“Did you take any of the research with you when you left the lab?”
She shook her head. “I thought you destroyed it all.”
“We destroyed what we could. But according to the soldiers blocking our way down there, someone made off with a thumb drive containing valuable data.”
“It wasn’t me. Or Dani. She was a prisoner.”
“So who was it?”
“The only person who had access was Bryan.”
Eric considered that. “Okay, let’s say he did. Why blame you?”
“I have no idea. Unless . . . this isn’t exactly Bryan’s milieu. He might be trying to get out of his relationship with Velasquez. If he says I ran off with the research, he won’t have to take the blame for the fact that they never actually made the process work. And if there was research, and he took it himself, he can go somewhere else and sell it to start over. Then he can tell Velasquez it was me who sold it so he doesn’t have to spend a lifetime looking over his shoulder.”
“So we assume there really is a drive. The existing records show someone downloaded a bunch of data from the Warlock servers before they were destroyed. Velasquez wants you back, but he wants the data, too, and wants to be certain no one else gets their hands on it. That’s good. Really good.”
“It is?”
“Sure. They know someone escaped in the little plane. Who, they can’t be certain. And if you did have this thumb drive, you’d no doubt have sent it along with Dani and Trey. So once we get you back to the States, we can pretend you have the data and use it as a bargaining chip, something to bait a trap for Velasquez with.”
“Of course, that means we have to get home.”
“We will. You just have to have a little faith.”
“In you? I do. In me . . . not so much.”
“You’re doing great.” Although he could no longer hear the soldiers, from his perch in the tree he could see pinpricks of light beginning to spread out, flashlights guiding their way through the dense forest. One man remained behind to guard the vehicles while the others created a starburst search pattern. They beat the bush with scythes and paddles but only rarely looked up. Jane took his hand and squeezed. He squeezed back, sending all his confidence into her through their linked fingers. Two soldiers paused feet away from their tree, examining the ground.
“They came through here!” one shouted to his companions. The others joined him there, and Jane curled into herself, making her body as small as possible.
The leader made a circling motion with his hand, and the men spread out again, eyes on the ground, hunting for a trail.
Eric counted off their distance. Ten yards. Twenty. Fifty. At sixty yards, he slipped down the tree and held out his arms to Jane to help her down, too. Silently, they worked their way toward the valley. When he was within range, Eric pulled a suppressor out of his pack and attached it to his pistol. With a single shot, he put down the truck guard. Soldier or not, the man had become a bounty hunter, and Eric couldn’t afford to worry about him. He put bullets through the tires of two of the Jeeps while Jane jumped into the third. He didn’t even have to hot-wire the thing, as the keys rested in the ignition. The engine turning over sounded like a call to arms, and he shoved Jane down and out of the way as much as possible while he sped out of the valley, climbing the hill on the opposite side, headed toward their rendezvous with the helo.
Shouting followed them. They’d been discovered. But they were making good time, and while the returning soldiers would no doubt call for backup, if he was lucky, he’d be able to put a good distance between them. Eventually, they’d have to abandon the Jeep—LZ Charlie could be accessed on foot or by air, but the tiny bare spot had been carved out of the thickest part of the jungle specifically to prevent vehicular access.
He aimed the Jeep on a course that would take them along a slope adjacent to the landing zone. With a little luck—not that they’d had much this mission—they’d evade pursuit long enough to get picked up. For the first hour, every muscle tensed in reaction to any breeze, any rustle in the woodlands. They were making much better time, but they were leaving tracks like the fucking dinosaurs and Jeeps weren’t built for stealth. If he weren’t so anxious to get to the LZ and so worried that Jane’s body was giving out, he’d have insisted on walking despite the SUV’s availability.
But no shots came, no one blocked their way, and he began to relax.
“Janie, grab my satellite phone out of the bag, okay?”
She found the phone, pulled it out, extended the antenna, and handed it over.
Nash picked up on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Close. Maybe two hours out. We found a Jeep, but I’m gonna abandon it soon so we don’t make the destination more obvious than necessary.”
“Do it. Travis already has the helo in place. After Miguel’s experience, I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Mac’s at the Brownsville property, and Travis snuck the chopper into LZ Charlie this afternoon without a problem. And Marco called in—he shook his tail, and he’ll be at the LZ any minute.”
Thank God something was going right.
“Ask him about Trey and Dani.”
“Good news, bad news,” Nash said. “They made it safely over the border. She’s in a trauma unit in a Dallas hospital. The bullet caused a fairly severe traumatic brain injury. I’ll be happier when we can fly her into New York, but right now they don’t want to move her.”
“What are the doctors saying? What’s the prognosis?” Jane curled her arms around her knees, and Eric wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear so he could reach over to stroke her back.
“According to Trey, they were ‘cautiously optimistic.’ Which he says is doctor speak for ‘covering their asses.’ He’s pissed off and looking for a fight.”
“He feels guilty.”
“Indeed. So do me a favor and find out who the damned American is so I can give him an assignment.”
“We’ll do our best. Heading into the LZ now.”
“Talk to you later.” Nash signed off and Eric squeezed Jane’s shoulder.
“Okay, baby, you ready for a bit more hiking?”
“Sure. I’m much better.”
In the dim light of the risen moon, he could see that she had regained some of her natural color, and the lines pain had cut into her cheeks seemed shallower. His tension eased a trifle. “Okay. I’m going to put a hole in the gas tank so they can’t use the Jeep and so, if they check, they’ll see we have a legit reason for leaving it behind.” The sabotage took only a moment, and then they were on their way, forcing through the ever-thickening growth.
The forest ended abruptly, but Eric didn’t step into the clearing. The trees had been deliberately cut away, leaving behind a tangle of vines, grass, and brush. In the center of the clearing, moonlight reflected off the shiny black skin of a UH-72 Lakota. Eric would have preferred a Black Hawk for simple firepower, but the Lakota aroused a lot less suspicion. Her rotors were still, but the lights glowed and Marco stood guard on one side. On the other side, Eric could see the legs of a second person. Jane started to step forward, but he held her back.
“Wait.” He pulled a small wooden whistle out of his pocket and blew through it, creating the sound of a scissor-tailed flycatcher, then fixed his eyes on Marco as he slid the birdcall back into his pocket. But Marco did not respond. Instead, he checked the clip on his weapon and paced a few steps around the chopper.
Not good.
Voices shouted in the woods behind them.
“Eric?” Jane whispered.
“We need to work our way around to the other side of the clearing so I can get eyes on the pilot.” If Travis was okay, they had a chance. Jane crept along behind him, pushing through the dense shrubs and tangled vines as quietly as possible. The hunting party behind them had no such restrictions, and their shouts and crashes
came closer by the second. Eric paused as soon as he caught a glimpse of Travis standing outside the chopper. He tried the bird whistle again.
“I’m telling you,” Travis said loudly, taking a single step away from the chopper, then turning back, “I was only contracted to pick up Marco here. That’s it. They told me he was on the run and needed an evac.”
An unintelligible rumble followed, giving Eric the information he needed. The claw was closing. Nash had sent them to Charlie fearing Bravo would be compromised, but clearly all the landing zones were too obvious—the Hijos men must have staked them all out, knowing airlift was the best way to get Jane out of the country. Time to take the fight to them. They’d undoubtedly disabled Marco’s weapon and would be holding a gun on Travis from inside the chopper where they were out of his sightline.
“Climb up and stay as quiet as you can,” he said, indicating a thickly leaved tree a couple of feet to their left. “Whatever happens, whatever you see or hear, do not come out of hiding.” He handed her a gun. “Take this. In case anything goes wrong.”
Once she was hidden, he backtracked toward the sounds of pursuit. He ghosted carefully from tree to tree, just another shadow among a hundred.
The first scout went down easily, quietly. A quick, two-handed twist broke his neck before he could warn anyone of Eric’s presence. The next four clustered together, however, and Eric had no hope of taking them without alerting the rest of the team. He took down two with bullets, but the angle of the shots gave away his position, and the others fired in his direction. He dodged through the woods, ducking and weaving, keeping tree trunks as protection as he aimed toward the clearing but away from Jane.
• • •
SWEAT TRICKLED DOWN Jane’s cheeks, creating itchy runnels. But two men had paused beneath her tree, and she didn’t dare move her hand to scratch. The crack and echo of a shot rang out, and one of the men ran toward the sound, but the other remained. He leaned against the tree and lit up a smoke. Why was this guy so casual? She squinted down through the branches to study him.
Bryan. That little shit. Hanging back, waiting to see how the fight turned out, caring only for his own skin.
Eric had said to stay hidden, but Eric hadn’t known that Bryan would park himself right under her very tree. Bryan knew the American investor’s identity. And he was a wimp. He’d give it up to save his own skin in a flat second.
She considered the figure beneath her for a long moment. Was attacking Bryan a rational decision? Might it be better to wait for Eric? But what if Bryan ran when he realized his side had lost the fight? Or, worse, what if his side didn’t lose? Might it not be a good idea to have a prisoner?
She shifted position slightly and retrieved the gun she’d stuffed down her pants to climb the tree. Beneath her, Bryan took a step forward, peering through the trees. Now or never. She launched herself out and flattened him. For a second, she thought she’d knocked him unconscious, but he regained his breath and fought back, hollering for help as he shoved her away.
“Shut up or I’ll shoot you!” she shouted, pointing the gun at him. He backed up slightly, then laughed. Laughed.
“You wouldn’t. Too much respect for human life and all that crap.”
“You’re not human. You’re slime. Worth less than the scum floating on the top of a swimming pool. And I have no problem chlorinating a pool.”
“Bull.” He sprang toward her, and, indeed, she could not shoot him. But she could whack him upside the head with the gun three times until he stopped trying to fight back and lay still and silent in the dirt. Had she killed him? But no, his chest still rose and fell. She’d aimed for his temple and apparently gotten it, causing him to black out. How long it would last was anyone’s guess, but she would take advantage of the time she had.
Quickly, she searched through his pockets, hoping for anything with which to tie him up, but found nothing. Time to get creative. Using the knife he had strapped to one leg—for show, obviously, since he’d not made a single move toward it while she held him at gunpoint—she cut the sleeves off his long-sleeved tee, wrung out the moisture, and used one to tie his arms behind his back. His feet she left alone.
She couldn’t carry him, so he needed to be able to walk. But the other sleeve functioned nicely as a gag.
She was looking around for something to use to wake him up when he shook his head and began to struggle. Behind the gag, he shouted, and his eyes cursed her.
“Get up,” she ordered.
He lay still, daring her to force him.
“Get up. You may have been right that I was reluctant to kill you, but I think I’ve proven myself more than happy to hurt you.” She brandished the knife in what she hoped was a menacing—and not ridiculous—manner.
Bryan crawled to his feet. “Oo’ll ee sowwy,” he said around the gag.
Yeah, probably, but not for the reasons Bryan meant. Eric was going to be furious. Now that she had him, she wasn’t even sure what to do with him. Keep him here, away from the action? Or force him forward, use him as a bargaining chip? Was he worth anything to Velasquez, or would he get shot the minute they showed themselves? Because that would defeat the purpose of having taken him.
“Who’s the American investor?”
He glared at her.
“Look, that’s all I want from you. I’ll let you go if you tell me who he is and where the data is stored so we can collect it. I know you wouldn’t have risked leaving it all on the servers at the lab. It’s uploaded somewhere. Just tell me where it is, how to access it, and I’ll let you go.”
Nothing.
“Fine.” She poked him in the back with the gun until he moved toward the clearing. At the edge, she grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him to a halt. He squealed behind the gag, but the men in the clearing either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. She pulled him an extra step backward and hid them both behind a tree trunk.
Eric was nowhere to be seen, but Marco’s eyes paused on her before passing along in their constant surveillance of the area. Suddenly, a canister rolled and bounced to the center of the clearing, right beneath the helicopter.
Eric. It had to be.
“Grenade!” shouted someone she couldn’t see. She pulled Bryan even farther back as a violent explosion of gray smoke erupted from the canister, poisoning the air. The smoke tickled the back of her nose and throat, making her desperate to sneeze, and she squeezed her nose between her fingers to stay quiet.
“Hold your positions, dammit!” shouted a man’s voice. “It’s nothing but smoke! They won’t hurt the chopper!”
A second canister bumped into the clearing, and Jane instinctively closed her eyes. A split second later, an enormous crash shook the earth beneath her feet and the world beyond her eyelids lit up like a carnival. Men were screaming, or so she thought, but her ears didn’t seem to be working well.
Over the rumbling echoes of the flashbang, she heard the sharp staccato of shots being fired. Then the engine of the helicopter came to life, and against her sweaty skin she felt the push of air from the rotating blades. She peeked out from behind the tree where she’d hidden and saw the smoke beginning to dissipate. A man lay beneath the helicopter, with another leaning over him, cuffing him. Eric held Eduardo Velasquez at gunpoint, and Marco had two dead men at his feet while a third knelt with hands raised.
“Move,” she ordered Bryan. When he refused, she stuck the knife in his back just enough so the point pierced his clothing, and he shuffled forward.
At the edge of the clearing, just as he stepped into it, he shouted behind the gag and stumbled. The thin material of the T-shirt she’d been holding on to tore, and he fell forward, leaving her exposed. All heads swung their way, and the frozen tableau erupted into motion. The man kneeling in front of Marco grabbed a pistol from the waistband of his pants and aimed upward, but before he could get a shot off, Eric’s bullet took
him out. Eduardo took off running for the edge of the woods. Marco fired a single shot, and Eduardo stumbled forward and fell, head smacking a tree stump with a sound Jane would hear in her dreams for the rest of her life.
The cuffed man remained where he was but twisted to the side so he could watch what was going on.
“What the fuck, Jane? Did I or did I not tell you to stay put?”
“We couldn’t afford to risk Bryan getting away! He knows where the data is!” But she couldn’t explain further—she had no time. Two men emerged from the forest behind her. One grabbed her, and without thinking, she swung around and put a bullet into his gut. The recoil knocked the gun from her hand, and more men appeared, cutting her off from Eric and Marco.
“Go!” Eric shouted.
Jane ran. She would be caught—there was no question about it—but if enough of Velasquez’s men followed her, Eric might have a chance to escape. She crashed along, zigzagging randomly as gunshots echoed behind her. Voices shouting in Spanish bounced off the trees, seeming to come from every direction. How many men had Velasquez sent?
“Alto! Stop or I will shoot!”
Yeah, right. Velasquez wanted her alive. She dodged around a thick trunk, only to find herself tackled by two large, sweaty men who forced her to the ground.
“Aquí! Nosotros la tenemos!”
• • •
GODDAMMIT, THEY WERE so fucking close. What could be so important about Bryan and the damn data that Jane would risk her own life? He picked off two of the men who came through the woods, then shouted for Marco to cover him. Bryan was struggling to his feet, and Eric had no intention of losing him. With Marco’s bullets flying by on both sides, he slammed the man into the ground. Bryan squirmed and twisted, trying to get free.
“Give me an excuse. Just one,” he growled, and the man stilled.
“Get the fuck in the chopper!” Travis shouted. “Only way out right now is up!”
Eric dragged Bryan over and threw him into the helicopter. Travis was already lifting off when Marco heaved himself inside and began firing down at the men pouring into the clearing.
Mind Games Page 20