Code Name: Blondie

by Christina Skye

  He couldn’t risk Miki’s life on a vague hope. “How did you manage it so fast?”

  “Remember when Houston was in Santa Fe? Thanks to my contact there, I was experimenting with a few things I stole from Ryker’s lab. Ryker was ready to test a new procedure on me, so I had to escape. I don’t suppose he told you about that part of his plans, either.”

  Max looked at the caged animals and tried to dismiss this as another sign of Cruz’s paranoia, but something rang true. There had been hints that Ryker and his lab team were working on wireless remote devices at Los Alamos, and the question was when, not if they would be available. “No biomedical chip with wireless activation could remain hidden from us. We would have picked up the energy sooner or later.”

  “You wouldn’t have known where to look. It was only partially mechanical. For the rest, Ryker was experimenting with—” Cruz stopped suddenly. His eyes hardened. “I’ve told you enough. Now I’ll ask you once more, and it’s the last chance you’ll get. Do you join me or do you prefer the unpleasant experience of your chips migrating out your spine and through the back of your neck?”

  Max felt a clawing attack of pain, followed by crippling spasms at his back, a demonstration of what would come next if he said no.

  Preston, where the hell are you?

  About time. Max sent back an instant answer to Wolfe’s mental probe. I’m at the end of the tunnel marked E, in some kind of lab Cruz has down here. He’s armed, and our discussion time is just about over. You might want to pick up the pace or I’ll be the guy you find twitching on the floor in his own blood.

  On the way. Knock something over so I can figure out how far away you are.

  Max leaned against the wall, his body hunched as he summoned up the picture of a man caught in overwhelming pain. “No more, Cruz.” His voice was a low rasp. He stumbled, knocking a pile of beakers to the floor, where they smashed in a rain of glass. In a cage nearby the lemurs were howling and a dozen white mice darted in jerky circles while a lone parrot threw its body against the walls of its cage again and again, as if oblivious to its pain.

  “Time’s up, Preston. Make the choice. Let go of Ryker or let go of this slavery you call life.”

  Max knew if his chips moved much farther he would have serious tissue damage and death would come soon after that. But thanks to his physical contact with Cruz, he knew that Cruz had a pinched sciatic nerve and nerve damage in his right hand, resulting in slower response time.

  Max pulled Miki’s torn shrug out of his vest. He’d managed to snatch part of it amid the chaos at camp. It had negative affects on him, so he prayed it would affect Cruz the same way.

  Max tossed the shrug at Cruz’s head, dived under a lab table and scuttled for the adjoining room, ignoring the Uzi fire that drilled the floor after him. Houston, did you hear that? Cruz is getting nasty in here. Hurrying up would be good.

  Almost there.

  Max kicked over a huge metal cabinet and dove around the corner a split second before Cruz stitched a line of bullets across the tiles. Unholstering his Sig, he took cover next to a rolling cart full of test tubes.

  When Cruz appeared he looked pale and shaken, the shrug dropped on the floor behind him. Max’s assessment of the animal fiber had been right.

  Point to remember for Ryker.

  Preston, get the hell out of there. I’m twenty feet down the hall to your right. You head left and we’ll run a pincer movement on him.

  Copy. Max sent the silent answer as he ran to the next room and crouched out of sight, lining his Sig on the spot where Cruz would appear.

  But the shadows didn’t move. There was no noise in the hall.

  You see him? Wolfe shot back.

  Not from here.

  Watch your back. There may be another door to the room.

  Silence. Max heard the loud drumming of his heart.

  Footsteps pounded in the opposite direction, echoing hollowly in the underground corridor, and the two men sprinted toward the noise, weapons drawn.

  They were surprised to see Truman emerge from a side corridor, followed by Izzy.

  “What happened?” Max asked curtly.

  “Dakota’s up there with Miki. She kept telling me there was something strange about the shape of one of the bricks on the ground beneath the tent, and when she touched it, a tunnel opened up. The woman’s got eyes all right.” Izzy kept moving, checking the nearby rooms. “Where’s Cruz?”

  “Straight ahead of us, judging by the noise.”

  The Lab shot in front of Max, his muzzle raised as the footsteps echoed in the opposite direction.

  “Truman, move out. We have to go.”

  The dog turned, his body rigid, blocking their way. He slammed his head against Max’s leg, driving him back toward the corridor they had just left.

  This time Max didn’t say a word. Truman was too well trained to react by mistake. Something had to be wrong. As the dog continued to bump his leg, the men sprinted back toward the door at the site of the cave-in.

  Wolfe?

  The rope’s still there. You two go up first. One of you will have to carry Truman. I’ll stay here to clean up.

  Like hell, Max thought. They were all getting out of this alive. He sniffed, picking up sulphur and the acrid smell of smoke as he turned a corner. The door was only a few feet away when a fireball burst along the corridor behind him.

  He hit the door and the three men dove through inches ahead of the flames, Truman in front. As they scrambled for the rope, Max grabbed the dog and motioned Izzy up ahead of him. Cruz must have used a flamethrower, Max thought. But where was he now?

  When Izzy was up, Wolfe gestured to Max, who pulled his way up one-handed with the dog cradled against his chest. Dirt rained down from a second fireball as Wolfe cleared the edge. They immediately ran for the beach, alerting the rest of the team to stay on watch for Cruz.

  Max felt the spike of adrenaline amplifying the pain at his spine. An explosion rocked the ground behind him and the whole slope fell in, burying the tunnels and Cruz’s hidden lab.

  He stopped to look back, reading the scent on the air and the debris carried from the explosion. As the grass whipped around him, he saw a chopper rise above the trees. Cruz was inside next to a man in a camouflage uniform.

  The clock’s ticking, Preston. Who will it be next? Who can you trust?

  Wolfe, Max called. On your six.

  Got him. The Foxfire team leader was already shouldering a missile launcher and turning to follow the chopper as it thundered over their heads. Max felt a wave of dizziness hit him courtesy of Cruz, but he managed to keep moving.

  Wolfe’s rocket hissed free, struck the chopper and exploded. The back propeller was hit and the aircraft spiraled out of control, losing altitude fast. Wolfe took a second shot and this one hit dead center, debris hurtling over the beach. Fire mushroomed up as the fuel tanks exploded and the air filled with orange-yellow fury.

  When the flames finally burned out, pieces of metal still hissed past Max like lethal hail. It was over, he thought, looking at the bits of twisted metal scattered over the ground. There was no way that Cruz or any other person could have escaped that kind of carnage.

  The mission was complete.

  As Max stood wearily, watching the oily black cloud rise into the air, he tried to feel some scrap of emotion, but there was nothing left. He couldn’t summon a benediction for Cruz, or anything close to forgiveness.

  He had his own questions about the story Cruz had told him, but they could wait. He had to get Miki into surgery a.s.a.p. to deal with Cruz’s chip and whatever other implant he’d put inside her. After that Max had to figure out what kind of future they could have.

  If any was possible. Cruz had probably been right about that much.

  He realized that Truman was looking up at him, strong and steady. “Good dog. We owe you, buddy. How about a steak tonight?” Max closed his eyes as he was hit by a wave of dizziness. But he stood up slowly and squared his shoulder
s. His wounds could wait.

  “Time to go home,” he whispered to Truman.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, he’s coming? You said that twenty minutes ago, so where is he?” Miki paced the beach, waving her arms, her face pale and anxious. “I want to see for myself how he is.”

  “He got a few scratches, that’s all.” Wolfe Houston offered her a bottle of water, but she pushed it away. “Izzy’s almost done looking at him.”

  “This Izzy guy had better be good,” she said flatly.

  “Count on it.”

  “Yeah, right. All of you keep saying that Max is fine, but then you look away or clear your throats in that juvenile way that means you’re hiding something but you think I’m too dumb to notice.”

  Wolfe cleared his throat and looked away.

  “You see? Just like that.”

  The tall man named Dakota, who was still wearing Dutch’s shirt, stood up and rubbed his neck. “You know, she could have a point, Chief. Maybe I should go check on Izzy and see what’s taking so long.”

  “Great idea.” Miki ran a hand through her hair and then shot around so fast that she kicked up sand. “I’ll come with you.”

  “Neither of you is going anywhere.” Wolfe glared at the two of them. “Izzy knows what he’s doing, and believe me, he doesn’t like an audience when he works.”

  “Tough,” Miki snapped. “He’ll have to get used to it.”

  She stormed across the beach, her expression set, and Wolfe shook his head in irritation. He knew Miki well enough to realize there would be no holding her back without physical restraints.

  “Do me a favor and keep her out of trouble,” he said to Dakota. “Tell her anything you want, since we’ll have to remove all her memories of today when we leave. Right now I’ve got to finish rounding up Cruz’s people and then make a definitive recovery of his remains.” There was something unreadable in Wolfe’s eyes. He took a deep breath and then turned to glare at Dakota. “And stop calling me Chief.”

  “Sure thing.” Dakota grinned and gave a little two-finger wave as he turned to follow Miki. “Chief,” he muttered.

  WOLFE RUBBED HIS NECK in irritation. He had to complete the recovery of Cruz’s remains, capture all hostile forces and prepare a report in triplicate. Ryker would be furious that he’d lost a chance to take Cruz alive, but anything was better than allowing the rogue soldier to escape their net again. Now that they had the pilot in custody, they were gaining valuable information about Cruz’s organization. Meanwhile, there was the question of Miki’s additional implants to deal with, and Wolfe had commandeered a chopper for fast transport to the nearest secure medical facility.

  He was glad it was nearly over. As he looked up into the sky, the sun began to peek through blotchy clouds. His gaze shifted to the smoldering remains of the fallen chopper, a sullen reminder of human greed and perversity.

  There was a lesson buried in that wreckage littering the quiet strip of jungle, and Wolfe thought the message might be a warning about technology that advanced too far, too fast, beyond man’s ability to keep pace.

  No, that was wrong. The lesson was far simpler: choose your friends with care and then trust no one, even the friends you chose so carefully. Something about the thought left him angry. Most of his team’s operations took place in tight situations that demanded loyalty and quick communication. When you were crouched in the mud or hunched over weapons trying to hide from an enemy strike force, your partner’s loyalty meant your life. Period.

  If you couldn’t trust, you couldn’t stay alive. To Wolfe it was as simple as that. Maybe that was why Cruz’s betrayal continued to goad him so deeply.

  He shook his head, putting the behavioral and medical questions out of his mind. He was relieved to have so many details to tackle now, because they left him too busy to wonder why Cruz had snapped, sliding down into madness.

  What the hell was this Lab 21 he had mentioned to Max? And his next question was always the same: if Cruz had snapped, couldn’t any of them snap just as easily?

  As he crossed the beach, Trace O’Halloran was sitting on an overturned ammo box, petting Truman. “You should be lying down, O’Halloran.”

  “Plenty of time for that after we’re choppered out of here. Izzy tells me the round managed to miss anything significant.” He frowned a little, scratching Truman’s head. “By the way, what happened to Miki’s hair? It looked like one side caught fire.”

  “It did.” Wolfe hid a smile, remembering the story Dakota had told him. After two of Cruz’s men charged the tent during the firefight, Dakota had dispatched one, but when he turned around, the other man was flat on the ground, howling in pain while Miki held him down with some kind of torch.

  “How the heck did she make a torch?”

  “Nail polish remover, a knitting needle, yarn and a set of matches. Or she might have said hair spray.” Wolfe shrugged. “I’m not up on female grooming products. Thank God Kit isn’t the high-maintenance type.” At least Wolfe didn’t think Kit was. They hadn’t spent enough free time together in the last few months for him to know the extent of her likes and dislikes. He swore he was going to rectify that as soon as Ryker gave him some time off. Wolfe wanted at least a fragment of a private life, and he was determined to have it.

  “Don’t worry, my sister was never into all that stuff. Of course Miki is an entirely different story. You name the clothes or the gadget and she has it. None of us could ever figure out why the two of them were best friends.” Trace stared out at the ocean. “She’s something, isn’t she? I thought she’d spit nails when she saw me. Now she’s set fire to her hair. Hell, I never even knew it was blond. She must have been dying it all these years.” His mouth hitched up in a grin. “Blondie strikes again.”

  “She saved our butts,” Wolfe said quietly. “She got us close enough to dig in before Cruz knew what had happened.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll thank her for that.” Trace’s grin widened. “But first I’m going to get a whole lot of mileage out of this hair story, believe me.”

  “JUST FOR THE RECORD, it’s not about the sex.” Miki glared at the tent at the edge of the beach, her thoughts churning. “It’s about way more than the sex.”

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am?” Dakota looked at her curiously as they crossed the sand. He was tall and lanky, drop-dead gorgeous in a cowboy sort of way, Miki thought. And underneath those calm eyes was a brain that worked fast.

  Any other time he might be exactly Miki’s cup of tea.

  But sometime during the last gut-wrenching, stomach-twisting and painful twenty-four hours, she had come to realize that there would be no other men. Her heart was already given.

  Locked up, tied down, spoken for.

  She closed her eyes, rubbed her face. When had it happened? One minute she was enjoying her perfect job in paradise, and the next minute she was fighting for her life in choppy seas. Somewhere in the middle of the drama, the man of her dreams had commandeered her life and walked away with her heart.

  Miki scowled down at the sand.

  It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to be in love. She didn’t even want to be in like. She had pictures to take, dreams to chase and all kinds of rules to break. The whole idea of relationships and complications left her furious.

  And frightened out of her mind.

  She had seen a photograph in a book when she was twelve, and the photograph had made her realize what she wanted to do with her life. The picture wasn’t pretty or soft. It had frightened her with its terrible beauty and stark drama of nature caught out of balance. Dark seas raged against stark granite cliffs in the Sea of Brittany beneath stormy gray skies. Looking at the photo, Miki had shivered, almost able to feel the cold bite of flying sea spray. She had known nothing about the artist who had taken the photo and she had lost the magazine soon afterward, but something about that image had haunted her, first with nightmares and later with a dream that she could capture an image with the same focus and ra
w drama.

  She still wanted that dream, but she wanted Max, too.

  She stopped walking so suddenly that Dakota almost bumped into her. “Something wrong?”

  “You name it,” she said grimly.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  No one could help her, Miki thought. She was down for the count. If Max didn’t feel the same way…

  But as she stared at the clouds racing across the horizon, Miki realized you couldn’t hold back change anymore than you could hold back the clouds. Life happened, and you didn’t ignore a thunderbolt when it hit you in the center of your heart. You had to grab hold, hang on tight and see where it took you.

  Even when you were dead certain you were going to screw up just like you’d screwed up all the other things in your life…

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK you’re doing?” Izzy scowled as the tent flap opened. “You can’t come in here.”

  “I can’t?” Miki shouldered her way through the door, determination on her face. She stopped suddenly, seeing that Max was alive. Seeing he was stretched out on a cot. Then seeing that he was naked.

  “You’ll have to leave.” Izzy dropped a scalpel on a nearby cot and pulled a medical drape in place. “I’m just finishing here. The man’s naked.”

  “So?” Miki looked over Izzy’s shoulder, and her face went pale. “What’s wrong with him? Why is there so much blood on his neck and his shoulder?” She wobbled a little, and Dakota and Izzy caught her, one arm each. “I’m—fine, really. I just want to know the truth. No more of these dumb excuses.” She took a deep breath. “How is he really?”

  Izzy smoothed a gauze bandage over Max’s shoulder. “He’ll be out a little longer because I gave him something for the pain. But he’s going to live, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I’m worried about a lot of things,” Miki said quietly. “But living seems like a good place to start.” She looked at Izzy for a long time, frowning. “I saw you at the hospital with Wolfe, right?”