Rebecca believed in women’s lib and all that, but when the guy with the really big gun looked worried and told you to take cover, you did.
Hurrying to catch up with Davidson, she asked, “What’s going on?”
The friendly smile so easily flashed now held a steady frown. The younger man seemed much older suddenly, his face lined with grooves too deep for one so junior. “Don’t fall behind.”
* * *
The Mercedes’ hood was still warm, but the engine was off as Brandt aimed his gun into the car. Lopez approached the driver’s side as Svengurd took the passenger’s. With a nod from Brandt, the two men opened their respective doors. His finger tightened on the trigger as his men scrambled back, positioning for a better shot.
Nothing.
“Empty, boss.”
Still, Brandt kept the bead on the driver’s side. “Check the backseat.”
Lopez and Svengurd repeated the maneuver. “All clear.”
“Trunk.”
This time the corporal took up a side position as Lopez popped the lid. Brandt never wavered in his gaze to the driver’s side.
“No blood, no signs of a struggle, Sarge.”
Brandt flexed his trigger finger. Where was the goddamn driver?
As if reading his mind, Lopez nodded toward the hangar. “Maybe he had to take a leak.”
There was something wrong. Very wrong. Far more wrong than a nervous bladder. Command had confirmed that the driver had radioed his arrival at the airstrip over a half an hour ago.
Sweat poured down Brandt’s back as Lopez and Svengurd looked at him. He hated the pit that had formed in his stomach. Especially when there was so little evidence that it should be there.
Except for the missing driver.
“Keys?” he asked.
“In the ignition, sir.”
Okay, not even a French driver would be that stupid. “Davidson, are you in position yet?”
* * *
“Just about,” the private replied to a question Rebecca couldn’t hear.
She knelt next to him on the rough steel grating. Davidson had moved them swiftly through the hangar past a lonely, half-assembled biplane and up to the second floor office. The place didn’t look like it had seen any business since World War II.
Dust clung to dust as Davidson struggled to open the window overlooking the Tarmac. Rebecca glanced around the room. Papers were scattered across the tiny desk as though someone had been trying to balance his or her checkbook, then suddenly disappeared. A 1950s-era radio adorned the otherwise barren shelf.
In the closed office, the heat grew oppressive, and that sweet smell of chocolate was replaced by a foul odor of mold and very old gym socks. With a heave, Davidson jerked the window open, creating a plume of cracked paint and dirt. Choking on the dusty cloud, Rebecca began to stand.
“Stay down,” he intoned in a voice that had gotten two octaves deeper since their playful banter on the plane.
Rebecca knelt beside him as Davidson shoved the barrel of his rifle through the open window. In quick order, he checked the Tarmac.
“Everything’s quiet, sir.” The private listened intently to the response. “Roger that, Sarge, but if anyone is out there, they’re dug in.”
Rebecca waited to make sure Davidson’s conversation was over before speaking. “So you’re a sniper?”
The private didn’t interrupt his surveillance, but his tone lightened. “We prefer to be called perimeter specialists.”
She let out a snort. If the kid was relaxed enough to joke, their situation couldn’t be that bad. Brandt was just overreacting.
A nervous Nelly.
But Rebecca found she was biting her lip. When Brandt had charged into that rain forest clearing at a breakneck speed, firing with precision, heedless of the fierce warriors, the sergeant had looked anything but nervous. And certainly not a Nelly.
“How long do you think we’ll be up here?”
Davidson squinted through the large telescopic sight and doubled back to check something, then moved on before answering. “Don’t know.”
Which probably meant a long time. Rebecca plunked down and opened the laptop atop her folded legs. Adjusting her seat, she got nice and comfy. At the very least she could get some work done.
That’s about the time the first missile hit their parked jet.
* * *
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Brandt shielded his eyes as the second missile hit the plane. The cockpit was nothing more than a cauldron of smoke and fire. Scrambling behind the SUV, he cursed his hesitation. He had known something was wrong. He should have bolted as soon as the driver turned up missing. Smattering pops of gunfire came from overhead.
“Davidson, status.”
Before the kid could respond, another missile hit, but this time struck the hangar. Specifically, the second floor, right where Davidson and Monroe were holed up.
“Davidson! Report!”
Nothing but static. Another missile hit the same target.
“Lopez, start the car and—”
But the telltale whistle of an incoming RPG filled the air.
“Hangar. Now!”
They fell back just as the missile hit the SUV. The explosion flipped the car into the air and crashed it back down in their last position. Brandt laid down cover fire, although he knew it was worthless. Whoever was aiming the missiles was far outside the range of his weapon, but still he let off controlled bursts. It gave his anger a tangible form.
Once inside, the sergeant wanted nothing more than to charge up those steps to the second floor, but he planted his boots. Don’t react. Act.
“Lopez. Svengurd. Clear the hangar.”
As they rushed to fulfill his order, Brandt took inventory of their assets.
It didn’t take long.
Not much here except for a decrepit biplane and several engine parts. Above them hung chains attached to pulley mechanisms. Neither provided much help against a well-armed contingent.
He tapped his earpiece. “Badger Den?” But static answered. Someone was jamming their radio communications. No big surprise.
“Clear,” Svengurd announced.
Brandt turned his attention to the second floor. Or at least what used to be the second floor. The mangled metal glowed a dull red, and the entire level was held up by only two twisted supports. He was worried that their added weight alone would collapse the entire structure.
But it was a risk he had to take, so he motioned Lopez to cover their fallback position and Svengurd to take point. They would mount the stairs. They would find Davidson and Monroe, hale and hearty. They would reassemble the biplane and fly the fuck out of here.
It was a great plan until a missile hit the second floor. This impact shredded the tenuous scaffolding. They dove out of the way as the metal screamed as its joists were torqued beyond their capacity, then shattered. The second floor and anyone on it came crashing onto the cement floor.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Smoke obscured the tangled wreckage. Then a cough, faint, weak—then another, stronger.
“Rebecca! Sam!” Slinging his gun, Brandt dug through the rubble.
“Hang tough!” Lopez yelled as Svengurd joined in.
But as hard as they tried, they couldn’t make headway. The metal supports had been superheated by the third blast and fused together. Unless they found an arc welder lying around, they weren’t getting through.
“I’m checking the back.”
Sure enough, toward the east wall, Brandt found an opening in the wreckage large enough for him to crawl through. As he tested the entrance, the metal haystack groaned but held.
“Davidson? Monroe?” Brandt shouted over the sound of his men desperately digging and his own ringing ears.
Climbing over the twisted remains of a desk, Brandt coughed. The deeper he penetrated, the more grime-clogged his lungs became. Vision hazy, he squinted. Was there a figure ahead
“Davidson?”
Car
efully climbing over a girder that precariously held up a large piece of ceiling, Brandt became even more certain that there was someone ahead. Were they saying something?
Slipping between a series of beams, Brandt found the figure. Only it wasn’t Davidson. It was the doctor, pointing Davidson’s rifle at him.
“Monroe, what—”
He finally could hear her. “Get down!”
* * *
As Brandt dropped, Rebecca fired. She had expected a kick from the rifle, but still landed on her butt. She also missed the bastard, but Brandt was all over it, firing like a maniac.
“Nice shot,” the private commented.
She might have taken Davidson’s criticism a little harder if he wasn’t sprawled behind a bent girder. “Shut up, or next time I won’t use my own body to shield you from falling debris.”
Rebecca got a flash of a grin from Davidson as she helped him up, before the mask of pain returned. Using her sleeve, she dabbed blood from the younger man’s temple until her own cut started dripping down his cheek.
“Sorry.” Rebecca used her other sleeve to wipe the stain.
For all their injuries, they were lucky. If the private hadn’t gotten them on the move right after the plane was attacked, they would have been killed by that first strike on the hangar. Instead, the missile attack had just knocked them off their feet. She had banged up her knee. He had bounced off his head. Rebecca could not imagine the damage that would have been done if he had not been wearing his helmet.
Brandt’s gunfire died abruptly. They both held their breath. Davidson tried to raise his rifle, but gasped in pain. Rebecca scrambled to pick it up, but need not have worried. The sergeant came back into view, dragging the body of their pursuer.
“Where the hell did he come from?” Brandt asked.
Rebecca went back to the weakened private, but the young man waved her off. Davidson had accepted her ministrations before, but now, in front of his commanding officer? No way.
“He came in under the cover of the second missile attack,” Davidson reported, sounding far stronger than she knew he was.
Free of his burden, Brandt strode forward. “Why didn’t you sound off?”
Davidson tried to rise but fell into Rebecca’s supporting arms. She chimed in as the private regrouped. “After the first firefight, we went into hiding. I don’t think he wanted to give away our location.”
The private pushed away from Rebecca. “He was on our six when the deck came down.”
“Did you get a fix on any other hostiles?” Brandt asked.
The private tried to answer, but another wave of pain crossed his face.
“Well?” the sergeant asked impatiently.
Jesus, couldn’t Brandt see the kid was struggling? They both were.
After her latest jungle adventure, Rebecca honestly did not believe that her body had any more adrenaline. How could it? Then, that first missile hit, and she felt that electric jolt of hormones cover the pain from her knee and convince her that she could run. And run they did. Then fall. Then hide, holding their breath for fear the assailant would find them before Brandt did.
But now the hormonal high was wearing off, and she could feel her hands start to shake. Tears threatened to spill for no other reason that they had actually survived when they had no right to. And now the sergeant thought he could give Davidson shit?
Rebecca met the sergeant’s gaze. “Avoiding a painful, explosive death was kind of foremost on our minds, Brandt.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but abruptly closed it again.
Instead, Brandt turned to the private. “You good to go?”
Davidson nodded vigorously, except this motion caused him to sway and catch himself on a girder. Rebecca helped him into a sitting position.
“He’s got a dislocated shoulder and at the very least a mild concussion.”
Brandt knelt beside them. “I can take care of the shoulder.”
Rebecca backed away and pulled out her laptop.
Adrenaline. Danger. Fear.
Sick of all three, she retreated into her world of science.
“This is going to hurt like a mo’,” Brandt said matter-of-factly.
Rebecca made certain that she was too busy working on her laptop to watch Brandt. Only a grunt from the sergeant and a strangled scream from the private marked Davidson’s shoulder being shoved back into the socket. Just hearing her favorite student’s pain made her stomach lurch.
Once Brandt rose, Rebecca chanced a look over at Davidson. The boy’s face was a sickly grayish pallor, but he was already rotating his arm to check his shoulder’s range of motion.
Soldiers.
She definitely needed to recruit some for her postgraduate work.
* * *
Brandt helped Davidson up, making sure he was steady on his feet. They were surrounded by an unknown number of hostiles. It was only a matter of time before the missiles started flying again.
“Do you think you can triangulate the shooter’s position?”
The private nodded, but much more slowly than earlier. A soldier would never admit he had a concussion. A bitch of a headache, maybe, but a concussion? Never.
“All right, let’s move out. We’ve got some ground to cover.”
The doctor shook her head as she typed furiously. “Wait.”
“We don’t have time for your research, doctor.” Encaged in a metal shell still smoldering from a barrage of missiles, Brandt was in no mood for Monroe’s antics. “Now.”
“I’ve got streaming video coming in from the Den.”
His ears pricked up at the mention of their command’s code name. “How? We’ve been cut off since the ambush.”
Davidson spoke up. “She e-mailed them.”
Brandt could not believe his private had just suggested that Monroe had spammed the Pentagon. “E-mail?”
“It took a couple of letters back and forth to authenticate our identity, but yeah, she e-mailed the E-ring.”
He turned to the doctor and looked at her with a level of respect he normally reserved for those in uniform. “So what does the Den have to say?”
“In a sec.”
Her words were snippy and her tone condescending. He wanted to snap back, but under all her bravado he could see that she gnawed on her lip as her eyes flickered across the screen, processing more information then he ever could. Anybody who raised command through a freaking e-mail had earned a break.
For now.
“Doctor, I just want to remind you that—”
“That one more missile and the whole building’s going to come down around our heads? Sure, go ahead and explain that to my phone.”
He was going to retort, but Davidson cut in. “The metal is acting as a conductor for the phone, allowing her to stream the data at a faster rate.”
Brandt bristled, not so much at his private defending Monroe, but the fact that he didn’t realize that himself.
“Oh crap,” the doctor said, as her cheeks paled. “You’re going to want to see this.”
She turned the screen toward him. It showed streaming video of satellite coverage centered on the hangar. Not only that, but the picture was enhanced with thermal imaging. His party’s four figures were clustered on the north side of the hangar, but it was the nine bright orange figures creeping toward the hangar, converging on their position, that had blanched Monroe.
The doctor’s voice shook as she looked up. Fear replaced any sarcasm or disrespect. Pure, unadulterated fear. “They’re coming in,” she moaned.
A fierce smile rose to Brandt’s lips
“Excellent.”
CHAPTER 4
══════════════════
Skies over the Atlantic Ocean
Tok closed his eyes so that he might soak in the ambience of the private jet. The clink of ice against a glass. The fizz of soda being poured over the cubes. The hum of computers all around him. So much to assimilate.
He could
n’t help but marvel at the plethora of sounds contained within such a small space. Tok barely wanted to open his eyes anymore. The visual palette was no longer adequate. For so many years he had relied on sight, but now he knew how little he had truly comprehended.
How could he have known that running your finger along a linen seat created the subtlest of whispering hums? Even now, the plane’s thick pile carpet muffled his mentor’s approaching footsteps. Such things Tok noticed.
“Petir?” he asked, before the older man could tap him on the shoulder. Their old traditions were no longer necessary.
The older man smiled warmly as he bowed. “Master, they are ready to enter the hangar. Do you still wish Dr. Monroe taken alive?”
Tok shook his head.
“And Sergeant Brandt?” Petir cocked his head to the side. “Do you wish him interrogated for Lochum’s position?”
Again, Tok shook his head. But instead of his mentor’s usual diligence, Petir did not immediately move to fulfill his wishes.
“Any who have heard Lochum’s name must be extinguished.”
The older man nodded, but did not pass on the order. With his implants, Tok could hear the slightest wheeze as Petir’s nostrils pinched in concern. He had learned to read his mentor’s moods long ago and knew what they meant, but that whistle expanded his understanding of the man who had become more than a father to him. His mentor would never voice dissent, except that wheeze carried on a conversation of its own.
“Air your concerns, Petir.” Tok indicated the chair next to him.
His mentor declined the seat, but took in a deep breath before speaking. “At the least, Sergeant Brandt knows of Lochum’s location, and Dr. Monroe’s expertise might be of future use.”
“Well spoken,” Tok acknowledged. “But an officer of Brandt’s stature will not break easily or quickly. Therefore, extending his life would only provide him with opportunities to escape. And as for Monroe, her knowledge has become a liability.”
The old man again inclined his head, but the wheeze did not subside.
“Petir, out with it.”
“Master, is there not another option? Allow the group to escape and simply follow them to Lochum.”
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