by Cindy Dees
That made her feel better. But then Brady went on to describe the small hole his men had dug by hand under the cabin. The building supposedly sat up on cinder blocks a few feet above the ground. It allowed for more air circulation in the Southern heat, and for the occasional flood in the Louisiana bayou.
The plan was for Carter to cut a hole in the floor once she joined him in the cabin. At the last moment before the cabin blew up, she and Carter were to drop through the hole in the floor into the safety pit. Then Brady would blow up the building above them in a spectacular blast that would vaporize it and everything in it. The Russians would be given a few minutes to examine the site, then local fire department crews would be allowed to approach the blaze and put it out. Easy as pie.
Right. Easy as pie to die. But, hey, she’d asked for it.
“You still want to do this?” Brady asked quietly from the driver’s seat. “The turnoff’s just up ahead. Last chance to back out. Once I head down the driveway to Carter’s place, the Russians will know where he is. There’ll be no going back.”
She took a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”
Truth be told, she was more worried about the next five minutes facing Carter than having to deal with the Russians whenever they decided to make their move.
Brady nodded and turned off the main road. The track, which he’d optimistically called a driveway, was a rutted strip of red clay that all but jarred her teeth out of her head as the four-wheel-drive Jeep banged and bumped its way along.
They must have driven for fifteen minutes before a tiny clearing opened up in the canopy of trees and ghostly Spanish moss.
“Let me get out first,” Brady muttered. “He won’t shoot me on sight.” He reached for his door handle and added, “I hope.”
Lily peered through the darkness at a tiny, low cabin. It had a tin roof and a porch stretching across its front that was littered with junk—a decrepit rocking chair, a wagon wheel, a small barrel, a skin of some kind stretched on a rough frame.
No lights shone through the windows. Frankly, the place looked deserted.
“Boo?” Brady called out low. “It’s me, White Horse.”
A shadow materialized out of the trees beyond the house. “What the hell are you doing here? Is Lily okay?”
Her heart flip-flopped to hear Carter mention her in that tone of concern.
“Funny you should ask,” Brady said evenly. “She’s here with me now.”
Lily took that as her cue to step out of the Jeep. She walked around its front and started at the sight that greeted her. Carter was dressed in rough jeans and a ratty T-shirt, his face covered in some dark, greasy substance that made him look like a crazy Vietnam veteran. And he was cradling a nasty-looking rifle easily in his arms. She’d never seen him look so…violent. This was the soldier within him that he’d so pined for? This man was a killer.
“What. In the hell. Is she doing here?” Carter gritted out, low and angry.
“I need to talk to you, Carter. Do you have a sec?” She tried to keep her voice cheerful and light but feared she sounded like a scared-to-death mouse.
“No, actually. I don’t have a sec. There’s been activity around this place. I think it’s compromised, Brady. I need to get out of here.”
“About that. What say we step inside for a moment?” his boss replied.
Lily picked her way up the rickety steps, avoiding the spot where one was missing. Blowing up this shack was going to be no big loss at any rate.
The living room was barely bigger than a postage stamp, and the three of them hardly had room to sit down without banging knees. Carter glared at her as she perched on the edge of a rickety chair that looked like it might collapse if she sneezed.
“Carter,” she said carefully, “I know you think you’re doing the right thing by leaving me, but it’s not the right thing for me. I know being with you could be dangerous, but I don’t care.”
He started to argue with her, but she cut him off.
“Brady and I have a plan. We’re going to trick the Russians into thinking they’ve successfully killed you. Then you and I can be together and not be in any danger at all.”
“What plan?” Carter snapped, none too happy. Her heart broke a little at how distant he was being with her. It was like he’d put her in a drawer and closed away all his feelings for her in it.
Brady dived in and explained.
“You brought a Russian hit team to my front steps?” Carter demanded when Brady finished talking.
Lily winced. “Well, yes. But we also brought Alpha Squad with us.”
Brady added, “They’re who you’ve seen moving around the place. They got under here this afternoon while you were out fishing and wired it to blow. They dug a pit for you two to hide in when we blow the joint, too. It’s right in front of where you’re sitting. All you have to do is saw a hole in the floor to get to it, and we’re good to go.”
“How soon do you expect this Russian hit squad to come for me?” he demanded.
“Could be an hour. Could be a couple of days,” Brady replied.
“I refuse to use Lily as bait. Put her back in the Jeep and get her out of here.”
Brady sighed. “No can do, bro. She’s a civilian. I can’t just order her around like I can you.”
Carter’s gaze narrowed to irritated slits. “Get out of here, Lily.”
She glanced over at Brady. “Could Carter and I have a moment alone to talk?”
“Sure.” Brady seemed relieved to escape the tension in the tiny space. He stepped outside and she turned to Carter.
“Why don’t you want me here? Is it because you don’t love me?”
He jolted. “Hell, no. It’s because I do love you!”
“I happen to love you, too. Think about all those worried protective feelings you’re having and realize I’m having those same feelings for you.”
“Thank you, Lily. I truly appreciate it. But I’m a soldier. I’m trained to handle killers coming after me. You’re not.”
He wasn’t going to let her do this the easy way. She took a deep breath and said quietly, “You may be trained to do this, but you can’t be sure your body will always function when it needs to. I have no way of knowing you’ll be able to do what you have to when the Russians attack you.” It was a low blow to bring up his seizures, especially when they were so much better now. But she was willing to fight dirty to get her man.
He stared at her bleakly. “All the more reason for you to get the hell out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I can’t protect you,” he shot back.
“Carter, I love you just the way you are. I don’t care if you’re Superman or not.”
“Yeah, well, if someone’s trying to kill you, then you need Superman. Not some screwed-up-in-the-head has-been like me.”
“They’re not trying to kill me. They’re trying to kill you. And besides, I’m getting sick and tired of you moping around feeling sorry for yourself because you may be done as a Special Forces soldier.”
He looked startled and she pressed her momentary advantage. “Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the male population of the United States are not trained killers. They go about their regular lives, have jobs and families and kids, and no one ever asks them to blow something up or kill someone. They live happy and fulfilling lives. What’s so bad about that?”
“Nothing’s bad about that. I do what I do so they can have those nice lives.”
“And when is it your turn to live that life? If you were never in that firefight in Sudan, you’d still retire from this career at some point, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. This gig would come to an end one way or another in a few years anyway. What were you planning to do with yourself then? Commit hara-kiri?”
“No, I wasn’t planning to gut myself ninja fashion.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe stick around H.O.T. Watch as
an intel analyst. Continue developing software for them.”
“Why can’t you do that now? Move up your timetable a few years. Get on with a normal life.”
“Because I’ve got unfinished business. I’m not entirely right in the head.”
She sighed. “Is anybody who does this job for as long as you have truly right in the head?” She heard a muffled snort of laughter from the front porch. Great. Brady was listening in on this little heart-to-heart. The joys of dealing with a Special Forces team. They all seemed to know each other’s business.
“Assuming I could just walk away from my work and start a normal life, I’d still have Russians trying to kill me.”
“Hence the plan to convince them you’re dead and gone,” she retorted.
“Then what? I assume a new identity? Move somewhere remote and isolated and expect you to drop everything in your life to join me? What about your parents, Lily? Your work? You’re a brilliant scientist. You can’t just walk away from all of that.”
She replied drily, “They’ve got this thing called the internet now. Turns out I can live in one place and communicate with my colleagues and even do my research from some other place. Besides, I’ve decided to accept the government’s offer to continue my research at H.O.T. Watch…which just happens to be remote and isolated. The perfect place for you and me to lie low for a few years.”
“Dammit, Lily. I’m not good enough for you!”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
Brady’s voice came through the door low and urgent. “Uh, folks, you’re gonna have to continue this little drama later. We’ve got company inbound.”
Lily’s heart slammed into her throat. Apparently the Russians had decided to deal with Carter sooner rather than later.
“How long?” Carter bit out.
“Alpha Squad’s perimeter man picked up movement about halfway down the drive. They’re coming in on foot. Twenty minutes maybe.”
Carter looked around frantically. “Dammit, there’s no place to hide you!”
“Like it or not, we’re in this together now,” she declared. Her tummy flip-flopped at the realization that she could die—they could both die—in just a few minutes.
“Well, I like it not,” he snapped.
“Shouldn’t we get busy sawing that hole in the floor?” she suggested.
He threw her a furious look and grabbed an ax out of the corner. After several mighty swings, he created a slit in the wood planks of the flooring. Picking up a rusty saw, he poked it through the slit and started hauling up and down on the tool furiously. She supposed that, if nothing else, making the hole would give him a chance to work out some of his anger at her for getting him into this mess.
“What can I do to help?” she asked.
“Find all the blankets you can and soak them with water. We’ll need insulation from the heat of the blast and the fire to follow.”
She scavenged both rooms of the cabin and came up with two ratty quilts and a heavy boiled wool blanket with only a few moth holes in it. She headed for the rusty sink and the sulfur-smelling water coming from its tap.
“How’s the hole coming?” Brady asked from the porch a few minutes later.
“One more side to go,” Carter grunted.
“I’m gonna have to head for the woods now,” Brady replied. “You’ve got maybe five minutes before you need to be in position. And here, I brought these for you two.”
The door slipped open and Lily took the two bulky items he shoved through at her. The door closed again and she heard a single faint footstep as Brady faded away into the night. These Special Forces types were freaky quiet.
Carter made a vaguely amused sound when he saw what she held.
“What are these?”
“Bulletproof vests. Put one on under your T-shirt.”
She did as he told her without comment, stripping off her navy-blue T-shirt, donning the surprisingly light vest, and then yanking her shirt back down over the additional bulk.
Carter stood up, observing his work critically. “I’ve left just enough wood intact to keep the floor from dropping out right now. All we have to do is jump on the boards and we’ll fall right through the hole.”
“Now what?”
“Now you and I should probably start a loud argument to convince the Russians I’m distracted and an easy target.”
“Should you light a lamp and stand in front of the window or something?”
He answered without even a trace of humor. “They’ll have infrared scopes.”
“Which means what?” she asked.
“Which means they’ll see our heat signatures through the walls and shoot me through the wood without bothering to wait for me to stand in front of a window.”
Panic ripped through her. She’d had no idea they’d be this exposed to the killers.
“Oh, now she gets what I’ve been trying to tell her,” he groused loudly.
She looked at him, startled. He gave her an encouraging nod. “Yeah, well, I can’t help it if I’m a lousy civilian and I don’t understand all this stupid military stuff you keep talking about,” she declared back.
“You’re going to get us both killed!”
“That’s what you get for never bothering to talk to me in plain English. It’s not my fault if you use all that lingo and fancy military terminology. If you weren’t so busy trying to impress me all the time with how macho and sexy you are, maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation!”
Carter grinned at the reference to being sexy. He yelled back that she was a sex maniac and how could he have known she was a groupie for soldiers until they’d gotten together.
She laughed under her breath and yelled at him about never letting her wear the nice clothes she bought, and he complained that she was too high-maintenance a woman with no common sense.
He got up and started pacing.
In between yelling about how he never did any work around the house, she whispered, “Why are you moving around?”
“If I make the shot too easy, their sniper may get suspicious,” he muttered back, before going on a diatribe about her leaving her telescopes and computer printouts all over the place.
She was perplexed when he looped his hands behind the back of his head and let his elbows drift forward over his ears. And then it hit her. He was trying to make sure the sniper shot at his bulletproof-vested body and not his head. Her blood ran cold.
“I can’t believe I came all this way to see you again. I forgot what a colossal jerk you are!”
“And I forgot what a total bitch you are! I don’t care how good the sex was. It’s not worth having to put up with this!”
She stuck her tongue out at him over that one. Great. Just what she needed all his teammates to hear—that they’d had wild monkey sex together. She’d never look Brady Hathaway in the eye again.
Bang! Bang!
Carter exhaled in a whoosh and dropped like a rock to the floor.
Lily screamed her head off, and it was no act. She dived on top of him. “Oh, God, oh, God. Are you hurt? Where are you hit?” Panic choked her until she could hardly breathe. “What am I supposed to do? Carter, you can’t die on me!”
“I’ll live,” he gritted out between clenched teeth in a whisper. “Forgot how hard high-caliber slugs hit. Scream some more.”
It was no stretch to scream his name and beg him not to die on her. And then something horrifying dawned on her. Brady had said to give it one minute after Carter was shot and then to jump into the pit so he could blow up the house.
That minute was about up.
“It’s time to go,” she murmured between rants about him always leaving her like this.
“Small problem. I can’t move,” he muttered back.
Oh, no. Not now.
Chapter 16
Carter’s ribs felt as if he’d just been hit by twin sledgehammers. Lily was doing a so-believable-it-had-to-be-real job of freaking out beside him, and he’d just finish
ed counting to sixty in his head. And every muscle in his body was starting to clench up.
“Help me roll over to the hole,” he muttered.
“Right. Good idea,” she blurted. Her hands were on him then, shoving and tugging. Brave Lily. She just saw what had to be done and dived in. No fear. No second thoughts.
She loved the same way. Bravely. Fearlessly. He was a hell of a lucky man. And as he thought about her and all the joy she’d brought to his life, the strangest thing happened. His muscle spasms unwound. Not enough to run around in the woods and play commando. But enough to move after a fashion. Enough to sit up beside the hole.
Enough to mutter to her, “Shout about all the blood.”
She complied in a shriek that left him partially deaf, “Oh, my GOD! There’s blood everywhere! What am I supposed to do? You’re going to bleed to death! Water. I’ve got to boil water. Sterilize some of this garbage and make you bandages. Yes, that’s it.”
He frowned up at her in the gloom of the darkened cabin. What was she up to?
And then she moved over to the tiny propane stove and he saw her logic. An explanation for the explosion about to happen.
“Lily,” he managed weakly. “Stop that. I’m a goner already. You can’t save me.”
“Noooo!” she keened convincingly.
She scooped up the armloads of blankets and rushed over to him, dropping hard to her knees beside him…right on top of the floorboards. She grabbed the front of his shirt as the planks gave way and he flung himself into the hole after her. He’d barely cleared the floorboards and was still falling when the first flash of light—the detonation cord blowing—illuminated.
He landed hard on top of Lily as the second, main explosion detonated. The world went white, then black; loud, then silent. And then hot. So hot he thought his back was going to burst into flames. He imagined the skin blackening and peeling away from his raw flesh. Then Lily was wriggling beneath him. He rolled aside in the tight confines of the pit and she flung the wet blankets over them.
Lying on his side, he spied something useful. He murmured, “Rebreather units. Brady thought of everything.”
He passed one to Lily and they jammed the pair of tiny portable oxygen units into each of their mouths. He lacked fine motor control, but he was able to drag the Mylar blanket Alpha Squad had left for them across Lily and himself. The high-tech material would reflect massive amounts of heat. Hopefully enough to keep them from roasting down here.