She guessed he actually believed the stuff he said. Maybe somewhere along the line he started buying into the justifications he spewed. She didn’t. “You’re crazy.”
He frowned at her. “Name-calling is not necessary.”
Javed adjusted the bag on his shoulder. “We can all wait here.”
“As to that . . .” Benton smiled as the red dot on West’s chest moved to his forehead. “I am willing to offer an incentive to the speedy resolution of this.”
Lexi nearly jumped out of her skin. It felt as if something was crawling inside her and trying to get out. “What are you doing?”
“You have one minute to hand over the bag or West gets a bullet. Then Josiah. Then the woman. I’ll keep going until you are buried in bodies.”
The words bounced around her head. The visual images so awful she could barely breathe.
“No one give it to him.” West stood stock-still. Only his mouth moved. “The toxin stays with us.”
“Then I will kill all of you and take the bag.” Benton shook his head while he made a clicking sound with his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Really, there is an easy way to do this.”
“Either way we get shot,” Josiah said.
“True, but maybe I’ll spare her. Take her with me.” Benton aimed all of his intensity at her. “Come here, my dear.”
“Do not move, Lexi.” West never looked at her but his fingers tightened on the gun.
He didn’t have to look at her. She felt his will from where she stood. The heat rolled off him and the anger vibrated in his voice.
One of Benton’s eyebrows rose. “She comes to me or my men shoot you now.”
“Fine.” West lowered the barrel of the gun. “Do it. Come directly at me.”
She almost jumped on top of him. “West?”
“You have a beef with me, with Alliance, take it out on us,” he said to Benton, then dropped the gun the whole way to his side and stood there. “Only a weak man goes after women.”
Benton laughed. “Are you trying to make me angry?”
“I’m letting you know how little you matter to me,” West spit back.
“Lexi, now.” Benton pointed to the ground. Ordered her around like she was a naughty puppy.
She shifted and West’s hand came down across her body, holding her back. She thought about pivoting around him but Josiah stepped back, trapping her against West’s side. There was nothing subtle about that.
“No, Ms. Palmer? That’s a shame for your boyfriend.” Benton let out a long dramatic exhale. “I had heard you were close.”
He lifted his hands as if he were about to give a signal then stared at West with a dare in his eye.
“One more thing,” Josiah said. “When your man shoots West, I’m going to shoot you.”
“You think you have the angles all worked out, do you?” Benton asked. “I think not.”
West’s hand brushed against hers. At first she assumed he’d moved, but then she remembered his ability to hold still for hours on end. He could sit on stakeout and barely breathe.
When the brush came a second time, she knew it was a signal. But about what? Standing there with her heartbeat pounding in her ears and her stomach flipping inside out and hollow, she tried to concentrate on every word. Every sensation.
“Fuck this.” West’s gun came up and he got off a shot. “Down!”
The last thing she saw was Benton jumping to the side. Then her mind blanked as Josiah turned and tackled her. His weight barreled into her chest as his arms wrapped around her. The air shifted and her hair flew in front of her eyes. She went airborne and braced for the hard landing that never came. Her body bounced on top of his as he rolled, hitting the ground then tucking her under him.
Rounds of gunfire thudded over her, around her. The concussive bangs continued for what felt like hours. She struggled to lift up and check for West, but Josiah had her head tucked under his chin and his body flush against hers.
When the weight finally lifted and she opened her eyes, they’d rolled toward the opening of the caves. The walls provided protection. She stared at the evening sky as the clouds raced overhead. It took another second for her brain to catch up with the chaos. She sat up then. Javed sat crouched a few feet away and Josiah was already up and firing.
The shots seemed to come from every side of her except behind. She scanned the area but didn’t see any sign of West. The rest of the Alliance team and Raheel were on the scene and battling with men hidden around the area whom she could not see.
The site looked abandoned. A burned-out truck and a huge crater in the ground. Bodies from one side to the other. She studied every still form, looking for that familiar gray shirt, but saw nothing.
Her vision blurred and the ache in her stomach built until she had to rock back and forth to ease the pain. “West?”
She didn’t realize she’d said his name out loud until Josiah rushed back to her side. He wrapped an arm around her and leaned down. “Were you hit?”
“Where is he?”
Just as she got the words out a vision stepped into view. Through the smoke and the battle a man, tall and trim, someone she’d never seen before, came forward. He had something on his shoulder and it looked like it weighed his steps down.
She blinked a few times and saw the long barrel. But this wasn’t a gun. She’d seen something like it in movies. A missile launcher or something like that. Something lethal.
Javed started yelling and waving his arms. “You can’t. My people are coming.”
“Lexi, move.”
She recognized that voice and looked around for West. He was on the ground. Pinned down maybe. But he was alive.
The tug on her arm nearly ripped her shoulder out of the socket. One minute she sat near the entrance. The next she dove through the air with Josiah leading her. She thought she saw West again but through the banging and yelling and roar of the fire nothing made sense.
Josiah had her up on her feet. She had no idea how her legs moved or where they were going. She’d finally gotten her feet under her and steadied herself when she heard a strange whistle over her head. The sky lit up and then the crash knocked her down. Heat blanketed her and Josiah fell across her body, trapping her against the ground.
She might have blacked out for a second. She wasn’t sure. When she focused again the fire burned out of control all around her.
Something heavy hit the back of her leg. Hard and rough. Then another. The sound of something rolling. She pressed up on her palms and struggled to shift around. She turned her head and glanced back at the entrance to the cave. All she saw was a wall of fire and piles of stones.
Her brain couldn’t assess the picture in front of her. She figured she’d gotten turned around, the pile of rocks didn’t look familiar.
She heard men’s voices around her. Shoes pounded the ground as legs ran past. None of it made sense until she saw Ward drop to his knees, throwing rocks to the side with his bare hands. Digging.
He kept saying something and pulling on something. Something gray. She strained to hear, picked up the word “right” as she noticed the flash of gray under the bottom rocks.
West was buried alive.
He’d done some dumbass shit in his life but this was the worst. Just as he’d fired the gun and broke the chain holding the box to Benton’s arm, he dove. His shoulder rammed into Benton’s stomach and knocked him sideways as the box thudded in the dirt.
West had kicked it as he struggled to pull Benton’s body over his. If someone was going to take a shot, then he would use this asshole as a shield. But the bullet never came. And Benton didn’t fight like a man gone soft. He pummeled West’s back with his fists and clamped a hand over his shoulder wound.
West yelled in fury as the adrenaline rush hit him. With one twist and a punishing grab, he body-slammed Benton into the dirt. The guy’s head was knocked to the ground and his head lolled. Those eyes rolled back and West hoped they’d go closed forever.
/> He shifted and hit something. That damn box. He kicked it toward the cave’s entrance and away from Benton’s outstretched hand.
When he landed his first punch to Benton’s chin it felt so fucking good he did it again. The blast hit on the third punch. West recognized the sound. A shoulder rocket launcher roared to life and fired like the sound of a plane passing right by his head. His attention shifted and Harlan stood there.
Without hesitation, Benton made his move. He scrambled to his knees and raced toward the box. West made it his mission to deny him whatever was in there. He jumped on Benton’s back and flattened him into the dirt as the rocks tumbled. At first one or two, then it became a punishing rain. Flames kicked up and Benton screamed.
West could only see that box. He gathered it underneath him and put a hand over his head. His last thought was of Lexi and the flash of motion he’d seen after Josiah read the signals he’d made and dragged her to the ground before the explosion came.
At least she was safe. And he had the box.
Now he had to survive.
24
THE AREA had turned into a burial site.
Lexi dug at the rocks until her hands bled. She kneeled in the dirt between Josiah and Raheel and moved the pile from one place to another, throwing the smaller ones to the side. Ward and Mike worked from above to make sure no more rolled on top of West.
The cold air nipped at her skin and the protective vest shifted until it climbed up her throat and nearly choked her. She ignored it all. The flames and the grunts of the men around her. The paralyzing fear that she’d lost West, and the thick tension around her as his teammates worried for his life.
When her hand finally rested on West’s back, fear and longing battled within her. She begged the universe to let him be alive as she slipped her hand down to his neck to feel for a pulse. Relief swamped her and her body fell forward when she felt a thump under her hand.
Josiah leaned in. “Lexi?”
She nodded, too lost in hope to speak.
They had to get him out. She didn’t need to explain that. His friends were already moving, clearing away as much of the rubble as possible. She yearned for the clinic and all the tools sitting in cabinets and on tables back there. If only they had the gurney to lift him to safety. Even the bag she carried before getting caught by Pearce had medical supplies in it. She had no idea where that was now.
Ignoring what she didn’t have, she pointed at Josiah and Mike. “We need to lift him and you need to follow my instructions.”
They didn’t argue. As she shouted commands about his head and his back, they picked him up, with Ward rushing in to hold West’s head and keep his neck steady.
As they turned him, a box tumbled out of his open hand. Javed leaned down to get it and Mike snatched it back. “No way. We can’t even get confirmation of who you are.”
In all the confusion and the craziness of the last hour, or however much time had passed, she’d lost sight of Javed and his role in all of this. The idea of him being CIA. Of her father passing information to the CIA or being paid by him or whatever Javed was insisting.
Her world went black at the thought. All those lies and all that subterfuge. She couldn’t deal with any of it now and would have to wait to confront her father when they were both on safer ground. She planned to put that off for as long as possible while she worked through everything else.
But Javed. She’d never seen her friend in this state. He paced and mumbled under his breath. She took it for a few minutes, then that nerve behind her temples started to tick.
She turned on him. “Get ahold of yourself.”
“Listen to the smart woman,” Ward said as he peeled the shirt away from West’s body.
With her outburst immediately forgotten, she dropped to her knees and took over. Ran her hands along his arms and legs to check for broken bones. She studied his stomach as she worried about internal bleeding. When she was satisfied that the worst of the blood covering him came from old wounds and not new ones, she bent over and put an ear to his chest. The steady breathing had her eyes closing in gratitude.
The mountain almost swallowed him once. Now he’d survived a second time.
She just needed him to wake up and talk to her.
“I need to leave.” Javed walked over to Ward. “I can’t break cover.”
“You mean you have lies to protect.” Raheel growled out the response from the other side of the cleared space. No one mentioned the CIA or undercover work to him, but Raheel clearly picked up on the clues.
Josiah stood up and brought Javed’s bag with him. He held it out, balancing the strap on two fingers. “Not with this.”
“Or the box,” Ward said.
“You don’t understand.” Javed stared at Ward, then Josiah. Whatever he saw on their faces had him moving on to Harlan. “You know how this works.”
Older and British, Harlan looked every inch the serious elder of the group. But he shook his head. “We all do.”
“Let Raheel and me go.”
Now Javed fought for Raheel. Guilt pinched Lexi as she thought about how she’d doubted him. He walked into the clinic to try to save her and she thought the worst. She’d have to apologize for that when the chaos subsided.
“I’m not sure your friend wants to spend time with you.” Ward kept talking even as Javed started. “And even if he did, that’s tough shit. You walked into the middle of my assignment.”
Gone was Javed’s easygoing charm. He stood firm as he aimed his anger at Ward. “I have been here, working this cover.”
Ward held out his hands. “And you can stay here, but the bag and the box go with us.”
“You already destroyed the cave and more than likely the crates in there.” Javed’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “Do you have any idea how much intel we just lost?”
The tone and the way he held his body. It all looked familiar to her now. The cockiness went with the job he did, and he had it.
“That was the point of the rocket launcher,” Ward said. “No one gets the toxin.”
She could go a lifetime without hearing that word. She went to work every day, slept in her bed, all while a deadly compound sat close by. Pearce had said something about perfecting it or trying to make it airborne. She didn’t remember the details but did remember the terrifying implications, and to see that Javed writing them off as no big deal made her wonder if she’d ever known him at all.
Javed eyed the bag. “That isn’t your call,” he told Ward.
“I made it my call.” Ward didn’t ruffle. He stood his ground and shot back an answer for every one of Javed’s concerns.
Harlan stepped up. He’d been the one to launch the rocket, or whatever it was, and bring down the tunnel.
He climbed down off the rock pile to stand next to Ward. “And I backed him.”
“You need—”
He didn’t stop. Javed kept justifying. He started to sound like Pearce, and that made something in her head explode.
She held up a hand to ward off his ridiculous arguments and bat away the smoke from the nearby fire. “Shut up.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t give me that macho garbage. You are sitting here arguing about who gets credit, and West isn’t opening his eyes.” Her gaze shot back to the man at her feet. The one who’d come to mean so much in such a short time.
She didn’t toss around the word love easily and it was far too soon, but she felt a tug that made her feel hot and comfortable at the same time, itchy and safe. He touched off a flurry of emotions inside her, something that had never happened before, not like this, and she wanted a chance to investigate where it could go.
So Javed needed to shut up. “The only thing I care about is getting him out of here before whoever you work for arrives, or the army does.”
Josiah stood next to her. “Me, too.”
“How are you going to do that?” Javed threw his arms wide. “Look around you. There is nowhere to go and no wa
y to get there.”
Raheel picked that moment to pipe up. “Me.”
“What?” Javed wore a frown.
She watched him now, wondering how she’d never seen it before. He turned the charm on and off. What had seemed so genuine before now struck her as a ruse. He’d told her this story about living his whole life in Pakistan and loving the land and the people. It was a passion they shared.
Now she’d bet he grew up in the U.S. or somewhere else. Every detail was in doubt.
“I’m a helicopter pilot,” Raheel said. “I’ll fly him out.”
Javed’s frown only grew. “Wait—”
Ward cut Javed off and talked directly to Raheel. “I go with West. Mike will double back with transport.”
Now she wanted to put the brakes on. “I’m coming with you.”
Ward shook his head. “You’re not.”
“I have medical training.” That argument had to work. West was breathing now but still unconscious. If something happened, she would know what to do.
Josiah threw her an apologetic smile. “We all do.”
Of course they did. Why should that surprise her?
Ward nodded and the group started breaking apart, moving in different directions. “We’re wasting time when we could be getting him help.”
She kind of hated Ward for that. He picked the one argument sure to win her over, reluctant or not. And she knew he knew that.
She turned to the one person she thought might support her. “Josiah, I don’t want to leave him.”
“I promise I’ll take you right to him once we get out of here.” Josiah took her hand in his. “I am not lying, and I think you know that.”
She glanced at Ward, thinking that if this deal fell apart it would be at his end and from above. “You should know I will shoot him if he doesn’t.”
He smiled. “Got it.”
The next fifteen minutes passed as slow torture. They strapped West in and jogged with the gurney to the helicopter. She wanted to stay strong and act cool. But when she leaned down to kiss West on the cheek, a tear fell. She didn’t burst into tears but knew she probably would the minute she had two seconds alone.
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