At the Quietest Word

by M. L. Buchman

  It was enough. Ricardo shot him twice in the balls, blowing his hip to smithereens.

  This time he had no choice, and just as he had back in the jungle, he screamed; the scream ripped from his lungs despite his best efforts. The repeated jerks of the firing recoil that transmitted into his wound by the tourniquet belt wrapped around his thigh was too much. Then the searing powder burn of the muzzle flash scorching across the open wound and blowing down the leg of his pants struck home.

  When someone dragged him out from underneath the Humvee, he was past caring if it was Hannah and Anton or the security squad turned drug runners.

  “Gonna haveta rescue your sorry ass again, Ricardo. Gettin’ to be a goddamn habit.”

  Anton.

  Then he looked down at Ricardo’s leg and for a second Ricardo was afraid that Anton was going to faint and land on top of him.

  Michelle came to with a monotone scream sounding in her head as she was jostled hard against some soft surface.

  She reached up to cover her ears, but couldn’t.

  Her hands were zip-tied together.

  The scream might have been her own. Or imagined.

  Another slam threw her into—Jesse’s back. They were lying side by side in a fast-moving vehicle. On a very, very rough road.

  That’s when the throbbing kicked in. Raising both hands together, she was able to find the swelling lump on her skull. Then the incredible pain of her jaw.

  The image came back of a fist connecting with her chin and her collapsing like a rag doll. Some hero she was.

  Triage.

  She had no arterial blood flow, no bleeding at all that she could find.

  And she was breathing normally despite a cloth tied over her mouth. She couldn’t seem to find the knot, which must be behind her head. So the scream hadn’t been hers.

  Shock? Maybe.

  No nausea (good thing since she was gagged). Breathing normal. Her own skin didn’t feel cool or moist. More hot, like she was being slowly roasted alive.

  She tried counting backward from ten, just to see if she could.

  At seven, the scream sounded again. Definitely not her. Only one person could scream inside her head other than her.

  :Goddamn you to hell, Ricardo.:

  Nothing.

  Michelle tried to glare at Ricardo, except—oh right, he wasn’t here.

  Instead she was staring at Jesse from mere inches away. His eyes were closed, but the gag over his mouth only proved that the scream hadn’t been his either. He was bound hand and foot and the two of them were in some cramped space that she finally decided was the rear equipment area of the Humvee. She wasn’t being roasted, just lying in the back of a sunbaked Humvee.

  She nudged him, but he didn’t wake up. Crashing through a pothole that must be as big as the Humvee slammed them together—still he was unresponsive. They were close enough that she could hear his steady breathing. Still alive.

  He looked pretty battered: a lot of little cuts, and his left eye was bruising badly. The lividity told her she’d been out only briefly. Probably less than ten minutes. He’d fought hard and paid the price.

  :Go suck an egg, Ricardo. My head hurts, leave me alone.:

  :Why?:

  :Because I asked you to. Or is that too difficult a concept for you?:

  :No, I mean why does your head hurt?: His words seemed to stutter into her head with strange gaps.

  :From having my head smashed against the runway. Now leave me alone.:

  :Can’t. Need help.:

  :The great Ricardo Manella, Mr. I-Don’t-Need-Anybody, wants my help? (shocked query) Well tough, I’m all tied up at the moment.:

  :I’m bleeding. How do I stop it?:

  :Try a Band-Aid. I’ve been knocked out and now I’m tied up in back of a Humvee with Jesse. Help yourself a little, baby.:

  :Shit! Shit! Shit!:

  Michelle came awake enough to try her feet…but they were bound together as well. :You could come rescue me, you know.:

  :At the rate. I’m bleeding out. Not alive long enough.:

  :WHAT?: At least it was a shout in her head. :Were you shot?: Duh, Michelle! :Where? Can you get a tourniquet on it?:

  :Done. Have a med kit. Tell Hannah. Patch me up.:

  :How?:

  :Through me.:

  It was surreal. This time she wasn’t guiding her semi-brother in a jungle raid to save Ricardo, who she hadn’t met yet. Instead, she was lying beneath the cargo hatch with the only light filtering in from the passenger compartment over the back seat of a racing Humvee. Meanwhile, she was giving step-by-step instructions to Ricardo, to explain to Hannah how to cut his leg open and fix his artery. It wasn’t like they could pack it in ice or rush him to a hospital.

  When she’d suggested the latter, he’d explained that they were still pinned down. There were gaps in the surgery while Hannah had to join the firefight with Anton.

  Michelle felt the shame that she hadn’t asked about her semi-brother until that moment. Hannah had asked after Jesse in the first ten seconds and was still asking every minute or so if he was awake yet.

  Somehow they did it. The punctured artery was just above the knee, which was a good thing. Close up to the pelvis would be much harder to fix. And punctured was much easier to patch than severed.

  Her first-ever patient, and she treated him while lying helplessly on her side in the back of a Humvee racing along in the sun.

  :Ease the tourniquet off slowly to check for leaks.:

  She held her breath until Ricardo reported all good. Leading them through the closure steps was mostly about antibiotic salve and a tightly wrapped bandage.

  :Now stay off it until a real surgeon can check it over and close it properly.:

  :Where are you?:

  :You’re not—: She had no idea why she was arguing. Ricardo, Hannah, and Anton racing to her rescue sounded like a great idea. :Lounging in the back of a racing Humvee.:

  Any doubts she might have had about the toughness of Delta Force soldiers, which she hadn’t had to begin with, were blown away. No sedatives, he’d repeated every medical instruction to make sure he was passing it on correctly. Now, fresh from surgery and probably weak from blood loss, he was preparing to come after her.

  :Specifics. Where. Are. You.:

  :I’m being bounced around in the back of a Humvee. Jesse’s still out cold; they must have taken him down harder than me.:

  :Isobel?:

  :We offloaded her before anything went down. Docs will know she’s a fake now. She’ll raise the alarm.:

  Chapter 17

  Well, at least they were talking again. Ricardo would take that as a positive sign.

  He puzzled at Michelle’s last comment for a moment. Isobel should have alerted someone. Unless…

  She was probably in an interrogation room being quizzed about her arrival under false pretenses. And if her delivery pilot and medic had suddenly gone missing, the military would be very suspicious of her. So much for testing the base’s security—it would be on full alert now, performing a manhunt for the missing pilot and medic. Except it didn’t sound as if they were on base anymore, so that wouldn’t be much help.

  Isobel would bring them around in time because nothing could stop Izzy’s charm when she chose to wield it.

  In time.

  He didn’t have time.

  Ricardo lay his head back on the cool concrete for a moment longer, listening to the sporadic back-and-forth gunfire going on around him. They’d made their stand behind a shield of Humvee, airplane, and helicopter tires. The floor was covered in blood. His blood.

  Sleep.

  He really just wanted to sleep.

  But he didn’t dare. Forcing himself upright wasn’t the most painful thing he’d done this year, but it was very close.

  “Sitrep.”

  “Man wants a situation report, he must be alive,” Anton said deadpan without turning from his position scanning through a narrow gap in their tire wall.

&nb
sp; “I might have noticed. Hannah?”

  “We’ve got at least one more shooter. Back of the hangar about two o’clock. Can’t find him, but he’s there.”

  Ricardo scanned the floor and spotted the guard who he’d shot in the balls to bring him down. He lay nearby and, more importantly, on their side of the rubber tire barricade.

  “Anton, grab him.”

  Anton snaked out a hand and dragged the corpse over.

  No need to ask if Hannah was ready; she was Delta.

  “Raise him up.” Ricardo tipped a rifle—there were several scattered about—on top of the tires, as if he was about to pop his head up for a quick look-see. Then he nodded for Anton to raise the corpse’s head above the top of their tire fortress.

  Less than a second later, the back of the corpse’s head disappeared in a cloud of red blood splatter.

  Having revealed his position with his muzzle flash—lying on the roof of a partly disassembled Huey UH-1N helo at the far side of the hangar—Hannah pumped three rounds into him.

  The silence seemed to echo off the metal walls.

  “We clear?”

  “I think so.”

  Anton tried raising the corpse again, but there were no reactions.

  Why hadn’t security come to all of the gunfire? Because it had all happened inside a closed aircraft hangar well away from the main section of the base. And because these guys were the base’s primary security.

  The only sound now was Hannah dumping partly spent magazines and loading full ones. She handed him a pair of Glocks that he slid into his shoulder harness, and a fistful of fresh magazines for his pockets. No time to worry about a vest. The M4 rifle he’d taken off the guard was lifted out of his shaking hands. By the time he got them back under control, Hannah handed the M4 back to him with a pair of thirty-round magazines taped in an alternating up-down pattern for fast changeout.

  “Wish I’d had this earlier.”

  “Yeah, good thing for us we didn’t need your help none,” Anton teased him.

  Hannah said nothing, keeping her attention on the hangar.

  With Hannah’s help, he managed to regain his feet, but he wouldn’t be using the left leg any time soon.

  He looked at the Humvee they’d arrived in. It was riddled with bullets, which probably didn’t matter—Humvees were designed tough. But the windows had been badly star-cracked. It would be nearly impossible to drive and would raise a lot of unwanted questions from anyone who spotted them.

  “We need wheels.”

  “We’ll have other problems in a minute,” Hannah nodded toward the main hangar door.

  She was right.

  “Friendlies?” Anton asked.

  “Willing to put money on that?” Hannah kept assembling weapons.

  Anton grunted uncertainly.

  Ricardo shook his head to clear it. Sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes, making them sting. He wished it was heat sweat, but he knew from experience that it was pain sweat.

  “If the first to arrive is the security force’s contingent from the restaurant, the answer is no. If it’s base personnel, the answer is that we just shot the shit out of their security forces, so the answer is still no. Michelle’s in trouble, we’ve got to get moving.”

  “She what?” Anton spun on him. “Mighta mentioned that sooner, asshole.”

  “I was busy bleeding.”

  “No fucking excuse.”

  It wasn’t. Even though he’d had no choice, it wasn’t. He surveyed the hangar, something he hadn’t had a chance to do sooner.

  Their, actually Jack Harper’s, shattered Humvee had been pulled into a side service bay. In the far corner sat the partly serviced Huey with the dead guy lying on top of it. At least ten bodies were sprawled across the concrete, four of them around the useless Humvee.

  And in the exact center sat an UH-60 Black Hawk.

  “Anybody hit that?”

  “Not me,” Hannah shook her head.

  Anton just smiled.

  Because the base commander was a fan, Isobel managed to convince him that she was merely part of a test and not a security threat. When she asked about Michelle’s and Jesse’s whereabouts, she’d lost most of the goodwill she’d felt building between them.

  Asking about the second team was a big mistake.

  Colonel Jewison scrambled the security detail. The handcuffs, which the first guard had slapped on her, then the colonel had removed, were back on. A corporal now stood with one hand clamped firmly around her biceps as they walked out to inspect the Bell LongRanger her team had rented to deliver her here as a bloody patient.

  She tried to reach out, to feel where her people were, but her powers had never extended more that a few dozen meters with the exception of Ricardo. Him she could follow to about half a kilometer. But he was out at her limits; she could feel him, but not what he was feeling.

  All she sensed were the nearest soldiers. Some were calm, but many were definitely ready to have something to shoot first and question later. There was an excitement beneath their professional demeanor that she wished she didn’t know about.

  Should she warn the colonel to rein in his men?

  Would he listen if she tried?

  Her bet was against it, but she had to try.

  “Colonel, I—”

  There was a shout down the field.

  She turned in time to see a hangar’s doors slide open. The instant they were, a Black Hawk helicopter emerged, already in flight a foot off the ground. Whoever had opened the doors ran alongside for a moment and then dove into the open cargo bay door.

  Before the tail was fully out of the hangar, the helo was already climbing and turning away to the east.

  A pickup truck that had been approaching from the gate squealed to a halt. Four men poured out, then, aiming rifles at the departing helicopter, began firing in long bursts.

  “What the hell is Jack Harper up to?” The colonel’s snarl had the man next to him reaching for a radio.

  She didn’t know who Jack Harper was, but he was obviously one of the four men shooting at the departing helicopter—and they all looked pissed as hell.

  Her tenuous contact with Ricardo faded rapidly. He must be aboard that helo. Was that a good thing or bad thing? She had no way to tell.

  If that was either Anton or Jesse stealing a helicopter, something had gone far more wrong than she’d feared.

  And she knew she was helpless to do anything about it.

  Chapter 18

  :Can you give me any guidance?:

  Michelle grunted as the Humvee bounced through another pothole. It was not the right prescription for making her head hurt less.

  :Sure. Go find a high cliff. Jump off.:

  :Later. I promise. Give me something, Michelle.:

  Damn it. He was using her first name again. It meant he really was worried about her. Well, in the moments when she wasn’t being scared to death about being kidnapped, she was actually rather pleased. If she was his saving angel, then he could be her avenging demon—because she really needed some hell unleashed on whoever was driving this—

  Another pothole plunge followed by washboard road.

  :Dirt road. Bad shape. Moving fast.:

  :In Honduras? I’m so surprised.:

  She leveraged herself up on Jesse’s unresponsive body and peeked over the back of the rear seat—looking straight into the eyes of the driver reflected in the rearview mirror. It was the man who’d struck her to the ground. Beside him, all she could see of the passenger was the rifle he held across his chest with the barrel pointing at the roof.

  Michelle ducked back down. :Two very bad men driving. They look nasty and are heavily armed.:

  :The road. The terrain. What direction is the sun?:

  Reaching for the bravery she’d always imagined herself having during EMT drills, she used it to lever herself back up into view. The driver’s glare snapped to the mirror once more. This time, the passenger turned to look back at her as well�
�through his rifle scope. The tip of the barrel was so close she could almost touch it.

  She dropped back down on Jesse.

  :Do NOT (seriously loud demand) ask me to do that again.:

  :What did you see?:

  :Sun,: Michelle tried to picture the shooter’s face and couldn’t. The faceless terror. The gunman had been in shadow. :Over passenger’s right shoulder, behind. Lighting the dashboard, but not him.:

  :Heading northeast. Good, girl.:

  :Woman.:

  :No argument. What else?:

  :Uh, trees. Thick trees. Never been to a jungle, but it looks like one.:

  :Can you see anything else?:

  Michelle considered what the passenger with the rifle might do if she popped her head up again. :Is this what it feels like?:

  :What?:

  :Terror.: She was sweating far more than she could account for from the heat. Was this day going to end with rape or death? Or both? To never see her semi-brother or laugh with Isobel again. To not find out just what there was between her and Ricardo.

  :Breathe. Focus on the moment and breathe. It’s the only thing that gets you through. Here and now. Don’t think about the future. Don’t think about consequences.:

  :A lot you know.: The instant she said it, she wished she could cut out her mental tongue. Ricardo always seemed to bring out the worst in her.

  If she wasn’t supposed to be dwelling on the future, ten times over Ricardo Manella should not be dwelling on the past. But she seemed to keep throwing it in his face.

  :Ricardo, I—:

  :Only the present matters.:

  :But—:

  :Later. Or not at all. Focus on the now. Is there anything else you can tell me?:

  :Without being shot? No.:

  :I’m such an idiot.:

  :No argument from me.: And there went her sharp tongue again.

  :Do you have your cell phone?:

  She patted her pockets, then for good measure, checked Jesse’s with no luck. :No. And if the driver has them, I wouldn’t suggest calling them.:

  :I have an idea, don’t go anywhere.: