“Yeah.” She thought she heard the hint of a smile in his voice. “You tell them that they haven’t dart-proofed the shirt.”
She tried to summon up a smile of her own, but couldn’t manage it. Dart guns. Tracking devices.
When had her life spun so far out of control?
“You’ve got an open sore the size of an MP3 audio jack. The wound hasn’t started to heal yet and there’s pus oozing out. To get this amount of pus buildup, the device must have been inserted several days ago.”
“But—” She was very conscientious about investigating any open wounds on her body, no matter how small. A friend of hers had lost a hand’s width of muscle on her thigh because she’d ignored a tiny, bleeding bug bite. Infection had set in, and by the time her friend noticed and got herself back to civilization, some of the tissue had died. “I don’t remember feeling any irritation or pain. Wouldn’t I have noticed if they shot a dart into me?”
“Not if they dipped it in anesthetic first. It would numb the skin as it entered. Hold on while I get the first aid kit. I’m going to have to cut the device out.”
Susana spun around. “You can’t be serious!”
“Susana,” he said gently, “if I don’t remove the tracker, the rest of the mercenaries will find us.” There was too much sympathy in his eyes for her comfort. She preferred being mad at him.
She backed up until she felt the bark of a tree digging into her bare skin. “You…are…not…cutting into me!”
All she could think about was the mercenary’s blood-drenched face. And the hard expression in Kai’s eyes when he’d found her.
He’d just killed four men in front of her and she was supposed to trust him to cut open her skin? How she wished she were fully clothed, instead of still hiding behind the crumpled fabric of her shirt. It severely limited her options.
“Susana.” Kai didn’t move toward her. He just watched her with steady, compassionate eyes, all trace of the killer gone. “I’m trained in field medicine. I’ll make this as easy on you as possible, but we don’t have much time.” He held the tracking monitor toward her.
“See that third dot in the lower left corner? More mercenaries are on the move, Susana. I have no idea how many men were inside the gunboat’s cabin. Or if reinforcements have arrived. The bottom line is that as long as the tracking device is inside you, they’re going to find us. And next time I might not be able to save you.”
She stared at the tiny dot as it slowly moved toward them. Inevitability pressed against her as relentlessly as the approaching men. She wet her lips with her tongue. Swallowed. And tried to stop the tremors that wanted to shake her entire body. “By cutting into me, you’re opening me up to another infection.”
“I have some alcohol in my medical kit,” Kai reassured her. “This will be as sterile as I can make it.”
She closed her eyes in defeat. “Fine. Just do it.”
She heard him move away. He hadn’t promised her this wasn’t going to hurt and she tried to prepare herself.
“When you’re ready, please come over here and sit on the log.”
At least he had the good sense not to gloat.
She took a deep breath and walked over to where Kai was rummaging in his backpack.
“Shit.” Kai held a satellite phone in one hand and a shattered pair of night vision goggles in the other. He turned the phone over so she could see the hole where a bullet had shattered the LCD screen and exited through the back.
“I guess there’s no calling for help, huh?” she asked, wondering why Kai hadn’t mentioned he had a phone. Or why he hadn’t called for backup.
Oh. Wait. They’d been too busy running.
He shook his head. “It’s possible the GPS locator still works. You should keep this on you.” He set the phone aside and shot her a wry glance. “You’re not the only one with a microchip inside them. Only mine is meant to help headquarters find me in situations like this.”
“About that microchip,” she began.
He reached into his pack again and his hand reemerged holding a blue-and-white first aid box. Her stomach sank and all thoughts of the microchip fled.
Please give me strength.
She sat down on the log and fought not to whimper as Kai moved behind her. She heard the sound of paper tearing, then felt the cool swab of an alcohol wipe against her skin. It only stung slightly when it hit the entry wound.
“Okay. I’ve sterilized my knife. Brace yourself.”
With a quick downward slice, Kai cut to the right of the infected area. Susana hissed and her muscles flinched, but other than that, she held it together.
Jesus, she was amazing. That she trusted him to freaking operate on her, even after watching him kill the mercenaries, was…terrifying. Because if she knew just how big a mess he was inside, she’d surely run away screaming.
“I’m making three incisions,” he said. “Forming three sides of a small square. Then I’ll peel back the skin, scrape the pus away, and lift the dart out with tweezers.”
Nice, clinical words. Only, as Susana’s blood flowed out of the wound, his hand began to shake.
A shaft of light caught a crimson drop, rimming it with gold. He stared at it, transfixed.
Sunlight had filtered through the canopy that day, too, glistening on the assassin’s blood as it dripped onto the jungle floor. Turning Kai’s blood-stained hands into sparkling crimson gloves.
God, he could remember the hot, tangy smell of the blood. The—
“Kai?” Susana’s voice was tight with pain.
He shook his head and looked down. The tip of the knife was digging into her skin. Blood ran in a thin trickle down her skin.
Kai jerked the knife away. “God…sorry.” Shit. He had to stay in the present.
“Are you done yet?”
“Ah…no. I…uh…” I don’t know if I can cut you again.
He raised the knife. For a god-awful moment his hand remained suspended while his mind fought images of another day when his knife had brought death.
He swallowed heavily, forcing back the memories.
What had she said? Just do it. He could do this. He had to.
He made one more quick cut, then peeled back the half inch by half inch flap of skin.
Christ, there was a lot of pus. He used the tip of his knife to scrape it away, then poured some of the filtered water over it.
Susana whimpered, but immediately bit the sound off.
“It’s okay. You can scream if you want to. I know this hurts.”
But she only shook her head.
The water carried the last of the pus away and there it was. A black metal dart with smooth flanges, embedded in Susana’s muscle.
Jesus Christ. She was innocent in all this, yet someone had shot the dart into her as casually as a hunter tagged a deer.
He took a deep breath and pushed aside his anger. To minimize the damage along its exit route, he needed to stay calm and steady while he removed the dart.
He picked up the tweezers, swabbed them with alcohol, and clamped them around the end of the dart.
“Hang on.”
Susana felt the prod of the tweezers, then white-hot pain as Kai yanked the dart out. She couldn’t stop herself. She screamed. Ouch. Ouch. OUCH. That hurt.
Little silver dots danced across her vision. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. Dammit, she’d bit her tongue.
“I’ve got to get some debris out now.”
The knife pricked deep and Susana swayed under a new wave of pain. Darkness crept along the edges of her vision and she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t pass out. But the swirls of color dancing across her lids made her light-headed and nauseous, so she opened her eyes.
“Bend forward.”
She tilted her torso until her chest rested on her thighs.
“Good. Right there. This is going to hurt.”
As if nothing yet had hurt? Was he nuts? She had just enough time to wrap her arms around her knees and
tighten her muscles when liquid fire poured into the wound.
This time she released a low, animal keen of agony.
“Done. Next a little antibiotic ointment…a gauze pad…and you’re all set. You can sit up now.”
Susana was too busy gulping air, fighting against the pain that hadn’t yet receded, to answer.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Just…give me…a minute. What…the hell…was that?”
“Vodka. From the mini-bar at the hotel. I wanted to make sure the wound was flushed.”
To her surprise, she felt Kai’s fingers gently pushing her hair off her forehead. His hand skimmed over her head and stopped at the back of her skull.
“Shit.” His fingers parted her hair as they explored the bump he’d found. “You’ve got a cut here. And quite a lump.”
She winced. “No kidding. Remember how I said I was pushed into the river? Someone whacked me in the back of the head while I was checking boxes on our supply boat, then shoved me over the railing.”
“Do you have any headache? Double vision? Nausea?”
“Of course I feel nauseous! Someone just poured vodka over a hole in my back.”
“Susana,” he chided.
“Okay, fine. I had a moment of double vision when I first woke up in the kidnapper’s cabin, but it’s gone now. No serious concussion here.”
Kai gave a noncommittal grunt, dabbed at the wound with another alcohol wipe, then patted her shoulder.
The gesture made her want to cry.
“Do you need help sitting up?”
“No.” The pain was slowly fading, so she gingerly sat up, shirt still clutched protectively in front of her. When the world didn’t tilt, she gave a deep sigh.
“Let me see your wrists.”
She glanced down in surprise, having forgotten about the cuts from her bindings.
Dried blood circled her wrists, making it appear she was bound by dark crimson rope. The skin around the cuts was puffy and bruised.
It looked awful, but her pain receptors must be on overload, because the wounds didn’t hurt much.
She watched in amazement as Kai’s lips thinned. He cradled her hand gently in his while he washed the blood away, then poured another mini-bottle of alcohol—gin this time—over the broken skin.
Susana clamped her molars together and pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth.
She’d already done the screaming thing. She’d stay silent this time if it killed her.
“Next wrist, please.”
Her stomach sank. She had to go through that again?
She held out her other hand and closed her eyes. Maybe if she couldn’t see what he was doing, it wouldn’t hurt so much.
“Ga-aah,” she gasped. Dammit, that stung!
“You can open your eyes now.”
She blinked. She’d been so lost, she hadn’t noticed he’d already covered the wounds with antibiotic ointment and gauze.
She looked up.
Oh. Wow.
Kai’s eyes weren’t cold or angry. Instead, they held warmth and…a hint of approval? Before she could be sure, the look was gone.
Kai picked up his canteen and shook it. “The water’s gone. Can you take a couple of aspirin dry?” he asked.
She nodded and swallowed the pills he handed her.
She’d been holding her back erect, trying not to move and jar Kai’s hand while he worked. Now she let her head hang and her back soften in a grateful slump.
Behind her, she heard the rattling of bandage wrappers and the crinkle of a plastic bag as Kai collected the waste.
“You held up well.”
Okay. That was definitely a note of approval in his voice.
It made her feel slightly warmer toward him. Plus, he’d handled the whole operation with unexpected tact and gentleness. It was still scary to think how easily he’d killed those men, but that didn’t make Kai a monster.
The men who were following them, however, were a different story. She straightened her spine.
“I want to see this tracking device,” she said.
“Let me clean it off first.” A moment later his hand appeared in front of her. In the center of his palm lay a tiny dart no longer than a pencil eraser. Next to it was a speck of black, roughly the size of a pin head. Kai pointed to the dot. “That’s the actual transmitter.”
Seeing it made the whole thing terrifyingly real. Someone had…shot…this thing into her. So the mercenaries could find her.
No. Find her body. Kai hadn’t said as much, but she knew it was the truth. They’d intended her to drown.
She reached out to touch the menacing speck, then withdrew her finger before she made contact. She didn’t want to risk some of its evil rubbing off on her.
Kai’s fingers closed over his palm, hiding the transmitter. He turned away and she heard more rustling, as if he’d placed both dart and transmitter into a baggie.
“Tell me about this microchip. What’s so important that those men want me dead?”
Kai sighed. A moment later, he came to sit beside her on the log. “Your father was working on a top-secret government research project. He encoded his notes onto a microchip and had it implanted in your abdomen during that appendectomy you had two years ago.”
“No.” Susana pushed to her feet. “That’s not possible. My father didn’t know where I was. My mother was very careful to hide us from him. Besides, he died when I was ten.” Then she remembered the letter from the lawyers. “Or maybe not. The letter said he was alive until…” Oh, hell. “…two years ago.”
“What letter? When?” Kai’s voice was sharp. He stood up so quickly, she stepped back in alarm.
“From some lawyers in Russia. It arrived the day I was pushed into the river. They said my father was dead. There was a letter from him enclosed, but I didn’t have a chance to read it. We had another incident at camp and I ran out to help.”
“What—” Kai shook his head. “Never mind.” He pushed his sleeve back, revealing a watch with several dials. “What are the coordinates of your dig?”
“What? Why?”
“I need to call for a helicopter to get you out of here. I want you safely back at headquarters. Your dig is the closest habitation. You do have a working radio, right?”
“Yeah.” She gave him the coordinates and he punched them into his watch. “My father really had his microchip put inside me? Like I’m some kind of human filing cabinet?”
“More like a safe deposit box,” Kai muttered.
Susana snorted in amusement. Then her hand crept to her abdomen, touching her appendectomy scar. For two years she’d been carrying an alien object in her body.
Her stomach turned over. Her knees wobbled and she sank onto the log. “How did he find me? I didn’t even know his name until the letter arrived.” She’d never wanted to know the man her mother only spoke of in frightened whispers. “My mother ran from that tarantula spawn…” She turned her head and spat to the side. “…when I was only a few months old.”
“His name is on your birth certificate. Anyone with strong research skills could find you. And your father was very smart.”
She shuddered, unable to comprehend why her father would even think to use her in such a way.
“Are you cold? Here, let me help you with your shirt.”
The last thing she wanted was for Kai to touch her again and raise that pointless desire, but all her strength had vanished with her anger. She barely found the energy to push her arms through the sleeves as lethargy slammed into her. Fastening the front was beyond her abilities, her fingers too stiff and clumsy to work the buttons.
Kai moved in front of her and pushed her fumbling hands away.
She watched, oddly fascinated by the ease with which his fingers placed the buttons in their holes. He had very nicely shaped fingers, despite the scarred and calloused skin. His fingers were larger than hers, of course. Long. Yet almost graceful.
Beautiful.
Her vis
ion blurred as if she were looking at his hands through a rain-fogged window. Her eyelids drooped and she slid off the log onto the ground, wincing only slightly when the movement jarred her wound. “Got to rest a moment,” she murmured. A second later, she was out cold.
Chapter 6
Saturday, Afternoon
Washington, D.C.
“I have a team for you.” Dr. Kaufmann announced when he called.
“Finally.” Jamieson refused to let any of his fierce satisfaction show in his voice. Being thought emotionless carried great power.
“Do you have an assignment for them?” Kaufmann asked.
“I want your team to retrieve the microchip from Susana Dias,” he told Kaufmann. “And eliminate anyone who gets in the way, particularly the SSU’s Kai Paterson.”
The silence from the scientist wasn’t what Jamieson had expected. “Is that a problem?” he demanded.
“My men lack finesse,” Kaufmann reminded him. “The chip is too sensitive to risk in such clumsy hands. They’re as likely to destroy it as bring it back safely.”
“I thought the conditioning held up well at the beginning, giving them more subtlety.”
“If you call it subtle to differentiate between shooting a man once in the head and pummeling him to a bloody pulp, then yes, they’re more subtle in the early stages. We’ve never tested them successfully on such a delicate, sensitive mission.”
“You will this time.” Jamieson had to work hard to stop any hint of anger from leaching into his tone. “The man I currently have searching for the chip may no longer be trustworthy.”
Tonelli had been a useful tool to date. His thirst for revenge had made him easy to manipulate. But Tonelli couldn’t be allowed to tell anyone about Jamieson’s interest in the chip. No one knew that his secret black-ops group, Kerberos, was depending on the chip to create mind-controlled superhumans. He’d already decided to send one of his special assassination teams after Tonelli once the man had turned over the chip. But now that Tonelli had missed his last check-in and left his hotel, Jamieson had to wonder what Tonelli was up to.
Jamieson well knew Tonelli’s finicky nature. The man wouldn’t have risked getting dirty and sweaty by going into the jungle after Dias. Which meant he was in hiding. If Tonelli was simply hiding because Kai Paterson had shown up, he wouldn’t have missed his check-in. Which meant he was hiding from Jamieson.
Betrayal (SSU Trilogy Book 2) (The Surgical Strike Unit) Page 5