Falling Hard

by HelenKay Dimon

  Almost afraid to touch her, he hesitated. Once he figured out a way to soothe her, he’d try that. “Are you okay?”

  Her eyes finally focused as her stare switched from the body to him. Then she launched herself into his arms. Fell against his chest and her hands went into his hair.

  “You’re okay.” She whispered so softly that it sounded more like a breath than a word.

  “What?”

  Her mouth found his cheek then his chin. “Thank God you’re okay.”

  She feared for his safety? The idea floored him. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone cared about him.

  “I was worried about you,” he said. “You were supposed to stay in that tree, out of harm’s way.”

  She pulled back but didn’t break contact. Her hands rested on his forearms. “I saw them move in on your position. Then the third one broke off and got behind you.”

  A fact West still didn’t quite believe. “We need to leave in case there’s a fourth man around here somewhere.”

  Her next words stopped him.

  She held his jacket in a death grip. “You should know I plan on kissing you when we get wherever we’re going. Like, the knee-buckling, can’t-get-our-clothes-off-fast-enough type.”

  Forget safe and smart and careful. Fuck the rules. He was taking her up on that. “Then let’s get moving.”

  Ward sat on a conference room table with his feet on the chair below. He wasn’t even sure what this facility was used for, probably didn’t want to know. But Alliance had a cell for Pearce and office space in the conference room thanks to whatever group operated this place.

  Mike and Josiah milled around the room. The rest of Delta team took off with Harlan. Josiah had tried to make contact but West was still in the wind with the doctor’s daughter. Josiah had filled them in on what he’d seen and heard and his impression of Lexi. But Ward worried about West. No check-in but no reports of his capture either.

  Losing contact with West made Ward want to beat someone to death, preferably Pearce. “You can’t even pinpoint a last location for West?”

  “Not one that would help. It’s too old and West is too smart to walk around in the open.” Josiah stopped pacing and stood in front of the monitor carrying the feed from Pearce’s cell. “What does he know?”

  “We’re not sure.” Too much, but maybe nothing. Pearce had contacts here and the job that made him a traitor was about stolen weapons. Could be he was tied to whatever was going on in Pakistan. Maybe even in charge of it. “He wants to go to Skardu.”

  “Pearce wants to be in Pakistan?” Mike asked.

  “He’s involved with all of this somehow. It traces back to him. Has to.” Josiah stood there, shaking his head as he watched Pearce sit on his bed and stare at the ceiling. “The references to West can’t be a coincidence.”

  Mike clicked on a key and the camera flipped positions inside Pearce’s cell. “Did Bravo locate the guard who helped him?”

  That had been the most interesting piece of intel from Tasha. Leave it to Ford and Bravo team to ferret out the truth. They had the guard on his knees and begging for forgiveness almost immediately. “One of them.”

  Mike stopped his mindless wandering around the room. “What does that mean?”

  “The guard fessed up and admitted to having a wife . . . and a girlfriend, which is why he needed to accept Pearce’s money offer. Apparently the guard’s wife watches the money pretty closely.” And buying a condo and jewelry for one woman while paying the mortgage with another was problematic.

  “Who is the number two?” Mike asked.

  Ward decided to show them. “Here.” He pushed Josiah out of the way and started typing. The GPS immediately located the guard they brought with them from Virginia. Ward pointed to the feed showing him sitting in a room eating a sandwich. “Him.”

  “One of the guards the CIA handed us?” Josiah didn’t rein it in. He let out a string of profanities that could make hardened Marines blush.

  Ward felt the same way. “Convenient, right? I’m guessing he and Pearce have a history.”

  “This is why we need to only use Alliance members. No matter what part of the assignment. Hell, I’ll drive a bus if I have to, but no more outside help.” Mike stopped long enough to swear like he usually did in situations like this. “This shit doesn’t happen when we keep everything internal.”

  “I agree and I’m on it.” Ward had already made that clear to Tasha in his venting phone call. Alliance might be connected with the CIA and MI6 tangentially, but no more sharing.

  There was a reason Alliance had been formed. They didn’t play have-to-be-nice with others, didn’t follow the same rules as the CIA, and no one he brought on was a fucking traitor. He didn’t hire Pearce. That was someone else’s responsibility, and Ward insisted he handle all hires from now on as a result. He’d handle the guard situation, too.

  “Happy we understand each other.” Mike put a thigh on the edge of the table and half leaned into the computer. “Why didn’t Pearce make a move on the plane?”

  “Too many guards.” Flying with a contingent felt like overkill at first. Now the move to keep security surrounding Pearce at all times seemed smart. Score one for Tasha.

  “Bigger question.” Mike seethed with anger. It practically poured out of his pores. “Why is the crooked guard still working here?”

  “I wanted to see if I can catch him in the act. Figure out how he’s communicating with Pearce and make sure we’ve rounded up all the Pearce-friendly players.” The guard and Pearce had to talk sometime or have a code. Nothing in the old security logs from back in Virginia suggested Pearce had talked with anyone.

  Josiah continued to stare at the camera as he rubbed his fingers over his chin. “I think we should stay out of this guard’s way and let him do whatever he plans to do for Pearce.”

  Mike’s eyes narrowed. “Care to say why?”

  “If the plan is to break Pearce out of here, I say we let him.” Josiah smiled. “Pearce could lead us to the weapons and possibly to West.”

  The idea took hold. Ward wished he’d come up with it first. “You mean follow him.”

  Mike held up a hand. “Or Pearce could run in the other direction and we’ll lose him forever. I am not answering to Tasha for that.”

  “Me neither,” Ward said, “which is why Pearce getting away is never going to happen.” He would walk through glass to get Pearce. Letting him go, losing him . . . He’d shoot the bastard in the back first.

  Mike looked at Josiah. “So, you’re saying—”

  “See if the guard breaks Pearce out, then we follow.” Josiah sounded so sure.

  Ward admired the spirit and tried to ignore just how many things could go wrong. Pearce’s ego could trip him up. And there was no way Ward would leave West and the woman behind. Not on his watch.

  Yeah, the way he figured it, this might be more than the best choice. It could be the only choice. “It’s time for Pearce to escape.”

  Mike laughed. “The guys out there watching over him are not going to like this. We’ve got Marines and contractors on site, and we don’t control them. This is their playground.”

  “They’ll like it when we find a stash of weapons and let them take credit for it all.” Ward said it because he didn’t care who got the glory so long as he got West back and Pearce went down.

  13

  TWENTY MINUTES later they stumbled across a truck, just where West predicted it would be. He’d spotted it on his hunt and tagged it in his memory . . . or so he said. At this point he could insist they walk to India and Lexi would have agreed.

  As she watched, he opened the hood. She held a flashlight while he tooled around, moving wires and clipping this and that. She had no idea what he was doing but the engine turned over a second later. “You know how to hot-wire a truck.”

  “Start one without keys. Fix an engine. Wire it to go off like a bomb.” He closed the hood and flashed her a smile. “That can’t be a surprise to you.�
��

  No, his skills seemed endless at this point. She hadn’t had any doubts about his ability to shoot and protect from the beginning. He didn’t disappoint in that regard. It was everything else. He could control his temper and calm her down. He reasoned things through and always had a contingency.

  He was the guy you wanted on your side. But his mere presence didn’t lessen the danger. If life were fair, the books would balance that way, but no.

  He helped her get up to the footstep then she slid into the passenger side. She missed the Jeep but this came close to being a tank. West insisted it wasn’t and that a rocket launcher would blow it up. Not exactly news she needed to have now that she was inside it.

  She waited until he jumped inside to point out the obvious. “Once we get it moving we still have to get through roadblocks and around roaming guards.”

  He shot her a look, and that smile hadn’t faded. “You sound negative.”

  “I just watched you kill three guys in two seconds.” She tried to put that out of her head but her hands kept shaking. Even now she rubbed them together to keep from flying apart.

  She’d seen death. Men and women came off that mountain in pieces. For many, climbing K2 was a dream that turned into a nightmare. Sherpas and guides lost. Climbers who trained for a lifetime swept away as part of the serac broke off or the storms moved in. Lost fingers and toes. Bodies in bags while other people fell and were never recovered.

  It all touched her. But high elevation climbers had certain expectations and understandings of what could happen. Everyone knew the risks, and K2 had a reputation for being the deadliest mountain.

  That was different from watching a man collapse at her feet or seeing the blood run out of a body and being grateful instead of rushing in to help.

  West had put the truck in gear. The vehicle idled as he shifted in his seat to face her. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course not.” She wasn’t naïve, but she wasn’t heartless either.

  Men were dying because of choices she made. The right choices, yes, but the lives were still lost and someone somewhere would mourn them. The least she could do was take two seconds and give a crap. Maybe throw up a little.

  She expected West to lecture her about life and death or good and bad. A man like him had a code for this sort of thing. Probably had a speech prepared that he could whip out and deliver.

  Instead, he nodded. “That’s probably healthy.”

  Not what she expected, but then he’d been a surprise from the beginning. No pretense. No macho bullshit. He just acted without apology.

  And somehow she stayed on her feet through it all. That might have been the biggest surprise. “If my old doctors could see me now.”

  He reached his arm across the back of the seat and his fingers toyed with the ends of her hair. “What doctors?”

  She hadn’t meant to say anything. Whatever he thought of her would change if she went one step further. It always did, which was why she didn’t tell anyone. The few friends she had back home, she’d had forever. They lived through those dark days with her and never mentioned them in their limited communications back and forth.

  He didn’t push or insist. He put the truck back in gear and started moving. They rode in silence over divots and holes that had her bouncing around in her seat. Neither of them talked, yet the silence remained comfortable. Still, she could almost see his mind working. He constantly scanned the area, and every now and then his gaze would fall on her for a second, linger then move away.

  She sighed. “Just say it.”

  He didn’t pretend to be confused. “We’ve got nothing but time here, Lexi. The sun is coming up and we need to spend most of the daylight in hiding.”

  The comment raised a whole bunch of questions in her mind. “Where?”

  “Storage facility, basically an overgrown garage.”

  That struck her as random. “Are you guessing or do you know where one is?”

  He likely knew the area from surveillance shots, and those were taken when there wasn’t a manhunt under way. Not something she could think about for even a few seconds without her nerves fraying and fear spiraling through her.

  They would kill him. The Pakistani army might hold him long enough to make an example of him, but he would die, and not easy. She didn’t blame anyone for that reality. West was sneaking around their country without permission. If the roles were reversed he’d capture the suspects . . . yeah, that’s what she’d become. A suspect.

  “Javed told me about a site.” West hitched his thumb toward the bag in the back. “I have a lock on me—”

  “Of course you do.” The man was prepared for everything.

  “—and we can use it for added protection in case soldiers come by. Them getting through a lock will give us time.”

  “To escape?” For her only. He didn’t say it but she knew.

  That’s what he did, put his body in front of hers. It was sexy and scary and a whole bunch of others things. She just wished he’d stop pointing it out in both subtle and obvious ways.

  He shrugged. “What else?”

  She wasn’t buying that at all. She also didn’t get when Javed had become a valued resource. “I thought you didn’t trust Javed.”

  “I don’t trust many people.”

  She focused on the sun rising and the rocky landscape in front of them as West dodged this rock and that tree on the road he forged.

  But she wanted to know, so she tortured herself and asked, “What about me?’

  He glanced over at her and kept looking until she met his gaze. “You, I trust.”

  The quick response threw her for a second. “Really?”

  “Total trust.”

  The words sounded like a vow, and for some reason she believed them. She’d been fed lies by guys trying to get her into bed or, in the climbing community, trying to get close to her semifamous father. But this from West came off as genuine. Maybe it was his ultimate skill, making her believe the impossible, but she bought it.

  She needed more. “Why?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She probably should have been offended, but she laughed. Leave it to West to throw her off guard. “Now that’s honest.”

  After the slow slog, all done on the lookout for new attackers, they arrived at a hill. The truck crested and on the other side, in a valley, sat a garage between two overhanging trees. Javed might call this a shed but the space was bigger. Looked like it could house a few of these larger trucks.

  There was a road leading off to the left. Lexi guessed that it led around and back toward town. She didn’t really want to find out and hoped the trail stayed clear.

  West hit the brakes and the truck shuddered to a stop. “We’ll go slow, watch for any workers lingering around here. If I tell you to duck, you duck. Got it?”

  He sure did like to give orders. She decided, after so little sleep and so much danger, she’d obey. “Yes, sir.”

  Some of the tension left his face. “I probably like you saying that way more than I should.”

  That made two of them.

  She balled her hands into tight fists and brushed them up and down her lap. “That sounds naughty.”

  “I certainly hope so since I was imagining you saying it while naked.”

  Before she could say anything, the truck started to move. It rolled down the other side of the hill toward the garage. West downshifted and the gears squeaked. They bounced as they rode over rough terrain.

  But no one came out to greet them. That’s what mattered. The welcome committee she feared never showed up. At least not yet.

  “Do you want to tell me about those doctors now?” The question came out of nowhere. He asked while his gaze stayed locked on the area in front of him.

  This wasn’t the time, and this topic was not even a little relevant. She opened her mouth to tell him so but a different thought popped into her head. “I’m not sick.”

  She needed him to know that. Wanted him to se
e her as something other than a liability.

  “Happy to hear that.” The gears screeched as he guided them down the steep hill. The tires slid and the truck seemed to pitch forward.

  She dug her fingernails into the side of the door. “I’m not crazy either.”

  The truck thudded as it took to the air then crashed down on the ground again. “No. I know mentally ill and you’re not it.”

  The words soothed her. Her past didn’t embarrass her but she did worry that it defined her. That people could see the weakness on her face. She’d spent her entire adult life running from that possibility.

  One last crunching bump and they reached the bottom of the hill. West drove around to the far side of the garage and stopped in front of the door. Lexi knew they were here to hide, and the timing was wrong but she suddenly needed to tell him. To see his reaction and figure out if she’d read him right or wrong.

  Before she could work up the nerve, however, he pulled on the door handle and jumped out of the truck. There was a clicking sound as each section of the garage door rolled to the side, revealing a dark room inside. Then he was back inside the cabin.

  When they rolled to a stop again the truck idled in the middle of the garage. She waited until he shut off the engine to start talking. “When I was in medical school my mom died in a car crash.”

  He sat back in his seat and faced her. “I’m sorry.”

  “I was driving.”

  “Oh, shit.” His arm slipped across the back of the seat again. This time his hand dipped under her hair and he massaged the back of her neck.

  She faced forward because looking at him would break her concentration, and she needed all of her strength to get this out. “No one said it, but everyone blamed me. And they should have. We were arguing and I lost focus.”

  Silence filled the car. She looked over at him, expecting to see judgment or pity in his expression. Those were the two options she usually got. But he just sat there with his fingers rubbing her aching muscles.

  The quiet support spurred her on. “Anyway, I went back to school and tried to fit in. To act as if everything was normal.”