighting to stay awake as the medics cut his clothing away from his wounds. “H.!” he rasped.
Harvard reached out and took his friend’s hand, holding on to it tightly. “I’m here, Joe.”
“Tell Ronnie I’m sorry…”
“You’re going to get a chance to do that yourself,” Harvard told him. “You’re going to be okay.” As he looked at P.J., she wasn’t at all surprised to see tears in his eyes. “We’re going home.”
EPILOGUE
THE ENTIRE REST OF THE United States was having a wretchedly awful heat wave, but San Diego remained a perfect seventy-five degrees.
P.J. glanced at Harvard as he slowed his truck to a stop at a traffic light. He turned and smiled at her, and the last of the tension from the plane flight floated away. God, she hated flying. But this trip was definitely going to be worth the anxiety she’d suffered. This was day one of a greatly needed two-week vacation.
And she was spending every single minute of those two weeks with Daryl Becker.
It had been close to three weeks since she’d seen him last, since they’d returned to the USS Irvin on board a French medical helicopter. Bobby and Wes had arrived at the ship several hours later, dragging Chuck Schneider along behind them.
They’d spent the next three days in debriefings—all except Joe Cat, Lucky and Greg Greene, who had been sent to a hospital in California.
P.J. had slept in Harvard’s arms each of those nights. They’d been discreet, but the truth was, she really didn’t care what people thought. Not anymore. She would have walked naked through the enlisted mess if that was the only way she could have been with him.
When the debriefings were over, Harvard had flown to Coronado, while she’d been summoned for a series of meetings in Kevin Laughton’s office in Washington, D.C.
Kevin had been sympathetic about her need to take some time off, but he’d talked her into writing up her reports on the failed Combined SEAL/FInCOM team project first. And that had taken much longer than she’d hoped.
But now she was free and clear for two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours.
Harvard had met her at the gate, kissed her senseless and whisked her immediately into his truck.
“How’s Joe?” she asked.
“Great,” he told her. “He’s been home from the hospital for about a week. Lucky’s doing really well, too.”
“I’d like to visit them.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “But definitely not until after we get naked—and stay naked for about three days straight.”
He laughed. “Damn, I missed you,” he told her, drinking her in with his gaze.
She knew she was looking at him just as hungrily. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and even dressed in civilian clothes, he was impossibly handsome.
“I missed you, too.” Her voice was husky with desire. As he gazed into her eyes, she let him see the fire she felt for him.
“Hmm,” he said. “Maybe we should go straight to my apartment.”
“I thought you said there was something important you wanted to show me,” she teased.
“Its importance just dropped a notch or two. But since we’re already here…”
“We are?” P.J. looked out the window. They were on a quiet street in a residential neighb
orhood overlooking the ocean.
“I want you to check this out,” Harvard said. He climbed out of the truck, and P.J. joined him.
It was only then that she noticed the For Sale sign on the lawn of the sweetest-looking little adobe house she’d ever seen in her entire life. It was completely surrounded by flower gardens. Not just one, but four or five of them.
“Come on,” Harvard said. “The real-estate agent is waiting for us inside.”
P.J. went through the house in a daze. It was bigger than she’d thought from the outside, with a fireplace in the living room, a kitchen that rivaled Harvard’s mom’s and three good-size bedrooms.
There was a deck off the dining room, and as she stepped outside, she realized the house overlooked the ocean.
Harvard leaned on the rail, gazing at the changing colors of the sea.
“I’ve already qualified for a mortgage, so if you like it, we should make an offer today,” he told her. “It’s not going to be on the market too much longer.”
P.J. couldn’t speak. Her heart was in the way, in her throat.
He misinterpreted her silence.
“I like it,” he said. “But if you don’t, that’s okay. Or maybe I’m moving too fast—I have the tendency to do that, and—” He broke off, swearing. “I am moving too fast. We haven’t even talked about getting married—not since we were out in the real world. For all I know, you weren’t really serious and…”
P.J. finally found her voice. “I was dead serious.”
Harvard smiled. “Yeah?” he said. “Well, that’s good, because I was, too, you know.”
P.J. looked pointedly around. “Obviously.”
He pulled her closer. “Look, whether it’s this house we share or some other—or none whatsoever, hell, we could live in hotels for the rest of our lives—that’s not important. What’s important is that we’re together as often as we can be.” He looked around and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Your office is in D.C. Why would you want a house in San Diego?”
“I might want one in San Diego if I’m going to work in San Diego. I found out there’s an opening in the San Diego field office.”
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