I.N.E.T 5

by Brenda Cothern

  Randy removed his pack as he stepped back to Burke. He dropped it on the ground next to her and ignored her glare that dared him to do something. He didn’t need to do shit. The gun he leveled on her must have conveyed as much.

  “Nighty, night,” Randy said and had no doubt Lita was more than comfortable putting her ass to sleep.

  Burke went limp in his arms and Lita held her until Randy stepped close enough that she was almost pressed against him. Randy bent his knees and nodded. Lita pushed Burke’s unconscious body toward his crouched partner’s body. Randy easily lifted her over his shoulder. His partner only gave him a wink before he stood fully and turned away with Burke. Lita picked up Randy’s rucksack and followed his partner while he tried to ignore the snowmobile engines that were growing increasingly louder by the second.

  ##~~##

  They had barely made it a half mile when the shit hit the fan. Burke had regained consciousness, but surprisingly didn’t put up a fight at being carried like a sack of potatoes over Randy shoulder. The sound of the snowmobiles bearing down on them was like feeling the heat of a dragon breathing down their neck.

  Lita ignored them and glanced at his cell phone every other step as they jogged through the trees. According to Randy, they would have cell service at any moment, so Lita already had his version of 911 ready to be called into HQ at the press of a finger. He never got the chance to make that call regardless of if he had signal or not. Automatic gunfire exploded around them when they crested the ridge of a ravine.

  Lita shoved Randy forward as tufts of snow and bark filled the air. Randy’s shout at his unexpected push was drowned out by the gunfire. Lita didn’t even think to turn around and return fire. He barely had time to think to tuck and roll as they careened down into the ravine.

  The slope was steep and both rucksacks Lita carried offered no padding as he crashed down the hill through and over snow covered brush. Slamming into a tree brought him to a sudden stop. All Lita could manage was a groan as he attempted to scramble to his feet. Attempted being the only description of what he tried because the second his brain ordered his body to move, his body replied with a big ‘fuck you.’

  Pain shot through him from several distinct locations. The bullet wound on his leg barely whispered to remind him of its presence compared to the shout his ankle gave and the scream that radiated out from his kidney on his left side. It took every ounce of control, well, adrenaline induced control, not to scream out in agony from his attempt to move. In fact, Lita wasn’t at all sure he was successful.

  Lita pushed him a millisecond after gunfire erupted behind them. Randy lost his balance. Burke went flying off his shoulder when gravity pulled his ass over the lip of the ravine. He went ankles over ass and had no sense of direction. The only sense he had was that of hearing gunfire and seeing snow fly in every direction before he rolled to an anti-climactic stop in some bushes.

  Randy barely wasted a second to do a mental assessment to see if he was injured. He wasn’t, but from the sound Lita made several feet away, his partner wasn’t so lucky. Randy crouched and scrambled behind a tree for cover. The drop from the top of the ravine was too steep for the snowmobiles to descend. That was only a minimal saving grace. He scanned the area surrounding him while he gripped his weapon tightly. Burke was several feet off to his left and not moving. She was probably unconscious again, but Randy found that he didn’t give a shit if she could be dead or not. Getting eyes on where Lita landed after they tumbled down into the ravine was all Randy really gave a shit about at the moment.

  The first thing he spotted was one of their rucksacks. He had no idea if it was Lita’s or his that Lita had been carrying. Not that it mattered a damn bit. Randy followed the line of sight beyond where he spotted the rucksack. Pink smears in the snow that could only be the result of blood caught his eye before the body of his partner came into view. Had Lita not made any sound or Randy not sighted the pink bloodied trail to follow, he may never have found his partner.

  Lita was further away than Randy would have expected if the man had tumbled down the ridge after him. He was relieved when he watched Lita push himself up against a tree and draw his weapon. That relief was short-lived when the pink snow surrounding his partner deepened into another shade of red.

  Randy managed, with a shaking hand, to retrieve his cell phone from his jacket. He was pretty sure they weren’t in range for cell service yet, but he could hope. No bars were the epiphany of his shattered hope. Gunfire aimed in his direction didn’t give him the chance to dwell on all of the hopes in his life that had been shattered. He returned fire toward the top of the ridge, but didn’t think it would do a damn bit of good in the long run. Still, he didn’t know how to do anything else.

  Lita blinked back the black spots that filled his vision. He spotted Randy and saw the man returning fire up the ravine. Lita couldn’t see who his partner was firing on, but that didn’t stop him from searching the lip of the ravine for a target. Several times he blinked, but still didn’t see a target. He was aware of his hand shaking and how rapidly he blinked to keep the black spots at bay. He was also aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, of shots being fired way too fucking close to him. All he could do, though, was aim toward the top of the ravine, squeeze his trigger, and hope to hit one of the assholes pursuing them.

  They were screwed. Totally fucking screwed. The second Randy heard gunfire coming from behind him up the other side of the ravine, he knew they were dead. If they were lucky, it would be a quick death. Regardless, Randy had no desire to die, so he kept his back to the tree he was using as cover and flicked his gaze in the direction of both sides of the steep ravine. Shouts in Spanish reached his ears and Randy almost wanted to believe they sounded confused. There was no reason for the cartel fuckers to be confused when they had their prey surrounded.

  Randy slammed another clip home into his 0.9 mil and from the corner of his eye caught movement by Lita. By the time he looked dead on at his partner, Lita was being pulled around the other side of the tree he’d been propped against. Randy fired in that direction without thought. He didn’t know shit about the cartel, but he was sure being taken hostage by them was likely worse than death. He only had time to fire off two shots. Both hit the tree and were intended to be a deterrent more than anything else since Randy didn’t have a line of sight on who grabbed Lita and didn’t want to accidently shoot his partner.

  Bark exploding from the tree Randy crouched behind gave him no other choice than to return his focus up the ravine to where the cartel was firing on him. A quick peek around the tree barely revealed enough for him to spot a target. Barely didn’t mean not at all, though. So, the next time Randy looked around the tree that was his cover, he fired without thought. Two shots. He was back behind the cover of his tree before his brain registered seeing a gunman fall to the ground. Additional gunfire echoed through the ravine, but silence suddenly surrounded him before he could peek around his cover and line up another shot.

  Randy didn’t trust the sudden quiet. He froze where he was and strained to hear any movement in the snow. There was no way in hell the cartel just stopped trying to kill them. Granted, they had Lita and a quick glance showed him Burke was no longer where he last saw her laying after they went elbows over assholes down the ravine. Still, he was alive. That told Randy the cartel wasn’t finished even if they did have Burke and Lita. They would never leave him alive, but he wasn’t about to make killing him easy for them.

  So, he breathed shallowly and listened intently while he prepared to take out as many of the fuckers as he could before they took him out.

  ##~~##

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Marshal Connor.”

  Randy tensed at the sound of a deep baritone voice calling out his name. He always thought the cartels had a deep reach, but he never expected it to be so deep that they’d know his name. So, he didn’t say shit when the man called out to him.

  “You can come out now.”

  Yeah
. Right. Let me just give you a clear shot, Randy thought. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  The sound of laughter reached his ears and Randy gripped his gun tighter. The asshole could be as amused as he wanted, but Randy wasn’t about to make killing him any easier for the fucker.

  “Marshal Connor,” the voice somewhere to his right called out again. “I’m Agent Slade with INET.”

  Randy almost let relief flood through him. Almost. Then he remembered someone grabbing Lita and his partner wearing his INET badge. Anyone could claim they were with INET once they saw Lita’s badge. He wouldn’t put it past the cartel to do such a thing and Burke knowing his name would only give them more credibility.

  “Sure you are,” Randy replied and shifted his weight to a better position to peek around the tree. “Hey Lita,” Randy called out. “That one of your buddies?”

  Lita didn’t answer him and Randy wasn’t surprised even as he had to push away the thought of the man he barely knew not being able to answer because he was already dead. A deep, unexpected twang of pain shot through Randy’s chest. He rubbed his hand over his heart and forced himself not to think about why the thought of Lita being dead hurt so much. Any time they lost an agent it was painful, but he hadn’t felt his chest tighten when Greene died. Randy gave his head a violent shake. Now was not the time to be thinking of how much more Lita meant to him than Greene.

  “Lita can’t answer you right now. He’s kind of unconscious.”

  Randy heard amusement in the man’s tone which didn’t do a damn thing to make him think the guy was an INET Agent.

  “I’m sure he is, asshole,” Randy called back.

  “That’s a new record, Slade.” Another voice joined the conversation. “Three sentences and he already knows you.” The man laughed.

  “Spider,” a third voice warned.

  “What? It’s true,” the second voice replied as if what he’d said was obvious.

  “Jesus Christ,” a fourth voice joined the party. “Connor, I’m Knight. Ignore these assholes and come out. We have Burke and a medevac is minutes out from coming to get Lita.”

  Randy still didn’t break cover. He doubted the cartel would even think of bantering in such a way, if at all, in order to draw him out. Still, a medevac being minutes out would prove one way or another if INET had really come to the rescue. Apparently, it had because less than five minutes later, Randy heard the telltale sound of helicopter rotor blades echoing above his head.

  “Coming out now,” Randy announced after he holstered his weapon and before he stood.

  “Thank God. It’s too fucking cold to be dicking around in these woods.”

  “Shut up, Zep.”

  Randy stepped from behind the tree that offered him cover and saw four men standing near the tree he’d last seen Lita pulled behind. Two of the men looked to be twins even if their dispositions were vastly different. One was frowning and the other appeared as if he was enjoying their situation way too fucking much. The other two men were as different as day and night. Neither wore more than a winter jacket, so Randy could easily see the rugged look of the dark-haired man and almost baby face of the sandy brown-haired man.

  There was no way in hell these men were part of the cartel. The twins could be based on their coloring, but the other two? Definitely not. Still, Randy approached the men slowly.

  “I’m Knight,” the closest agent stepped forward and held out his hand.

  Randy shook it. “Where is Lita?”

  “Up the ridge.” Agent Knight nodded behind him. “This asshole is Slade,” Knight indicated the man who looked to be his twin. “That’s Spider and Zep.”

  Randy just gave them each a nod. “Burke?”

  Agent Slade burst into laughter and Randy glared at him. “What?”

  “She is in custody,” Agent Knight informed.

  “I think you’d be more concerned about the cartel, but you’re a Marshal,” Agent Slade said with a chuckle.

  Randy met the man’s startling blue eyes. “I am. The cartel is your job, but to my eye it looks as if you’re slacking.”

  A roar of laughter exploded on Randy’s left from the agent called Spider. “Oh, shit.”

  Randy didn’t wait for Agent Slade to reply before he pushed through the men. He really didn’t want to get into the politics of their agencies. All he wanted to do was see to his partner. Randy should have felt guilty that his first desire was to see to Lita’s safety instead of Burke’s, but he didn’t. The last thing he cared about, the last person he gave a shit about was Burke. Right now, all he wanted to do was to assure himself Lita was okay.

  By the time he reached the top of the ravine, the helicopter was taking off again. Randy stood there and stared as it disappeared from sight through the trees. He was so focused on the helicopter disappearing that he never realized another man stepped up next to him.

  “Lita will be fine.”

  Randy barely resisted startling at the sound of the man’s voice. The guy was short. Well, shorter than him and Randy suspected after being towered over by Lita, he appeared even shorter.

  “I’m Hunt,” the redhead introduced. “We’ve got some SUVs about a quarter-mile from here. If we hurry, we won’t have to ride with Slade.”

  Randy couldn’t do anything other than blink stupidly and finally smile in return at the mischievous grin Agent Hunt leveled on him.

  ##~~##

  The incessant beeping noise that Lita was beyond familiar with associating with hospitals was the first thing to register in any of his senses. The second was the smell. Hospitals all smelled the same. There was just something about the artificial cleanliness that was unmistakable.

  Lita didn’t immediately open his eyes. Instead, he racked his memory for how he’d come to be in the hospital again since this sure as hell wasn’t his first time. Hell, it wasn’t even his fifth, tenth, or twentieth. He recalled nose diving down the ravine after shoving his partner down headfirst so the man wouldn’t get shot while hauling that cunt of a CIA agent over his shoulder.

  Remembering the flare of pain that shot through his back and the sudden stop against the tree wasn’t hard. The slight flex of his ankle confirmed he hadn’t imagined feeling the bone break. However, moving to verify he’d really broken the damn thing did him no favors when pain shot through his back.

  “Try not to move.”

  Lita was sure he’d recognize that voice anywhere. He didn’t care for the level of concern he heard, though. Still, he weakly grinned before he opened his eyes and looked at the sexy Marshal who’d been his partner for less than a week. Randy looked like shit. The man was wearing clean clothes, but clearly hadn’t taken time to shave.

  “If that is supposed to be a smile of reassurance, you are failing spectacularly.” Randy tried to sound lighthearted, but doubted he pulled it off.

  He’d been sitting at Lita’s bedside for more hours than he wanted to recount. And, that was after the man came out of surgery. His partner looked like shit and that was being polite. His ankle was in a cast and at first glance, the plaster appeared to be his only injury. It wasn’t. A bullet had nicked Lita’s kidney, but thankfully hadn’t done enough damage for the man to lose it altogether.

  Randy felt horrid at seeing his partner in such a condition even though he really had no reason to feel guilty. If anything, he should feel relieved neither of them had been killed and to some extent, he was.

  Lita was beyond floored by the concern and worry in Randy’s hazel-eyed gaze. He had suffered worse injuries and would be fine. Randy didn’t know that, though, and it almost broke Lita’s heart to see such a raw emotion of care shine from Randy’s beautiful eyes. Lita licked his dry lips and before he could indicate or ask, Randy held a cup with a bendy straw to his mouth. He took a sip.

  “You’re here,” Lita finally managed after Randy pulled the cup away.

  He instantly wished he had said something else. Something to banter back at how spectacularly he was feeling because what he did say s
eemed to startle Randy as if he’d shot the man.

  Randy cleared his throat and looked away. Of course, he was here. He had no legitimate reason to be, but was here just the same. Not that he would be for much longer because duty called. Still, he wasn’t sure how he felt about the doubt Lita infused in those two words. He had no idea when his feelings for the man went from just unprofessionally getting off with a partner to something more, but whatever he thought he felt, had to stop.

  “Only long enough to make sure you’re okay.”

  Lita frowned. He was riding high on drugs, but not so much that he didn’t hope Randy sat at his bedside out of something more than the duty to see a partner pull through. He really thought they had a connection. He hadn’t been looking for one, but of course that’s why he found one. Randy standing and stepping away from his bedside told Lita he was the only one who felt a tug that went deeper than just busting a nut together. He shouldn’t be surprised and he sure as hell shouldn’t feel so unrealistically hurt.

  “Okay,” Lita replied because what else could he say?

  The flat tone of Lita’s reply sent another unexpected ache through Randy’s chest. Randy looked back at Lita where the hospital bed gave the impression the man was so much smaller than he actually was. He forced a smile to spread his lips even though the last thing he felt like doing was smiling.

  “Take care of yourself, Lita.”

  Lita stared at the door Randy disappeared through for a long time after the man left. He would swear on his dying breath that Randy didn’t want to leave. There was just something in his stunning eyes, something heavy, something resigned that led Lita to believe Randy thought he had no option but to leave and no reason to stay. Lita wanted to give him a reason to stay. He would have if he wasn’t barely conscious and drugged to the gills. He would do just that as soon as he could get out of this damn hospital bed. That was the promise he made himself before the painkilling drugs dragged him back down to sleep.