The pickup careened at high speed, swerving sharply to the left, fifty feet away from Wyatt. Suddenly, it was airborne, flipping over in slow motion and landing heavily on its cab, upside down in the road, blocking the Jeep. Turning, Wyatt realized the Jeep was damn near on top of him. He leaped out of the thicket to the left, lunging for the ground and rolling away from the uncontrolled vehicle. Landing hard on his belly, he swiftly sprang to his feet, SIG ready, eyes on the Jeep.
Suddenly, inexplicably, Wyatt saw someone discharging his weapon inside the Jeep. The flash illuminated the interior of the vehicle. What the hell? He raced toward the vehicle as it crawled to a stop. Three men bailed out of it, one screaming out in Spanish that he was hit and then crumpling to the ground.
Wyatt was focused on the Jeep, on identifying Mark among the other passengers.
The man who had leaped out of the driver’s side of the Jeep aimed his Glock 18 right at Wyatt.
Before Wyatt could shoot, another man, behind the soldier, fired.
Wyatt heard a gurgle and a scream. Jerking a look to the left, not more than five feet away from him, was a drug soldier releasing the handgun he was carrying.
More gunfire erupted. Bullets went sailing by Wyatt’s head from two different directions. He lost sight of the passenger who had been in the front seat of the Jeep. Where the hell was he? Wyatt couldn’t identify if it was Mark or not. The flashes of gunfire were wreaking havoc on his night vision, but he had to wear the goggles or be in complete darkness. His vision was blown and he knelt, swiftly trying to take stock of where the other shooters were located. It was chaos and pandemonium.
Wyatt caught sight of two men running for a ravine on the slope near where the truck had flipped. They were trying to run, escape, and hide.
More shouts and gunfire took off behind him. Wyatt cursed softly, his ear filled with shouts, orders, and yelling from Watson and other agents on the same radio channel. Fuck them. He was going after the two soldiers who had just disappeared into that ravine ahead of him.
Wyatt jogged up to the overturned truck. He heard someone crying for help. Slowing, he saw that the passenger in the truck had been thrown half out of it and lay in the dirt. The man had no weapon on him. Wanting to get to the two cartel men who had escaped, Wyatt left him where he was and dug in the toes of his boots, sprinting as hard and fast as he could. That ravine was filled with cranky, thorny mesquite bushes. Those thorns would tear a man’s flesh open like a scalpel. He was glad he was wearing plenty of protective clothing.
The gunfire was slowly dying down behind him. He called to Watson, giving his location and telling him he was running after two drug soldiers who had escaped into the ravine a hundred feet beyond the flipped pickup. It sloped upward between two hills and opened up on top of them. Leaping over a small cactus, Wyatt crouched, running along the right sloped bank of the ravine. He could hear the two men crashing through the bushes, and he was going to outflank them. Breathing through his mouth, pumping his legs hard, digging into the rocky, thicket-strewn slope, Wyatt wanted to make it to the top of the ravine before the hidden figures within it. By running up the slope, he figured he would arrive at the top of it before they did. He knew this country well because he and Mark had hiked it with Sage and Mattie so many times as children.
Was Mark one of the two men in the ravine? His gut said yes. The higher he went up the slope, paralleling the mesquite-laden ravine, the less he heard the noise, shouts, and engines of vehicles where the DEA had stopped and trapped the rest of the convoy far below. The top of the ravine was a hundred feet above him. Wyatt heard a sinister click to his left. Instantly, he crouched, whirling around. In the darkness and shadows, he saw a drug soldier climbing out of the ravine, coming right at him. He fired before Wyatt could twist and turn to fire at the man. Simultaneously, gunfire erupted from the ravine at the drug soldier.
Wyatt got slammed in the chest with one bullet. Grunting, he was knocked back, the breath yanked out of him. He held on to his SIG as he flipped backward, slamming into the rocks, stunned momentarily.
The drug soldier coming out of the ravine toward him to finish him off was suddenly thrown six feet sideways. He screamed, dropped his weapon, collapsing into a heap, unmoving.
Wyatt lay on the ground, gasping for breath. The well-aimed bullet had hit him square in the chest, but the Kevlar had stopped it. Shaking his head, he rolled to the right, knowing another drug soldier was nearby. He couldn’t understand what was going on. The soldier crawling out of the ravine to shoot him had been shot by the other drug soldier who was in the ravine. Why the hell was he shooting his own man? Wyatt’s mind spun as he struggled to his hands and knees, his gun hand jamming into a cactus, the thorns ripping into his flesh.
“Where are you hit?”
Wyatt froze as he saw a tall, dark figure emerge from the ravine and come upon him, pistol in hand, no more than six feet from him. It was Mark Reuss! Wyatt could see the man’s gleaming, sweaty face. He was holding his left arm against his body, his Glock in his right hand, the muzzle remaining down, not pointing at Wyatt. Grunting, Wyatt wasn’t about to shoot Mark. He released his SIG.
“Took a hit to the Kevlar,” he rasped as Mark holstered his pistol and crouched down beside him. Confused, he looked at Mark’s drawn face as Mark leaned over him, his hand going to Wyatt’s shoulder to push him back down and get him to lie still. “What the hell, Mark!” The impact of the bullet made his heart pound erratically, and his breath was coming in broken gasps.
“Stay down, just try to breathe regularly,” Mark told him quietly. He looked around, making sure no one else was nearby.
Wyatt felt dizzy. Mark’s hand remained strong and stable on him, keeping him still. Both of them were breathing like winded bulls. “Sonofabitch, Reuss.”
Mark’s lips pulled back, his teeth white in the darkness. “You haven’t changed at all, buddy. You took a direct hit to the heart area. There’s no more bad guys around us.” He craned his neck, looking back toward where the DEA had trapped the rest of the convoy. Returning his attention to Wyatt, he drawled, “You lost two of your SEAL nine lives, Lockwood. I saved your sorry ass twice tonight.”
Wyatt blinked, sweat stinging his eyes. He heart was starting to settle down, but he was suddenly weak from the nearly deadly hit. “What the hell are you talkin’ about, Mark?”
Mark scowled, kept his hearing keyed toward the DEA a quarter of a mile below them. “When you fired at the Jeep’s tires, the driver had a bead on you. I took my Glock and shot him in the leg.”
Confused, Wyatt stared up at him, speechless. Mark had shot his own man? And then he saw Mark grimace and resettle his left arm against his belly.
“The second time was in the ravine. I hit the bastard before he could get a second shot off at you, but I didn’t have a good angle on him at first, so he nailed you. Sorry about that.”
“What’s going on, Mark? You’re not makin’ sense. Whose side are you on?”
“Yeah, my life’s never made much sense to me, either.” He chuckled darkly. Mark looked him over, running his hand knowingly across Wyatt’s Kevlar vest. He pulled out the bullet. “You damn near bought the farm, SEAL boy.”
If Wyatt hadn’t been feeling so damn weak right now, he might have laughed. Mark had teased him with that name when they went into the recruiter’s office to enlist. Wyatt went to the Navy recruiter, and Mark went to the Marine one. “Give yourself up, Mark. You aren’t gonna get out of this.”
Patting Wyatt’s shoulder, he said, “I will unless you decide to shoot me in the back.” He pulled open Wyatt’s vest, laying his dirty hand over his heart, feeling the beat of it. “I’m waiting to see if your heart settles down.”
Grunting, Wyatt said, “It went into arrhythmia at first.”
Nodding, Mark became somber, keeping his palm over Wyatt’s damp T-shirt, feeling the thud of his heart. With Mark’s Force Recon experience, he knew a center hit to a man’s Kevlar over his heart could cause a heart atta
ck.
“You need to get out of here,” Wyatt growled. “The DEA knows my location.”
“Another five minutes, buddy. I want to make sure your heart isn’t going to go belly-up on you.”
Wyatt had seen it happen in his own SEAL team on a mission. A SEAL’s heart jumped into violent arrhythmia, and he went into cardiac arrest. Luckily, Wyatt had been there, and as an 18 Delta–trained corpsman, he’d ripped the man’s vest open, made a tight fist, and struck his heart area with an equally stunning blow. The guy got lucky. The impact had snapped his heart back into a healthy rhythm. The SEAL had lived, but Wyatt had fractured his friend’s sternum in the process. A small price to pay to live.
He knew Mark was risking his own life by remaining at his side in case his heart didn’t settle down. If he needed to, Mark would do the same thing Wyatt had done to try to shock the heart back into normal rhythm. Wyatt couldn’t fully see his face because Mark was wearing NVGs like he was. Mark divided his attention between him and the DEA a quarter of a mile away from them.
He made a pleased sound, gently patting Wyatt’s chest. His crooked smile disappeared and he rasped, “Your heart is beating normally now. You’ll be fine. Take care of yourself, Wyatt.” He quickly got up, turned on his heel, and ran up the slope, disappearing into the night.
“Sonofabitch!” Wyatt snarled, floundering and rolling onto his side. He watched Mark Reuss run like a damned deer, weaving between and around the cacti and thickets. There was no fucking way in the world he was going to lift his SIG and shoot Mark in the back. Struggling, he sat up, rubbing his chest; a smarting, burning sensation was radiating in a huge circle around his heart region. What the hell was going on with Reuss? Wyatt saw the way Mark was holding his left arm against his belly and figured either he was shot or it was broken. He hadn’t seen any blood, so he might have broken it when the Jeep crashed.
Wyatt had damned near died. Mark had saved his life twice tonight. His childhood friend had spent at least ten minutes with him when he could have taken off for parts unknown and escaped. Instead, Mark had remained with him, making sure his heart went back to a normal rhythm. He’d been prepared to save Wyatt’s life if it had not. What the hell was going on here? Mark had killed some of his own men to save Wyatt’s hide. Confused, Wyatt started down the slope, giving a call to Watson, telling him there were two dead bodies up by the ravine and he was coming down.
He slowly made his way down the rocky, steep slope, avoiding the cacti here and there. Wyatt was damn sure not going to tell Watson or any of these agents that Mark Reuss had just escaped up and over that slope. The man had saved his ass tonight. He owed him. And he damn well wanted to talk to Mark face-to-face when they weren’t in a combat situation to find out a helluva lot more about what was going on with his friend. Wyatt had no idea where he would go. Mark knew the Guadalupe Mountains well. He knew where to find water, which would save his life. Reuss would somehow escape this ambush and live to be a drug soldier for another day.
He felt no remorse about not stopping Mark from escaping. Wyatt needed time to figure out what the fuck was going on with his friend. Now all he wanted to do was get back to the ranch, be with his family, and hold Tal. Because he had come too close to dying tonight.
CHAPTER 7
As soon as Wyatt made his way off the slope, he called Tal on the personal radio he carried.
“I’m fine,” he said. Wyatt knew that Mattie would be dying to find out if Mark was among the captured Cardona drug smugglers, and he lied. “No sign of Mark Reuss. I’m going to be tied up here for an unknown amount of time.”
“Roger that,” Tal said.
Wyatt could hear the relief in her voice. “Piece of cake,” he assured her with that Texas drawl, hoping to relieve her of the tension and worry he knew she was carrying.
“Roger and out.”
Wyatt’s entire chest throbbed and burned like hell. This wasn’t the first time he’d taken a bullet to his Kevlar. This was the first time he’d been hit squarely over his heart, however. He’d come damn close to packing it in. And Mark had deliberately remained at his side. Damn. What the hell kind of game was Mark playing? It made no sense at all to Wyatt.
He stopped at the flipped-over truck to check on the occupants. Both were dead. It was going to be a long night.
*
Tal was dozing, her head resting on her crossed arms on the desk, when Wyatt quietly entered the office in the ranch house. She jerked up, disoriented for a moment. Outside the window, dawn was coming.
“It’s okay,” Wyatt reassured her, coming to her side, squeezing her shoulder. “Just me.”
Blinking several times to tear herself from sleep, Tal looked him over. Wyatt’s face still had green, black, and gray greasepaint on it; his clothes were dirty and in some places torn. His eyes were red-rimmed, and she saw exhaustion in his features. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Everyone’s asleep in the household?”
“Yes,” Tal muttered, slowly getting up. Her ankle was cranky and swollen again. She’d rarely left the op center, constantly making calls to and from Artemis and coordinating with the other agencies throughout the night.
“You were able to tell Mattie that Mark wasn’t in that group?” He saw the shadows beneath Tal’s glorious green eyes, the stress around her mouth.
“Yes.”
“How did she take it?”
“She was relieved. She went to bed shortly after that.”
“Good,” he murmured. “Come here.” He opened his arms, pulling Tal gently into his embrace. “I smell like hell,” he warned her, kissing her hair and cheek, and as she turned her face, he met her lips.
“Ask me if I care,” she muttered, sliding her lips against his mouth, drinking in his strength and his tenderness. Tal leaned wearily against Wyatt’s strong, seemingly inexhaustible body, savoring the taste of him. He reeked of sweat, dirt, and the freezing Texas night air he’d brought in with him. He was dusty and dirty. And she didn’t care if she got some of that greasepaint on her as she kissed him deeply and hungrily. Despite the fact she’d been up nearly twenty-four hours without sleep, her body hummed with need of him.
“I’m filthy,” he said, easing from her mouth, holding her aroused green gaze. In comparison to him, Tal looked clean and beautiful. “Let’s shut things down here for now. We need our sleep. Make a call to Artemis to patch into Commander Watson’s comms directly from HQ? That way, we can get a shower and go to bed.”
Tal nodded, slowly easing from him. “I’ll do it,” she promised. “I’ll be up in a few minutes. You go ahead and get started.”
“Thanks, darlin’,” he murmured, giving her a pat on her butt. He saw Tal grin a little, despite her tiredness. “I’ll get a tub of hot water ready for you in the meantime. Once we’re clean, I’ll massage that ankle for you. I’ll bet it looks sausage-sized about now.”
Tal grunted, “Yes, it’s cranky.”
Wyatt showered and found a clean T-shirt to wear to bed. Normally, he wore a shirt to sleep while here at the family ranch house. At home, he slept naked beside Tal, hating to wear any clothes to bed. But the last thing he wanted Tal to see was the huge red-violet bruise square in the center of his chest over his heart. As he scrubbed off the greasepaint from his head, ears, and neck, he allowed the tepid water to run over that heavily swollen area. He hoped the cooler water would decrease the swelling a little. It ached like a bad tooth gone south. He’d taken hits throughout his life as a SEAL, but not like this one. The shooter had been twenty feet away when he fired at Wyatt, point-blank. Wyatt shoved his feelings about it deep down inside himself. If he was lucky, he’d manage to keep Tal from seeing the bruise tonight. If she did, all hell would break loose.
Tal had lost Brian, the man she loved, to combat in Afghanistan. It had taken her years to get over his death. If she knew right now how close he’d come to buying the farm himself, Wyatt didn’t know what it would do to Tal. He worried that it would do major damage t
o her emotionally, the specter of the past rising to repeat itself. This was a difficult situation, and he waffled on how best to handle it.
By the time Tal arrived, he’d gotten clean, toweled off, and put on that black T-shirt to cover his injuries. Exhaustion was pulling at him. Tal came into the warm, foggy bathroom and closed the door.
“Are all those captive kids that were in that truck being taken care of?” she asked, sitting down on a small stool.
“Yeah,” Wyatt said, kneeling down and helping her off with the support boot and her other shoe. He set them aside. “The Border Patrol has several buses that they’re bringing to the site. They’ve already got sandwiches, water, and blankets for the kids. There are several social workers from Van Horn helping them out, too. They’re all bilingual, so that helps. The kids are gonna be fine.”
“I imagine those children are scared to death,” Tal said, shimmying out of her slacks.
Wyatt took them and set them aside. “I don’t think they really knew what was going to happen to them.”
“It’s a sad situation. They don’t know it yet, but they just escaped a lifetime of hell and torture.”
He ruffled her loose hair to distract her. “Hey, let’s get you in that warm tub of water.” Wyatt knew that the plight of children really bothered Tal. The whole Culver family was very child-oriented.
Later, once they made it to their bed, he massaged Tal’s swollen ankle until it was back to normal, and then they sank into a deep, healing sleep in one another’s arms.
*
Tal awoke feeling groggy and out of sorts. She pushed her hair away from her face, which she had buried into her pillow. Other midday sounds began to intrude into her drowsy state. There was a bird singing. She heard the whinny of a horse. As she slowly turned over, her arm automatically went out, and she found Wyatt’s side of the bed empty, the sheets cool to her searching touch. Frowning, the bright sunlight peeking in around the drapes, Tal grudgingly pulled herself up into a sitting position. The flannel pajamas she wore had worked up to her knees as she slept, and she pulled the covers off, tugging them downward. She wasn’t one to wear any clothes to bed, but being at Wyatt’s family home, she figured she’d better wear something, just in case.
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