Ky (In the Company of Snipers Book 13)

by Irish Winters

  Her gray pallor startled Ky. He pulled off his goggles and crawled on all fours to her side. “What’s going on now?”

  Tate joined him just as she opened her eyes. “Are they here?” she asked weakly.

  “Nobody can get through this storm,” Tate muttered. “They’ve probably—”

  “No!” She pushed to one elbow. “Please. They are coming. You can’t kill them.”

  Chapter Ten

  Tate dropped to his haunches with an exasperated huff, annoyed. “What do you mean, I can’t kill them? You bet your sweet ass I can kill them, and I will. You want me to start a boy’s camp for wayward mercenaries, do you? While they’re taking pot shots at us?”

  Eden straightened, facing him. My sweet ass? “But this is different. Believe me, I can see things you can’t, Agent Higgins. This blizzard hasn’t slowed them down because they no longer feel the cold. They’ve been programmed to act like robots. Their decision-making ability is compromised. They’ll run until they drop or die from exposure—or until you kill them. They can’t be held accountable—”

  “But they will kill you, Eden,” Ky interrupted, “and they won’t think twice about it. I don’t care if they’re blind, drunk, or walking on water by the time they get here. I won’t let them hurt you.”

  “But you do care,” she declared. “I know you do. You care about everyone.” That’s your greatest asset and your worst flaw.

  Ky stopped arguing, his amber eyes searching hers for what seemed like minutes. He swallowed hard, looking right through her. She’d said too much, but she hadn’t said it out loud. She’d picked up on it all the way from Nizari’s dark cell. Ky’s compassion for others ran deep. It got him into trouble. That was what had gotten him captured in Kabul. He’d charged into a blind alley to protect a fellow Marine, his RTO, and his supposed friendlies, the few traitorous soldiers in the Afghan National Army.

  Ky needed to understand. Each black smudge in the distance, each one of those six guys still held a tiny red glow at his core. Zaroyin hadn’t created the perfect killing machines. Not yet. These guys had feelings, maybe consciences. They should be saved, not killed. They needed to be helped, not murdered.

  Tate pushed past Ky on his way into the weather. “Now might be a good time to get that wire out of her before she decides she wants steak and lobster for dinner. That ain’t gonna happen, neither.”

  Ky hadn’t taken his gaze off Eden to acknowledge his partner. “What’s going on? You’re gray. You said you had a migraine. How bad is it?”

  “You don’t understand,” she whispered, the hammering pain in her skull fierce. Her second sight seemed crippled with the overload of those six men marching to her. Empathy for all they were going through reduced her to a trembling radar dish tuned into their suffering. “I can feel them, Ky. Every single one of them. Zaroyin’s still got control, but they’re fighting the implants. I’m sure of it. They don’t want to kill me any more than you do. And they’re exhausted from marching in this weather. They’re like me.”

  “We’ll talk about this later.” He pushed her flat to the sleeping bag, and Eden went willingly. She hadn’t the strength to argue. She closed her eyes as his gloved fingers skimmed over her forehead. “I don’t have a fever.”

  “No, but your head hurts, right? You’re dizzy? Both signs you’re dehydrated. Let’s get more water into you. More food, too. Tate’s right. That wire needs to come out, but for now we need to get you stabilized. Drink,” he ordered, his hand beneath her neck while he tilted her forward to the lip of a water bottle. “More. Drink it all if you can.”

  Eden did as she was told, then wiped her lips. “They’re dehydrated, too, only worse. Please. You have to listen to—”

  “Agent Stark!” Her name snapped out of him, a whip in the wind. “I can’t do anything until they get here, now, can I? Do as you’re told. Drink.”

  Despite his order, that sounded more encouraging, like he was at least considering her opinion even though he was irritated with her. She settled for the small victory. She had no fight in her anyway. “Where’d you get warm water?”

  He winked down at her, an oddly calming gesture given the wind howling outside their flimsy sanctuary from the storm. “From my armpit.” He followed that disgusting revelation with, “You can’t eat enough snow to keep hydrated on winter operations, and you wouldn’t want to if you could. Ingesting snow lowers your body temp, the last thing you need. I packed a bottle with snow when you went for your bag. My body heat melted it on the climb up. That’s all. Do you want more?”

  “No, umm, okay. Sure.” Eden sat up straighter to drink, not so much because she was thirsty, more because of Ky leaning over her with all that male heat rolling off of him. The close proximity of his body did crazy things to her heart. It set to pounding, which in turn made the ache in her head that much worse. But it also spiked a flood of female hormones she couldn’t fight. From the tops of her toes to the tips of her tingling, swollen breasts, he just plain overpowered and overwhelmed her with all that raw male power. If he was any more alpha, she’d melt along with the snow in his water bottle. “I should’ve thought of doing that,” she offered meekly.

  He handed her the half-full bottle with a cute little-boy shrug. “It’s just Survival 101. Keep hydrated. Keep warm. Stay dry. I melted another bottle for myself. Knowing Tate, he’s probably got five or six on him. The guy’s a survivalist to the core.”

  But it was a big deal. Ky seemed determined to take care of her first and foremost, a marked difference from the previous men in her life. “Where’d Tate go?”

  “Out. Don’t worry. He’ll do what needs to be done. That’s why we’re here. To get you home safely.”

  Eden caught his meaning. Tate would kill the first man who fired at him, and she couldn’t blame him. She had no right to dictate impossible terms to the men sent to rescue her. “Tate should shoot Zaroyin, not those FBI agents.”

  “Nothing in life is fair.” Ky kept his voice low and somber, a warning. “What do you want to eat? I know you’re still hungry. Spicy corn chowder, baked potato and bacon soup, or cheese and broccoli Alfredo?”

  He seemed determined to distract her, so she let him. “MREs?”

  “Not exactly. Alex buys a better quality than the Army.” He scrunched his nose, another adorable gesture. “Each pouch makes an eight-cup serving. We’ll share. What’ll it be?”

  This was a serious decision. She didn’t want to alienate Ky’s partner more than she already had, not even over a dehydrated meal. “What would Tate like?”

  “Don’t worry about him. He can make his own. He’s probably out hunting caribou anyway.”

  Eden offered a weak smile, her heart on those other agents caught in Zaroyin’s drone snare. She needed Tate on her side. “The potato soup. It’s got bacon. He’ll like that, huh?”

  “He will if there’s any left when he gets back.” Ky tugged a foil bag out of his backpack, ripped off the top and poured water from his bottle into it.

  Eden arranged herself cross-legged while he prepared their meal. Now that she was upright, he seemed happier. He plopped their rehydrated dinner on the tent floor between them and made a production of producing two plastic forks sealed in cellophane from yet another pocket. Still trying to distract her. “Ladies first.”

  “Not bad. It’s thicker than I expected,” she mumbled around the chunky spoonful.

  He grinned. “It’s only soup with enough hot water.”

  “What happened in Morocco?”

  A dimple tweaked his left cheek as he stuffed a heaping fork into his mouth. “You heard that, huh?”

  “Sure. I was listening.” Eden liked watching him eat. Ky took big, man-sized mouthfuls. He ate with relish, licking his lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed when he chewed and swallowed, and the scruff shadowing the hard lines of his face was just plain sexy. Tinted green from the glow-stick, but sexy.

  “It’s funny now, but it wasn’t then. My boss sent Tate and me over to ret
rieve a certain federal official. He’d gotten into a delicate situation with a married woman in Casablanca. Long story short, her husband also happened to be the local police chief. By the time we got there, Mr. Dumbass was in a bad way. The police chief challenged him to a duel, but he had his whole force backing him up. There were only the two of us. We got our guy all right, but by the time the Moroccan Royal Gendarmerie took over, Tate and I had our backs to some cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Believe me, I was ready to hand our idiot diplomat over to the police chief and let him whip his ass.”

  “The Moroccans let you take him with you when you left?”

  Ky took another heaped mouthful. “Let us, nothing,” he mumbled around chunky potato and bacon soup. “They gave us twenty-four hours to get off Moroccan soil, so we did. No big deal. Guess all’s well that ends well. Dumbass is running for office again.”

  “He’s a congressman?”

  “Senator.” Ky held up three gloved fingers. “Three terms.”

  “He sounds like a creep.”

  “He’s a piece of work, all right. Get this. We’re on an Air Force chopper out of there, and he’s bragging himself up like we didn’t just risk our lives saving his sorry ass. He wanted Tate and me to quit Alex and go work for him. Said he had a lucrative deal in Sierra Leone. Said he needed good men like us on his side.”

  “I went to Morocco once,” Eden murmured, another fork lifted to her lips. The bacon was still crunchy, but good. “Was he into conflict diamonds?”

  “He might have been, but we’ll never know. Tate and I didn’t want any part of that lunatic or his big ideas. His one-time good deal ended when we dropped him at the U. S. Consulate. I see the guy once in a while on the office TV, but bam. I have a remote for that.”

  Eden couldn’t stop thinking about how well she already knew Ky. Still she hedged. “Was it hard being a soldier?”

  A shadow ebbed within the deepest amber of his eyes. “I wasn’t a soldier, Eden. Soldiers are Army. Marines are Marines. Jarheads. Leathernecks. And no, being in the Corps wasn’t hard. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. Now what say we take care of that wire if we can get to it?”

  She bowed her head, willing to accept his version of the truth, but wishing he’d reveal the tiniest hint of what he’d survived, just enough so she could reveal her true identity. Maybe later.

  “Are you sure you want to do it now?” Her gaze drifted to the tent flap Tate had zipped closed. The storm still buffeted the overlap, and he could come back at any time.

  “It has to be done, Eden,” Ky said sternly. “You and I both need to know precisely what that wire leads to. It could be more dangerous than we suspect. Do you want to see if you can get it out yourself? Should I leave?”

  “No. Stay.” She looked him in the eye, her heart caught on those six puppets still dangling out there in the weather on Zaroyin’s string.

  Ky zipped what was left of their chilly soup and set breakfast aside. His expression gentled. “Listen, I know you’re worried about those men. I agree with you. Koenig and Shields were obviously under duress by the time we encountered them, but their programming, if that’s what controlled them, gave us no choice. I’m sorry if this isn’t what you want to hear, but these next six guys will kill you unless Tate and I stop them. You were there. You saw. Koenig and Shields didn’t waste words. They didn’t even ask who we were before they opened fire on Tate and me. These men aren’t coming to talk, either. They mean to kill you, and I won’t let that happen.”

  It was odd how much they thought alike. Eden braced her fingers to her forehead to cover her eyes, on the verge of tears she wouldn’t let fall. “It’s not fair. There has to be a way to save them.”

  Ky huffed through his nose, obviously exasperated. Possibly conflicted. “I’d rather not kill them, either. What would you suggest Tate and I do?”

  “I really don’t know.” One tear rolled out of her eyelid and trickled down her cheek, giving her away. The unnecessary sacrifice of six innocent men galled her, but Ky was right. In the end, it would come down to self-defense. Kill or be killed.

  He reached for her wrists, the barrier of his ever-present gloves once again between them. “Let me talk with Tate. There might be a way, but I’m not promising anything.”

  “Okay.” She changed the subject before she broke down. “What if this wire was implanted inside my femoral artery? What do we do then?”

  He leaned forward with a conspiratorial whisper. “Trust me. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Time to start. She lifted to her knees, not fond of the notion that she had to bare parts of her already chilled anatomy to the bitter cold again. “Br-r-r-r. Then let’s do this fast before I change my mind.”

  He rolled to his butt and turned toward the tent flap, his broad back to her and his elbows on his knees. “Tell me when.”

  Snap. The second she took her gloves off, her fingers were numb. She shivered as she unzipped her TEAMwear jacket, then her trusty Ralph Lauren. Lifting the front of her sweater, she clamped the edge of it under her chin and raised her layers of shirts. Finally down to her bra, she pulled it up over her ample breasts, not willing to reveal more skin than she had to. She was already on her way to hyperthermia, shivering and blowing puffs of frozen vapor while she fumbled with the end of the surgical tape some jerk had had the nerve to stick between her breasts. She peeled the wire very carefully away. Her poor nipples hardened from the chilly air. Breathing on them while she worked didn’t help, but down and off went that strip of tape.

  Silently, she cussed with every inch of the wire revealed. Someone had handled her without her knowledge. Intimately! Who would’ve done that? When? Why? Could Zaroyin be powerful enough to have men everywhere? Already? Being the one and only FBI psychic was bizarre enough, but this whole drone thing spooked her. In less than two weeks, her life had devolved into a scene out of the Body Snatchers.

  Folding the taped wire into a roll upon itself kept the sticky side in. Eden readjusted her bra, warmed her nipples with a quick squeeze, and pulled her layers back down. The TEAMwear top was a welcome article of clothing. Considering she was in the middle of a raging winter snowstorm, she was fairly comfortable—in a chilly, shivering sort of way.

  Now the scary part. She unzipped the TEAMwear bottoms, then her jeans. Straightening her legs, she slipped far enough out of her pants to give her room to work. Pulling the front of her underwear down, she tugged the lowest reach of the wire away from her skin and out of that patch of secret, curly hairs.

  Anger flared at the nerve of the despicable man who’d done this to her all over again. He could’ve raped her. How would she know if he had or hadn’t? Eden pushed her underwear farther down. Little by little she could see better. This was so much worse than she thought. Whoever had done this had shaved a narrow line to the implant in her right groin. Her body! For all she knew, some woman could’ve done this! Sudden tears blurred her vision. The thought of betrayal by her own gender felt so much worse.

  A childish whine nearly escaped before she caught herself. She’d only come into contact with fellow FBI agents since she’d left D.C. behind. There simply was no one she could trust any more, but darn. She was so tired of running. Of fighting the world alone.

  The insertion point was still red and tender. Whoever did this to her had done it recently. “Darn you, Zaroyin.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Until that muttered attempt at a cuss word, Eden had been way too quiet. “You need my help yet?” Ky asked without turning around. He’d hoped that implant could be expressed out through the same hole it had gone in, but it didn’t sound like that was happening.

  “No. I’m just so... so mad.”

  “Can you get it out? Will it move?” He hoped. If she could work it out, he was home free. If not... more touching.

  Eden whined. “No, and I’m just making myself sore. It’s, umm, really stuck.”

  Stuck nothing. She’d been violated, plain and sim
ple, and he wanted to kill the guy who’d done it. “Don’t pull on it. If it is inside your femoral, you don’t want to break it out of there.”

  “Yes, I do. I’ll show him. He can’t do this to me and get away with it.”

  Ky turned to keep her from doing something stupid. The loveliest sight met his eyes. Eden, half-dressed with her chin tucked on her chest to keep her shirt out of her way. Sitting sideways with her legs straight, her pants peeled down, and her bare ass on the sleeping bag. Her lovely white hips showing. The rounded curve of her bottom, too. She’d pulled her shred of black underwear down and sat hunched over, peering at the crease of her thigh, her hair cascading around her. Her lips were pursed tight, her jaw squared off. Teardrops glistened on her lush, thick lashes. His heart melted at the sight. She was frightened and trembling, but she held the wire at a tight right-angle to her body, like a fisherman with a trophy salmon on his line. Only this fish was damned dangerous.

  “Don’t do that,” he cautioned as he crawled to her side. “You’ll hurt yourself. Stop it.”

  She grabbed the edge of her coat to cover her exposed lap. “Ky! Don’t look! You’re supposed to be over there. Not here.”

  “I need to see it,” he insisted. “It’s got to come out, Eden. If you can’t do it yourself, I’ll—”

  “But I don’t want you to, umm, look.” Scarlet crept over her cheeks.

  “Come on. Let me help.” Ky opted for his most professional manner to set her at ease. He wouldn’t look. Much. And he’d be touching her, not the other way around. If she kept her hands to herself, this could work. He stepped out on the limb, needing to set the one and only ground rule before things got more serious. “You can’t touch me while I do this, okay?”