She trembled as Adam secured both items around her neck, but damn it. She would wear it. This was crunch time, that moment when rescue was so close you could almost taste it, but bad things still happened. He’d known too many guys who’d been shot on their last duty day and worse, when they were in the chopper and flying home.
“You’re worried,” she told him, her eyes soft and dewy despite the approaching danger.
“I am,” he admitted. Worried those boats and ships out there might bring war to their shores. Worried he’d lose her when this adventure ended. That he’d never see Shannon or Squeaks again. That she really was too good for him.
“Here’s protection for the baby.” Harley pulled out a tiny helmet for Squeaks from his rucksack, complete with chinstrap and a full, face shield. “One of my Navy friends made it when he heard there was a baby involved, but damn. He’s small. Hope it fits.”
Adam didn’t have time to double check. A distant gunshot sent a flutter of birds through the palms. Shannon clutched his forearm. “What about Connor and Izza?”
“They have a gun?” Harley’s face jerked toward the sound.
“Just Izza’s Berretta,” Adam’s eyes riveted to the jungle, “and her Chinese stars.”
Harley pushed to his feet. “Anything I need to know before I leave? Any snakes? Lions? Tigers? Things that will eat me before I get to where I’m going?”
“Not that I’ve seen, but you’ll make better time if you cut through the middle of the island. The cave’s directly opposite this beach on the other side,” Adam replied. “That’s where Connor and Izza were headed.”
Harley nodded once. “Stay here.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“This is crazy,” Shannon muttered, her hand smoothing over the sleeping babe in her sling. “We sit here all week and nothing happens. Now look. Everyone’s showing up.”
She’d gotten anxious since Harley left, pacing their cove one moment, then sitting beside Adam, only to jump to her feet and do it again. The waiting game wore on his nerves, too. He’d never been the kind of man to stay behind and tend the home fires.
“It’s because I activated the communicator. The Koreans knew they were made when I texted Alex, that something happened to their agent.”
“I’m glad this is nearly over. It’ll be good to get out of here, I just wish I knew who got shot.”
“Me, too. It might’ve been nothing,” Adam muttered, wishing he could be so lucky. That single gunshot ate at him. His guys never wasted a shot if they didn’t have to. Just how many people were on this damned rock?
That brought Shannon back to him. She folded her body at his side, her hand on his knee while they faced the ocean. “Your boss is something else.”
“He is that,” Adam agreed. “I really thought he was in Virginia when I sent that text, not in Hawaii.”
“At least he came for you,” she said wistfully.
So that’s the problem. Adam lifted her hand from his knee to his lips. Despite how he treated her, a part of Shannon was still that little girl trying to please her father. Tenderly, Adam planted a kiss on each of her knuckles, his eyes locked on hers. “I’m sure Alex has kept your father apprised, Shannon. He’s probably in Hawaii right now waiting for you and wondering where you are.”
Her lashes came down. “Hmmm.”
By then the sound of the two approaching motorboats lifted over the waves. “We need to get you somewhere safe,” he said to break the tension.
“No, you don’t,” a gruff voice growled from the shadows of the Banyan.
Adam scrambled to his feet at yet another unknown quantity in the game of drones. He stepped between him and Shannon, blocking her with his arm, his weapon on target.
The guy ducked around the trunk of the Banyan, a polished steel Glock wavering in his unsteady hand. Whiskered and dirty, his beach shorts and open shirt looked in as rough shape as him. This had to be the bastard who’d killed Donavan, maybe the woman and Ramsey, too. “My, my, don’t you two look cozy?”
Shannon angled around Adam for a better look. “Brit?” she asked in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
Adam growled but let her have her say. He already despised this slimy bastard for what he’d done to Shannon, and indirectly, to Squeaks. Knowing that Paxton had to be the guy who’d murdered Donavan cinched his fate. The Glock was a good pistol—almost as good as Adam’s Ruger. But justice always came down to the man behind the gun.
Paxton’s leered at Shannon, his eyes skimming up her body like they had a right to. “I made a deal, and I plan to keep my end of it, unlike you, you lying bitch. You ever heard of ’til death do us part?”
“Did you?” she shot back at him. “At least I’m single. How many times did you step out on me while we were married?”
Every male muscle in Adam’s body clenched with the need to end Paxton. He could fully deliver on the death part of that one-sided marriage vow. “Back off. There’s no way this’ll come out in your favor.”
The red laser dot from Paxton’s weapon danced over Adam’s chest. “I don’t want to kill either of you, but I’ll do it. I need the activation code, and she’s got it.”
“Not going to happen,” Adam breathed. Not only no, but hell no. He didn’t need a cute little laser to shoot straight. His sixth sense and years worth of muscle training had already locked his pistol sights into place. He steadied his hand, aimed dead center of Paxton’s forehead. There’d be no body shot today. Adam meant to blow his fucking head off.
“No, Adam.” Shannon’s hand settled on his shoulder blade, but he instantly shrugged it away. Don’t touch me. Not at zero-minus-time-to-kill. Not when I’m standing between good and evil. Not now.
Squeaks offered a scratchy cry into the tense standoff. The infant’s tender voice inflamed Adam’s full-blown protective instinct, but it also drew Paxton’s attention. “What the hell’s that? You got a monkey?”
“This is your son.” Shannon took a step around Adam. She raised Squeaks to her ex-husband’s view, just enough for him to see the infant’s face. Adam couldn’t believe she’d done that. She couldn’t still have any feelings left for this murdering liar, could she?
“Don’t you want to see him?” she asked softly. “He’s a perfect little boy. Our son.”
Paxton spat to the side. “Never should’ve crawled into the sack that last time.”
“The only place you ever crawled was into every other woman’s bed. Now look at him!” Shannon’s voice turned to steel. “Look at the child you created the night you raped me, so I can honestly tell him his damned father met him.”
Paxton rolled his shoulders. “You look at him. I don’t have time for this.”
“Your grandfather was right.” The steel had changed to calm. “You’ve never appreciated what we had together.”
“What we had? Would all that ‘what we had together’ crap be the privilege of being married to you, the richest bitch on the East Coast? Would it be watching you rise to the top of Reagan Industries while I worked my guts out at a two-bit job? Give me a break. There was no us. It was always about you. The only way I could make your old man notice me was to...” He stopped bellowing, like he’d caught himself from saying too much just in time.
Adam growled. “You’re JB. You used Shannon’s I.D. to get inside Reagan. It was you communicating with the Korean agent, wasn’t it?”
“So? Might as well be the best spy in the business, don’t you think?”
Adam didn’t get the connection. Best spy in the business? What the hell did that mean? JB didn’t mean anything, except for... Holy shit. Brit Paxton just took the idiot of the year award. “You honestly called yourself James Bond?”
“What if I did?”
“Did you kill that Korean woman, too?”
The hint of a shadow flickered across Paxton’s face. “No, Ramsey killed Tia. I… I loved her. I had to kill him. It was self-defense.”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word lo
ve, you liar. It was you, wasn’t it? You sent the drones to kill me. I was nothing but another pawn in your—”
“You were the queen! God, Shannon, don’t you get it? With you I could’ve—”
Shannon was quicker on the uptake. “The queen, Brit, but never your queen. Why did you want me dead?”
“Was this just about money?” Adam asked. “Sell the drones to Korea? Kill your ex-wife? I get the get-rich-scheme with the drones. Korea’s willing to pay big bucks for that technology, but why kill Shannon? It can’t be for the insurance. She’s smarter than to have you listed as her beneficiary. What then? Revenge?”
Paxton’s upper lip lifted in a sneer. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Who wants Shannon Reagan dead?” Adam growled, the Ruger sure as Hell in his palm. Was there more than sabotage going on here? Was this a two-fer? A hit and treason?
“None of your damned business,” Paxton ground out. The sweating imposter might think he held the upper hand because he’d killed Ramsey, but in no way was Paxton bad assed enough to follow through with shooting Shannon. He didn’t have the heart for it, not the way he kept licking his lips and peering beyond Adam and Shannon to the trouble off shore. “I’m not asking again. Give me the damned codes!”
“I wouldn’t give them to you even if I could,” she declared. “I’m no traitor.”
“Give them to me! Those UAVs have to be up and running before Mia’s team lands, or we’re all dead. Shit, if Id known you could disarm them, I never would have sent them after you.”
“So why did you?” Shannon asked, her lips to her sweet little boy’s fuzzy head.
“To scare you!” Paxton bellowed, the barrel of his pistol sideways to his forehead in a stupid move of pure frustration. He leveled the weapon again. “Now give me the code, or so help me, we all going to die.”
Adam pushed Shannon behind him again, his weapon never moving off target. Paxton wouldn’t kill Shannon as long as he thought she had the codes. “You’re already dead.”
Paxton’s eyes flashed to the shore, and then to the three docile drones slumbering in the sand. He whined. “Come on. They’re coming. I’ll split the money. Fifty-fifty. It’s millions.”
As if money made any difference. Adam would’ve laughed in Paxton’s face if he hadn’t been holding a gun. A nervous man still might kill a guy.
Adam knew exactly when the first boat landed. Paxton’s gray eyes widened. He ducked his head into his neck. He was about to get his comeuppance, and he knew it. His weapon wavered as he took a bold step forward. “I need the code,” he growled between clenched teeth, his pistol lifted to aim around Adam. “Give it up. Now.”
“She’s not giving you anything. Drop your gun or so help me, I’ll send you to hell,” Adam promised.
Paxton whined in the way of a desperate man. He straightened his arm with a nervous, “We’ll see who sends who to—”
And Adam could take no more bullshit. BOOM! Thunder vibrated the air.
Shannon shrieked, strangling him for dear life. “Adam! Not you. God, not you!”
His ribs crunched from the impact. He dropped to one knee to catch her, more because he couldn’t get his arm around her fast enough, not with a loaded weapon in his other hand. But it was Paxton who fell dead, his brain matter coating the jungle behind his doomed final stand.
Hysteria gripped Shannon hard. “I thought... Oh, God, I thought...”
Adam breathed into her hair, his hand cupping her head to keep her from seeing the carnage. “Not me. No way. He would’ve killed you. He had to die.”
She was all over him, feeling his neck and jaw and cheek with frantic fingers that seemed to need to validate he still breathed. He pulled her closer, careful not to squash poor Jimmy Malone in the process, but needing to absorb the concern this sweet woman offered.
Her lips grazed his chin. “He killed Donavan,” she moaned.
“I know, but it’s over.” Adam wanted to kiss her for her endless compassion, but the sound of boots on the ground drew near. She might not hear them, but he was very aware of the uninvited guests headed their way. Amazingly, Squeaks hadn’t made a sound.
Adam pushed off the ground with her in his arms using the wall of his body to keep her from seeing Paxton. Four fierce Korean soldiers approached the Banyan trees rapidly, their rifles aimed, but one glance at what remained of Paxton, and they stopped short.
One stepped forward, his pistol on Adam. Obviously, an officer. Obviously in a hurry to get out of there before the Navy arrived. “You will drop your weapon,” he demanded in stilted English. “Now or face the wrath of my country.”
Big talk for a man with a losing hand. Adam recognized the drill. He’d once worked inside Communist North Korea on an especially dicey black op. He’d seen the effects of all that nationalistic wrath. The country literally called their years of starvation in the 1990’s the Arduous March in honor of its ruthless leader at the time. Close to four million North Koreans died. Arduous, hell.
He’d been in Pyongyang since then. He’d seen the workings of the North Korean propaganda machine firsthand, the posh disguise of luxury at one corner of town intended to fool the world, while skinny children begged for a crust of bread on the next. Even now, the effect of a life lived in hunger was easy to see. Every last one of these soldiers was thin to the point of gaunt. Malnourished. And eyeing the coconuts in the trees.
Adam let the Ruger twirl off his thumb to the sand. Poor Shannon’s breathed hitched, but he wasn’t worried. Alex would be ashore soon, and this problem would only get better—or worse. “Don’t worry,” he assured her quietly. “We’re okay.”
“Move!” The Korean jerked his weapon toward the drones. Dark eyes narrowed when they scanned over Shannon and the baby.
Adam kept her under his arm, nodding his chin at the docile UAVs. “Take them. They’re yours. I’ll help you load them.”
“No, Adam,” Shannon argued. “You can’t do that.”
“Sure. Why not? It’s obsolete technology. Everyone but these guys knows that.”
The officer studied Adam, one brow lifted in suspicion. “What you mean? Obsolete?”
Adam shrugged, hoping he appeared more bored than he felt. “You know how it is. Technology changes fast these days. Reagan Industries developed something smaller and faster. You guys are too late to the game. These particular drones are USA leftovers, but if that’s what you want—”
“You American. You lie,” the Korean officer snapped. He scowled at his troops, and immediately, his soldiers slung their rifles over a shoulder, and each picked a Hummingbird up carefully from the ground.
Adam waved them off. “Good riddance. I’ll be glad to see them go.”
The officer’s lip curled. “Where are docking stations? Where is controller?”
Which revealed how little this guy knew about the drones. There was no controller.
Time to stall. Alex had just landed and five men piled out of the landing craft with him. The Koreans knew it, too. They were outnumbered and out of time. The soldiers glanced nervously toward the beach. They couldn’t hang onto the UAVs and manage their weapons, too.
Adam used the extra chaos of the Navy landing to back away from the showdown with Shannon, still shielding her from the view of her dead ex-husband. When bullets started flying, he needed her out of there. “Go,” he whispered. “Take Squeaks into the jungle. Remember the earphones and mask. Keep our little guy safe.”
She stepped away, her fingertips reluctantly skimming his hand. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“It’s okay,” he murmured, his gaze riveted to the Koreans. “Don’t go far. I’ll be right behind you.”
When she hesitated, he gave her a gentle shove. The Koreans were too busy with their own troubles to notice her getaway, but gradually, her footsteps faded, and Adam’s angst calmed. No matter what went down now or who fired first, she’d be out of range.
The Korean’s tenuous bargaining position worsened when heav
y-breathing Harley, Connor, and Izza materialized behind them, their weapons locked and ready.
“It’s about time,” Adam hissed. “The party’s already started.”
“Yeah, well…” Harley muttered, glancing at Paxton. “Your dead friend there set a booby trap.”
“Damned near hit me with that piece of crap Punji stick,” Izza growled after one look at the body. “Glad you got him or I would have.”
“We did bring something back for you, though,” Connor added, nodding behind him at the missing fourth drone.
“You guys have been busy,” Adam murmured. “The boss just got here.”
“Stop right there!” Alex bellowed, his weapon up and trained on the Korean officer as he approached rapidly. “These drones are United States property and you will not take them.”
“No!” the Korean leader bellowed right back. “You stop! They Korean property now. Come no closer.”
The pressure lifted off Adam’s shoulders when two more US Navy landing craft scraped ashore and a dozen more sailors jumped onto the beach. Izza was right. Alex had brought the whole damned fleet.
He took command, but didn’t lower his piece. “You, sir, are out of your coastal waters. The Shantou class patrol boat you arrived in is right now under the cross-hairs of the United States Seventh Fleet’s carrier strike group. They’ve been running Sea Wolf exercises in these waters. Why are you here?”
The Korean didn’t answer, his hopeless dilemma etched his weathered face. He was obviously nervous, glancing from Alex to the American reinforcements on the sea behind him, then back to Alex. He didn’t seem like a man to be intimidated, but his belligerent stance had shifted one degree toward diplomacy.
Alex stepped forward and holstered his piece. “Your men won’t be fired upon as long as they release the Hummingbird Hawks voluntarily. Tell them to do it now before things get out of hand.”
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