The stock recoiled against her shoulder like a jack-hammer. It hurt like hell, but she kept firing.
The chopper rose…fifteen feet, twenty…and she kept firing. The gun jammed.
Dallas swore, reached around her and ejected the jammed cartridge, hand-fed the belt.
“Go!” he yelled as the chopper rose higher.
Amy leaned on the trigger, tracers flying, cartridges hammering the tail of the craft, which suddenly wobbled, then spun around. The nose dove and the bird started spinning out of control.
“Gawd damn! You hit the Jesus nut!” Dallas yelled, awe in his voice, as they watched the bird lurch and whirl and finally drop like an anvil.
Amy watched the helicopter fall, then crash hard at a thirty-degree angle. The main rotor chopped into the earth like a scythe.
Stunned, she caught her breath, stared at the wreckage. “What’s a Jesus nut?” she asked absently.
Dallas laughed. “It’s the bolt that holds the tail rotor, dead eye. You take it out and whoever’s in that bird is going to see Jesus. Help me up.”
With one eye on the downed chopper, Amy stood and helped Dallas to his feet.
“Is it going to explode?” she asked, supporting his weight with his arm slung over her shoulder, all the while searching for movement in the cockpit.
He grunted, shifted his weight to his good leg. “It’s possible.”
The cockpit door swung open, hung crookedly on one hinge. A man stumbled out.
Amy felt every cell in her body tense. Was it him? Was it her grandfather? There was only one way to find out.
Heart kicking like the M-60, she forgot about Dallas. Forgot about anything but heading toward the crippled bird.
“Amy! Stop!” Dallas yelled, catching himself from falling with a hand on the building.
But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. She kept going. As Dallas swore and roared and ordered her back.
Five yards were all that separated her from the craft before she slowed down, finally stopped. A man stood in profile, head down, leaning unsteadily against the tail section. An old man. A thin trail of blood ran down the side of his face, dripped off his nose to the ground.
Rain washed down in a steady stream. She brushed damp hair from her eyes, absently wondered when she’d lost the watch cap. Her complete focus remained on the man by the chopper.
Heart hammering, she squared her shoulders. Called out.
“Edward Walker?”
He didn’t respond.
“Aldrick Reimers,” she said into the silence punctuated by the sporadic background fire of M-4s and the answer of Ak-47s.
Very slowly, his head came up. He looked at her.
And for the first time she saw his face. Pale. Sunken. Ravaged by time.
Yet she recognized him unmistakably her grandfather.
She’d seen enough photographs.
Stared at them enough times.
Had no doubt.
He squinted through rheumy old eyes. Then shook his head in disgust. “You look just like her.”
Amy breathed deep as something cold and hollow slithered through her.
“You bastard.” She held his watery gaze. “You cold-blooded, vile excuse for a human being.”
Inside she felt a scream of rage build to a roar. So it surprised her that her voice sounded steady, calm.
“She was your daughter. How could you…how could you violate her? Destroy her mind. Take away her life?”
Her face was wet. From the rain. From her tears. She’d always thought…always thought when she finally found him, confronted him, she would feel nothing but loathing. Nothing but disgust and revulsion and an endless torrent of hatred so huge and strong that no other emotion could break through.
And yet as she stood there, the inescapable truth haunted her.
This is my grandfather.
This is my flesh and blood.
And through the hatred, she felt a loss so acute, so disabling, she could do nothing but stand there, frozen in pain as he shifted then leaned back against the disabled chopper. The hand that had been hidden behind him held a gun.
He lifted it.
Pointed it at her.
“From the first day you came bawling and squalling into the world, you have been nothing but an albatross around my neck.”
She closed her eyes. And in that moment, she just wanted it to be over. The pain. The despair. The horrible truth of her life.
She braced herself.
A shot rang out.
She flinched. Waited.
For some sensation.
A jolt.
A burn.
A pain that eclipsed the ache caused by this man who should have loved her.
Then she felt him behind her.
Dallas.
She opened her eyes to see Edward Walker slump and fall to the ground.
Beside her now, Dallas lowered his Sig.
“It’s over,” he said. “It’s over.”
She leaned into him. The air hung heavy with the scent of gun powder, rain and a despair so huge it consumed her.
Numb with the weight of it, she watched as the old man breathed his last breath then lay still on the ground. Edward Walker—a monster who had destroyed without remorse, tortured without conscience—was finally dead. Dead. As final as it was, for as long as she lived, Amy knew that for herself, for her mother, for all the tormented souls he’d abused—that it was still way too little justice, carried out with too much mercy, delivered way too late.
Gabe left the clean up to Lang and Reed. It hadn’t taken long to rout out the last of the poorly trained security forces and take them out.
He’d seen the chopper drop. Wanted to see for himself if Erich Adler had been on board. Wanted to see the bastard dead.
What he found was Dallas on the ground, Amy leaning over him.
“How bad?” he asked, standing over them.
“Just bad enough to piss me off,” Dallas grumbled.
“He needs medical attention,” Amy said using her Ka-Bar to slice off a piece of Dallas’ shirt sleeve and tie around his upper arm.
Gabe eyed the wound, the blood on Garrett’s pant leg. “And you still took it down?”
Dallas grunted. “Not me.”
It took a lot to surprise Gabe these days. Amy Walker didn’t weigh much more than the M-60. And she’d shot a bird out of the sky with it. He figured her shoulder had to hurt like hell.
“Walker is dead. Go check,” Dallas said with a nod toward the wreckage. “See if there’s anyone alive.”
Jones gave Garrett a long look, decided he was okay and walked toward the downed bird. M-14 in hand, he approached the crash site.
One dead on the ground. Walker. Gabe used his foot to turn him onto his back, confirm that he wasn’t breathing.
Silence, but for the ping of the cooling turbo engine and the hiss from a knot of leaking hoses. Smoke curled up from under the motor hood. The stench of fuel and oil, strong and thick, overpowered the scent of loam and rain.
The cockpit door hung open at a cockeyed angle. The interior lights hummed and flickered but still burned. There were two men inside. Both appeared to be dead.
Gabe reached over the man in the passenger seat and pulled back the pilot’s head by his hair.
His face was covered in blood, but Gabe recognized him Erich Adler.
Gabe wanted to feel joy in his death. Adler was a monster. A murderer.
But all Gabe felt was hollow. He’d wanted Adler himself. Wanted to make him pay, slowly and painfully. For what he’d done to Angelina. For what the bastard had taken from him.
“You knew him?”
His shoulders tensed when he heard Jenna McMillan’s voice close behind him. He collected himself, didn’t turn around.
“Yeah. I knew him.”
“Bad guy, huh?” Her voice sounded small and uncertain. Not at all like the mouthy reporter he’d grown to know and tolerate.
He nodded. “Very bad guy.”<
br />
“What…what about the other one?”
Gabe pulled back his head. He didn’t know him, but he recognized him from the dossier he had on MC6.
“Henry Fleischer. The witch doctor. He had a real penchant for electricity.”
Gabe leaned further in to the cockpit, found twin briefcases on the floor. He grabbed them both, handed them back to Jenna.
“Don’t lose those,” he said. “I have a feeling we’re going to want to read what’s inside.”
He turned then. Saw Amy still kneeling over Garrett. Jenna must have brought her Lang’s first aid kit. She was playing doctor like crazy while Garrett grudgingly tolerated all the attention.
“We need to get out of here.”
For once Jenna McMillan didn’t have a response.
She nodded, looking lost and more than a little shocky as she stood in the rain, soaked to the skin.
Finally, she lifted her face to his. Her cheeks were streaked with rain and face paint. Her hair fell in sodden chunks out the watch cap. Her green eyes were misty. “So much death.”
Yeah. So fucking much death.
“Come on,” he said, feeling an uncharacteristic twinge of empathy. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It took both Jones and Amy to help Dallas back to the rally point, even though he insisted all the way that he could walk.
Amy knew different. The wounds weren’t deep, but there was muscle damage in his leg. He was bleeding again by the time they reached the Suburban.
Jenna trailed behind, lugging the two briefcases. She was silent. Very silent.
She was strong. She’d be okay. They’d all be okay. Please, God, Amy prayed, working to staunch the blood flow in Dallas’ leg, let them all be all right.
“Where are Lang and Reed?” she asked Gabe after they’d carefully settled Dallas sideways into the backseat of the Suburban and propped up his leg.
“Finishing up. We’ll wait.”
Amy wanted to argue. She wanted to get Dallas to a doctor. But she understood. You didn’t leave men who had fought for you.
So they waited.
It wasn’t long before they appeared over the hill. Reed carried the M-60 and Lang’s rifle. Lang carried something big and bulky over his shoulder.
A body, Amy realized.
Raul. Their man inside.
She hadn’t any more than digested the carnage they were leaving behind when a blast rocked the earth beneath her feet. A secondary explosion followed, then a rapid succession of booms split the air. Smoke and flames billowed up and boiled into the sky.
They’d destroyed the compound. The bunkers. The barracks. Even the helicopter. MC6 was gone. Along with it, the men who had made it what it was. A heinous torture chamber for dozens of lost souls. Amy only hoped that somewhere, somehow, the victims knew that someone had cared. Someone had sought and fought for justice.
Dawn burst over the valley in shades of pearl and lavender. The clouds began to break as they drove back to the road in silence. On another day, in another time, Jenna would have marveled at the beauty of the sun’s first rays bouncing off the glittering white slopes of the Andes.
Another time, when she wasn’t numbed by the carnage she’d seen. By the near-death experience of being pinned down by enemy fire.
She’d covered firefights in Iraq, but always with full combat gear. And always they’d been minor skirmishes and always she’d been on the side with the numbers and the firepower.
In the thick of the night, in the sights of bad, bad men, they hadn’t had the numbers. They’d had no advantage at all.
And yet they had won.
She supposed she ought to feel a certain…she didn’t know. Concern, maybe. Guilt even that what happened back there had been an unsanctioned, illegal assault. Vigilante justice, some would call it. Taking the law into their own hands.
And maybe it should bother her that all she felt was an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. Good had triumphed over evil.
She glanced at Jones from the passenger seat. Couldn’t quite muster any contempt for him this morning. He was a hard man doing hard jobs, jobs few men had the backbone or the nerve to do. He did his job well. Scary well. Like a machine. On auto pilot. Not once had she seen him falter or swerve from doing what had to be done.
Yeah. Scary.
Because of him and the others, she was alive. To tell the story. A story that needed to be told…if and when she found the stomach to relive it.
He stopped the vehicle suddenly, then got out. Jenna craned her neck to see Lang and Reed’s Bronco brake behind them, only then realizing they were at a fork in the road.
It wasn’t long before Reed poked his gorgeous face in the window. He grinned at Jenna, then Amy, then at Dallas, who lay with his head on Amy’s lap in the backseat. “You take care now, ya hear?”
“You too,” Dallas said with a meaningful look. “Thanks.”
“Anytime, man. You can watch my six any day.” Then Reed was gone and Jones eased back behind the wheel.
Jenna shifted to her hip, looked out the rearview window as they took off, watched the Bronco swing onto the left fork and drive out of sight.
Brave men, she thought again.
“How are you doing?” she asked Dallas, another man who had been willing to lay down his life to right several wrongs.
“I’ve cut myself worse shaving,” he said.
“Yeah, right,” Jenna said. His face was pale beneath what was left of his cammo paint. A thin sheen of perspiration covered his brow.
He was hurting. Hurting bad, but it was clear he’d never admit it.
“It’s going to be several hours before we can get him medical attention,” Jones said with a glance at Amy. “Better start pushing antibiotics.”
It proved to be among the longest several hours of Jenna’s life. She’d known it was going to be when less than an hour later, Jones pulled the Suburban off the road, then stripped a camouflage netting off of a small, battered plane.
“No,” she said, her heart dropping to her knees.
“Yes,” Amy said. “Brace yourself.”
“There’s a little matter of fuel.” Dallas lifted his head when he realized where they were.
“Don’t worry,” Jones said. “The fuel fairies have been here. Reclusive little critters—but they always come through.”
Once they got past the takeoff, it was a quiet ride. At least the four of them were quiet. The little twin engines coughed and sputtered and the wings shuttered in the wind currents.
Amy couldn’t help but grin when Jenna asked Jones about a parachute. Jones had given Jenna the same smile he’d given Amy when she’d asked.
With a sinking “ohmygod,” Jenna had buckled her seat belt and closed her eyes. Then Jones had revved the engines to full throttle and plowed down the grass strip.
What seemed like seconds later, they’d been airborne.
“Um. Would you mind letting go of my thigh?” Jones grated out with a glance toward Jenna. “The circulation is starting to go.”
Amy grinned when Jenna jerked her hand away like it had been burned. “Sorry.”
“Relax,” Jones said, and to Amy’s surprise, he actually sounded a little sympathetic. Of course he had to ruin it. “I’d have figured a world-famous reporter like you would have flown in any number of risky transports in your time.”
“Risky is the operative word,” Jenna managed. “This isn’t a risk. It’s a piece of shit. A damn death trap.”
“There’s that gratitude again. I guess I should have let you walk out.”
Amy waited for Jenna to fire back another volley. Was surprised, again, when she didn’t. She just sucked in a serrated breath and stared straight ahead.
Frankly, Amy could have used the distraction of a little bickering between the two of them. Dallas worried her. He was either sleeping or he’d passed out in the backseat of the Piper beside her. And that damn leg…
“He’s bleeding again,�
� she told Jones. “How long to Buenos Aires?”
“I have a friend. A doctor,” Jones said. “She has a place in Bahia Blanca. Private landing strip. We’ll go there. It’s not much further.”
Amy brushed the hair back from Dallas’ face. His forehead felt clammy. His color wasn’t good.
“He’ll be fine.” Jones’ unsolicited reassurance surprised her. “He’ll be fine,” he repeated. “Get some rest. Both of you,” he added, including Jenna in the suggestion.
He was right. Amy was exhausted. Jenna had to be too. Of course, Jones couldn’t be in much better shape. But he looked confident and strong in the pilot seat.
Amy closed her eyes. Decided not to fight it.
Worry about the things you can do something about.
It was an axiom one of her foster mothers had lived by. Worrying over something out of your control defeats you. Accept the things you can’t change. Change the things you can.
She couldn’t change the fact that Dallas was hurt. Couldn’t change the fact that they were airborne in this flying death trap. Couldn’t change the outcome of the landing.
So she let go. Gave in to the pull of exhaustion—only to come wide awake what seemed like moments later when the wheels of the Piper touched the ground.
“Wow. That was fast.”
“You slept,” Jenna said. “For about an hour.”
Another surprise.
An even bigger one awaited them when the plane taxied to a standstill.
They’d landed on a long carpet of green. To their right, a cliff face dropped a good fifty feet straight down to the pounding surf of the big blue water of the South Atlantic, sparkling like a jewel in the mid-morning sun.
To their left, a huge house—European in design with gothic arches, ornate gabled windows and expansive covered porticos—stood like a pearl on a nest of green growing plants and flowers. And walking toward them, a colorful skirt dancing in the breeze off the ocean, was one of the most stunningly beautiful women Amy had ever seen.
“Holy cow,” Jenna whispered, her awe apparent.
Long, wavy hair, the color of roasted chestnuts, lifted with the wind. She walked tall and proud, her full breasts and round hips screaming sex appeal.
But it was her face that drew the eye and held it. Her complexion was the color of honey, her eyes wide and intelligent. There was drama in her face. Artful. Subtle. Breathtaking. Mature.
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