by Cindy Dees
Perriman responded, “Can you disable the GPS, Mick?”
“Yeah, sure. It’ll just take some—” He broke off abruptly, and Bass went on full alert.
What had the Aussie seen that made him go dead quiet? Bass peered off to the left behind a bunch of pipes and fittings that had been the last place he glimpsed Mick.
At first, he saw nothing. But then he spied a light flaring briefly in the window of a large, run-down building that could have been a storage area or some sort of factory. That light would not be Mick. Someone else was out here.
Behind him, Bass felt as much as saw Ford, Trina and Perriman disperse, melting in the night as they moved around the perimeter of the refinery. It was a big place and was going to take them a while to reconnoiter.
They couldn’t realistically move in to rescue Carrie until they identified all the hostiles and had some idea of what kind of firepower they were up against. Not to mention, Gary Hubbard could be out here, somewhere.
Bass’s money was on that big building to be where Carrie’s uncle was being held.
Swearing under his breath at the delay, Bass continued to move toward his primary objective, that small office structure. He stopped to peer at it through his spotter’s scope and saw Carrie immediately, sitting in the window like she was waiting for him.
His heart leaped with joy and relief. She was alive, and apparently unharmed. Thank God. He actually felt weak with relief.
It was a struggle to keep moving at the speed of a glacier, but he finally made it to the side wall of the office and parked underneath the very window Carrie was sitting beside. He heard two men talking inside, arguing about football teams and brands of beer. Which was to say, they were relaxed and showed no signs of being aware that a SEAL team was moving in on them.
Various clicks over his earbud over the next few minutes indicated that the others were still working at clearing the sprawling facility. Carefully, he snaked a tiny camera on a flexible rod over the edge of the windowsill, parking it inconspicuously in the corner of the window.
Carrie’s face leaped into view as he peered down into a black bag containing a three-inch wide monitor for the camera. He’d never been so glad to see someone in his life as he was to see her, uninjured, albeit looking afraid.
Both of the guards were looking away from her, and Carrie was looking straight at the window. He risked moving the camera a little bit. She blinked and stared right at the lens. He moved it again. She nodded infinitesimally, and her mouth curved up into the faintest of smiles.
She wasn’t out of the woods by a long shot, but at least she knew she wasn’t alone now.
Mick came up on the radio, murmuring, “GPS is disabled. But this puppy’s full up with liquid oxygen. One hit, and it’s a fireball.”
Ford replied, which meant Perriman must be someplace sensitive at the moment. “We’ll have to move that truck. The civilians in the office will have no idea to avoid striking that entire tanker.”
“It’s gonna make a mighty roar when I start up the tractor trailer,” Mick warned.
Ford said aloud exactly what Bass was thinking. “We’ll move it simultaneous to making our assault on Carrie’s guards. Speaking of which, how many hostiles are with her, Bass?”
He clicked his microphone twice.
“Copy. Two hostiles,” Ford replied. “How about you, Frosty? How many hostiles have you spotted?”
Two clicks came in reply. There was a pause, and then one more click from Perriman. Ford followed up quickly. “Do you have eyes on Hubbard?”
One click.
That meant yes. One click for yes and two for no.
“Is he alive?” Ford asked.
No clicks at all.
“You don’t know his status?” Ford murmured.
One click.
Bass swore mentally. If Gary wasn’t ambulatory, they would have to allocate more force to liberating him and less to freeing Carrie. It was child’s play for five SEALs to shoot four civilians. However, that liquid oxygen tanker was a wild card, and it was illegal for American military members to kill American citizens, particularly on American soil in an unsanctioned op like this.
Dropping four armed men without killing them—now that was a trick. They would have to close in to hand-to-hand range and drop Lonnie Grange and his men the old-fashioned way. Thank goodness he’d helped train Trina in close combat tactics. He knew full-well her capabilities, and she wouldn’t have any trouble taking out Lonnie or one of his men.
At length, Perriman came back up in Bass’s ear. Obviously, he’d backed away from wherever Gary was being held so he could talk with his team.
“Mick. Get inside the truck and be ready to hot-wire it and move it on my command. Ford, I need you with me to drop Lonnie, who’s over in this building, and pull out Gary. Trina, join Bass. You two have the guards on Carrie. We all go at once.”
Bass was tempted to demand to switch places with Ford so he could be the one to take out the bastard who’d made Carrie’s life a living hell for all these years. But when it came to a choice between saving Carrie and getting revenge on some thug, Carrie was a thousand times more important to him. He sat tight on the other side of the wall from her.
Trina was almost on top of him before Bass spotted her. She came around the back of the office building with admirable stealth.
He passed the camera monitor to her, and she put the black bag to her eye to get the layout of the room. A big, old desk stood in the far corner of the space, and several chairs stood in front of it. One of the guards sat directly in front of the door, and the other close to the back wall, not far from Carrie.
He pointed at his chest and then at the back end of the room. Trina pointed at her chest and toward the door. She then hand-signaled that she would go in through the front door and that he should go in through the window.
He nodded his understanding and craned his neck to stare up at the window. It consisted of two glass panes, bottom and top. He would fit through the lower opening but would have to dive and roll to get through it. Which was okay. The roll would carry him across the room almost to the guard he was assigned to.
“Call when you’re in position, Mick,” Perriman whispered. “Everyone else, click in.”
Meaning click when they were in position to attack. Each of them had a discrete Morse-code sequence which they used to identify themselves one by one. Trina clicked first, then Bass. It took about two more minutes for Ford to click in. Then, last but not least, Perriman clicked in. Now it was a waiting game for Mick to get inside the truck, tear open the dashboard and pull all the right wires. As soon as the Aussie touched the correct leads together, the truck would start.
“Ready, steady,” Mick reported in a whisper. “Make the call, Frosty.”
Perriman gave all of them a moment to collect themselves, to review in their heads what they were about to do.
Trina stood up and moved over to the corner of the building. She would swing around to the side and burst in from the front while he jumped up, knocked out the window glass, and dived past Carrie.
Breathe. Exhale. Relax. No emotion. Just reflex and reaction from here on out.
“Go,” Perriman bit out.
Trina spun away from Bass as a big, noisy engine rumbled to life. Bass jumped up and used the butt of his rifle to smash out the window glass. He paused just long enough to run the rifle stock around the edge of the window frame fast, knocking out jagged shards of glass that could snag his shirt and hang him up.
He caught a glimpse of Carrie’s face reacting in shock as he leaped through the window and rolled practically on top of her feet. His guy had jumped up in the interim and was staring out the far window, presumably at the truck starting to pull away from the office.
And the bastard had a pistol in his hand, pointed outside.
Aww, hell.
&nb
sp; Bass came to his feet and rammed his shoulder into the guard’s back, praying he knocked the guy’s aim off target.
The pistol fired four shots in fast succession—bastard had the thing on full-auto—blasting out the window glass and sending bullets out into the night, directly toward the damn truckload of liquid oxygen, but then Bass had him around the throat.
Bass yelled in his throat mic, “Gunshots incoming, Mick! Get out!”
Bass twisted away from the window, dragging the guard by the throat, choking the sonofabitch for all he was worth. It would take a good thirty seconds for the guy to fully black out, and the guard clawed at Bass’s forearm violently. Thank God for his SEAL-issue, micro-armor shirt.
And then everything happened in slow motion. Carrie leaped to her feet, presumably to help him.
Trina’s guy writhed in her grasp, and somehow managed to get a revolver out of his belt.
Carrie opened her mouth to scream, and the revolver fired wildly.
Then the mother of all explosions happened outside. Something hot ripped into Bass's flesh, knocking his arm away from the guard’s throat, and then he was flying through the air.
The hard ground came up to meet him, slamming into him with the force of a freight train. And then the world went black.
Chapter 15
Carrie saw the guard by the door pull out a gun and instinctively dived for cover, screaming at Bass to be careful.
A blinding flash of brilliant light and a massive, deafening wall of noise smashed into her. The desk went flying, and she went flying with it. She hit the ground in a ball, and the heavy wooden desk landed all around her, her body tucked neatly in the leg space between the banks of drawers to either side of her. For once in her life, being small had been a boon.
She tried to shove the desk off, but it didn’t budge. Awkwardly, she turned around and pushed with both feet against the underside of the desktop. It moved slightly, and a shower of dust and debris rained down on her. She should have heard that stuff falling, but it hadn’t made any sound.
In fact, she only registered utter silence. Confused, she clapped her hands together. Nothing. Ohmigosh. Was she deaf? Had the explosion shattered her eardrums?
She pushed again on the desk, and a ringing noise started inside her head. It was almost more painful and loud than the original explosion. Her head started to hurt as if she had a massive, all-over migraine, and she paused to rest.
She pushed again with her legs, and the desk shifted a little more. Then, all of a sudden, it lifted away from her, and a dusty-faced Perriman stared down at her. His lips moved, and it looked as if he asked if she was all right. She pointed at her ears and shook her head to indicate that she couldn’t hear.
He nodded and flashed her an okay hand signal. It was okay that she was deaf? Or did that merely mean he understood her?
She mouthed, “Where’s Bass?”
Perriman reached under the desk and pulled on both her arms, dragging her free of what turned out to be the blasted remains of the office building. It had been reduced to a pile of kindling and twisted metal. Carefully, she picked her way clear of it.
Again, she asked, “Where’s Bass?” She could be whispering or shouting. She had no idea.
Perriman mouthed, “I don’t know.”
Oh, God. She turned to the debris pile that another man dressed like Perriman and a woman were picking through frantically. She joined in the search, shoving aside debris in wild panic.
He had to be okay. He had come for her. Saved her. Put his life on the line for her, the big, stupid, lovable jerk!
Bass had been just to the left of her when the explosion happened. She went back to the desk and started to work her way back toward the center of the blast. In about thirty seconds, she spotted something black. Fabric.
She shouted, “Over here!” and vaguely heard her voice inside her skull. Okay. Not permanently deaf, then.
The others joined her immediately, and the four of them tore at the pile. She’d found Bass’s leg.
Please God, let it still be attached to his body and let him be alive!
The three others worked together to lift away a section of wall, and Carrie spied Bass’s torso. Afraid like she’d never been afraid before, she grabbed his leg and gave a mighty heave. Where she got the superhuman strength to drag him clear while the others held the piece of debris off him, she hadn’t the faintest idea. But drag him she did. All two-hundred-plus pounds of solid muscle.
He was unconscious. The others dropped the panel and knelt around him. The woman pushed Carrie aside unceremoniously while one of the other men felt for a pulse under Bass’s chin and Perriman ran his hands over Bass’s body. Must be looking for injuries.
Perriman found something because, all of a sudden, the woman was sprinting away and then sprinting back with a backpack. She dropped it on the ground, and the men used bulky scissors to cut away Bass’s shirt.
Carrie glimpsed a black, ragged hole in Bass’s right shoulder with something black oozing from it. Oh, God. Had he been punctured by a piece of flying debris?
Vaguely, she heard Perriman snapping orders. The others started handing him medical supplies. She watched in horror as Perriman stuffed something that looked like a balloon into the hole and then blew hard on a tube attached to it. Then gauze was being slapped over the wound, tape slapped over that, and Bass turned over on his side. The hole on the back of his shoulder was much bigger and gushing what had to be blood.
Carrie pressed her hands to her mouth and prayed for all she was worth. She couldn’t lose him now. Not when she’d just found him!
She heard a voice as if from a distance and looked up. It was the woman, shouting in her ear, “Don’t faint!”
Carrie nodded resolutely. She wouldn’t faint. Not while Bass needed her.
Perriman grabbed Carrie’s hand and slapped it over the wound on the front of his shoulder, pressing down hard on a hunk of gauze. She nodded, understanding that she should keep pressure on the wound.
Then they were stuffing another balloon thing into the rear wound and inflating it. She gathered that it was meant to slow internal bleeding. More gauze, more tape, and Perriman put Carrie’s other hand over the whole mess again.
A few seconds passed, and then the woman took over pressing on Bass’s shoulder wounds and nodded for Carrie to look at something across the refinery.
Out of a big building on the far side of the facility, two figures came outside slowly. One leaned heavily on the other. The faint starlight glinted off the leaning one’s silver hair—
Uncle Gary!
He was dirty, disheveled, growing a scruffy beard, and had lost weight. But it was definitely him.
She bolted across the big yard, dodging debris from the explosion and flung herself at her uncle, tears streaming down her face.
“Thank God you’re safe!” she sobbed. “I love you, Uncle Gary!”
“I’m safe thanks to you and your friends,” he said in her ear.
Hey, she heard that!
“I never broke, baby. I never told them who you are. Never told them you were who they were looking for.” And then Gary was crying too, clinging to her as tightly as she clung to him.
The reunion was poignant and sweet, but she had somewhere else she urgently had to be. “I love you, Gary, but I have to go check on Bass.”
“On who? There’s a fish out here?”
She lost the rest of his words as she turned and ran back to Bastien’s side.
A discussion was underway over a radio about how to get Bass out to medical care the fastest. A helicopter from New Orleans would take a half hour or more to get here. There was a hospital in Morgan City, but by the time they carried Bass back to the boat, drove him to land, met up with an ambulance, and transported him, it could take as long or longer.
Perriman ordered, �
��Send a chopper. Tell it to fly like a bat out of hell. And make sure they’ve got units of blood onboard. My guy’s bleeding heavily.”
Carrie almost wished her hearing hadn’t started to come back as Perriman described Bass’s gunshot wound in gory medical detail.
Bass started to cough, and the sound was juicy. Bubbles of blood formed on his lips.
No, no, no, no, no. She couldn’t lose him.
Carrie crouched down beside him. “Don’t you die on me!”
Perriman touched her shoulder, and she turned to him, frantic. He explained gently, “He’s bleeding internally. It’s filling his lung. He may not last until help gets here.”
“What blood type is Bass?” she demanded.
“AB negative.”
“I’m AB negative!” she cried. “Take a pint from me. Take two! And help him breathe, for God’s sake! I can’t stand here and watch him suffocate!”
“Technically, he’ll drown,” Perriman commented. “Help me sit him up, Ford. Trina, set up an arm-to-arm transfusion from Carrie to Bass. We’ll hold off doing it as long as we can, but if Carrie wants to give him blood, I’m not going to stop her.”
Good call. She would open a vein herself if she had to in order to save Bass.
He breathed a little easier once he was upright, and his eyes fluttered slightly.
“Don’t you die on me!” she repeated.
“Don’t have. To shout,” he sighed.
She couldn’t tell if she was shouting or not, and she didn’t much care. As long as he heard her.
“I love you, Bass. You can’t die. You hear me?”
Trina commented dryly, “Most of southern Louisiana hears you.”
Carrie shrugged and kept right on shouting. “Stay with me, Bass. Fight to live. If I don’t get to run away from you, you don’t get to run away from me!”
He smiled up at her, a pale ghost of his usual bright smile, and then his eyes drifted closed once more.