She appeared relatively unharmed, dressed in a flowing black tunic and pants.
“Eyes on little bird. Need back up now,” Merc watched helplessly from his position outside the castle wall as J crossed to her, the inherent power of a predator in his movements.
He dragged her into the light. Caroline tried to struggle, but J kept going, throwing her to the floor at his feet in the center of the room.
“Moving now.” TF-S was headed this way. Hunter didn't need to say his ETA. His team could move at lightning-fast speed on foot, covering two klicks in record time – twelve minutes a klick.
J said something and then struck Caroline on the face, sending her into a sprawl on the floor. Merc nearly crushed the binocs as rage churned inside. “I’m going in.”
“Negative. Wait for backup.”
J advanced on Caroline, towering over her small frame as he yanked her to her feet again. Another blow to her face and this time Caroline didn’t move when she hit the floor. “Dammit, he’s going to fucking kill her.”
Merc shoved his binocs into his pants pocket and jumped to his feet. He took off at a crouched run to the east wall, slamming his back against the concrete surface as he looked down at his watch. Fifteen seconds.
There was no way she’d last long enough waiting on his backup to arrive, and Merc wouldn’t take the chance on her life. Just like he wouldn’t miss his opportunity to question Mr. J.
“Hold position, en route,” Hunter said.
Merc yanked out his rappelling gun. He’d have to move fast; the roving patrols were almost in position for him to breach.
Hunter’s voice crackled in his ear again. “Dammit, Merc, wait for backup.”
Caroline’s scream shot out through the night sky. Merc checked his watch again. Eight seconds. “Can’t.”
He turned and faced the wall, lifting the small rappelling gun. Three. Two. One. He fired. Metal flew through the air and chinked into the top corner of the wall. Merc triggered the pulley and his feet lifted off the ground.
He grabbed the wall, pulled himself up and peered over the edge into the empty courtyard. With lightning-quick reflexes, he yanked himself up on top of the wall, quickly replacing the small gun at his hip, and jumped down to land silently on the pads of his feet in the paved courtyard. A quick glance at his watch revealed he had less than forty-five seconds to make it to the balcony and disappear over its edge.
Like a machine, he ran straight for the balcony overhead. When he was nearly underneath, he fired the rappelling gun and leapt into the air. Using his momentum, he slung his feet upward and flipped over the edge of the balcony, landing in a crouch just to the left of the open archway. He crept to the side of the open doorway, keeping his body plastered the wall.
Caroline’s soft, scared voice drifted out. “I don’t know anything. I told you.”
Merc heard another thud, the sickening sound of a fist smacking into flesh, and his gut twisted. He yanked his pistol from its holster and spun into the room, weapon raised, and took aim for J’s head.
J had Caroline clutched in front of him with a needle pressed against her jugular, but that wasn't what gave Merc pause. It was the black vest with rows upon rows of explosives hanging on Caroline's torso and a small black button clutched in the hand wrapped around her waist.
A satisfied smile curled J's lips, crinkling the fine lines around his eyes. Silver colored his midnight-black hair, his age finally starting to show, but doing nothing to hide the evil emanating from his pores. “So the prodigal son returns.”
Something sinister burst inside Merc. It was too full of evil to be called hate; it was something else. Some ugly monster born and nurtured out of the need for revenge. “Don't call me son, bastard.”
“Now, now, if it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn't be the man you are today.” Mr. J hitched his arm up higher around Caroline's throat, and she clutched at his arm reflectively, her tiny hands like a kitten trying to fight off a tiger.
Merc felt his muscles rip around his bones. His grip tightened on the pistol aimed straight on Mr. J's right eye. “I always knew you were a sick bastard, but kidnapping women at their wedding? It's not really your style.”
“I never really considered myself a man of style. It's too predictable. How long did it take you to track me down? Two years? I knew where you were every second of every day.”
“The two years were worth it, since you're going to die tonight.” J would pay blood for blood for every single death.
“Am I really? I don't think I feel like dying tonight.”
Merc didn't like the satisfaction lingering in J’s expression, but then again, he didn't really give a fuck either. “Let the girl go. This is between you and me.”
“You don't give the orders. I do.” Mr. J's gaze darkened slightly. “And what you're going to do right now is holster that weapon.”
“Not a chance.” Merc didn’t move.
Mr. J pressed the needle harder against Caroline's throat and she swallowed convulsively, silently begging him to rescue her. A protective instinct unlike any he’d ever felt welled deep inside.
“I think we both know that although I enjoy holding this power over the senator, I won't hesitate to sink this needle into her neck. Do you know how many different types of poisons are out there? No, you wouldn't. I never taught you about poisons, did I? This particular little concoction is a derivative of nightshade, one of the deadliest plants on the planet.” Mr. J spoke calmly and without emotion, except for the banked glee of being in control that even he couldn't disguise. “The active ingredient adheres to the cells and breaks them apart, killing the host from the inside out. And it doesn't happen in seconds. It takes hours. Long, agonizing hours of suffering and intense pain and knowing that you're going to die.”
Merc's finger shifted, itching to end J’s life, but unable to take the risk. If J’s finger so much as twitched on the button, they’d all die. If he even nicked her skin with the needle, Caroline Cotter would die. He had no doubt that Mr. J held poison to her throat.
“Do you really want to cause her that much suffering? Are you willing to do that just to get back at me for some falsely perceived injustice against you?”
“Falsely perceived injustice?” How could J even say that? “There's no false perception about your betrayal. You tried to have my entire team murdered. Did you really think we would let your raid on our homes go? Your attack could have killed my teammates’ families.”
“Only after you came after me and mine.”
“What about faking your own death? Putting us at risk on that mission in the Indus Valley? What the fuck was that?” Merc countered.
TF-S had risked their lives to rescue Mr. J, who at the time had been a valued asset to their team. But J had set up a trap, a staged death to try and cover his treason, and in the process, one of their teammates had been taken captive and killed.
“There were things happening in the CIA, things you didn't know about and wouldn't understand. I had to get out. I was left no choice.” J’s voice radiated serious honesty, but Merc didn't believe a damn word.
“Bullshit. You wanted money and you wanted power and you finally figured out a way to get it. That's all there is to it.”
“Or is there something happening in the government that you don't know about? Something dark and insidious that I could only stop if I went completely black?”
Merc sneered. “The only motivation behind your actions was greed. Now let the girl go. Do something good for once in your goddamn miserable life.”
Mr. J shook his head with patronization, and Merc felt his skin crawl. “What's going to happen is Caroline and I are leaving. I'm not through with her yet, and you – you're going to just stand there and watch. I don't want to kill you. I’ve always thought of you like a son.” J took a step back, hauling Caroline back with him. “I hate that it’s come to this, but I need her more than I need you.”
Caroline paled, her already porcelain skin losing even
more color. A hopeless desperation crawling across her fragile features, begging him to save her life.
The need to fire his pistol roared through him.
Dammit. His team wouldn't be here for at least another fifteen minutes. What the fuck was he going to do? Every step J took was another foot between him and his past. Another step closer to losing Caroline.
Caroline glanced down and then back up, her head bobbing with the fierceness of the movement.
No. Merc projected that thought with all his force, wishing he had some secret telepathic ability. If she tried to escape herself — dammit, if she jerked even the slightest to the right — the needle would pierce her flesh.
She frantically looked down and up again, and Merc knew he could no more stop her attempt than he could bring back his memory without J’s help.
With intense focus, the kind born from years of training, he honed in on Mr. J, watching Caroline only in his periphery. The minute she twitched, he’d pull the trigger. Screw it. If J pushed the button, at least the fucker himself would die right along with them. And even though Merc would never get the answers about his past, answers only Mr. J knew, at least Merc would die with the satisfaction of knowing the evil bastard was no longer walking the planet.
Without warning, J shoved Caroline forward, pulled out his own pistol and fired. The loud retort of gunfire boomed in the room. Caroline plunged into Merc’s chest, almost as if she’d been thrown. He caught her before she slid to the ground, her mouth open on a silent scream, her warm, sticky blood oozing over his arm.
His blood froze at her rapidly weakening body, and still he couldn’t help but glance up, searching for J.
“Please, get me out.” She coughed, her nails digging into his arm.
He stared down at her, not speaking, knowing he was a bastard for wishing he could go after J. Knowing that if he saved her, he’d lose the opportunity of finally laying hands on the man responsible for the nightmare of his life.
If he had honor, wouldn’t he choose her without question? Or had J imprinted on him far more than he realized, leaving Merc filled with his own sense of indifference and inhumanity? Merc watched her strength drain and her knees buckle, his arm the only thing holding her upright. He knew she would die if he went after J. Could he sacrifice an innocent person for his own gain, just like the man he despised?
He had to decide — his past and revenge or saving Caroline.
A soft beep pinged. Merc shoved Caroline away from his body, ignoring her agonized moan as he held her at arm’s length. A small digital clock with red numbers started counting down on the vest strapped to her chest. Thirty seconds. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.
Merc glanced at the empty doorway J disappeared through, longing nearly taking him to his knees. He’d come so close.
The clock timer continued to beep with every second of the countdown. Twenty-two. Twenty-one.
“Get it off,” Caroline’s soft voice rasped with pain.
Mr. J may have pulled off another escape, but Merc wasn’t going to die today, too.
Eighteen. Seventeen. Sixteen.
He ripped his knife from his belt and sliced straight down the front of her chest, taking the risk the bombs weren't pressure sensitive. In one second he ripped the IED from her body and tossed it across the room. The next, he slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, blood running freely now down his arm and chest from her gunshot wound as he sprinted to the balcony.
The digital clock beeped with every step. Merc ripped out the rappelling gun with his left hand, locking his other arm around Caroline's legs like a steel band. He jumped up and over the balcony. Fired the gun. Heard the chink of metal pierce the concrete. Felt the resistance as it slowed his downward fall.
Then he was on the ground, running for the front gate. Guards shouted around them, running in frenzied confusion. Merc pounded across the flagstone, sweat dripping down his face as quickly as Caroline’s blood ran down his body.
His breath was loud and harsh in his own ears; he barely heard the yells of the guards. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Five feet. Almost there.
He felt a shift in the night air, knew the second before the bomb exploded.
BOOM!
Merc was thrown forward, tossed through the air, holding on to Caroline with all his strength. He hit the ground with enough force to knock the oxygen from his body. The violent explosion threw shrapnel and debris everywhere. Merc wrapped his big body around Caroline’s tiny one, trying to shield her from the fallout.
Ears roaring and ringing, he lay there trying to get his scattered wits. Got to move.
Merc climbed to his knees in a daze. The flames leapt to the sky in bright dancing orange streams as huge plumes of smoke blacked out the stars. Where the palace once stood, a large crater now filled its place. As if in slow motion his gaze drifted down, taking in multiple dark scars in the sand.
Bodies.
Lots of bodies.
Chest tight, Merc stumbled to his feet, keeping his stance wide so he wouldn't fall flat on his face as he swam through waves and waves of dizziness. His back burned hot and blood trickled down his leg, but the loud buzzing in his head dominated the rest of his body.
Caroline lay on her stomach, unmoving. Her once clean tunic was now burnt and torn to reveal a bloody back and legs. Her soft, damaged skin glowing in the firelight had probably never had anything harsher on it than the loofah she used in the shower.
Merc shouldn't care, he’d never cared before, but a strange sort of apprehension constricted around his chest seeing her so broken.
“Caroline?”
She didn't move. Dammit, he should've listened to her. She’d been so frantic, so desperate to leave the palace immediately, but his thirst for revenge and his need for answers had overrode common sense.
No, not common sense. Common sense would have been waiting for backup and performing a precision extraction as a unit. But he’d known that if he’d waited on his team, Mr. J would have beat Caroline to death and escaped. His chance of getting his hands on J would’ve slipped through his fingers like the sand beneath his feet.
“Caroline, can you hear me?”
A secondary explosion detonated, and even though they were far enough away from the palace, the blast threw him backwards. He lay there, stunned for a moment, and then he staggered up to his knees like a man on a two-day drinking binge, the roaring in his ears reaching a crescendo so loud it blocked out all other sound. The sand tilted and weaved precariously about to drop out from underneath him.
Bodies everywhere. The fire.
Merc’s vision hazed and he blinked rapidly, trying to get it back into focus. But what he saw before him wasn't the burning palace; it was a bright, sunny day in downtown Afghanistan. He was in a line of men he didn't recognize but he knew. They were all dressed like him, head to toe black with rifles in their hands as they crept down a street littered with trash. Merc was at the end of the line. He ducked behind a car and signaled to another teammate to move forward. And then a blast hit and he was down. He couldn't breathe, like a load of bricks had landed on his chest. Not bricks. A body.
His teammate.
Merc used all his strength to lift the body off him, his movements stiff with white-hot fear. The rest of his team lay in the streets. Dead.
They were all dead.
“Merc.”
He was in some sort of strange fog like he was floating in the air.
“Merc.”
The dead man at his feet called out his name, reaching a bloody hand up. How could he speak when half of his face had been blown off?
“Merc.”
And just like that, the memory snapped back into the deep, dark hole it had crawled out of and Merc was staring down at Caroline Cotter, her trembling hand reaching up for him.
Glancing around wildly, he realized he must have crawled over to her, shaking all over like a damn baby, his skin clammy and drenched in a cold sweat.
What the fuc
k had that been?
Black dots teased his periphery and Caroline seemed to shift beneath him. Merc went to his elbows and then his stomach in the sand. He used the last bit of his strength to turn his head to the side and watch Caroline lose consciousness. Beyond her, far on the horizon, he swore he saw a group of men on horses galloping toward them. His team.
He felt the vibrations in the ground even as his own eyes slid shut. And then, nothing.
Chapter 3
Nightshade jerked awake, immediately aware of the oppressive heat and the fire singeing across her back. She lay on her stomach, a soft cushion beneath her. Where was she? Where was Merc?
Careful not to move, she cracked an eye. Bright sunlight blasted through the white canvas walls of a large opulent tent. Rugs in rich blues and reds and purples completely covered the ground. Stands holding candles and incense stood scattered about the room, carefully placed away from the canvas. On the back wall was a hand-carved gold inlaid table, holding a bowl and pitcher. Trunks of varying sizes and shapes stretched down two sides of the tent.
This was the well-kept tent of a rich desert nomad, and the only nomad within traveling distance of their palace was Sheik Amir. They must have come directly after the explosion. Why hadn’t Merc returned her to the United States? How long had she been here?
She carefully peered over her shoulder, very aware of every incremental movement. Fresh bandages covered her back, disappearing beneath a silky soft sheet. A sheet she was naked beneath.
Drawing on her strength, she pushed off the makeshift bed of furs. Pain, hot and sharp, tore across her right arm, stealing her strength and breath, and she dropped back to the mattress.
Well, what did she expect? A mission that included her father strapping fifty pounds of C-4 explosives on her, hitting her hard enough to knock her to the ground, clipping her arm with a bullet was bound to hurt like a bitch.
While Nightshade had felt like some of the plan was overkill, her father was adamant it was all necessary for Cotter and TF-S to believe he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Caroline once she was no longer useful as a tool in his game.
Men of Mercy: The Complete Story Page 125