“Yeah,” Harvard said harshly. “Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I’m not man enough to want to watch you die.”
His words washed her anger from her, and she took a deep breath. “I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t die if you don’t.”
He wouldn’t look at her. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”
“Then we’ll both do the best we can. We’re two of a kind, remember? Your words.” She moved toward him, touched his arm. “Please,” she said softly. “I’m begging you to let me help. Trust me enough, respect me enough…”
The look on his face was terrible, and she knew this was the most difficult decision he’d ever made in his life.
P.J. spoke low and fast, aware he was listening, knowing that she would flat out defy him if she had to, but wanting him to choose for her to stay.
“Trust me,” she said again. “Trust yourself. You’ve stood up for me and supported me more times than I can count. You told me you would choose me to be on your team anytime. Well, it’s time, brother. It’s time for you to put your money where your mouth is. Choose me now. Choose me for something that truly matters.” She took his hands, holding onto him tightly, trying to squeeze her words, her truth, into him. “I know it’s dangerous—we both know that. But I’ve done dangerous before. It’s part of my job to take risks. Look at me. You know me—maybe better than anyone in the entire world. You know my strengths—and my limitations. I may not be a SEAL, but I’m the best FInCOM agent there is, and I know—and you know—that I can fit through that air duct.”
P.J. played her trump card mercilessly, praying it would be enough to make Harvard change his mind. “Joe Cat is my friend, too,” she told him. “As far as I can see, I’m his only hope. Without me, you’ve got no way in. Take me with you, and maybe—maybe—together we can save his life.”
Harvard was silent for several long moments. And then he pulled his lip mike close to his mouth and switched it on as he held P.J.’s gaze. “This is Senior Chief Becker. Lieutenant Hawken is proceeding down the mountain with Lieutenant O’Donlon and Agent Greene, as ordered. Unfortunately, Agent Richards and I have been pinned down and are unable to move. We’ll report in with our status throughout the day, but at this moment, it looks as if we’ll be unable to advance toward the Irvin until well after nightfall.”
“I copy that, Senior Chief,” Blue’s voice said. “Be careful. Stay alive.”
“Yeah.” Harvard turned off his microphone, still holding P.J.’s gaze. “Why do I feel as if I’ve just lost my last toehold on my sanity?” He shouldered his weapon, turning his gaze toward Crash.
“If I can, I’ll try to drop them into friendly territory,” Hawken said, referring to Lucky and Greene, “then come back to help.”
“Please do. It’s hard to do our Mod Squad imitation without you.” Harvard turned to P.J. “You ready?”
She nodded.
He nodded, too. “Well, that makes one of us.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Hurry,” he said, “before I change my mind.”
14
“What now?” P.J. asked as she and Harvard backed away from John Sherman’s private headquarters.
“Now we find a place to lay low until nightfall,” he said tersely, stopping to secure his binoculars in the pocket of his combat vest. “We’ll take turns getting some sleep.”
He hadn’t said anything that wasn’t terse since they’d split up from Hawken, five hours earlier.
P.J. knew Harvard was questioning his decision to let her help him. He was angry at himself, angry at her, angry at the entire situation.
They were going up against some seriously bad odds here. It was entirely possible that one or both of them could be dead before this time tomorrow.
P.J. didn’t want to die. And she didn’t want to plan around the possibility of her death. But she was damned if she was going to spend what could well be the last hours of her life with someone who was terse.
She gazed at Harvard. “I’m not sure how you’re going to get any sleep with that great huge bug up your ass.”
He finally, finally smiled for the first time in hours, but it was rueful and fleeting. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not sure, either.” He looked away, unable to hold her gaze. “Look, P.J., I’ve got to tell you, I feel as if I’m hurtling down a mountain, totally out of control. Your being here scares the hell out of me, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.”
P.J. knew it hadn’t been easy for him to tell her that. “Daryl, you know, I’m scared, too.”
He glanced at her. “It’s not too late for you to—”
“Don’t say it,” she warned him, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t even think it. I’m scared, but I’m going to do what I need to do. The same way you are. You need my help getting into that place, and you know it.”
They’d spent most of the past five hours lying in the underbrush, watching the comings and goings of the ragtag soldiers around John Sherman’s private fortress.
And it was a fortress. It was a renovated warehouse surrounded by a clearing that was in constant danger of being devoured by the lushness of the jungle. Harvard had told P.J.—tersely—that the building dated from before the Vietnam War. It had been constructed by the French to store weapons and ammunition. Sherman had updated it, strengthening the concrete block structure and adding what appeared to be an extremely state-of-the-art security system.
Harvard and P.J. had studied the system, had watched the pattern of the guards and had kept track of the trucks full of soldiers coming and going. They’d examined the building from all angles and sides. Harvard had paid particular attention to the air duct near the roofline on the west side of the building, staring at it for close to thirty minutes through his compact binoculars.
“If I had two more SEALs—just two more—I wouldn’t need to get in through the damn air duct,” Harvard told her. “I’d use a grenade launcher and I’d blow a hole through the side of the building. With two more men, I could get Joe out that way.”
“With two more men—and an arsenal of weapons,” P.J. reminded him. “You haven’t got a grenade launcher. You’ve got a rifle that fires paint balls.”
“I can get the weapons we’d need,” he told her, and she believed him. She wasn’t sure how he’d do it—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know how. But the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice left little doubt in her mind that if he said he could get weapons, he could get weapons. “In fact, I’m planning to confiscate some equipment as soon as it’s dark. No way am I letting you go in there armed only with this toy gun.” He turned away, reacting to the words he’d just spoken. “I may not let you go in there, anyway.”
“Yes, you will,” she said quietly.
He glanced at her again. “Maybe by nightfall Bob and Wes will break free.”
P.J. didn’t say anything. Harvard knew as well as she did that at last report, Wes had been close to certain the trapped SEALs wouldn’t be able to move anytime soon. And he knew, too, that it was no good waiting for Crash to reappear.
They’d both listened over their radio headsets three hours earlier as Crash brought Lucky and Greene to safety. Anti-American sentiment in the city was high, and he’d had to bring the wounded men all the way down to the docks. Once there, he was trapped. The soldiers who were assisting in the American evacuation of the island were adamant about Crash returning to the Irvin with the other members of the CSF team.
Sure, Crash had tried to talk his way out of it. He’d tried to convince the soldiers to let him slip into the mountains, but they were young and frightened and extremely intent upon following their orders. Short of using excessive force, Crash had had no choice. At last report, he was with Blue McCoy on the USS Irvin.
And Harvard and P.J. were on their own.
There were no other SEALs to help Harvard rescue Joe Cat. There was only P.J.
She followed Harvard from Sherman’s headquarters, trying to move even half as silently as he
did through the jungle.
He seemed to know where he was going. But if there was an actual trail he was following, P.J. couldn’t see it.
He slowed as they came to a clearing, turning to look at her. “We’re going to need to be extra careful crossing this field,” he told her. “I want you to make absolutely sure that when you walk, you step in my footprints, do you understand?”
P.J. nodded.
Then she shook her head. No, she didn’t really understand. Why?
But Harvard had already started into the clearing, and she followed, doing as he’d instructed, stepping in the indentations he made in the tall grass.
Was it because of snakes? Or was there something else—something even creepier, with even bigger teeth—hiding there? She shivered.
“If you really want me to do this, you’ve got to shorten your stride,” P.J. told him. “Although it’s probably not necessary because I can see—”
“Step only where I step,” he barked at her.
“Whoa! Chill! I can pretty much see there’re no snakes, so unless there’s another reason we’re playing follow the leader—”
“Snakes? Are you kidding? Jesus, P.J.! I thought you knew! We’re walking through a field—a minefield.”
P.J. froze. “Excuse me?”
“A minefield,” Harvard said again, enunciating to make sure she understood. “P.J., this is a minefield. On the other side, across that stream, in those trees over there, there’s a hut. It’s kind of run-down because most folk know better than to stroll through this neighborhood to get there. Hawken told me about it—told me it was the safest place on this part of the island. He told me a way through this field, too—that’s what we’re doing right now.”
Her eyes were huge as she stared at him, as she stared at the field that completely surrounded them. “We’re taking a stroll through a minefield.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you were listening when Crash told me about it.” He tried to smile, tried to be reassuring. “It’s no big deal—if you step exactly where I step. The good news is that once we get across we’re not going to have to worry about locals running into us. Crash told me people around here avoid this entire area.”
“On account of the minefield.”
“That’s right.” Harvard went forward, careful to step precisely where Hawken had told him to.
“Has it occurred to you that this is insane? Who put these mines here? Why would they put mines here?”
“The French put the mines in more than thirty years ago.” Harvard glanced back to see that she was following him carefully. “They did it because at the time there was a war going on.”
“Shouldn’t this field be cleared out—or at least fenced off? There wasn’t even a sign warning people about the mines! What if children came up here and wandered into this field?”
“This was one of the projects the Marine FID team was working on,” Harvard told her. “But there’s probably a dozen fields like this all over the island. And hundreds more—maybe even thousands—all over Southeast Asia. It’s a serious problem. People are killed or maimed all the time—casualties of a war that supposedly ended decades ago.”
“How do you know where to step?” P.J. asked. “You are being careful aren’t you?”
“I’m being very careful.” His shirt was drenched with sweat. “Crash drew me a map of the field in the dirt. He told me the route to take.”
“A map in the dirt,” she repeated. “So, you’re going on memory and a map drawn in the dirt.”
“That’s right.”
She made a muffled, faintly choking sound—a cross between a laugh and a sob.
Harvard glanced at her again. Her face was drawn, her mouth tight, her eyes slightly glazed.
They were almost there. Almost to the edge of the field. Once they were in the stream, they’d be in the clear. He had to keep her distracted for a little bit longer.
“You okay?” he asked. “You’re not going to faint on me or anything, are you?”
Her eyes flashed at that, instantly bringing life to her face. “No, I’m not going to faint. You know, you wouldn’t have asked that if I were a man.”
“Probably not.”
“Probably—God, you admit it?”
Harvard stepped into the water, reaching back and lifting her into his arms.
“Put me down!”
He carried her across the shallow streambed and set her down on the other side. “All clear.”
She stared at him, then she stared across the stream at the minefield. Then she rolled her eyes, because she knew exactly what he had done.
“The real truth is, I’ve seen plenty of big, strong guys faint,” he informed her. “Gender doesn’t seem to play a big part in whether someone’s going to freeze up and stop breathing in a tense situation.”
“I don’t freeze up,” she told him.
“Yeah, I’m learning that. You did good.”
P.J. sat in the dirt. “We’re going to have to do that again tonight, aren’t we? Walk back through there? Only—God! This time we’ll be in the dark.”
“Don’t think about that now. We’ve got to get some rest.”
She smiled ruefully at him. “Yeah, I’m about ready for a nap. My pulse rate has finally dropped down to a near catatonic two hundred beats per minute.”
Harvard couldn’t help but laugh as he held out his hand to help her up. Damn, he was proud of her. This day had been wretchedly grueling—both physically and emotionally. Yet she was still able to make jokes. “You can take the first watch if you want.”
“You’re kidding. You trust me to stand watch?”
He looked at their hands. She hadn’t pulled hers free from his, and he held onto it, linking their fingers together. “I trust you to do everything,” he admitted. “My problem’s not with you—it’s with me. I trust you to pull off your Wonder Woman act without a hitch. I trust you to go into the building through that air duct, and I trust you to find Cat. I trust you to make all the right choices and all the right moves. But I’ve been in this business long enough to know that sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes you do everything right and you still get killed.” He swore softly. “But you know, I even trust you to die with dignity, if it comes down to that.”
He was silent, but she seemed to know he had more to say. She waited, watching him. “I just don’t trust myself to be able to handle losing you. Not when I’ve just begun to find you. See, because I’m…” His voice was suddenly husky, and he cleared his throat. “Somehow I’ve managed to fall in love with you. And if you die…a part of me is going to die, too.”
There it was. There he was. Up on the table, all prepped and ready for a little open heart surgery.
He hadn’t meant to tell her. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have breathed a word. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have admitted it to himself, let alone to her.
But the circumstances were far from normal.
Harvard held his breath, waiting to see what she would say.
There were so many ways she could respond. She could turn away. She could pretend to misunderstand. She might make light of his words—make believe he was joking.
Instead, she softly touched his face. As he watched, tears flooded her beautiful eyes, and for the first time since he’d met her, she didn’t try to fight them.
“Now you know,” she whispered, smiling so sweetly, so sadly, “why I couldn’t go back with the others. Now you know why I wanted so badly to stay.”
Harvard’s heart was in his throat. He’d heard the expression before, but he’d never experienced it—not like this. He’d never known these feelings—not with Rachel, not ever.
It was twice the miracle, because although she hadn’t told him she loved him, she’d made it more than clear that she felt something for him, too.
He bent to kiss her, and she rose onto her toes to meet him halfway. Her lips were soft and so sweet, he felt himself sway. He could taste the salt of her t
ears. Her tears. Tough, stoic P.J. was letting him see her cry.
He kissed her again, harder this time. But when he pulled her closer, the gear in his combat vest bumped into the gear in hers, and their two weapons clunked clumsily together. It served as a reminder that this was hardly the time and place for this.
Except there was nowhere else for them to go. And Harvard was well aware that this time they had, these next few hours, could well be the only time they’d ever have.
Unless they turned around and headed down the mountain. Then they’d have the entire rest of their lives, stretching on and on, endlessly into the future. He would have a limitless number of days and nights filled with this woman’s beautiful smiles and passionate kisses.
He could see their love affair continue to grow. He could see him on his knees, asking her to be his wife. Hell, with enough time to get used to the idea, she might even say yes. He could see babies with P.J.’s eyes and his wicked grin. He could see them all living, happily ever after, in a little house with a garden that overlooked the ocean.
Harvard nearly picked her up and carried her across that stream, through that minefield and toward the safety of the USS Irvin.
But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t have that guaranteed happily ever after.
Because in order to have it, he’d have to leave Joe Catalanotto behind.
And no matter how much Harvard wanted the chance of a future with this woman, he simply couldn’t leave his captain for dead.
Everything he was thinking and feeling must have been written on his face, because P.J. touched his cheek as she gazed into his eyes.
“Maybe we don’t have forever,” she said quietly. “Maybe neither one of us will live to see the sunrise. So, okay. We’ll just have to jam the entire rest of our lives into the next six hours.” She stood on her toes and kissed him. “Let’s go find that hut of Crash’s,” she whispered. “Don’t let me die without making love to you.”
Harvard gazed at her, uncertain of what to say and how to say it. Yes. That was the first thing he wanted to say. He wanted to make love to her. As far as last requests went, he couldn’t think of a single thing he’d want more. But her assumption was that they were going to die.
Tall, Dark, and Dangerous Part 2 Page 20