by Donna Young
The helicopter landed a hundred feet from the front of the diesel engine. The blades kicked up sand and debris, forcing Lara to turn away.
Using her arms, she pulled herself back to the top, wincing when steel scraped against her belly.
The copter’s blades slowed. Two men jumped to the ground, both in suits, one carrying a briefcase—a large enough case to hold quite a bit of cash—while a younger man with black hair and a beard carried a machine gun. The pilot, she noticed, stayed in the helicopter.
A man, in his midthirties, stepped out from the sedan. With a cigarette hanging from thin lips and sporting short, blond tipped hair—spiked like a David Bowie wannabe—the man waved a casual hand in greeting. Novak.
Shifting for a better view, she slowly drew her miniature binoculars, trying to get a read on the faces, the movement of their lips. Her frown deepened. Nothing.
Suddenly, Novak slapped the buyer on the shoulder and nodded toward the big rig driver.
The trailer door banged, sending a shock wave rippling through the steel beneath her. Lara pulled out her silencer pistol.
She listened, heard the laughter, recognized the underlying tone of satisfaction. Novak and his buyer climbed into the trailer, leaving the two bodyguards outside.
Lara scowled, but didn’t waste time on the slight glitch. She grabbed the gas canister from her utility belt, pulled the release and dropped the cylinder through.
Swiftly, she covered the hole. Shouts of alarm penetrated the trailer walls. The Uzi guys came running, each taking a side. Lara aimed, fired, taking down the buyer’s man with a bullet in the throat. With a cry of pain, he grasped his neck, the blood already gurgling between his gasps of breath. Lara ignored him, knowing the man was already dead.
Steroid Boy was much smarter. He dropped, rolled, then came to his knees and fired.
A rapid spray of bullets hit the air, pinging the steel beneath her. Lara twisted, grabbed the trailer’s opposite edge and dropped. She scrambled under the rig. Exhaust and the scent of gasoline thickened the air beneath. Nausea roped through her belly. Ignoring it, she aimed at the booted feet and squeezed the trigger. An agonized scream tore through the air. The man dropped, both ankles shattered by bullets. One more to the chest took him out of the picture.
The copter pilot fired its machine gun. Bullets kicked up the dirt between the car and trailer, catching the semi’s driver in their path. He jerked once, then fell to his knees. With eyes frozen open, he landed facefirst on the ground.
“Nice aim, idiot,” Lara murmured, then rolled back into the open air and fired. The helicopter’s windshield exploded and on its heels came another agonizing scream of pain.
Lara dropped her clip and shoved in her spare. Using the tires for cover, she waited two slow minutes. Bit by bit she crept around the back, knowing one or more of the men could’ve made it out before the gas rendered them unconscious.
She levered herself up, checked the darkness for signs of movement, then maneuvered around the stacked crates.
Both Novak and his buyer lay slumped on the floor—the briefcase at their feet.
Lara grabbed the case and straightened. Almost instantly, a bullet punched her chest. She flew back, her shoulder slammed against the wall of the rig.
Pain exploded from chest to chin. It knocked her legs out from under her. One of the men tackled her, sending them both out of the trailer and onto the dirt.
Before she could stop him, Novak reared back and whipped off her mask.
“Well, look what we’ve got here.”
“Surprise.” She rammed her knee into his crotch. Novak went down gasping. Lara jumped up, grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. Placing the gun just under his jaw.
“Okay, Tony. I don’t have time for any guessing games. So for each correct answer you get to stay healthy. Each wrong answer, you get a bullet in a vital organ. Got me?”
“You realize who I am?” His eyes narrowed, but she noticed he still gasped out the words and took a great deal of pleasure in it.
“Well, after you get done being my bargaining chip, I’ll ask you for an autograph. How’s that?”
“Bargaining chip?”
“Later.” Lara took a quick glance around. “How many of your guys are watching from the sidelines?”
“None,” he denied, his tone artificially friendly. “Armand and I have been doing business for years. This was to be simple. In, out. No surprises.”
“Yeah, and I’m Moses looking for the right desert—”
A gun clicked behind Lara’s ear. “Drop your weapon, Moses. Or lose your head.”
Chapter Four
Armand’s pilot stepped from behind Lara, his shoulder blood soaked from a bullet wound, his pistol prodding the middle of her back.
Slowly, she released Novak and held her hands up, leaving her gun dangling from her fingertips. Novak jerked himself away and stood. He grabbed her gun, prodded her belly with its barrel.
On the second jab, a tiny wisp of fear circled her heart.
“Looks like I’m the one with the dilemma now.”
Before Lara could react, Novak backhanded her across the face, sending her sprawling. Stars exploded behind her eyes, scraped the inside of her skull. With a deliberate pause, she spit the grit from her mouth, then sat up. Tasting the bite of metal, she wiped the blood from her lip.
“It’s my turn to ask the questions, Moses.”
“I don’t talk to dead people,” Lara taunted.
Anton Novak’s lips curled into a feral grin. “Oh, I can see this is going to be fun.” He turned to the pilot. “See to your boss. We still have a deal to finish.”
The pilot nodded and headed for the back of the trailer.
Novak crouched, this time his hand gripped Lara’s hair. “Don’t I know you?”
The shadows blurred Novak’s features, so Lara knew her own were no more distinguishable. “I haven’t been slumming lately.”
Swearing, Novak raised his closed fist.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The order came from behind Novak, its tone clipped and menacing.
Lara’s gaze snapped around in time to see Ian.
“Are you okay?” he asked calmly, but the anger was there, seething under the surface of the man. Hot enough that she could almost feel the sand liquefy beneath her.
“Yes.” Lara jerked to her feet, using the momentum to place a well-aimed elbow to Novak’s gut. His breath whooshed and he dropped to his knees. A wicked smile curved her lips, despite the soreness. “Next time, be a gentleman.” She turned to Ian. “The pilot?”
“Dead.” The word was short, to the point. Ian studied her for a moment, ignoring Novak. “How long will the buyer be out?”
“Half hour, max.” Pain radiated through her ribs from where Novak had shot her. Grimly, Lara rubbed her chest, grateful for her body armor. She’d have a hell of a bruise but not much more.
“How—”
“Later.” Ian patted Novak down, discovering a pen-sized cylinder in his pocket.
“Look what I found.” He tossed the miniature oxygen canister to Lara. “It recycles a person’s carbon monoxide back into oxygen.”
Ian grabbed Novak by the collar. “You knew she was coming?”
“Not me.” Lara answered for Novak, then scanned the perimeter. “But someone.”
A high-pitched whine, faint but distinct cut through the night air.
“Hit the deck!” Ian yelled. The explosion swallowed his warning, spitting it back in a bursting ball of fire and white-hot debris.
Ian dropped Novak midstride and dived into Lara, catching her in a side tackle that sent her flying.
Blast on blast surged over them, raising dirt, shattering the air.
Lara waited for the ground to settle, then shook her head. The after-buzz faded from behind her ears.
“Get off me, hotshot.” Lara wiggled to emphasize her point. “I mean it—” She stopped, felt the slack in his muscles, the deadweight on
her back.
“Ian! Oh, God, Ian.” Lara leveraged her shoulder against the ground, then shifted her hips. “Hold on.” Rocks scraped her back, bit into her scalp. But desperation had her ignoring the pain as she worked herself out from beneath him.
Please, don’t let him die. Not because of me. She stripped off his mask. “Come on, hotshot! Talk to me,” she yelled. She pushed at his shoulder and hip until he rolled over. “Come on.” She placed her ear to his heart, heard the steady rhythm beneath her cheek. Relieved, she glanced at his face, tapped it with gentle fingers. “Wake up!”
“I’m up, sweetheart,” he murmured. “So you can stop shouting at me. I’m stunned, not deaf.” Ian groaned, then rubbed the back of his head. “Must’ve caught some flying debris.” Slowly, he sat up, looked around. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”
Novak. An engine revved and Lara swore. The sedan, with Novak behind the wheel, sped off, gravel and dirt clouding the headlight beams.
As she turned back to Ian, she caught sight of the briefcase lying ten feet away.
Lara didn’t waste time on arguing. She grabbed the case, then boosted Ian up using her frame to support his and staggered to where darkness rimmed the site.
“Well,” Lara commented, as she stared at the burning inferno. “This sucks.”
“Who the hell fired that rocket?” Ian asked while he surveyed the fire. With the right coordinates, the launcher could be a mile away.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Neither man would risk blowing up the rig. Not with one boss inside and the other owning the merchandise inside.” Lara shrugged herself out of his embrace and showed Ian the briefcase. “Maybe the answer is in here.”
“It wasn’t worth your life.” Ian half sat, half leaned against a small boulder. Lara curbed the urge to get close again. To feel the reassurance of his body next to hers.
“If you do something like this again, you’ll answer to me.”
“Is that a threat? Because if it is, you’ll have to do better to scare me.” Lara surveyed the area. Only the driver’s body hadn’t been destroyed by the fire. Lara walked over to him and went through his pockets. After a moment, she came up empty.
Ian sighed and shrugged off his gear. “I don’t think anything scares you. That’s most of your problem.” He snagged the infrared binoculars and scanned the perimeter to make sure their company had given up on them. “Our friend is long gone.”
“He’s not our anything.” Lara turned, grabbed the briefcase and stalked away. “He’s my problem.”
“Don’t you even want to know why I’m here?”
“Nope. I’m angry enough that you are,” she snapped, not breaking her stride. “Any time you try to help me with my problems, I end up with worse problems.” Like an unwanted pregnancy. “So do me a favor and just go away, before I kill you.”
“Frankly, Red, I’d thought you’d be more appreciative,” he said, not bothering to follow.
“Why? Because the infamous Orion—” Lara sneered Ian’s code name “—let my one lead go?” She looked over her shoulder. The flames from the fire cast him in an eerie light, making his features all angles, sharp and hollow. “Drop dead.” She turned back and continued walking.
“I let him go to save you.”
“Thank you.” Lara waved a careless hand in the air. “Don’t do me any more favors.” She glanced at the stars. Thought briefly about wishing on one for the first time in her life. Then automatically discarded the idea as nonsense. “Could my day get any worse?”
“If you’re heading for your SUV, you’re wasting time.”
Slowly, she swung back. “Why?”
“It has four flat tires.”
“Four flat—” Definitely worse.
“Good thing for you, I just happen to have a Hummer sitting about a quarter mile away. Interested?” he invited with a lazy arrogance.
“Of all the dirty—” She bit off the words, and for a moment stared into the darkness, forcing herself to draw in three long, deep breaths. Only after—when she’d calmed down a bit—did she answer. “Do I have a choice?”
“No, you don’t.”
Her nerve ends crackled while her mind ran through the complications Ian brought with his appearance. With reluctance, she started back toward him. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I followed you from the church. Then after, when you hightailed it out here.” He paused, considering. “And with no Katts Smeart, or am I mistaken?”
The fact that she hadn’t made his tail irked her more than the flat tires. If she hadn’t been distracted with the baby—his baby… “You’re not. There was a hiccup in the plan.”
“Some hiccup. The desert is a long way from Norfolk and headquarters, Red.”
He’d said headquarters. A muscle twitched in her jaw. “Cain told you about my operation?”
“That’s not all he told me.” The bonfire lit the area, giving Lara clear sight of Ian’s gaze, pausing deliberately on her stomach.
“Cain has a big mouth.” And she’d deal with it later, she vowed. “It’s not your baby.”
“Liar.”
Realizing her hand lay protectively over her belly, she jerked it away, balled it into a fist. “Damn it, Ian. This is exactly why I didn’t want you to know yet.”
“Then you were going to tell me.” Sarcasm saturated the air between them.
His attitude, his problem. She had her own to deal with. “Yes. But only after I had a chance to absorb it and figure out what I’m going to do.”
“You sound like you have a choice.” Two quick, masculine strides ate the distance between them. He grabbed her by the shoulders, his grip flexing with indecision on whether to shake her or not. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Lara snapped back. “Adoption maybe. Considering our lifestyles.”
“Let me tell you something,” he snarled. “I don’t like this pregnancy any better than you do. But never once did I consider walking away.” He brought her closer until only millimeters separated them. “And by God, neither will you.”
“What I do is my decision. I’ve had a little over twenty-four hours to deal with this. And it’s not like this baby was conceived in love.” She paused, absorbing the ache that slipped through her. “It was in anger, Ian.”
“Your anger, not mine.”
“Either way, this baby should’ve never happened.” Fear filled her—not the natural adrenaline rush that came with risk, but the instinct for survival. It was sheer terror that rose from her toes, poured out her skin in a cold, clammy sweat.
It was easier to deal with an insane priest, than the possibility of raising a child.
“Well, it did. So let’s start there.”
“No, let’s not. I only have time for one problem right now and it happens to be saving a few hundred people from dying,” Lara said, her finger jabbing her point into his chest. “I think that should get my full attention, don’t you?”
For a moment he didn’t say anything, but Lara knew him well enough that it took effort. “All right.” He bit out the agreement, his hands loosened. “We’ll solve your problem first. Together. Then we’ll deal with the future.”
“Fine,” Lara said, knowing she had little choice. Ian was the best damn tracker in the business. Better to know where he was at all times than to keep looking over her shoulder.
She stepped back, acknowledging the wave of relief when she’d put some distance between them. “But no one else gets involved. Not Cain, not Kate. No one.” Her gaze found his. “I want your word, Ian.”
“Since when do you trust my word? Or did you forget how that baby got in your belly in the first place?”
No she hadn’t forgotten. But she’d tried. “That was personal, this is business.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Red. It was all business.”
Her breath hissed—the painful jab catching her off guard.
Ian noticed it, was close enough to see the
bottle green of her eyes shatter. Regret hit him, low and mean. He’d never treated anyone this bad, especially a woman. His parents had raised him better. But damn it, Lara got under his skin.
Ever since he’d been a young boy, Ian had a knack for reading people at a glance—a trait he inherited from his mother. Lara was the exception. He’d never in his life read someone so wrong. “Fine. You want my word, you have it.” The words ground out through gritted teeth.
“Good,” she said, the word stiff and lifeless. “One more thing. The second you start throwing threats at me again about this baby, I disappear. And I don’t care how good you are, you won’t find me.”
Chapter Five
Anton Novak glanced up to the rearview mirror, eyeing the fire that raged in the distance.
The loss of merchandise had been necessary. After all, sacrifices had to be made. At least not all the crates had been full. A few explosives—mostly grenades and land mines. Enough to help with the explosion.
In fact, most underneath had lain empty. It would have been bad business to waste more than what Armand would’ve seen in the open.
His gaze dropped to the digital compass readout on the dash. Northeast. Good. It shouldn’t be long now.
Anton eased back into the seat, loosened his fingers on the wheel. Normally, he enjoyed the simple pleasure in driving—something he rarely did anymore.
Now that the operation had been set in motion, it would be a while before he relaxed again.
Within a half mile, Anton caught the distinct flashes of light. He brought the car to a stop.
The door opened and a man slid in beside him. “Well?” the man asked.
Anton noted how the old priest had to use both hands to shut the passenger door. “Are you okay, Father?”
“Just tired,” Father Xavier wheezed. He grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and coughed into it.
“Are you sure?” Anton asked, knowing blood now covered the cloth.
“Yes, yes.” The priest nodded impatiently, but still each breath came with difficulty. “It’s the dust. And the strain.” With a sigh, he settled his head back against the seat rest and closed his eyes.