Falling Hard

by HelenKay Dimon

  Pearce tapped the camera. “I wonder what’s worse—”

  Mike swore under his breath. “Really, that is annoying as hell.”

  “—being buried alive or being stalked like an animal.” Pearce shook his head. “Almost makes me feel bad for West, good little killing machine that he is.”

  Mike scoffed. “Very poetic.”

  “Not at all overly dramatic,” Ward said at the same time.

  “We’ll know soon because the men watching West’s every move are getting bored. They’ve cut him off by taking away his communication with you. Now he’s being led right to slaughter,” Pearce continued on an exaggerated sigh. “They’re tracking him and the woman and are about to start killing.”

  The corners of Mike’s mouth fell. “What the hell?”

  “Fuck it.” Ward leaned over and hit the speaker button on his side. “You want to talk so badly, go ahead.”

  Pearce laughed. “I thought that would get your attention.”

  “I hate to ruin your fun but West is out of Skardu and in debrief.” Ward lied his ass off and sold it. If someone hooked him up to a polygraph, he’d beat it.

  “We both know that’s not true. Lucky for West, I’ll talk again when I’m on the ground in Skardu.” Pearce tapped his wrist as if he were wearing a watch, which he wasn’t. “But I’d hurry because West is getting very close to the line.”

  Ward decided to play along. “What line?”

  “The one he can’t cross and still live.” Then Pearce turned his back to the camera.

  Mike watched Pearce move then broke off to look at Ward. “Is he messing with us?”

  “I don’t want to wait and find out.” Ward knew the second the reality of the situation hit Mike. His shoulders fell and his expression morphed from frustrated with a side of bored to pissed off.

  No one threatened an Alliance member. Pearce had done just that.

  “Shit.” Mike’s fingers went to the end of his gun where it rested on his hip. “This is just shit.”

  Ward knew the feeling. “Exactly.”

  Lexi twitched at every little sound. They’d stolen the truck from the dead soldiers after West decided that story would be the easiest for Javed to sell. Took it then ditched it. Only temporarily, but they couldn’t exactly drive it into the secret encampment. Even she knew that much.

  The truck sat in a garage and they walked. They stood what felt like miles away from their target. She couldn’t see anything from their perch on a small incline. Some figures moving around. A stray truck. Nothing that made sense or justified the big secrecy play or all the armed men chasing her.

  “This is as close as we’re getting,” West said as he looked through his fancy high-powered binoculars. He let them fall again. “God damn, I wish I could stash you somewhere.”

  “I’m not a sweater.” She’d been ordered around, manhandled, and shot at. It was official, she was tired of all of it.

  He glanced at her. “Okay.”

  Even loading equipment for this run became one more chance to argue. She couldn’t believe she’d had to insist that she wash the blood out of West’s hair and stitch the gunshot wound across the top of his ear. The man was the very definition of stubborn.

  “Let’s get what you need, then get out.” She didn’t even know what that was or what it would entail, but the advice to leave town started sounding good to her.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  It wasn’t for her either. The climbers needed the clinic, and locals depended on it. She couldn’t help either group if she were dead. It was as if West’s warnings finally sunk in. No way was she admitting that to him.

  He took something out, small and square. She lifted up on the balls of her feet to get a better look at it over his shoulder. When that didn’t work, she stepped in front of him to examine it. “What is this?”

  “Nothing.”

  He shrugged at her. If they survived the next few hours she was setting down a new rule: no shrugging. There would be others but it was a place to start.

  And she knew enough about him to know a one-word clipped answer meant something. “You are not taking photos.”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  Forget jokes about a death wish. “You’re going to get caught and killed.”

  “It’s a risk.”

  He said those things and they tore through her. Ripped her stomach right apart and had her gasping for breath. They lived in a dangerous part of a dangerous world, but she fully expected to walk out of this alive. His determination that this could be the end for him played with her confidence. Had her emotions ping-ponging inside of her.

  “I’m not willing to take it.” Chalk it up to adrenaline or the daze that kept clouding her mind, but she hated when he treated his life as disposable. Even after a short time he’d come to mean something to her. But she couldn’t fight for him alone. She needed his help.

  “We’re far enough away.” Both his words and tone dismissed her concerns. He was too busy looking up to notice any reaction or measure his comment. “Can you climb?”

  The words scrambled in her head. “I don’t even understand the question.”

  “The tree.” He pointed up.

  Tall, with the lowest branch well over her head. No thanks.

  She didn’t freeze with fear at the thought of heights but she didn’t like them either. “Are you kidding?”

  “People don’t think to look up, even trained military officers.”

  She wanted to brush off the comment as interesting discussion but she knew better. He’d been thinking and planning the entire time. That’s what he did. He developed contingencies and didn’t panic. That was a part of him she didn’t get at all.

  And that was the hiding place he picked? “Where will you be?”

  “Out there.” He nodded in the direction of the encampment and all the men walking around down there. “From above you’ll be able to see me.”

  “No.” It was the only word she could force out.

  “Yes.”

  From his determined expression, she knew he’d ride this battle into oblivion. He wasn’t really asking her or seeking input. He issued orders, and she’d become the subject of one in his head.

  Fine. He wanted stubborn, she’d show him stubborn.

  She held out her hand. “Give me a gun.”

  He looked from her face to her palm then back around again. With each pass his frown grew more severe and unforgiving. “Can you shoot?”

  She had no idea. It looked easy on television but she doubted it was really just a matter of lifting the barrel and firing. “I need a sixty-second lesson.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  She was counting on that. Maybe if he feared for her safety he would turn back. She would use anything to keep him alive and on his feet. The idea of him being hurt threatened to drive her to her knees.

  So did the prospect of being left alone without a weapon when more men stumbled by. “We’re losing time.”

  He took a small gun out of the utility pocket on his pants. He pointed to different features on it. “Trigger. Keep your finger off it unless you plan to fire.”

  “What about the safety?” People always talked about that on cop shows. Since that’s where she got all her legal and police information, she went with it.

  “Consider what I just told you to be the safety.” He flipped the gun over in his palm and pointed it toward a bush about ten feet away. “Here’s the sight. Aim at the tree. Hit the branches.”

  “The sound.” Gunfire would bring people. They hid on a hill, far away from anything. The idea of purposely bringing men running made no sense at all.

  “No one will hear from here.” He nodded at the bush again. “Do it.”

  She picked it up and pulled the trigger, but not until she’d opened one eye then the other, trying to aim the right way. The shot went wide. Brushed by leaves on a small tree outside the informal shooting area.

  She lowered the weapo
n as the anxious feeling inside her bubbled over. “Huh.”

  “Good news is any man coming after you will be wider than that tree.” West kept talking. “Do not be a martyr. Shoot only if there is no other option. If they walk under you, stay quiet and don’t move.”

  The advice made sense in the abstract. In reality she feared she’d fall down in front of anyone who walked by. Already it took all of her willpower not to grab onto West’s pants leg and scream until he took her out of there.

  With the gun in her pocket, she held out her palm again. “A knife.”

  He glared at her open fist. “Why?”

  “I can probably stab easier than I can aim.”

  “That is exactly wrong.” He held her wrist in one hand and gently tucked her fingers into a fist with the other. “It’s harder to kill a person close up.”

  “Why?” It didn’t require aiming or a unique skill set. To her it made sense to have a knife. She could throw it or jump out at someone with it.

  “You can feel him breathing.”

  All the thoughts racing through her head stumbled to a halt. She wanted this to be some sort of game so that the risks weren’t real and the bodies weren’t dead. But that wasn’t reality.

  She came crashing back down. “I’m sorry you said that.”

  He didn’t respond at first. Just leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Lingered as his fingers touched her hair. Right before he broke contact he tucked a closed pocketknife into her front pants pocket.

  “Please be careful.” The whisper of his voice blew over her.

  “How often do you usually say please?” Emotion clogged her throat, but she managed to ask.

  His palm cupped her face and his eyes searched hers. “Never.”

  Her breath hiccupped inside her chest. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

  12

  WEST LET the night air clear his head. Thoughts of Lexi clogged up the strategies and tactics swimming around in there. He needed to stay focused.

  He’d never had to give himself a mental shake or deliver an unspoken lecture on appropriate behavior on the job before. It was her. She made him do things, think things, that couldn’t happen. Hell, just stroking her hair quieted the demons dancing around inside him.

  What the fuck was that about?

  He’d cut himself off from emotion for so long that when it hit him now it knocked him sideways. Had him spinning and placing her safety above all else. With her, he morphed back to the guy he was before the mountain fell. Someone who stayed on mission but never lost sight of the human toll. With her, those machine parts crumbled and the man stepped out again.

  With emotions came pain and regret. It all flooded back on him and he hated it. Yet, he couldn’t stop watching her, thinking about what it would be like to be in a hotel in London or walking around in Paris. Something not fraught with danger.

  She opened a door in him, and the more time they spent together the harder it became to slam it shut.

  But he needed every brain cell working on the current problem. He’d hiked about two miles out and back, ducking from search vehicles and lying flat on the ground as armed men passed. He saw the encampment tucked into the side of a mountain. Also figured out that it hid something much larger.

  Whatever weapons and whoever was holding them hid behind the beige-draped makeshift building. People went in and out, disappeared into the rocks. Caves were the only explanation.

  West knew all about the series of tunnels running through significant portions of Pakistan. There was no map and no easy way to navigate it as an outsider. In other words, the perfect place to hide something you should not have.

  He zigzagged on his jog back to Lexi. He didn’t use the same path, in case someone tracked him or spotted anything out of order. The new trail took him an extra quarter mile out of his way, but that’s how recon worked.

  But as he jogged something inside him began to twist. He couldn’t shake the sensation that something had gone wrong. If he let his mind wander to the horror show of Lexi being taken and hurt, he’d buckle. No matter how many times the images flashed through his mind he blinked them out again.

  He ran faster.

  The swift movement created noise. His footsteps fell louder than normal. He knew he needed to keep it down, stay covert, but a strange panic drove him.

  He circled around an outcropping of rocks and passed a stack of abandoned building supplies. He could make out the outline in the distance of the tree where Lexi should be. Still a long way off. Good thing he could run pretty damn fast.

  That’s when he heard the shuffling. Clothing rustling. Shoes falling against the dirt.

  He hit the ground on his stomach. With his palms pressed in front of him, he rushed to get his bearings and distinguish one noise from another. The cold breeze moved the grasses and whistled around him. But he had heard a person. More than one.

  He lay there, not moving. He slowed his breathing as he ran through a mental list of his weapons and calculated how quickly he could reach each one. The inventory always worked. Within seconds his mind worked like a computer, assessing and analyzing without emotion. One of the few valuable skills he picked up from his doomsday cult father.

  The minutes ticked by and the night settled in. There were a few hours before daylight, but not many. He needed to be out and have Lexi somewhere safe by then.

  Footsteps sounded around him. Not near his makeshift hiding place. A few feet closer and he’d jump up. He could handle and take down a group. It was the wave of men behind this one that was the question. His ammunition would run out and he’d leave Lexi vulnerable.

  So he bided his time. Instead of fighting before a battle came to him, he waited. He stayed on the defensive, which made a nerve in his cheek tic. He much preferred offense.

  When the quiet pulsed and long minutes had passed without noise or movement, he pushed his chest up a fraction. Nothing. He hit his feet in a squat and stayed there, low and out of sight. Something kept him in place. The way the air moved or the leaves blew.

  He reached for his gun.

  Thundering footsteps broke through the silence off to his left and had him spinning on his heel. A thin beam of light clicked on and then off. As quickly as the noises exploded they faded again, but now he knew. There were people out there. Question was, how many and if any of them had found Lexi’s hiding place.

  He could wait them out. He’d sit for hours if needed.

  But that wasn’t necessary. They did what human nature dictated. They attacked too soon and without thinking it through. They didn’t know exactly where he was or they would have begun firing. They went with an ambush, probably thinking to force him into a run. West almost smiled over the rookie mistake.

  A shadow came toward him. West watched it come, seeing if others followed and how many he’d have to go through to fight his way out of the dark. One shout and a runner. That was it.

  He held until the last second then stood up with the knife in one hand and went right for the neck. Stabbing, he put his weight behind it and was rewarded with the telltale gagging sound. The guy dropped to his knees, and West knocked him over while he tried to make out what attacker number two was yelling about.

  Back on his stomach and crawling on the ground, he heard a name shouted and a panicked call from the other man. The first guy couldn’t answer. He was too busy bleeding out in the dirt.

  All the chattering gave the second guy’s position away. He used a boulder for cover. Smart move but not quite clever enough. West made it to the opposite side of the hiding place without being discovered. He froze, trying to pick up the man’s exact location.

  Then West heard it. A radio. This guy was talking to others, which meant the whole army might come down on them soon. That moved up his attack timetable. He pushed up and took off. Pivoted around the boulder and shot the guy in the temple before he could finish relaying his current position.

  The radio squawked and West knew the word would go out. H
e had to move, and the radio was coming with him.

  Just as he stood up, he felt the shift in the wind. The human kind. He reached for his gun but one already pressed against the back of his head.

  A man screamed an order in his ear. West couldn’t make out the order over the mix of fury and fear in the guy’s voice. The attacker might have the advantaged position, but West knew he was still in charge here. Except if he wasn’t careful, this guy might shoot him by accident.

  West lifted his hands. “It’s okay.”

  “On your knees.”

  Seemed like the guy did speak some English. Not knowing what he’d heard or seen, West tried to throw him off. “Climber.”

  “What?”

  “I’m a climber.” It was a cover he could sell at this time of the year. It didn’t explain the gun or the blood, but the darkness should hide both.

  The guy punched him in that space right between his shoulder blades. “No.”

  That fucker hurt. West bent forward.

  The guy started a one-handed pat-down. “On your knees.”

  West didn’t see a choice. He had to shoot this one. The question was how to duck without getting a bullet in his head from a lucky shot. He’d just decided to fall to the side then come up shooting when he heard another voice.

  “Put the gun down.”

  No, no, no. It was Lexi. This was a damn nightmare.

  The other man didn’t hesitate. He turned and grabbed the gun, twisted Lexi’s arm until she doubled over and lost her grip.

  She let out a yelp. “No!”

  That’s all the diversion West needed. He slipped his knife out and slid it right into the back of the man’s neck. Blood spurted, but he didn’t make a sound. Just dropped in a whoosh as if every bone had been removed.

  Lexi stood over the body with her hands at her sides and her eyes glazed with horror. West expected her to pass out or throw up. Either made sense to him. She spent her life supporting life and he kept taking it front of her.

  “Lexi?”

  She shook her head. Didn’t make a sound.

  Staring at the body couldn’t be good for whatever was zipping around in her head. Putting the knife away, West stepped toward her. They needed to move but he had to make sure she could.