No Surrender: The Devlin Group, Book 3

by Shannon Stacey

  “Tell me somebody’s paying for this,” he said as they wheeled back to his room.

  The first person Carmen saw when she opened her eyes was Jack Donovan, so she closed them again.

  Not fast enough. “Carmen!”

  She didn’t want to talk to Jack. Or the nurses she heard coming through the door. She wanted Gallagher. John.

  “She opened her eyes,” she heard Jack tell the nurses. “She’s awake.”

  “We’ll need you to leave, Mr. Donovan.”

  “Wait, I need to—”

  “Now.”

  “He made it, Carm,” she heard him call before the door whooshed closed.

  He made it. She opened her eyes again.

  There was poking and prodding, things removed and things added, pinpricks and endless questions. She suffered it all gladly, because at the end—soon—she’d see John.

  “I want out of this damn chair.”

  Gallagher was in the waiting room the Group had commandeered for the duration. He’d taken to wheeling himself around when he couldn’t stand the sight of his own four walls anymore—which was often. In the week since his first visit to Carmen, he’d been spending much of his time in her room or here, much to the annoyance of his nurse, who grumbled loudly and often about having to chase him around the hospital with the blood pressure cuff.

  Rossi was stretched out on a cot, staring up at the ceiling. “For the thousandth time, you can’t have crutches because of the damn bullet hole in your back. And if you’re going to keep whining, go back to your room and do it.”

  “I’m not whining. The faster I get out of this chair, the faster I’m back on the job.”

  “If you really want back on the job, go read the reports Marge sent over.”

  Gallagher snorted. “Fat chance. Reading reports is why you make the bigger bucks. What’s the status on Le Roux today?”

  “The provisional government’s not going after him. Loss of life and collateral damage would be astronomical, they say, even with the camp in chaos.” Rossi swung his legs to the floor and sat on the edge of the cot. “He’s untouchable in that compound, man.”

  “Fuck that. I’ll reach out and touch his ass—with a fifty-cal round. He’s not getting away with this.”

  The door to the waiting room opened and Donovan stepped in. Gallagher could see he’d been running and his stomach dropped. He was supposed to be with Carmen.

  “She opened her eyes.”

  They made him wait for what seemed like forever. Stuck in the damn wheelchair, he couldn’t even pace off any of the tension.

  So much of his job was about waiting—waiting for the right moment, the right plan, the right shot. But every lesson he’d ever learned in patience had escaped him. He wanted through those doors.

  And the nurse at the desk knew it, too. She was watching him like he was a carb whore three feet from a doughnut.

  Finally the door opened and the doctor stepped out. “Everything looks good. She’s tired, and she has some pain, but we want to keep medications to the minimum she can stand. She’s a strong woman.”

  Gallagher nodded, unable to come up with the right words to express just how much he agreed.

  “She’s asking for you,” the doctor said to him. “I need to spend a little more time with her, do some assessments and such, but I’ll give you two minutes with her first. Two.”

  Carmen was groggy and hurt in more places than even that soap commercial claimed existed, but seeing Gallagher roll into her room made it all worthwhile. He paused at the door and the way he looked at her made her shiver.

  “Hey, babe.”

  She wanted to reach out to him, but the splints on her hand were too heavy to lift, and her other arm was totally immobilized for her shoulder. But she could smile. “Hey, you.”

  Gallagher rolled his chair up to her bed, and when he reached out and touched her face, tears spilled over onto her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry, babe.” He wiped them away, his touch more gentle than she’d thought possible from him. “If you cry, I’ll cry again and I have a reputation to protect, you know.”

  “You cried for me?”

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Carmen.”

  It was too much—too intense—and she wasn’t strong enough for this yet. “A diet would have been nice.”

  He laughed and a nurse peeked in to sternly shush him. “Sorry, babe. But if you’d obeyed my orders, my weight wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “When you fell, I realized if I got on that helicopter, I’d never see you again. I wasn’t ready to spend the rest of my life without you.”

  “Does that mean you’re ready to spend the rest of it with me?”

  “I don’t know.” She saw the brutality of her answer in his eyes, but she wouldn’t be anything less than honest with him. “From that moment to now has literally been a blink of the eye for me, John. I need time to process what happened and…how I guess I feel.”

  “I know, babe.” The door opened and his shoulders slumped. “Time’s up. Call my room when you’re up to another visit. If I’m not there, I’m with Rossi so call his cell. They hid mine.”

  “Are they going after…him?” No names in front of the nurse. “While there’s some turmoil?”

  “No. They don’t have the balls to take him on.”

  The frustration she heard in his voice mirrored what Carmen felt. While their primary objective had been met—Isabelle Arceneau was safe and her father spilling his guts—knowing Le Roux was still out there, no doubt holding other loved ones for ransom, was a bitter pill to swallow.

  “We’ll get him,” he said as the nurse dragged his wheelchair toward the door. His tone was easy-going, but there was a look in his eyes that said John Gallagher McLaine wasn’t done with Le Roux. Not by a long shot.

  Gallagher had been expecting a summons, but the boss waited until the rush of Carmen’s improving condition calmed down to call him in for a meeting. He didn’t have a good feeling about the next couple of minutes, so he took his time, and Rossi turning off the news when he walked in was definitely a bad sign.

  “Sit down,” his boss ordered, but he didn’t, so they both stood. “I’ve trusted you with my life. With Grace and Danny’s lives. And at some point over the years you’ve held the lives of each and every Devlin Group agent in your hands.”

  And nobody had ever been left behind, but he didn’t bother pointing that out. He’d known there was an ass-chewing with his name on it waiting.

  “Every agent in the field trusts you—not because I do, but because you’ve earned it. They’re conditioned to obey you without question and without hesitation. You broke that trust, John.”

  “O’Brien did not obey me without hesitation. He fucking left her to die.”

  “You made the call to jeopardize two agents and the package for one agent.”

  “Bullshit!” He stepped forward and got in Rossi’s face, though he kept his hands down. “If O’Brien had tossed Donovan a gun and got that truck moving, they could have gotten her out.”

  “Are you denying your personal feelings for Carmen factored into your decision?”

  “Are you denying fucking Donovan’s screaming to get Isabelle out factored into O’Brien’s decision? Donovan’s feelings for that girl overrode their willingness to go after Carmen.”

  Rossi’s face was turning red, and anybody else would have backed down. Gallagher poked a finger at his chest. “I would have made the same call if you were pinned down, or O’Brien, or anybody. And you know it.”

  “You look me in the eye and tell me your feelings for Carmen had nothing to do with your call.”

  “You want me to lie to you?” Gallagher shouted. “You know goddamn well how I feel about Carmen and that I didn’t want them to leave her. But that doesn’t mean it was the wrong call.”

  “And that doesn’t mean you made it for the right reasons.” The fight went out of Rossi and he sank into a chair. “I don’t know what I’d do
if Grace was still in the field.”

  Since they weren’t going to take their disagreement to a physical level, Gallagher figured he may as well sit, too. And he also knew he was facing the one man he could bare his soul to. “I don’t know, all right? I think they could have gotten her out, but I don’t know if that’s hindsight.”

  “I wasn’t there. You sounded like you were running on emotion, but I can’t put myself in your head.” He ran his hands through his hair.

  “Which one said something?”

  “Donovan, but his head’s all fucked up over that girl, so I don’t know. You were both running on emotion, and that’s not good.”

  “I can’t promise you I’ll lock my feelings in a box on every job. Even though she quit before you got married, you and Grace were partners and lovers at the same time. You’ve been there. But I can promise that, while I’d give my life for Carmen, I’d never make that decision for another agent.”

  “I hope you’re right. Just because the Group is what it is today largely because of you, don’t think I won’t kick your ass up around your ears if you fuck up again.”

  Jack Donovan wished he were a drinking man. Or a drug addict. Or maybe suffering from short-term memory loss.

  He’d suffer almost anything if it would erase Isabelle Arceneau from his memory.

  She was too young for him.

  She’d been traumatized.

  He should have kissed her. Just once.

  Dammit. He grabbed his keys and left his motel room, hell-bent on…something. Anything besides brooding. He was still idling at the exit of the parking lot when his phone buzzed him with a text.

  Meet me on the bench at main entrance. G.

  At least it was a destination. A distraction.

  By the time he found a parking space and walked halfway around the building, Gallagher was already waiting, his wheelchair parked next to the bench. While he was on his feet, the wheelchair was a condition of his being allowed outside until his discharge.

  “How you feeling?” he asked, settling on the bench.

  “Not bad for somebody who just got his ass handed to him on a plate by Rossi.”

  “We couldn’t wait.”

  Gallagher held up a hand. “I had to get Carmen out and you had to get Isabelle out. We both had personal objectives fucking up the works, but we all got out and I got no hard feelings.”

  “I’ve still got your back. Anytime, anywhere. You know that.”

  “Good.” Gallagher grinned and Donovan knew he was up to something. And it would be something no good. “I’m cleared for discharge as soon as they get the paperwork together, but they’re holding Carmen another thirty-six to forty-eight. I’m thinking about taking a little field trip before we fly home.”

  “Need a chaperone?”

  “I can’t drive yet, plus I was thinking more like a spotter.”

  The hair on the back of Donovan’s neck tingled. Hell, yeah. Better than drugs, alcohol or a head injury. “I’m in. Is this a field trip off the reservation?”

  Not that it mattered. It was worth Donovan’s job if it came to that.

  “Let’s just say the boss was careful not to read the permission slip before he signed the bottom.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Neither man had packed a ghillie suit for their Matunisian jaunt, so they’d assembled their own from branches and ferns. Analyzing the photos and the video feeds tech support had collected while hunting for Gallagher and Carmen had offered up a good spot—isolated, easy retreat and with a clear shot to Le Roux’s front door.

  Granted, it was one-point-two-six miles from the front door, but Rossi had helpfully absconded with his wife’s TAC-50 rifle when she left the Group and it had made the trip with them.

  With Gallagher nursing a couple of gunshot wounds, running was out, so after landing back in Matunisia, they’d scrounged a couple of dirt bikes, loaded them in the back of a truck they rented and set out.

  Now, camouflaged and ready, they waited. And waited.

  It was a perfect day. No wind. Humidity and terrain already factored. All they needed was for Le Roux to poke his head out and stand still long enough to get a reading.

  Boom.

  Gallagher had already mentally run through every possible excuse he could give Carmen for not telling her he was going back into the jungle, and he’d discarded every one of them.

  She was going to be pissed. No way around that. But there was no way she’d have stayed in bed, recuperating and regaining her strength, if she knew he’d be spending the day less than a mile and a half from the compound.

  “I don’t want to do it this way,” Donovan said, breaking the silence in a low voice. “I want to go down there in the middle of the night and rip his heart out with my bare hands while he’s sleeping.”

  “I don’t plan on ever coming back to this hellhole, but you and O’Brien can’t do it alone. Which you’d have to since I sure as hell couldn’t help.” But he knew exactly how the other man felt. There wasn’t anywhere near enough violence in the impending shot to assuage their anger. “It’s this or he keeps breathing. We can’t get to him. Especially now, with their paranoia on high.”

  “I get that. I just want to hurt him. To feel him die.”

  He knew right where that was coming from. “You gonna check on Isabelle Arceneau when we get back to the States?”

  Donovan was quiet for a minute, then a negative twitch of his head. “No. The job is done and feds will take care of her now.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, dude.”

  “No, I’m not going to look her up, G. She’s twenty-three. She’s spent almost two years being raped and abused by God knows how many of those fucking animals down there.”

  “Rossi and O’Brien both said she had some grit. She’ll get past this. And I hate to bring it up, but don’t forget you were wired, man. You two had a connection.”

  “Of course we had a fucking connection. I was the first guy in two fucking years to not beat her and worse, and I was taking her out of there. Taking advantage of a case of hero worship from a traumatized woman—hell, barely a woman—would make me one sick bastard.”

  “Or maybe she’s a young woman strong enough to survive hell who knows a good man when she sees one.”

  “Fuck you, G. She’s gone. Let it—he’s out.”

  And there the bastard was, coming out of the command building with a couple of his so-called lieutenants right behind him. And then—thank you, God—he stopped, listening to a young guerilla who’d trotted up to him.

  Donovan’s voice was a constant beside him. Height, distance, wind, drop—a flurry of numbers. Gallagher corrected the TAC-50, subtle, almost microscopic adjustments.

  Donovan blew out a breath. “Do it.”

  Gallagher took the shot.

  Le Roux fell in the dirt, a blossom of red over his heart. There was a long moment of stunned disbelief in which nobody moved.

  Gallagher watched through his scope—watched the scramble for cover, the lieutenants trying to put pressure on the wound. One felt for a pulse, then dropped, stunned to his knees, shaking his head.

  It was done.

  Shucking off the ghillie suits, Gallagher and Donovan walked the short distance back to the dirt bikes in silence.

  Carmen hated the clock. The incessant tick of the second hand slowed to a crawl when she was alone, but it went into overdrive whenever she had company. Especially if it was Gallagher.

  But she hadn’t had to worry about the turbo ticking today because the bastard hadn’t been to see her.

  She’d tried patience and understanding—he was probably holed up with Rossi somewhere, scheming—but that only lasted a couple of hours. Then she’d tried calling him, but his phone was turned off.

  Odd, but she didn’t get too concerned. If anything was wrong, somebody would have told her. She hoped.

  Daytime television in the US sucked, and it was even worse in Gabon. When she grew tired of clicking through the chann
el loop, she shut it off and picked up one of the books the nurses had left on her bedside table. That held her attention for a whopping forty-five minutes.

  When Rossi finally popped in, he just shrugged off her question and said Gallagher was off somewhere with Jack Donovan. She didn’t get any further with O’Brien, who claimed no knowledge of their whereabouts. She even called Charlotte, who would only tell her Gallagher had called in personal time and gone off the grid.

  She slept for a while, until the nurse woke her to take her blood pressure yet again and warn her lunch would be served soon. Cranky and out of sorts, the nurse’s good mood grated on her, no doubt causing the woman’s scowl at the blood pressure readings.

  “Did you hear the news?” the nurse asked because it seemed to be in a handbook somewhere they should make inane conversation with grumpy, half-asleep patients.

  “No.” Which should have been obvious because she’d been sleeping.

  “Le Roux was assassinated,” the woman whispered, as if saying the man’s name too loud would summon his vengeance-seeking ghost to the room.

  Years of experience lying kept Carmen’s facial expression mildly interested, but inside she totally fell apart.

  That’s where he’d been. While she was watching the clock and crappy television, that dumb son of a bitch had gone back into the jungle. Because she’d been hurt.

  If they’d made a clean exit, he would have walked away. Let somebody else deal with the bastard eventually.

  “Did…do they know who did it?” she asked when it was obvious the nurse was expecting some kind of reaction, like jumping out of bed and doing cartwheels or something ridiculous.

  No. No was the answer she was looking for. Anything else meant best case he’d been caught, worst case he was…

  She was going to kill him.

  “No. Some say the shot was from so far away they didn’t even hear it.”

  So Gallagher had been the one on the trigger. Donovan, his cohort in crime who was also going to get his ass kicked, would have been the spotter.

  “They say he just fell over dead with a bullet hole in his heart,” the nurse continued, no longer even pretending to care what Carmen’s pulse rate was. Probably a good thing.