Soldier's Rescue Mission

by Cindy Dees

  Scooping up a half dozen knives, he joined her where she crouched by the service exit.

  “Let’s go,” she whispered urgently, reaching for the door handle.

  “Wait,” he bit out.

  She threw him a questioning look.

  “Lentano’s guys will cover the alley.”

  She frowned then muttered, “Do you smell gas?”

  “I darn well hope so. I’ve got all the stoves turned on full blast.”

  “Why?”

  “Plan B.” He got no time to elaborate, though, because the restaurant doors rattled. “Showtime,” he murmured into his collar.

  “Five hostiles massed outside the kitchen,” someone announced in his ear. “Heavily armed but not setting up to quarter the kitchen.”

  Not professionals, then.

  He whispered to Elise, “Waistband of my pants. Take the pistol. Nine shots in the clip, one in the chamber.” He felt her hand move against his back. It was his emergency backup weapon, but he’d rather she have it than him.

  The double doors crashed open and several men charged forward. Two of them went sprawling over the overturned cart and the others jumped awkwardly. He popped up and winged a carving knife at the confused men. Someone cried out as he launched the second blade. Another shout. Ricochets pinged all around Ted and Elise, and he threw an arm over her shoulders and shoved her down to the floor.

  “When I say to, pop up and fire like mad,” he whispered in her ear.

  Lentano’s men shouted and raced forward.

  “Now!” Ted shouted as he fired both his pistols.

  A tremendous crash of glass breaking intruded upon the firefight. Men swore and jumped in all directions as shards of glass flew. In the chaos, Ted took out two more men with careful shots to the head. Gut shots were easier targets, but a single head shot would stop most men. And by his count he only had a few bullets left.

  He slammed in his last clip and gestured at Elise to cease fire. The kitchen went quiet. Lentano’s men retreated to huddle by the kitchen door.

  “What are they waiting for?” Elise breathed. “We’re almost out of ammunition.”

  “They don’t know that.” After a murmured conversation, most of the men left the kitchen at a run. “They’re coming around to the back door,” he whispered. He smiled as RoboSEAL cut loose in the lobby. Things might not be great in here, but Lentano’s men weren’t having a picnic tonight, either.

  “We need to go,” Elise muttered from between clenched teeth.

  She sounded close to panic. Which he supposed was a logical reaction to the situation. But he wasn’t quite done with Lentano’s men. “Not yet.”

  Thankfully, she seemed to trust him and stayed put.

  The gas smell was almost strong enough, but not quite. He gave it a few more seconds and then gestured toward the back door at Elise. She crawled the few feet to it and reached for the handle. He shouted at her to go as at the same time he fired his last few rounds at the stoves.

  The ovens made a whooshing sound first, and then great balls of fire rolled out as the gas fumes detonated. Ted dived after Elise, landing beside her as a concussion of searing heat slammed into his back. He leaped to his feet, hauled her up and snatched the pistol she held out to him.

  He took the gun and grabbed her hand as they took off running. Two men popped up in front of them, and on the run, he double-tapped shots at both men. They were hard shots and, although he hit both men, only one dropped. The other staggered but raised a weapon as Ted and Elise closed in on him.

  At this range, the man stood a good chance of hitting and possibly killing them. Panic for Elise’s safety roared through him. Ted took a flying leap at the other man and slammed into the guy just as the man’s gun fired.

  Something hot and hard slammed into his left shoulder as he impacted the man. He grabbed the man’s chin and yanked hard to the right. A sickening crunch accompanied the man’s broken neck. The guy dropped like a stone and Ted collapsed on top of him.

  “Are you hit?” Elise’s hands were on him as he rolled over onto his back.

  “Shoulder.”

  She pressed her palm against the joint, but he shook her off. “I have to stop the bleeding,” she protested.

  “Later,” he snapped.

  “If you’re losing enough blood, there won’t be a later,” she snapped back.

  As he climbed painfully to his feet, he ground out, “If we don’t move, you’ll die.”

  “Tough. I’m not letting you bleed to death.”

  He scooped up the fallen man’s semiautomatic weapon. It felt heavy, as though it was fully loaded. Praise the Lord. A pair of men rounded the corner into the alley and he fired from the waist, dropping both men efficiently. But hot pokers of agony exploded in his shoulder. The joint was hit. As soon as his adrenaline rush wore off, he would lose use of the limb.

  Thankfully, his legs worked and he sprinted for the mouth of the alley. As he passed the two downed men, he paused long enough to pick up their weapons, as well. He passed a shotgun to Elise and shouldered the sling on the automatic machine pistol.

  Several shadows rounded the corner and he spun behind the lone Dumpster. Elise had the good sense to mimic him.

  “We’re pinned down,” she whispered frantically.

  “Not hardly. Just do it like we did it in the jungle,” he instructed her. With as much ammunition as he had now, he wasn’t the slightest bit worried about the men in front of him. He popped to fire above the Dumpster, then spun out from beside it to fire again. He wasn’t one of the top marksmen in the U.S. military for nothing. In under a minute, the alley was littered with bodies and no one stood between them and freedom.

  He moved out from behind the Dumpster in a half crouch, weapon at the ready. His shoulder was starting to lock up, and the pain was incredible. Only knowledge that Elise’s life rode on him getting her out of here kept him from crumpling to the ground.

  He reached the corner and crouched, peeking around the corner quickly and then ducking back. The street he’d glimpsed was clear. Lentano and his men probably didn’t know what had hit them. What with RoboSEAL going crazy and him doing the whole killing machine thing, the Army of Freedom was down a whole lot of men at the moment.

  Finally, he heard the sirens he’d been waiting for.

  “Let’s move out,” he murmured to Elise over his shoulder.

  He stood upright and moved out of the alley, walking rapidly down the street. He cleared every doorway aggressively, weapon first. But with each abrupt turn, his shoulder throbbed a little worse, the ice picks of agony shooting a little farther down his arm and across his chest. He had a matter of minutes of useful function left, and then he was finished.

  They moved about three blocks from the hotel before he finally turned into the darkest alley he could find.

  “I’m done,” he gasped as he slid down the wall.

  “Idiot,” Elise whispered angrily as she squatted beside him. She efficiently tore his shirt clear of his shoulder and reached behind him to check for an exit wound. “The bullet’s still in there. You need surgery to remove it and stop the bleeding, not to mention to repair the joint.”

  “You offering to do all that?” he gritted out.

  She snorted and didn’t bother to answer. “Lean forward so I can take off your shirt.”

  He complied with a groan. She was relieved to see he was wearing a bulletproof vest, but then spotted at least four big splats on the mesh fabric where bullets had impacted it. Shuddering at how close he’d come to dying more than once already, she tore off a strip from the bottom of the shirt, then wadded up the rest of it and jammed it against the entry wound. Her face spun and lights danced in his eyes as the worst pain he’d ever experienced ripped through him.

  “Stay with me,” she bit out as she bound the impromptu bandage in place. “You’re too big for me to move if you pass out.”

  He fought to hang on to consciousness and managed to pant, “Talk to me.”
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  She nodded. “You’re bleeding badly, but haven’t lost enough blood to die, yet. I’ve seen worse, but we need to get you medical care ASAP. Can you walk?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Well, give it a try.” She hoisted him under his good shoulder, and with her help he managed to haul himself to his feet. He swayed violently.

  “Lean against the wall for a minute until you get your balance.”

  Finally, the world stopped spinning too badly and he nodded at her.

  “Okay. Let’s go, Rambo. Where do you suppose the nearest hospital is?”

  “No hospital,” he rasped.

  She stared up at him in disbelief. “You need a hospital. You may die if you don’t get that treated.”

  “You do it.”

  “I’m not qualified to deal with that. You’ve been shot.”

  He unclenched his teeth enough to mumble, “You’ve seen gunshots in New York, I bet.”

  “This is a bad one, Drago. You need a pro.”

  He shook his head resolutely.

  “I’m not arguing with you,” she announced.

  “Good.” He took a step and then stopped. “Gun.”

  She frowned, then looked around on the ground. Impatiently, she picked up the weapon he’d stolen and flung the strap over her shoulder. “Where to?”

  “Hotel.”

  “I’m not going back there!” she exclaimed.

  “We need wheels.”

  “Oh. Of course. The Jeep. Then I can drive you to a hospital. Good idea.”

  He didn’t argue with her. They did need to get to the Jeep, or more precisely, her medical kit in the back of it. No way was he going to a hospital. He’d be thrown in jail the minute he showed his face. But he’d fight that fight with her if he made it back to their hotel alive.

  Two police cars appeared on the street ahead and he nearly passed out when he and Elise jumped into a recessed doorway to avoid the approaching headlights. The cars sped past, sirens blaring.

  “Where are Mia and Emanuel?” she murmured as they moved out again.

  “With Grandma. I told her to run.”

  “Thank God they all made it out of the hotel.”

  He merely grunted in response.

  The citizens of Mercado, no strangers to gun battles, apparently, were staying completely off the streets. The rest of their walk back to the hotel was undisturbed. Which was a good thing. He was hanging on to consciousness by a thread. Only Elise’s steady stream of salty commentary on the stupidity of heroes kept him going.

  Finally the hotel came into view. One more block to go. He staggered and nearly went down. Elise jumped and managed to get her shoulder under his right arm before he fell. “Only a little bit more,” she encouraged him. “You’re doing great.”

  One thing he knew for sure about nurses. If they said you were doing great in that particular tone of voice, you were about three quarters of the way to dead.

  “Jeep,” he gasped.

  “Right.” She veered into the parking lot and guided him to the Jeep.

  “Key. Right front pocket.”

  She propped him against the vehicle and dug into his pocket. “Got it.”

  She made as if to put him in the passenger seat, but he shook his head. “Your med kit. In the back.”

  “I’m serious, Drago. You need a hospital.”

  He mumbled, “Government will arrest me.”

  She stared at him in dismay. “Now you tell me this?”

  “Get your kit,” he gasped.

  “Don’t you faint on me. I’m not doing surgery on you in some parking lot,” she threatened.

  Not good. Nurses only threatened when you were about to die. Reaching for the last dregs of strength he could muster, he staggered to the hotel door. He made it to the elevator, but his legs collapsed as it lurched into motion.

  “Don’t you dare give up on me, Drago Cantori,” Elise ground out. “Get up.” When he didn’t move, she said more forcefully, “Get up!”

  It was so hard to follow her order. He was slipping into a warm, comfortable place where the pain was receding and panic had no meaning. Something impacted his cheek sharp and hard. Did she just slap him? Vague indignation pushed back the beckoning blanket of white just a little.

  “Walk, buster.”

  Someone dragged insistently at his right arm and he didn’t have the energy to fight it. He stumbled forward. A door loomed and then opened. He was pulled forward into a room. A bed rose before him. At long last. He smiled at the sight of it and gave up the fight.

  Elise gasped as Drago passed out on the bed. She’d expected it, but it was still alarming to see such a strong, invincible guy go down like that. At least he was unconscious. She dumped the contents of the med kit on the mattress beside Drago and frantically went to work. She peeled off the Kevlar vest and cut away the makeshift bandage. A new flow of blood gushed over his shoulder.

  She grabbed a scalpel and sliced the wound further open. She spotted the big bleeder right away and clamped it so she could go hunting for the bullet. She found the mashed bit of metal lodged up against his rotator cuff, which was shredded. She winced at the damage. Even with good reconstructive surgery, the joint was done for.

  The bullet was slippery and she finally had to wedge her fingernail under the damned thing to get it out. She didn’t have the supplies to irrigate the wound and properly clean it and could only pour hydrogen peroxide into the area and hope it was enough.

  The peroxide flushed the wound a bit and she spotted two smaller bleeders, which she used her last clamp to close off together. It was meatball surgery at its worst. She could only pray he stayed unconscious until she was done. She wasn’t strong enough to hold him down if he started to thrash around.

  She used a lighter to heat up the scalpel as much as she could and cauterized the two small bleeding veins. The smell of burning flesh made her nauseous, but she pressed on grimly. If Drago could win a firefight and walk back to the hotel with this, she could at least fix his wound.

  The big vein would have to be stitched and cauterized or else he’d bleed to death. Grimacing, she did what she had to do. Another liberal splash of peroxide in the wound and it was time to close up. She stitched the deep tissue as best she could, but she was no orthopedic surgeon. She did her best to connect the right muscle tissue bits together, but who knew if he’d be able to use the joint again after this.

  She closed the mouth of the wound as best she could, but the ragged result was going to leave a nasty scar. One final dousing with the last of the peroxide, and she was ready to bandage up the wound.

  Now to wake up Drago and keep him from going into worse shock than he was already in. She fished out all the little cans of orange juice from the room’s mini-fridge and carried them over to the bed.

  “Wake up, Drago,” she called. She slapped him lightly, then more forcefully.

  His eyelids fluttered but did not open.

  “Don’t make me hit you again,” she threatened.

  One eye peeled open a bit. “Will hit. Back,” he mumbled.

  Thank God. He was lucid, if groggy. “Drink this.” She lifted his head and poured orange juice down his throat. He coughed and sputtered, but seemed to regain a little more consciousness.

  He swore next, a string of highly colorful epithets having to do with how much his shoulder hurt. She ignored his complaint and continued pouring orange juice into him, along with a hefty dose of penicillin tablets and the lone dose of morphine in her med kit.

  “Enough already with the juice. It tastes like battery acid,” he complained.

  “You need the liquid and the sugar. You lost a ton of blood.”

  “Is the bleeding stopped?” he asked.

  “Mostly. I got the bullet out and did what cleaning and repair I could, but your shoulder’s a mess. You need a good orthopedic surgeon and soon.”

  He started to shrug, but swore violently at the movement. Finally he gritted out, “Am I going to live?”


  “Are you kidding? You’re too cussed to die. Even Satan won’t have you.”

  He grinned. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” She took a deep breath. “Ready for the next crisis?”

  His expression went deadly and his gaze ranged around the room quickly, as though he was looking for someone to kill. She recoiled from the killer abruptly lying before her.

  “What’s up?” he bit out.

  “We’ve lost Mia and Emanuel.”

  He frowned for a moment before his face lit with recollection. “I gave them to Grandma. Told H.O.T. Watch to cover her retreat out the front door.”

  “What’s H.O.T. Watch?”

  “The backup you accused me of not having.”

  She wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, but now was not the time for explanations. “We have to find Grandma and the children. The police will be crawling all over Mercado, and once the Colombian Army finds out that Eduardo Lentano and his inner circle are here, they’ll come in with guns blazing, too.”

  He nodded slightly, wincing at even that tiny movement. She wished she had more painkillers for him, but knowing him he wouldn’t have taken them anyway.

  “Where’s my cell phone?” he asked.

  She dug around in the bloody mess that had been his shirt and found the cell phone still in the pocket and covered in blood. “I don’t know if it’ll work. It’s pretty wet.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he muttered as he touched its face.

  She listened as he spoke tersely. “I’m shot. Left shoulder’s out of commission. Yes, I got emergency field care and am stable. The elderly woman and two children who fled the firefight. I need to know where they went.”

  Drago listened for a moment and then swore. He muttered to her, “They didn’t have time to get telemetry on the building before things went to hell.”

  Telemetry? What on earth was he talking about? They who?

  “Elise. Where would Grandma take the children to hide? She mentioned having a son and daughter in the Army of Freedom. Did she say anything about them living in this area?”

  She thought back through her various conversations with the elderly woman. She shook her head regretfully.