By Lethal Force

by Patricia D. Eddy

  “I am! Want to play?” His eyes are bright and clear, though he looks so frail in the big bed. A machine beeps twice, and I glance over at the monitor. His blood glucose is still over two hundred—not deadly, but way too high—and with a tiny hiss, the screen confirms the delivery of a small dose of fast-acting insulin through the pump.

  “Okay, kiddo. One game, and then I have to go.”

  He pouts, but not more than two minutes into our match, he’s giggling as I try to make one of my electronic players headbutt the ball, but instead, send him sprawling face first onto the pitch.

  Noele excuses herself to get some coffee from the hospital cafeteria, and Lisette curls up in a chair next to Mateen’s bed, letting her eyes drift close. She’s been through hell, and I can’t imagine what it’s like fearing for your child’s life. My attention wanders to the window where a flash of light from a building across the street distracts me long enough for Mateen to score the final goal. He cheers as the door bangs open, and when I turn, my heart stops, and I’m too scared to scream.

  Dr. Simms—Mateen’s endocrinologist—falls to the floor as Zaman, dressed in scrubs and now clean-shaven, slams the butt of his pistol into the kind, older man’s head. Blood streams from the wound, and I try to scream, but no sound comes out.

  “I know there are American security personnel in the hall,” Zaman says, his voice low and even. “If you alert them, I will kill the doctor. And we will wait right here for your sister to return, and I will have my way with her.”

  No. “You are not going to hurt them again,” I say with more bravado than I feel.

  Zaman’s hand flies, and as the gun connects with my cheek, pain explodes over my entire face, the world going dark and fuzzy, with tiny pinpricks of bright light scattered across my field of vision.

  Sliding to the floor, I curl inward, desperate to protect myself from any more blows. Lisette’s voice echoes, like she’s far away, or under water. “We will not go back with you. My son will not become like his father.”

  She screams as Zaman yanks her against him, but the sound fades when he wraps his hand around her throat. “Amir Faruk was very clear. The boy and the doctor. You are…expendable.”

  The door bangs open, Alec and Jackson rushing in, guns drawn. “Let her go!” Alec orders, but a second later, two odd plinks sound, and a hint of the hot outside air blows in. The two guards go down, Alec clutching his chest, Jackson with a blackened, reddish hole where his left eye once was.

  Faruk sent a sniper.

  Ford. If he comes in here…

  “Wait! I manage, struggling to my knees. The room spins around me, but I force myself to stagger to my feet, bracing myself against the bed for support. “I’ll go with you. Me and Mateen. I won’t fight or scream as long as you don’t hurt Lisette. No one else has to die. Let me unhook Mateen’s monitors and IV the right way. If I don’t, he’s not going to survive the journey back to Afghanistan.”

  Zaman eyes me suspiciously, his fingers still tight around Lisette’s throat. She wheezes, tears streaming down her cheeks, and stares at me like I’ve just betrayed the most sacred of trusts. If only I could tell her I’m trying to keep all of us alive long enough to get help. At my feet, the doctor’s eyelids flutter, but Zaman doesn’t seem to notice, all his focus on the boy and the myriad of tubes and wires hooked up to him.

  “Lisette, I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “But think of Noele. She’s just down the hall, remember? Visiting that man in two-four-seven? If she comes back in here…”

  Understanding dawns in her eyes, and she sags against Zaman’s hold. With a jerk of his head towards Mateen, he growls, “Ready him. Now. You have one minute.” I glance down at the doctor’s crumpled form, and he meets my gaze for a brief second, before he closes his eyes again. I hope he’s smart enough to play possum until we’re out of the room and then go get Ford.

  My hands shake as I clamp the IV, pull it from the boy’s arm, and then cup his cheek. “Don’t worry,” I mouth. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” Out loud, I tell him, “You have to be very quiet now, Mateen. We’re going for a ride. Do you understand?”

  The boy’s wide eyes shift from me to his mother to Zaman, and tears glisten in the corners. “I want to stay here,” he whines.

  “I know, baby. But trust Dr. Joey, okay?” Lisette says. Pressing buttons on two of the machines, I turn off their displays, unhook the oxygen sensor from his finger, and disconnect the heart rate monitor. Please let this work.

  Scooping Mateen into my arms and then depositing him into the wheelchair in the corner of the room, I meet Zaman’s gaze. “The way the machines work, someone will notice he’s not hooked up to them soon. We have to leave right now.”

  He shifts his hold on Lisette, taking her by the upper arm and pressing the gun to her side. “Anyone you ask for help will die,” he warns.

  “I get it, asshole.” I’m so very scared, but also pissed off. I was about to get my happy ever after, and Faruk and his lackeys want to steal me away. Again. I have to find a way out of this. For all of us.

  We don’t make it ten steps down the hall before a nurse stops us. “Where are you taking him?” she asks.

  “The doctor,” I nod at Zaman, “wants him to have an MRI. We’re going to radiology. He didn’t want to go without us.” Offering the nurse a tight smile, I pray she believes me.

  “But Dr. Joey—”

  “Hush, Mateen. Remember what I said about these tests. They’re necessary. They won’t hurt a bit.” Returning my gaze to the nurse, I shrug. “Kids. It has to be so hard for them to have all these procedures one after another after another.”

  “It is.” She kneels down next to Mateen and pats his knee. “When you’re done, I’ll bring you some sugar-free Jell-O, okay, kiddo?”

  Mateen looks up at me, as if he doesn’t know what he’s allowed to say. Good boy. I answer for him, “That will be great. Thank you.”

  A minute later, we’re in the elevator, heading down to the basement parking garage, and I’m terrified no one will ever hear from us again.

  21

  Ford

  I’m about to say goodbye to Nomar when an alarm blares, and the door to his room opens. A man in a white doctor’s coat lurches in, blood streaming from his temple. “Two-four-seven… The American woman said…to come here.”

  The American woman? Joey. Fuck.

  I spring to my feet and grab the doctor by his arms to keep him upright. “What happened?”

  “A man…he had a gun. Made me bring him into the little boy’s room. He took them.” The doctor’s eyes roll back in his head, and he slumps in my grip. Easing him to the floor, I sprint out of the room, and I’m halfway into the hall when I hear Nomar’s groan.

  “I’m right…behind you,” he manages.

  I don’t have the time to tell him he should keep his ass in bed. Not if Faruk and his men have Joey. Shoving through the door of Mateen’s room, I skid to a stop. Alec and Jackson. Dead. Warm air swirls through the room from two small holes in the window.

  Dropping into a crouch, I pull my gun just as there’s a small plink and a bit of plaster flakes off the wall behind me. Fuck. Sniper. I crab-walk to the door just as two guards come racing down the hall. “Stay down and away from the windows,” I shout as I look around wildly. Someone had to have seen them. “Where did the boy in this room go?”

  A young woman who looks a lot like Lisette rushes around a corner. “Where are my sister and Mateen?”

  A young nurse, no older than twenty-five, pops her head up from behind a desk. “His doctor wanted him to have an MRI. Or…that’s what I thought.” She points down the hall towards the elevator. “They went that way.”

  Shit. “Parking garage.” Nomar lurches toward me, the hospital gown flapping around his bare legs. “Get the fuck back in bed,” I snap, then jerk my head toward the guards. “You two. With me. And you damn well better be armed.”

  The taller of the two pulls a Markov from his holster and
flicks off the safety. “We go first.”

  “No.” I hit the stairwell at a run. “I’m a former United States Marine, and Faruk has my fiancé. For the second fucking time. You back me up. There’s at least one sniper across the parking lot, and probably two men in the garage. Three hostages. Two women, and one seven-year-old boy.”

  Passing the first floor, I vault over the railing, clearing seven steps at once. At the door to the underground garage, I stop, twist the knob slowly, and open it just a crack.

  “No!” Joey says from halfway across the structure. Her voice cracks, but remains strong. “You can’t tie me up. Mateen’s sick. He’s going to need fluids and insulin during the trip. You have to let me take care of him. What do you think will happen if you bring Faruk his son…dead?”

  The sickening sound of a fist hitting flesh masks my first few steps into the garage, and I direct the two guards to take up flanking positions. A quiet rage simmers under my skin, and I creep forward slowly, gun drawn.

  “Dr. Joey!”

  A muffled cry—Lisette?—follows, along with several metallic thuds. Mateen whines in rapid fire Pashto, and I peer around an ambulance. Shit. Lisette is bound and gagged in the back of a van, Mateen in a wheelchair, and Joey struggles to her feet next to him.

  “Get him into the van,” a large man orders, waving a gun in Joey’s face. “Now.”

  Joey takes Mateen’s arm and helps him into the vehicle where he snuggles up to his mother and touches her cheek. “Mama? Mama?”

  The gunman grabs Joey by her hair and shoves her forward, but she twists in his grip and knees him in the balls. He stumbles back, the gun falling from his hand, and I rush him, firing as I go.

  One shot tears through his shoulder, but my second and third shots miss him by inches. Joey dives for the gun at the same time as the asshole, and he lands on top of her. She whimpers as she struggles under his weight, and though I’m still thirty feet away, I can see her eyes go glassy. “Joey! Fight, baby!”

  I can’t risk hitting her with another shot, but just before I reach her, a massive weight slams into me, sending me careening into a dilapidated sedan.

  “Not so fast,” my attacker says, his voice deep and heavily accented. Shots echo around the garage, and angry voices shout back and forth in several different languages.

  “Joey!” I have to get to her. Have to get her back. I won’t lose her again. A fist slams into my ribs, then another straight to my sternum. The impact paralyzes me long enough for him to haul me to my knees and wrap his forearm around my neck.

  “No…” I grunt with the last of my breath as he tightens his grip. My vision starts to dim, and all I can hear are Joey’s panicked cries as she begs for her life, for her freedom.

  Joey

  I’m not here. Not in this underground garage. I’m back in that train car, Jefe on top of me, his fetid breath making me gag.

  Ford’s strangled cry rips me from my memories. Zaman pulls me by the hair, and my gaze lands on Ford. Oh God. He’s on his knees with Full-Beard’s arm around his neck, and as he struggles for breath, his body twitches and his face starts to turn blue.

  No. Not Ford. Not me. Not any of us.

  Faruk doesn’t get to win.

  Zaman has me halfway back to the van when I reach into my pocket for the folding knife Ford gave me. It springs open with a solid snap, and I drive it into Zaman’s thigh, twisting as he lets go of my hair and I tumble to the ground.

  Blood coats my hand, and I lose my grip on the knife, but the gun’s only ten feet away.

  As my fingers close around the barrel, Zaman grabs the waistband of my pants and yanks me back. But I have the gun, and I slam it against his temple. He roars what I think is an oath, but then he grunts and falls, and when I look up, Lisette stands over him with a tire iron.

  Her wrists are still ziptied together, but the gag hangs around her neck, and she’s breathing heavily. Solid footsteps pound towards us, and I whirl around with the gun just as a shot rings out from the elevator. A man with a long, lethal-looking sniper rifle collapses twenty feet away, his temple half obliterated by the bullet.

  Too more shots, and I hear Nomar’s weak cry. “Ford. Get…to…Ford…”

  I don’t think, just run. Ford’s on the ground, not moving, and as I sink to my knees, I press my fingers to his neck. Nothing. “Ford! No!”

  Rolling him onto his back, I clasp my hands one over the other and start chest compressions. “One, two, three…” I whisper, and when I hit thirty, I tilt his head back, pinch his nose, and blow gently into his mouth. After a second breath, I go back to the compressions, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  Thirty more, another two breaths, and I’m panicked and half hysterical. Two hospital guards surround me, one of them barking instructions into a radio. I’m about to breathe for him for a third time, when Ford coughs weakly and draws in a wheezing breath. Then another.

  “Ford. Oh God, Ford, open your eyes. Look at me.” Framing his face with my hands, I lean close, touching my forehead to his. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. Just…keep breathing.”

  His lips brush against mine, and though his words are hoarse and barely audible, I hear him.

  “As…you…wish…”

  22

  Ford

  My throat hurts like a motherfucker, and the bruises Joey gave me doing CPR throb with each breath. But I’m alive. And so is she.

  The EMTs load Nomar onto the first gurney. The asshole opened up half his stitches running after me, but his shot took down the sniper and the bearded son-of-a-bitch who choked me to death.

  Death. The word never used to frighten me. Not truly. I’ve faced it before. Six times in my life—four of them in Iraq. Once on a case. Today. And all I can think is that if Joey had been a minute later, if she hadn’t been able to escape the guy trying to steal her away, I’d be dead, and she’d be alone.

  Blood from her temple seeps into my shirt. She’s curled against my side on the dirty concrete floor, her hand over my heart when the guys in blue scrubs rush over and start to triage our various injuries.

  “Get them up and onto gurneys,” one of them says, but Joey tightens her hold on me.

  “No. I’m…a doctor. I can walk. And I’m not leaving him.”

  “You have a head wound,” the EMT replies. “Procedure.”

  “Fuck procedure.” Gingerly pushing myself up on an elbow, I keep my other arm around Joey. My voice is hoarse and weak, but whatever the guy sees in my eyes convinces him to back away with his hands in the air, then wave over another guy with a wheelchair.

  I feel like I got hit by a truck, and walking…probably not a smart idea. So I let them help me into the contraption, then pull Joey into my lap. “Not…letting go…of you.”

  She nods, and though my vision wavers a little, I think I see relief welling in her eyes. Along with a contusion the size of a grapefruit on the side of her head. Shit. We both could have—

  “Don’t,” she whispers in my ear. “Don’t even think it. You’re mine, Ford Lawton. You’re not allowed to die on me, and I’m certainly not going to die on you. Nothing comes between us. Ever again.”

  Two hours later, we’re sharing a narrow hospital bed, our flight to the states delayed until Trevor gives us the all clear that the trip to the airport won’t be a suicide mission.

  “How did he find us?” Joey asks, then winces as she wriggles up to sitting and drops the cold pack she had pressed to her cheek on the little side table. “We were careful. Nomar got the tracker out of Lisette’s clothing. Mateen didn’t have one. And you said…Wren hacked the hospital records in Kandahar to make it look like they were patients there…not here.”

  “Don’t know.” Talking hurts, but I’d read her War and Peace if I thought it would somehow allay her fears. Problem is…I don’t have any answers.

  A brisk knock makes her flinch, and I push myself up with a groan so I can wrap my arms around her as the door opens and Trevor pokes his head in. �
�This an okay time?”

  Yelling at him? Completely worth the pain. “Where the fuck were you? Faruk’s men invade the hospital and Nomar’s the one who shoots the last of them?”

  “I was arranging the goddamn plane. And the security to get us there. And security back in Boston when we landed. Paying off the airport officials so no one would report the flight… Shit. You want me to go back and undo all that shit so Faruk can track us all the way home?”

  “Ford,” Joey says quietly, “it’s all right. We…made it. There’s no guarantee Trevor wouldn’t have gotten himself killed if he’d been here.”

  The logical part of my brain knows this. The part that almost died and watched the woman I love be beaten? It’s not so sure. With a sigh, I gesture to the chair by the bed. “Sorry, man.”

  “No need. I get it. And I’m sorry.” For several minutes, no one speaks, but then Trevor lets out a heavy breath. I’ve watched nine of my friends die,” he admits as he drops a duffel bag on the floor and then sinks into the hard plastic seat. “One of them right in front of me. Another…I shot myself. Point-blank range. Didn’t matter that he was a killer and a traitor. He was my best fucking friend, and I couldn’t let anyone else take the shot.”

  This is more than Trev’s talked about himself…ever.

  “I’m so sorry,” Joey says as she settles against me.

  He shrugs. “Part of the life. I should have been here. And if things had turned out differently…I’d never have been able to forgive myself. But…” Meeting my gaze with a half-smile, he holds up Mateen’s little gaming device, “I figured out how Faruk tracked us.”

  “Mateen loves that game. He taught me to play.” Joey rubs her swollen eye, then hisses out a breath. “You disabled the tracker, right?”

  “Better than that. It’s on its way back to Afghanistan on a vegetable truck. He’ll probably suspect something’s wrong before long when he can’t reach his men, but I figure that will buy us enough time to get the fuck out of here.”