Being younger and wiry was an advantage. He morphed from slow to wild in a second. The gunman jackknifed into a sitting position and threw Ward off balance. He hit the ground with a thud, then started scrambling. Legs and arms in constant motion, he grabbed for the gun, but it spun out of reach. They both hit their knees, holding each other back and punching through grunts and groans.
Just as the gunman lunged for the weapon, Tasha’s shoe appeared. She kicked it away and aimed one of her own at the gunman’s head as he glanced up.
The hesitation was all Ward needed. He wrapped an arm around the gunman’s neck and pulled. This wasn’t a simple takedown. The goal wasn’t to knock him out. This qualified as a wrestle to the death, and the gunman must have known it. He kicked out, and his arms flailed.
Ward did not ease up his hold. The choking sound echoed in his ears as the gunman grasped at his arm, trying to rip and tear his shirt and skin. Anything to fight back as his body shook and his face turned red.
It took only seconds but felt like hours for the life to run out of the guy. Ward held on until the gunman’s body spasmed, then went lax. He slid to the ground as if his body had turned to liquid.
Ward sat back on his heels and wiped the sweat off his forehead with his arm. His heavy breathing drowned out the usual sounds of the tropical forest. His mind blanked as he looked up.
Tasha stood there, gun still raised. It took her another second to lower it, and she did it nice and slow. “You’re bleeding.”
The pain held off until she said those words. The thumping in his leg started a second later. “Damn it.”
He tried to get his weight under him, and his knee buckled. Tasha was right there, balancing his body against hers and helping him to his feet with her shoulder under his arm. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.” He didn’t know if that was true but he needed it to be, so he said it.
“We’ll wrap it up and go.” No nonsense. Firm and clear, she issued the order as she helped him sit back down on a grouping of rocks.
She left him only long enough to check the gunman for any signs of life and clean out his pockets. She returned to Ward and handed him the radio.
Blood caked his pants, making the material stick to him. “What the hell did I hit?”
“I have no idea.” With a sharp tug she ripped his pants up the inside seam and peeled the cotton away from the injury.
The hiss escaped Ward’s mouth before he could stop it. When he looked down, he saw a long cut. Not deep, but it probably needed stitches. Well, that was too damn bad.
The radio crackled. A male voice came on. Then another. Ward cursed his limited knowledge of the Fijian language. Most people here spoke English, and with the tight timeline he’d only been able to pick up a few words of the native language. He shook his head now, trying to ferret out the conversation.
Tasha froze. “Hostage.”
Her reaction made him still. “What?”
“They caught a man.” She hushed him as she listened. “A foreigner. Someone visiting the island and caught wandering too close to the wall.”
Ford. Ward would run on pure adrenaline if he had to now. He pushed his palm against the rock and tried to stand up. “We need to go.”
“In a second.” She dragged him right back down. “First we need to wrap your leg or you won’t be any help to anyone.”
“It will be fine.” Ward didn’t care if that was true or not. He did not leave other agents behind, and Ford was more than a partner on this job. He was a friend, and he would not die while Ward could get him out. He’d crawl over Tigana’s wall if he had to.
She grabbed his hand. “You’re too close to this to be reasonable. We’re doing this my way.”
The words echoed what Ford had said about her. Ward didn’t like the sentiment any better coming from her. “There’s a medical kit in my pocket. You have two minutes, then I’m going.”
She opened Ward’s utility pants pocket and pulled out a small wrapped package. The kind you took into battle hoping you never had to use it.
“The body count is now five.” She made the comment without looking up.
Only one thing ran through Ward’s mind. And Ford won’t be number six.
Chapter Nine
TASHA PACED THE small cleared space in front of the patch of coconut trees as the sun rose. Ford never showed up and wasn’t answering the distress calls or whatever Ward kept sending out. And Ward . . . she waited for him to fall over.
She’d applied the blood-clotting powder and wrapped the cut using the adhesive bandage designed to stop bleeding and minimize infection. But those amounted to temporary measures. He needed a doctor and real medical care. He also needed to put that little black box down before she smashed it under her boot.
“Ward, please.” She tried to peel his fingers off the radio, but Ward wouldn’t let go. “He’s not coming.”
“I know.” The words snapped out of him. “I’m thinking through the options and am almost ready to go in.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. As far as she could tell, he had trouble balancing on the boulder without falling sideways. He couldn’t possibly mean . . . could he? “Where are you talking about?”
“Tigana’s compound.”
He clearly got hit harder than she thought because even Ward, with his confidence and swagger, couldn’t believe he had a chance in this situation. Even if he didn’t know, she did. “That is not happening.”
“Ford is my partner.” He tried to stand up and ended up flinching before falling back down again.
She would have helped him, but maybe a reminder that he could barely walk would help. “And you are injured.”
“You know that doesn’t matter.”
“Says the guy who can’t walk.” She knew she had the better shot of pulling this off, of at least giving Ford a chance at survival while they extracted the missiles. Now she had to make Ward understand that simple fact. They would shoot him the second he stepped near the gate. He was a threat. The guards wouldn’t know what to think about her, and that would be her in.
“We don’t have time to argue.” He fiddled with the radio on his lap.
Time to go in for the kill. This wasn’t fighting fair, but she didn’t care—not if it kept him alive, and for whatever reason that had now become one of her top priorities. “So, the ‘you’re tough’ stuff was garbage.”
“What?”
“If you think I’m so competent, let me do my job. You create a diversion, take out a few guards, and find a pathway for us to get out.” She made it sound easy. Nothing about the Fiji assignment turned out to work as planned. She lost her partner, inherited Ward and Ford somehow, and was now dragging an injured guy through the equivalent of a tropical rainforest.
“Good plan, except you’re not going in,” he said.
“You don’t have a choice, Ward.”
“You think MI6 wins this?”
Since arguing wasn’t working, she went to the skill she did better. “Yes.”
He looked at her gun, then at her face. “You are not seriously aiming that gun at me.”
There was no way she’d shoot anything important. She guessed they both knew that, but he needed to understand how serious she was about this. It wasn’t part of an intelligence community turf war. She honestly believed he couldn’t function at a high enough level to get this done. “You have fifteen minutes.”
“This is ridiculous.”
It felt that way, but she refused to back down. Keeping him safe meant everything right now. It was the one pocket she could control. “I’m in charge.”
“No you’re not.” He went from holding the radio to talking into it. “Hello? I found this out here by this big wall. Is anyone there?”
The voice, so unsure and shaky. He sounded lost and confused. The perfect act.
The conversation with the guard continued for a few clipped sentences that ended with Ward being told not to move. He clicked the button off and st
ared at her.
“What the hell was that?” But she knew. In a way, she’d been played. He might have planned this all along.
“They’ll be expecting a man now. That’s me.” When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “You’ll be faster. You can create the diversion. Use the intel Ford collected. I’ll get you ears in the room, but you need to set the charges. After, I’ll get to the bure where the missiles are stored.”
She shook off the stunned silence. The urge to strangle him took longer to abandon. “Do we even know which one that is?”
“Ford narrowed it down to two.” Ward took off his watch and handed it to her.
She stood there, frozen. His blood still stained her hands, and the image of him going to the ground under that gunman played in her head. But for some reason, he was ready to go again. The idiot. “You’re going to get yourself killed. You and Ford. Probably me too.”
“We’ll see each other again.” He picked up her hand and held it. “That’s a promise.”
She thought about snatching it back but refrained. Mostly because she wanted to touch him right then. The idea that it could be the last time had her trying to swallow over a lump lodged in her throat. “How can you be so sure?”
“We’re not done.”
IT TOOK ANOTHER ten minutes to get him up and ready. They’d stripped off his weapons. Well, the obvious ones. And he had a mic, the perfect covert listening device. The disc measured no more than the size of a small black dot. It was the only way she’d hear what was happening to him inside.
She prepped the explosives, working fast. Panic drove her. She had the sense that she needed to get him out of there without delay. The churning inside her refused to subside, and if she calculated correctly, they didn’t have too long before a storm rolled in. She could smell it on the breeze, feel the heaviness of the air.
“Where’s Ward?”
She jumped a good five feet at the sound of Ford’s voice. The man had the ability to approach without making a sound. The usual chill that ran over her when someone closed in never happened with Ford. The guy was downright spooky.
When she whipped around, he stood right behind her with his usual scowl. She shot him one right back. “How did you get out?”
His blank expression didn’t change. “I don’t understand the question.”
“You were taken hostage.”
“Not me.” He shook his head. “A tall blond-haired guy. Scar along the jawline.”
“Gareth.” Tall and fair and Welsh . . . and taken. Here she’d been thinking the worst, getting more frustrated with him at every turn, and he’d been snatched. Guilt pummeled her until she had to lean against a tree for support.
“Well, your man is in trouble,” Ford said.
She had a feeling that was a vast understatement. “So is yours.”
“Meaning?”
“Ward went in after you, or who he thought was you.” The assignment had been messed up from the start and had only gotten worse. Two countries on the ground not talking to each other, and now a missing agent and another one on the way to get captured. She couldn’t imagine how this could go worse. “And he’s injured.”
The blood drained from Ford’s face. “What the fuck?”
“I tried to stop him.”
The unreadable gaze vanished. Anger and worry and a whole lot of other emotions played across Ford’s face. “I should think so. It’s a suicide mission.”
Ford might act nonchalant and have that lone-wolf vibe, but she saw that expression. He cared about Ward. That was a good thing since so did she. “We’ll get Ward out.”
“The missiles and Ward. We need both.”
That was the mantra. The mission came first. But now, faced with losing Ward before she could see if there was anything there worth exploring, she realized her priorities had shifted. She suddenly didn’t want to put finding a bad guy before a human life she cared about.
“He comes first,” she said, meaning every word.
“No, he doesn’t.”
He did for her.
THE SHOVE INTO the main bure sent Ward flying into the dining table. He smacked into the wood stomach-first and let out a groan that was more real than acting. He’d have a nice set of bruises there to match the pounding he’d just taken on his ribs and the punches to the jaw.
Tigana’s men sure liked it rough, and the sick bastard liked to watch the beatings. Watch and direct, calling out where and how hard to hit next.
Fucking lunatic.
Before standing up, Ward dropped the mic. Not easy with his hands tied together in front of him, but not impossible. Problem was, from all the hits to the head and with his vision blurring, he could barely see it. Still, he managed to cover it with his shoe right before two guys shoved him in a chair and tied his wrists to the armrests.
Tasha would have limited ears in the room, but she’d know where Tigana was and when to detonate. But she had to get inside first. Not an easy task. She’d need one hell of a diversion, as he’d counted just under twenty men, six of whom stayed on Tigana at all times.
The man did like his security. And his food. He sat across from Ward now, picking up these small mesh screens he used to cover plates of food from the flies between bites. “You have made a serious mistake.” Tigana spoke in clear English with a slight accent. The years at Harvard had taught him well.
“I found something and tried to return it.” Ward kept to his cover story. That’s what he’d said into the radio and to the four guards who came to fetch him. Then again to the two who beat the shit out of him.
Tigana sat back, and his chair creaked under his weight. Since arriving on the island, he’d put on a good twenty pounds. Sitting around, planning a country’s demise did that to a guy. Now his stomach pushed over the top of his belt and his shirt buttons strained at the holes.
He ran his fingers over his wine glass, tracing the drips of condensation as they ran down the sides. “Where is the woman?”
That was a bad fucking question. If they knew about Tasha, the diversion was dead and so was she. “What woman?”
“You should know her partner likes to talk when he drinks.” Tigana put a hand over his glass when one of his servants tried to pour more in there. “It’s shameful really.”
Gareth. Ward decided to strangle that guy when they met. “I don’t—”
“That sort of disloyalty disappoints me.” Tigana hesitated before taking another sip of wine. “What about you?”
“I don’t know this woman.”
He swirled the remaining liquid in the glass. “Lying demands a stiff penalty, don’t you think?”
Ward decided to play dumb. No doubt Tigana had a slow, painful death planned. Ward was in no rush to get to that. “I don’t know.”
“I dislike betrayal.” He returned the glass to the table with a soft clink. No anger. Just a monotone voice talking nonsense. “My uncle tried to betray me, and I burned him alive.”
Ward knew. The entire intelligence community knew.
He’d seen the file. Understood the uncle had been working with the CIA. Working with anyone who could take out Tigana. “Please let me go.”
“Do you see that?” Tigana pointed behind Ward.
Ward tried to turn his head but couldn’t see anything except the open walls and mass of greenery outside. He scanned what he could see—hand-carved furniture and bouquets of wildflowers on a few tables. Tigana had set up the bure to mirror an expensive resort.
Tigana nodded to his men, and Ward felt the room spin. Two guys shifted his chair until he saw directly behind him. The prone body, or at least his legs, sticking out from behind an overstuffed couch. “Your friend’s partner screamed and begged. Very disturbing. I wonder if you will do the same.”
“Is he dead?” Ward forced his question to rise at the end like people in a state of panic tended to do.
“Very.” Tigana rested an elbow on the armrest and flashed the expensive rings on his fingers. “Now, tell
me who you work for.”
Ward flipped from one cover to another. This one worked on Tasha, at least for a few days. “A financial company back in the United States.”
“This grows tiresome.” Tigana let his arm fall against the table with a hard smack. “Which government?”
“I’m a businessman here on vacation.” Ward rushed his words and let fear seep into his voice.
He’d been searched for weapons, but the idiots left the pen in his pocket after being so excited about finding the wallet full of fake documents. He moved his hands, trying to loosen the ties, pulling and tugging with as little movement as possible.
“I don’t think you are.” Tigana nodded to one of his henchmen.
The man brought over a long knife with a serrated edge. One look had adrenaline surging through Ward. Not that he didn’t know fear. He understood the sensation but channeled it into action, as he’d been trained to do. The message on the loop at the back of his mind said at least Tasha is safe outside. At some point, that began to matter more than almost everything else.
“I like knives.” Tigana ran his finger over the side of the blade. “My father taught me to use them when I was ten.”
Ward didn’t talk because it looked as if Tigana had gotten lost in his story. Not that he needed to tell it. Ward knew all about Tigana and his entrance into killing. Age ten when his father challenged his manhood. The family really was awful. Almost made Ward appreciate the strict no-room-for-mistakes household he grew up in.
“I’m going to show you what I did the first time a man lied to me.” Tigana chuckled. “Maybe that will help your memory.”
Ward tensed as two men grabbed him from behind. One held a gun to his head as the other untied a hand. Stupid fucking move, but he’d take it. With one hand free he could grab a gun, strangle someone.
The tie had just been loosened when another man came into the room. He looked like all the others, twenty and holding too many weapons for him to handle effectively. Apparently there was no end to the parade of disaffected men looking for a new leader here on Fiji.
“Sir, we have her.”
Ward’s stomach dropped. Fell to the damn floor. The buzz of energy that had been pulsing through him, preparing him, turned to stinging anxiety. There was only one her.
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