Heart of a Hero

by Sara Craven

  “Heads up!” Clay cried, a split second before his automatic spat a volley across the door he was guarding.

  A scream, loud shouting and a garble of orders issued from inside the opening, now blocked by the bodies of several enemies.

  Dawn crouched, weapon drawn, but held her fire.

  Eric had assumed a similar stance across the roof. Every bullet counted now. And unless they could hold off Ali’s men until help arrived, they would have to make the ultimate sacrifice.

  Her gaze met Eric’s, and his look said volumes. Frustration, regret and very little hope. Dawn had never wanted to live so badly in her life as she did right then.

  “Any success?” Eric called to Clay.

  “Nope. You?”

  Eric shrugged. “How much ammo you got?”

  “One extra clip.”

  “Dawn?” he asked.

  She held up two fingers. Two clips. Thirty rounds.

  He raised the machine gun. “Two clips here and a couple of rounds in a pistol,” Eric said. “We’ll be okay.”

  Right. Dawn wondered how many were out there and inside the house. Too many, she feared.

  “Take cover,” he said as he motioned for her to get behind the projection on the roof that housed the door leading down into the villa.

  Dawn did that, careful to choose a spot where she wouldn’t be in Clay’s line of fire. “This okay?”

  Eric nodded. “Watch the trapdoor from there. If it lifts, aim for the crack. Don’t let them get it fully open or they could rush us.”

  “I’m on it,” she assured him.

  For nearly an hour, they held their positions, taking careful aim as they fired, to conserve ammunition.

  But their ammo was slowly and surely running out. And, unfortunately, so was their time.

  Chapter 16

  Eric knew he’d have to blow the place if they were overrun. The remote in his pocket weighed heavy. He just didn’t think he’d be able to punch in that code George had given them.

  Sure, he could pay the ultimate price to keep that info out of terrorist hands. He tried to convince himself that going that way would be a better death for Dawn than leaving her at the hands of the enemy. Damn it, he couldn’t kill her and he couldn’t hand the job over to Clay, either! They had to hold out, somehow.

  He crawled up to the side of the door where the bodies of the terrorists Clay had shot were lying. He managed to secure two of the weapons they had dropped as they fell. Almost full loads, he noted.

  More men were filing up the stairs. He sent an Uzi sliding across the floor of the roof and watched Dawn grab it. Suddenly, the tunnel door raised, opened a crack and she fired. It slammed down.

  Eric quickly scuttled away from the other door so he’d be out of Clay’s line of fire when the next wave reached it. He aimed, too.

  Both he and Clay were out in the open with no cover available. Dawn remained behind the raised structure, half-visible to Eric. He could see her in profile, every inch the agent she had trained to be. My God, how he admired her courage. Not many men would take this in stride the way she was doing.

  She loved him. Eric had seen it in her eyes, maybe even heard her think it. He wasn’t sure he had read her mind, but as soon as he’d ditched the contacts and looked into those liquid brown eyes of hers, he’d felt the same close connection as when they’d made love.

  Maybe, just maybe, he had reached Jack with his thoughts and the team would get here in time. He tried again, as he had every time there was a lull so he could concentrate.

  Come on, guys! Get here. We need backup. We’re on the roof of the villa. Outmanned. Outgunned. Hurry!

  Despite repeated attempts, Clay had had no success with his transponder and neither had Eric. Strange to get two faulty devices when they had been implanted at different times. They weren’t even the same make or model. Could there be some sort of scrambler shield on the island?

  Even that shouldn’t have affected his own method of contact, though. No, he had lost that ability on meeting Dawn. He seriously regretted the loss, but only because it might now cost Dawn her life.

  Doing without his lifelong ability to read the thoughts of others had forced him to rely on his instincts and powers of observation, things he had barely noticed he possessed and had never really needed much until this mission.

  She made him a more complete person in spite of what he’d lost, maybe even because of that. For the first time in his life, he felt almost normal, but the price of that was too dear. He might lose her before they had a chance to declare their feelings for each other out loud. He had told her he cared, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Eric wanted Dawn to know exactly how he felt.

  I love you. His desperate inner shout, accompanied by an intense look, caused her to turn abruptly.

  Or had it? Why did she wear that look of horror? Her features blurred even as the sound of shots registered. A flurry of action exploded near the door and rapid firing was the last thing Eric heard.

  “Eric’s down!” Dawn cried. Clay provided cover as she ran the dozen feet that separated her from Eric. Mindless with fear, she grabbed his feet to drag him to the area where she had been sheltered. She couldn’t budge him.

  “How bad?” Clay called.

  “One hit, upper right chest!” she answered, pressing her hand over the wound. Eric was unconscious. She felt for an exit wound, found it and huffed a breath of relief. At least the bullet hadn’t bounced around inside. Maybe it had missed anything vital. She prayed hard while doing all she could to stanch the bleeding.

  So far none of the terrorists had made it onto the rooftop alive. The attacks came in waves, from the doorway and from the tunnel exit. Both means of access were blocked with bodies, which also acted as shields when the fresh troops appeared. Clay whipped his weapon back and forth, attempting to cover both the door and the hatch while Dawn checked on Eric. George moaned periodically, but wisely stayed where he was. The situation was rapidly degenerating.

  She glanced out to sea. “Damn it, Mercier, get your boats in gear! And send us help! He could die!”

  “We could all die if you don’t cover that tunnel exit!” Clay snapped. He had changed position and now stood a couple of feet away, still watching the door. “A simultaneous attack could finish us off. How’s your ammo?”

  “Almost gone,” she admitted, still pressing hard on both Eric’s wounds.

  “Get the remote out of his pocket and give it to me,” Clay ordered. “Let me know when we’re down to nothing. I’ll have to blow it, Dawn.”

  “I know. Do it,” she replied, handing him the remote, then resuming her pressure on Eric’s wound. “Nice working with you, Senate.”

  “Same here, Moon, but we’re not dead yet. Lay him on his back and use the floor for pressure on the exit wound while you lean on the entry with your forearm. That way you can still fire if you need to.”

  She took the suggestion, watching as Clay took the stubby little Uzi Eric had been using. “Empty,” he muttered as he crawled away to a better position to fire on the doorway. Although no one else had tried to come out of the tunnel, she watched it like a hawk.

  The warmth of Eric’s body beneath her arm and against her hip felt reassuring. “I hope Mercier picked up something from you or Clay. We could sure use some company about now.” Understatement of the year, she thought with an inner groan.

  She felt more than heard Eric grunt, but couldn’t look at him and effectively guard the trapdoor. At least he was moving a little and making sound.

  “More coming up!” Clay said. “Get ready!”

  She felt Eric shift her arm off his body and replace it with his hand. The realization that he was conscious bolstered her hope like nothing else could.

  She trained the Walther on the trapdoor and trusted Clay to take care of the others. “Jeez, you’d think they’d have run out of manpower by now. Must have unloaded a damn troop ship.”

  “Coming,” Eric said, his voice cracking with the effort
to speak. “Jack’s coming…with the team. Don’t let Clay—”

  “Jack better come,” she replied. “I sent him a mental message myself. Told him to get his ass in gear. You just rest and don’t worry, honey. We’ll be fine.”

  “Honey?” he croaked. She could hear the smile in his word.

  “Yeah, honey. Might as well start getting you domesticated while I have some free time. You lead entirely too wild a life, Vinland. Need to lighten up a little.”

  The trapdoor inched up even as she spoke. She fired at it, cursing when it opened a bit wider. Whoever was in there had a damn death wish. Okay with her. She fired again, putting a few rapid rounds right into the dark space. It slammed shut again as she heard a howl.

  Eric was coughing. Or laughing. She risked a glance. A pained smile stretched across his beautiful mouth wide and she could see the gleaming white of his perfect teeth. “Lighten up,” he repeated in a croaking whisper. “Right.”

  She wanted so badly to kiss him. He’d realize it was goodbye, though, and Dawn didn’t want him to know it was. “Go back to sleep until this is over,” she told him.

  It was nearly over. She reached in her pocket and felt for the pistol, her last line of defense. The Walther was empty now. If she counted correctly, the Glock had four rounds left. Clay must be as low on ammo as she was since he’d had to fire more often than she had.

  Dutifully, she called Clay’s name and held up the pistol with four of her fingers raised to show him how close she was to empty. He nodded and raised five fingers.

  Great. Down to nine shots. Then he’d have no choice but to destroy the villa, everything and everyone in it, including themselves. Dawn looked down at Eric again, hoping he was asleep. He wasn’t. He stared back at her. “Jack’s…coming.”

  “I know,” she said gently. “Just rest.”

  “Tell Clay,” he ordered, sounding angry. “Now!”

  Dawn wasn’t sure what to do. Was Eric hallucinating? Delaying the inevitable? Or did he really feel something, maybe a response to his message to Mercier? She made a snap decision.

  “Clay!” she shouted, trying to inject as much belief and excitement as possible into her voice. “Eric says the team’s on the way!” She wanted to believe it more than anything ever.

  Clay nodded, his eyes still trained on the open doorway littered with bodies. “About damn time,” he shouted back. “Go have a look if you can leave him for a minute.”

  Again Eric moved her hand and replaced it with his own. “Go,” he huffed, almost soundlessly.

  She scrambled up and ran around the perimeter of the roof, looking out in every direction. When she reached the north side, she whooped and pointed. “There! There they are!” She whirled around and rushed back to Eric’s side. “Hold on. They’ll be here soon.”

  Then she remembered how low they were on ammo. Could they hold out until the team arrived? Or would Ali’s men keep coming in bunches until they took the roof?

  “Chopper,” Eric said, his eyes closing. “Hear?”

  The whump-whump of a distant aircraft gently vibrated the atmosphere. Dawn wanted to turn cartwheels.

  “Down! Get down!” Clay shouted. Then all hell broke loose. Three of Ali’s men poured out of the doorway, stumbling over their fallen comrades, spraying the rooftop with gunfire. Dawn dropped flat and returned fire just as she saw Clay crumple.

  After the burst of activity, it seemed there was total silence. She couldn’t even hear the whump-whump of the chopper now and wondered if it had veered away.

  Clay stirred, then rolled to one side. Dawn blew out a breath of relief. He was down, but not dead.

  She felt Eric’s hand close over her calf and half turned to look at him. He raised a hand and pointed, reminding her to hurry and retrieve the guns. More ammo. She needed those weapons the new downed crew of enemy had on them.

  She scuttled forward toward the door to gather what she could find. It was up to her now to keep Eric and Clay safe until backup arrived. For the first time, she remembered George. He was huddled in a corner by the coping, not moving, but there was no time to check and see whether he’d been hit. At this point, she didn’t much care about that.

  Dawn had almost reached the fallen terrorists in the doorway when a head appeared above the carnage. A head and a weapon. She pulled the trigger of the Glock and heard nothing but a click. Empty.

  She prepared to duck. It was all she could do. The enemy’s eyes narrowed as he smiled at her and aimed more carefully.

  Dawn’s life did not flash before her eyes as she’d heard happened at the moment of death. All she felt was horrible, crushing anger.

  A single shot rang out. Had he missed at this range? Impossible. Then she saw the lethal wound in the center of his forehead. He crumpled onto the pile of dead that all but blocked the door.

  Dawn grabbed the only weapon she could reach in a hurry, a top-of-the-line H&K automatic. Then she turned and saw Eric, propped on one elbow, pistol still clutched in his hand. He collapsed as she crawled back to him.

  The confiscated H&K was nearly empty, a couple of rounds left, and there was no time to dig through the dead to find another gun. Footsteps were pounding on the stairs again.

  Quickly she sat back facing the threat, bracing the weapon on her knee, aiming directly at the doorway. “C’mon, you bastards. Do your worst,” she spat. She might go down, but she was taking somebody with her.

  “Friendlies!” Eric shouted. She could hear the cost of that shout in the way he bit off the word with a groan.

  Did she trust his instincts? Was that Mercier’s bunch clattering up the stairs? How could they have gotten here that fast? And how could he know who it was? If he was wrong and she waited an instant too long to pull the trigger, they were all dead.

  For a split second, she considered firing anyway. But she waited. Eric would never gamble with their lives. Unless he was damned sure of himself, rock-positive, he wouldn’t have tried to stop her.

  “Hold your fire!” someone on the inside called out. “Vinland? Senate? Moon?”

  Dawn nearly collapsed with relief. “All clear!” she cried, tears running down her face, streaks of heat against her breeze-chilled cheeks. “We’re clear.” The last words rushed out on a sob that she caught and contained. Wouldn’t do to get caught crying like a little girl.

  A huge shadow with accompanying noise descended to the roof as the chopper set down twenty feet away from her. Dawn put down the weapons and crawled rapidly back to Eric. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she murmured as she pressed her lips to the side of his face and her palm on top of his hand that clutched the wound.

  “I love you, Eric,” she added with feeling, knowing the sound was lost in the cacophony of sounds that surrounded them now. She just had to say it, though she knew he couldn’t hear her, that he was too out of it with pain to read it in her mind if his ability had returned. He wouldn’t die, and she had never been so glad of anything in her life.

  Friendlies. What a marvelous word, she thought. They would whisk Eric and Clay to a hospital. They would be safe. They would live.

  As for her, she would go back to NSA and do what she did best, identifying and illustrating security leaks. Her one big international anti-terrorist mission was all but over.

  Mercier himself lifted her away from Eric as two guys with a stretcher hurriedly checked him out and began to load him up. The men were loading Clay’s stretcher next, and another guy was assisting George toward the chopper. In a few moments, they would be gone. She had to go with Eric. “Wait!” she cried, but Mercier held her back. For a second, she struggled in protest, then realized she would only be in the way, and cooperated.

  Eric’s boss tugged her toward the stairs leading down. “Shake it off, Moon. Come with me,” Mercier ordered in a loud voice.

  After one last glance at the chopper, Dawn followed. She swallowed her tears and put on her agent’s face.

  If she did nothing else today, she would make Eric proud
of how she followed through with their mission. There would be a lengthy debriefing, a chore he wouldn’t be up to completing for some time. And there was still the flash drive to locate.

  All she wanted right now was to get that over with and find transportation to whatever medical facility was treating Eric. Before she went stateside again, she had to know he was recovering. Then she could say goodbye and get on with her life, such as it was.

  Things would never be the same for her. Eric Vinland had turned her life upside down and inside out. She would always love him. Not that she intended to tell him so again.

  If she did, that meant they would have to decide what to do about it. He might want them to be lovers for a while, she supposed. They were incredibly good together. But then it would end, and she didn’t think she could face that.

  She had before with the others, but Eric was different. His leaving her, even though she knew he would try to let her down easy when the time came, would be the end for her. Better not to get any more involved, end it now and convince herself that everything she felt for him had been due to forced proximity and hyped by adrenaline.

  But not before she saw him once more and made sure he would be all right. Would he? Had the wound been worse than she imagined? What if he died? A chill shot through her.

  “This way,” Mercier directed as they reached the entrance to Quince’s ruined study where the grenade had gone off. Sean McCoy’s body lay covered with a blanket, as did the other terrorists’ remains. He guided her through the rubble into the hallway and into the lounge, which remained virtually unchanged from the last time she’d seen it.

  Once there, he sat her down on the silk striped divan and brought her a drink. Scotch. She drank it and made a face. Wicked stuff, and she hated the taste.

  “Now then,” he said gently. “We need to get to work.”

  A question occurred to her, and Dawn figured she might not get another chance to ask it. “Did Eric get through to you?”

  “Telepathically, you mean?” Mercier smiled. “As a matter of fact, no.”

  “Then how…?”