From Mission to Marriage

by Lyn Stone

  She gave a rueful chuckle. “This sounds too much like we’re saying farewell.”

  “Well, we’re not! We don’t do farewells. No goodbyes, no good lucks, just see you later and buy you a beer to celebrate.”

  “See you later then,” she said, stretched to loosen her muscles, winked and took off.

  Clay heaved a sigh and a fervent prayer and began his climb toward the tiny, ominous flicker of light.

  The ravine he’d noted earlier lay just to his left, a narrow fissure that snaked its way up. It seemed to beckon him nearer, probably a residual compulsion left over from his long-ago bout with acrophobia.

  His breath grew shaky and he willed it to steady. Reluctantly, he recalled edging up to another precipice, closer and closer, unable to resist the lure of it, when he was a child. He remembered the wild fluttering of fear in his heart as death called to him. Here, here, come and meet me…

  He shook it off. Conquered that, he assured himself, staunchly denying the seconds of panic he’d endured when Hightower had cut that damned rope and left him hanging on the side of the cliff.

  Self-preservation had him putting a few extra feet between him and that dark ribbon of danger. There would be enough peril to face once he encountered the mad bomber who was waiting for him. Hightower was insane, that was clear, and his compulsion was a hell of a lot more critical than a simple fear of heights.

  The plan was to get Hightower talking, to distract him while Vanessa got in place to take him down. Clay just hoped Hightower didn’t have another weapon besides the empty .22 he had dropped in the cave.

  Clay trudged on, purposely taking his time to allow Vanessa to make her longer route around. His gaze kept flicking at the fathomless ravine.

  Vanessa stopped to catch her breath, her eyes never leaving the point of destination. Clay would give her time to get in place. He knew her injuries had weakened her. Thank goodness she wasn’t concussed. She felt a little shaky, but her aim should be true if she could find a prop of some kind to steady her hands.

  Clouds were moving in, intermittently covering the bright full moon that had guided them so far tonight. Now she could hardly see. She made herself go on.

  She wished for moccasins. Her feet would have bruised in those, but she could move soundlessly if she had some. Instead, she had to watch her steps. Her hiking boots would break fallen branches, crunch leaves, make noise that might give her away.

  At last, she drew close enough to see James moving against the firelight. She was a good thirty yards away. At twenty-five, she would feel confident of a hit that would kill all his reflexes. If only she could close in just a bit. He straightened suddenly and disappeared behind rock cover just beyond his fire.

  She watched as Clay entered the circle of light cast by the flames. “Hightower?” he called, his voice deep with fury. “I’m here to make you pay for what you did to my woman!”

  Without warning, shots rang out and Clay fell. Vanessa couldn’t catch the small cry that erupted. Oh, God! James had brought another weapon! Sounded like another Saturday-night special, best she could tell, but she couldn’t be sure. How many times had he fired? Four? Five? How many times had Clay been hit? She couldn’t think about that.

  Summoning all her training, Vanessa beat back the urge to run to Clay, to save him if she could. Other lives depended on her, too. James had come out from behind the rocks, brandishing the pistol in one hand, pointed directly at Clay. He clutched the detonator in the other.

  She crept closer. There was no place to brace her hands, no way she could trust her aim. Her entire body shook like a leaf in the wind. Clay could be faking it, but James would find out and finish him off if she didn’t do something now!

  If she fired, it would distract him, but unless she could kill him instantly, he would detonate the bombs he’d set and probably shoot Clay again as well. Then he would come after her. Closer in, she could take him out, but it would be too late.

  He kicked Clay’s side while aiming the pistol directly at him. Then he raised his head and looked around, scanning the darkness. “You out there, Vanessa?” he shouted. “Lover boy’s down for the count! Might not be dead yet. Show yourself or I’ll shoot him again!”

  She held her breath. If she opened fire and blasted him with all the rounds she had, Clay might catch ricochets off the rocks behind them. And James’s reflexes could tighten his thumb on that dreaded button. Maybe she could draw him away from Clay, somehow get him closer. Sucking in a deep breath, she let out a throaty moan.

  Hightower tensed and turned in her direction. She groaned again. He took several steps, trying to see where she was.

  She knew he might have spotted her if the clouds weren’t blocking out the moonlight.

  “I.. .c-can’t.. .move!” she groaned, sounding more like the panther’s yowl than herself. Where was that beast when Clay needed him?

  She watched as James glanced back and forth between Clay, who still lay unmoving, and where he thought she was hiding. She coughed and cried out as if in great pain. Not much pretending to that, either. Her bum shoulder was giving her fits.

  He started toward her, turning his back on Clay. Vanessa almost shouted with glee as Clay promptly rolled to his feet and rushed James from behind. She took off for them at a run and stumbled.

  When she regained her footing and looked back at the clearing, they were gone, had disappeared like magic. Without slowing, she tore through the gorse and scrambled over piles of rock until she reached the circle of firelight. She could hear them grunting, cursing and wrestling, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  “Get off!” she heard James scream frantically. “I’ll blow it! I will!”

  “Go ahead,” Clay shouted. “Do it!”

  Vanessa rushed for the wide crack in the ground that bypassed the fire and threw herself on her stomach. She flicked on the flashlight and shone it down on the writhing figures a good fifteen feet below.

  Clay had James pinned in the deep V of the crevice, grasping both his wrists. James still held the remote in one hand, his pistol in the other.

  “Clay, were you hit?” she cried.

  “He’s got one round left! Get back!” Clay shouted.

  James struggled, trying to angle the barrel of the pistol at Clay who banged his arm against the rocks. The gun discharged and the bullet zinged past her head. His other hand worked frantically, pressing the button on the remote control device over and over.

  “Changing the channels in hell?” Clay scoffed. “Give it up, man. It won’t work down here.”

  With a loud bellow, James bucked Clay off him and hit him hard in the temple with the detonator. Before Clay could recover, James scrambled off down the bottom of the ravine and disappeared into the darkness.

  Vanessa couldn’t let him get away, not with that detonator in his hands. If he climbed out of that ravine farther down the mountain, he still had a good shot at making his plan work.

  She shone the flashlight in the direction he’d gone, saw movement and opened fire. When the clip was empty, she moved farther down the edge and saw him. Or at least she saw his hands and the top of his head.

  “James!” she cried out, unable to do anything to help.

  He looked up at her, terror in his eyes. His mouth worked frantically. “Van, the baby…look after…”

  His fingers scrabbled for a hold, sliding and grasping at the muddy edge where the base of the ravine dropped off to an even deeper crevice. He roared, a cry of pure rage, then fell as the soft ground gave way. His fading scream ended abruptly a good two seconds later. The aperture must be very deep, she thought, wincing.

  Sadness pierced her, knowing James’s final thoughts were of his little daughter, a child he had never even seen. Way too late for him to show concern for anything but himself and his vengeance.

  She played the light around the irregular floor of the ravine and saw the remote device. It lay harmless and broken, surrounded by a small pile of stones and the batteries that had spill
ed out of it.

  A wave of relief washed through her, quickly replaced by renewed fear for Clay. Exhaustion almost claimed her, but she fought it. She had to help him.

  A few minutes later, she had him in sight again, playing the beam of her light along his body. He had collapsed and rolled to his back, but she could see the rise and fall of his chest. Inches below his collarbone, blood oozed from a bullet hole.

  Less than a foot from his hip and leg lay another deep fault in the ravine floor, much like the one that had claimed James. “Don’t move, Clay,” she warned. “Stay right where you are. Can you hear me?”

  He tried to raise his arm.

  “Okay. That’s all right. Just lie still and save your strength.”

  How the hell was she going to get him out of there? She had lost her phone along with her backpack and James had crushed Clay’s to smithereens, so there was no calling for rescue. He couldn’t climb up. She couldn’t climb down. He would bleed out if she left him there to go get help.

  As if on cue, it began to rain.

  Vanessa left him to plunder through James’s gear for anything that might work. She scattered items right and left, discovering another flashlight and a coil of rope. She stuck the light in her pocket and uncoiled the rope, measuring by guess. Knotted for climbing, it would be too short. But there was nothing else.

  She thought of rolling rocks into the ravine to build the floor of it high enough for him to climb out. Even if she found strength to dislodge enough of them to make any kind of difference, their weight could erode the edge of that fissure. He didn’t appear able to climb anyway. Not an option.

  Huffing with effort, she grabbed the rope, ran and secured one end to the nearest tree and prayed it would hold. Putting in the least number of knots she figured she could get by with, Vanessa went over the side of the ravine and rappelled down to where Clay lay. She had to turn loose and fall the last three feet.

  Soaking wet and slogging on her knees in the mud, she reached his side and checked his wound with the flashlight. It looked small. When he tried to sit up, she ran a hand behind his shoulder and felt for an exit wound. There was none. God only knew how much internal damage the bullet had done. Twenty-two calibers tended to enter and bounce around. “Any other hits?” she asked, trying to sound crisp and professional instead of waterlogged and terror stricken.

  “Don’t think so,” he gasped. “Do something for me?” he added.

  “Anything I can,” she promised, sheltering his face from the rain with her body.

  “I.. .I’ve been trying to.. .contact.. .help.”

  “You have? Any luck?” she asked, thinking he must have begun hallucinating. They had no phones, no way to communicate. She figured her best bet was to try to drag him down the ravine to a place where the bottom of it might be shallower than here. If she didn’t get him out, find some shelter and treat his wound, he would probably die. And if the ravine stayed this deep, she would die right along with him. The rain pelted her back, chilling her through and through.

  His fingers settled around her arm. “Agent Eric… Vinland. He’s…psychic. Can read me sometimes. But I can’t…think straight. You try.”

  Vanessa swallowed her hysteria and tried to humor him. “Okay. Tell me what to do. I don’t have much, uh, experience with this.” And didn’t believe in it, either, but she wouldn’t tell him that. “You do, right? You’ve done this before. Many times?”

  His head moved in a jerky nod. “Believe. Concentrate. Send north. Call to him. He.. .can locate. Homing.. .implant in my shoulder.”

  Vanessa expelled a breath, blowing away the rainwater collected on her lips. Clay was making no sense at all. But she did recall his telling her about some of the agents he worked with having certain talents when it came to psychic phenomena. Maybe he was making a strange sort of sense after all.

  She had run out of options and was willing at that point to try anything. “Okay, got it,” she told him. “Eric Vinland. Concentrate. North. Call in the cavalry.”

  “Go.. .up,” he ordered, his voice grating. A thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and his eyes clenched shut.

  Vanessa almost lost it when she saw that. Definite internal damage, probably his lung. “Going,” she told him. “I’m going up!” She gave him her flashlight. “Light my way, then keep it on. I have another one in my pocket for when I get up there.”

  She stood and cast the light up to the rope’s end, which dangled a couple of feet above her head. When she grabbed it, it slid right out of her hand.

  Moving as quickly as possible, she dragged a few loose stones over beneath it and stood on them. They scattered, but held in place just long enough for her to get a better hold on the rope.

  Three tries at it and she was on her way up, her boots slipping and sliding, the treads finally grabbing on the wall of the ravine. Time crawled as she climbed.

  Finally back on solid ground, she looked back down at Clay. The flashlight had rolled to one side, out of his hand, and he looked unconscious. “Hang in there!” she called down in case he could hear her. “I’ll be back soon as I can.”

  She fished her flashlight out of her pocket and took off for the summit. Her legs felt like rubber and blisters lined her palms. If her pounding head didn’t roll off her shoulders, she would be surprised.

  “Let this be for real,” she prayed. “Please let this guy be for real and let me find his hotline.”

  When she reached the highest point she could navigate, Vanessa paused, leaned over with her hands on her knees and heaved. Her stomach was empty and she felt she was turning inside out.

  What a leap of faith, she thought, unable to believe she was really doing this. Maybe she was the one hallucinating, out of her mind with exhaustion and fear.

  Soon as she caught her breath, she sucked in all the oxygen she could and stood tall. She faced north and cleared her mind of everything but a heartfelt plea and shouted as if her words could reach Virginia. “Help us, Eric Vinland! Send help. Clay Senate is hurt. He might die. Help now!”

  She waited, wondering if she should expect an answer. Then she laughed bitterly, felt extremely stupid to be standing on top of a mountain, calling to a total stranger a thousand miles away as if he could hear her.

  In spite of that, she tried again, putting every ounce of her energy into thinking it, shouting it, pleading with the unknown. And the known. She added a fervent prayer to any deities who might possibly care to listen and heed.

  “I love this man!” she shouted. “Do not let him die. Not this way. He does not deserve this! Help me save him!” She added a groaning, “Please!” and fell to her knees, clasping her hands around the flashlight and letting her tears mix with the rain as she sobbed and whispered, “Don’t let him die.”

  She had been away from him for at least half an hour, maybe a bit more. It would take her another twenty minutes or so to descend. Unwilling to leave him alone any longer, Vanessa trudged back down the mountain as swiftly as she could and still keep her footing.

  She went directly back to the rope and began lowering herself down to be with him.

  The rain had abated to a drizzle some time ago and now had stopped completely. And though it cast a dimmer light than before, the moon was back. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Maybe some higher power had actually heard her.

  But when she reached the end of her rope and dropped the rest of the way, Clay was no longer there.

  Chapter 13

  Clay held on, but he was already losing hope. He realized, now that he couldn’t make contact, how he had come to depend on his fellow agents. No, they were not only that. They were his friends.

  Eric, the trickster hiding his kindness behind a devil-may-care facade. Holly, whom he trusted in spite of his lifelong wariness. Her husband, Will, the quiet one, the one who saw too much. Joe, the good oV boy who would go to the mat for any of them. Yes, even Jack Mercier. Jack could be a real hard-ass, but he was fair and always willing to liste
n.

  Yeah, he had underappreciated all of them, held himself apart, trusting them with his physical self, but rarely with any confidences.

  It had taken a little snip of a woman with her laughing attitude and boundless energy to yank him out of his shell. He looked around the weak pool of light cast by the flashlight he had dropped. Here he was, lying in the pit of a mountain, not even a remarkable mountain at that, ruminating over the part of his life he’d misspent. And she was up there somewhere sending her thoughts out like smoke signals just because he had asked it of her. She probably thought doing that was as useless as blanketed puffs of smoke, too. Maybe it was.

  Well, he ought to do something besides bleed. He touched his wound and thought maybe it had stopped. Carefully, he rolled to his side, hoping to shift himself upright before she got back. Maybe his head would clear.

  The ground beneath him sank under his weight. Clay slid rapidly, unable to catch onto anything solid. Mud slithered through his hands and over his face as he descended at a steep angle into what must be hell. A wet, engulfing hell of darkness. Hope died completely on the way down. He had failed her, failed himself, failed his friends and those he had tried to help Vanessa protect. Hightower had escaped.

  With an overwhelming sense of deja vu, he realized that portion of his vision, earth falling away and a pervasive sense of doom.

  “Clay!” he heard her scream. With the last desperate breath of effort he could manage, he called to her.

  Vanessa crawled toward the sound, half groan, half shout. He had fallen into the crevice. She directed the light down and saw him immediately. Thank God there was not a steep dropoff here in this ditch within a ditch, but it was still too deep for her to reach him. If she slid down, too, she knew she would be trapped.

  There was nothing for it but to go for help to get him out and pray that he survived long enough for the rescue. She picked up the flashlight he had dropped and shook it. The batteries were dead. Hers were good, though, and should last until daylight.