by Tara Janzen
And there were plenty of shots. Dylan never let up.
Bam, bam, bam—and Monk roared again. Bam, bam, bam … reload like a fucking speed demon … bam, bam, bam.
Then bambambambambambam. Red Dog had arrived. There were no “grazing” shots delivered by Red, or by Kid, who had entered the room a mere second behind her.
Two more guns came into play—Quinn and Hawkins lining up on either side of him and Red and Kid, cutting the pie, widening the kill zone.
Lancaster was a pile of mush in a bloody, shredded shirt and there was no reason on earth for Monk to still be standing. But he was.
They had him locked down in a crossfire with only one way out: the elevator shaft.
Good luck with that, pendejo, Dylan thought, reloading for the last time. Bam, bam, bam.
Monk fell to his knees at the open doorway of the elevator shaft, and Dylan hoped the guy’s little personal struggle with getting shot about a thousand fucking times wouldn’t deter him from what must look like a pretty good plan.
It didn’t.
With a final roar, Monk tightened his hold on Lancaster’s limp body and lofted himself onto the elevator cable.
It was a short ride.
The first claymore exploded inside of a second—Boom!—and the rest came in quick succession—Boom! Boom! Boom!—all the way down to the sixth floor as the beast and his maker fell down the shaft.
Nobody holstered their weapons. They were SDF, and they never took death for granted. If Monk had a head left, Kid would put a bullet in it. The bastard had proven damned difficult to kill. They wanted to make sure they kept him that way.
True to form, Kid leaned into the open elevator shaft and squeezed the pressure plate on the tac light bolted onto his subgun.
Pop, pop—he threw a couple of rounds down the shaft, then turned and headed straight for J.T.
“Call Loretta,” Dylan said to Hawkins. “Sweet-talk her into sending her best cleanup crew.” It was going to be a mess in the elevator, but the bulk of the building was damn near indestructible.
Taking long strides across the loft, he made his way to Skeeter’s side. He deliberately did not reach out and pull her in close, and without him saying a word, she answered his questions.
“I’m fine. It’s just the shoulder. I swear.”
He looked around, saw a chair, and pulled it over for her. “Sit,” he said, then gave her a quick kiss on the side of the face.
The last two people to reach the scene finally made it to the thirteenth floor—actually in damn good time, considering where they’d come from.
“Creed,” he said, working his way back over the debris strewn all over the place. “Go get the Humvee and bring it up to the seventh floor. We’ve got injuries.”
Skeeter’s wasn’t life threatening, but he couldn’t say the same for J.T.
Jane had raced to his side and was all over him, one of her hands on his face, the other on his chest as she leaned close, talking to him with tears running down her cheeks. Kid had knelt and taken hold of his brother’s arm. And there was the badass who’d given the CIA a run for their money for six long years, holding on to a girl, his hand on her waist, and listening to every word the younger man leaning over him had to say.
“Travis, get us a stretcher,” he called out. “We’re going to have to transport J.T. Gillian, get over here and tell me what you think is going on with him. He looks like hell. Quinn, get Dr. Brandt on the horn and tell him to get on the first flight out of D.C.”
He reached J.T. and knelt down next to Kid, who didn’t look like he would relinquish an inch of space by J.T.’s side. Dylan didn’t blame him. “What’s happening here?” he asked.
“I-I don’t know,” Jane said. “He’s got pills. He takes pills, but I don’t know which one to give him.”
Dylan saw the gelcaps spilling out of J.T.’s pocket, and he knew exactly what they were. He’d seen Gillian take hundreds of the things, all of them prescribed by Dr. Brandt.
“Gillian!” he shouted out.
“Here, boss,” she said, kneeling.
She reached for J.T.’s face, her palm down, like she was going to check his temperature, but the man caught her wrist faster than she could retreat.
“That’s a good sign,” she said, glancing up at Dylan, then looking back to J.T. “What color pill did you take?”
“Red.”
She nodded and sifted her fingers through the pills on the floor. “I had a run-in with Dr. Souk four years ago,” she said. “Things didn’t go well with me, but I’m good now. Very little memory loss. No shooting pains in my arm. No headaches like the one you’re having now.” She shifted her glance to meet his gaze. “Flashing white lights? In long streaks?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, those can get bad. I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long without help.”
Dylan remained silent, watching the two of them, listening to Gillian and seeing J.T. slowly release her wrist. Kid looked tense as hell, overcome with emotion and maybe fear. He had his brother back, but nobody knew what that really meant.
Gillian continued what she was about, resting her palm on J.T.’s forehead, then along the side of his neck.
“You’re spiking,” she said, shifting her attention back to the pills. “And you’re getting the shakes. That’s a bad sign.”
Indeed, J.T.’s body had started trembling.
“You’re going to lock up here in a minute or two,” she said, putting her hand back on his forehead. “A full-out seizure will hit you when you get to a hundred and four degrees. I’ve seen it, Con. I’ve been there, and it’s a long way back. I can teach you a few things, though, to help you out, if you live long enough.”
Picking one of the pills up, she touched it to her tongue. It was a deep, eggplant purple, and Dylan didn’t know what in the hell it did.
“Klorizapat,” she said, looking down at J.T. “You ready for this?”
He gave a short nod, she put it in his mouth, and that was it.
Two seconds later, he went out like a light.
Fuck.
“Travis!” Dylan yelled. “Where’s that stretcher?”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Con came back to consciousness in a hospital and immediately felt a jolt of fear. The lights were low in the room, the windows dark with night. Bad things happened to guys while they were out cold in hospitals—unless they had a guardian angel.
A strong hand came to rest on his shoulder. “It’s all right, J.T. I’ve got your back.”
Con glanced up. J.T.—he still didn’t know much about that name, but he knew the man sitting next to his bed was his brother whether he remembered him or not, and that was a definite “or not.”
“Kid … Chaos.” He spoke the name slowly, surprised at how raspy his voice sounded.
The hand on his shoulder tightened.
“It’s good to see you awake,” the guy said, and his voice sounded a little tight, too. “Do you need anything?”
A memory of you, Con thought, but shook his head no. Kid Chaos looked like everything Con would have wanted a brother of his to be, and, faced with the younger man, he felt the loss of his old life more keenly than he could have anticipated.
“I know this is hard for you right now,” Kid said. “Hard for everybody to figure out, and I want you to … uh, know there’s no reason to push the situation any more than you’re comfortable with. Not on anybody’s account. Dr. Brandt is a good guy, one of the best, but the … uh, truth is, your memory will either come back, or it won’t, and we’ll deal with it either way. You take your time.”
Con narrowed his gaze and tilted his head a little to one side. “Did you practice that?”
An instant grin flashed across the younger man’s face. “A little,” he admitted. “It’s been six years, bro. I wanted to get the first words right.”
“You did.” In spades. This was hard on everybody, a six-year gulf full of grief and pain on all sides.
A
moment of silence drew out between them, so many questions, so many unknowns.
“You look tired,” he said, and the younger man nodded.
“I’ve been waiting for you, J.T.,” Kid said, his voice low, his words heavy with the emotion Con could see in his face. “I’ve been waiting for you for a damn long time.”
Without a thought, Con reached up and pulled his brother in close, his arms tightening around Kid’s shoulders. God. He knew what it was like to wait for the dead, some part of your mind not accepting that the person you loved was gone from you forever.
Peter Chronopolous. Kid Chaos. J. T. Chronopolous. It was a lot to work through. Take your time, Kid had said, and Con knew the value of those words.
“Thanks.” He tightened his hold on the younger man for a long moment before letting him go—except for taking hold of Kid’s hand. He was exhausted, drifting back into sleep, but he wasn’t ready for his little brother to leave him. Not yet … not yet …
The next time he woke, morning sunshine was streaming through the windows, and another angel was waiting for him. A beautiful woman with long dark hair, freckles across her nose, and a warm smile leaned over the bed.
God, he was glad to see her, to know she was still with him, that she hadn’t been a dream.
“Hey, babe,” he said.
“Hey, cowboy.” She took his hand in hers, and he remembered something.
His brow furrowed. “There was a guy here earlier.” His brother.
“There’s been a lot of guys here,” she said. “It’s standing room only out in the hall, but you’re talking about Kid. He’s been here since you got here. He actually came in with you, and he hasn’t left. He’s just down in the cafeteria right now, getting some breakfast. How are you feeling?”
More awake now than when he’d been talking to Kid.
“Better.” Way better. Bruised, roughed up in places, like a train had hit him, but better. He reached up and felt stitches in his head and another bolt of fear shot through him.
“No, no, baby,” the woman murmured. “It’s okay. You were hurt in the fight, and the doctors here stitched you back together. Nothing else happened. Nothing. I haven’t left your side.”
He believed her. Yeah, now that he thought about it, he didn’t have that queasy, what-the-fuck-happened-to-me feeling he’d always had in Bangkok whenever he’d woken up. And he wasn’t strapped into this bed, not like he’d been strapped into Souk’s gurneys.
“Monk is dead, right?” he asked, remembering where he’d been and what he’d been doing when the lights had gone out. “Somebody got him?”
“Everybody got him,” she said, offering him a cup of water. He lifted his head up and took a small swallow. “Everybody at Steele Street, the whole team. Hell, if I’d had a gun, I would have gotten him.”
Good. He fell back on the pillow.
He’d needed to know that. Whatever Dr. Patterson had done to that soldier, nobody should ever do it to anyone else ever again.
“Did he hurt you?” He needed to know what she’d gone through, all of it. Monk was dead, but that whole night had been rough on her.
“No,” she said. “Nothing like what happened to you. I got a few bruises, a headache. That’s all. The docs checked me out that night, when I came with you, and I’m fine.”
A weight lifted off of him at her words. She hadn’t been hurt, and suddenly, life was full of grace.
“And Randolph Lancaster?”
“You mean that little old dead guy Monk was dragging around?”
Geezus. That’s what his life’s work had come down to in the end: a little old dead guy getting dragged around?
“Yeah, that guy.” The one who’d committed countless acts of treason against his country and ruined countless lives.
She shook her head, her smile fading. “A bad end, a real bad end. The chop shop boys mined the elevator shaft with claymores, and Monk tried to escape that way. He took Lancaster with him.”
Ugly, but nothing more than he’d deserved.
His nemesis, the spymaster, Lancaster—dead.
“We’ve been waiting for you to come around,” she said.
“How long?” He didn’t have a clue.
“Two days.”
Not so long.
“I know you,” he said, because it seemed important to tell her.
“You sure?”
Yeah, he was sure.
“You’re Jane Linden, Robin Rulz.” Jane from the streets of Denver, a wild thing always on the run. Jane, sweet Jane, from a long-ago night when he’d turned to her for solace and been changed by what she’d given him.
Two nights ago, she’d turned to him for the same, and he had not forgotten, not like he’d forgotten so many things.
“And who are you?” she asked.
“Trick question?” He grinned.
“You tell me.” Her eyes were so green, so warm and full of concern.
He let his grin fade. “Intellectually, I know I’m John Thomas Chronopolous, but in my heart, I’m still Con Farrel, and in between knowing those two things, there are a lot of empty places. It’s more like I’ve got a bad memory rather than no memory.”
“Dr. Brandt says it will take time, but since your amnesia was drug induced, it can be drug uninduced.”
“Who is Dr. Brandt?”
“The miracle worker who keeps Red Dog in one piece, the man who brought her memory back.”
Red Dog—that could only be one person.
“The woman who gave me the Klorizapat.” She’d been a redhead.
Off on the other side of the bed, someone cleared her throat, and Jane looked up and smiled.
“Sorry,” she said, then turned back to him. “Someone has been waiting for two days to see you.”
He turned his head to see who was there.
“Scout,” he said, his smile returning so big it almost hurt. His girl looked somehow different, and it took him a moment to realize why. “Nice dress.”
And it was, real nice, real pretty, and unlike anything he’d ever seen her wear.
Scout in a dress.
He lifted his hand toward her, and his girl threw herself into his arms. Scout. Looking no worse the wear for having been in the clutches of the dreaded SDF crew for two months. She kissed his cheek, holding him close, and he shifted his gaze to the man standing next to her, holding her hand.
Oh, hell. Holding her hand.
“Geez, I missed you, Con,” her sweet voice whispered in his ear. “You were s’posed to meet us at the damn Armstrong. We waited, until I finally had to call the damn enemy to find out what happened to you, and … and Red Dog told us you were here.”
Red Dog again. He owed her.
“Jack,” he said over the top of Scout’s shoulder, not bothering to disguise the sternness in his voice.
Jack Traeger was not fazed. He just stood there, grinning like the wild boy he was, letting Con read it all in his face: that he’d won the girl, taken her for his own, and he wasn’t giving her back.
Oh, hell. Con had seen this coming for years, but it was still a shock, especially with Scout showing up in a dress, a pink and green confection of silk and swirling cabbage roses, sleeveless with a V neck, a summer dress that fit her like a glove, hugging her hips and making her legs look like they went on forever.
Garrett would have been proud.
“Con,” Jack said in greeting. “Or do you want to be called J.T.?”
Hell, he didn’t know.
He wanted to be called “mistaken,” but that wasn’t going to happen. What he was seeing was the real deal—Jack and Scout.
A doctor walked into the room then and came over to introduce himself.
“Dr. Brandt,” he said, taking Con’s hand and giving it a solid shake as Scout disentangled herself with a final kiss and stepped away from the bed. “I thought you might be back with us about now.” The doc was tall and thin, with graying hair and a studious pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. Hi
s eyes were a lively blue, very discerning, and with a glance, he let it be known it was time for the business of patient care.
By the time he left, Con was more encouraged about his situation than he had been in the last six years, and especially in the last year, when he’d felt his time running out.
Scout and Jack stayed on for another hour before heading out for dinner with a promise to return later, and then he was alone with Jane.
“Come on up here,” he said, pulling her onto the bed.
She didn’t resist, and he knew why. She needed this, too, to just be close. Any woman who’d sat by a guy’s bed for two days watching him breathe was probably well on her way to falling in love. At least that’s what he hoped.
“The doc says I’ll be out of here tomorrow. There’s going to be a debriefing at Steele Street, and then he wants to see me at Walter Reed the beginning of next week.” For a while, he was going to be Brandt’s primary work in progress, until the doc figured out a medication plan that would slowly wean him off of Souk’s drugs while allowing him to regain his memory and maintain his strength and speed.
She looked up at him expectantly, her hand resting lightly over his heart.
“That gives us a week to go somewhere …”
“Like?” she prompted.
“Like anywhere we want—Paris, Prague, Seattle, Munich, St. Croix, Saigon.”
“Saigon?”
“Sure. You’d love it, and it would love you.” He leaned down and kissed her mouth, and then lingered, loving the taste and feel of her, and wishing they were somewhere besides a hospital bed.
“Mmmmm,” she murmured when he broke off the kiss. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Yes.” Yes, he was. “A very long date.” She enchanted him, and he wanted more, a lot more.
“Hmmmmm.”
From mmmmm to hmmmmm? He wasn’t sure if he was making progress or not.
“Is that a hmmm yes? Or a hmmm no?” He was gunning for the yes, but she still hedged her answer.
“We had a crazy night …”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Our second crazy night together.”
Her startled gaze flew up to meet his.
“So you do remember!” A hot flush of color flooded her cheeks.
