by Cindy Dees
Lily was subdued when she woke up the next morning. She couldn’t believe she’d actually slept. It must be some sort of defense mechanism of the human mind to put a person to sleep when the reality around them became too much to stand.
She and Carter both made a bunch of phone calls first thing. Odd, awkward conversations to tell people how much they missed them and cared about them, and of course, calls to family to say “I love you.” Just in case, of course.
Both of them were quiet over a late breakfast.
He’d pushed the food cart out into the hall and came back before she asked, “No word from H.O.T. Watch yet?”
It was as if she’d conjured the phone call, for at that moment, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out and shoved it to his ear. “Go,” he said tersely.
She felt it in his sudden tension. An electricity hovering about him. They’d been given something to do. The waiting was over. Thank God.
“What’s the plan?” she demanded eagerly.
“We’re taking a little road trip.”
“Where to?”
“Camp David.”
“Isn’t that where the president hangs out?” she blurted.
“One and the same.”
Whoa. “Who are we going to talk to?”
“Apparently, the cabinet’s having a little retreat up there with the president this weekend. I don’t know who we’ll talk to once we get there. Brady just said to take the SUV and get up there.”
Packing was an easy matter. Her new suit fit in a single shopping bag along with the things Jennifer Blackfoot had given her a lifetime ago at H.O.T. Watch headquarters. And the red teddy…well, it fit in her pocket.
Their driver grunted in surprise when Carter told him where they were going but dutifully pointed the vehicle northwest out of town without any further comment. Lily sat back to watch the rolling Maryland countryside go past the window. She was surprised at how quickly the D.C. suburbs transitioned to fields and pastures and stands of trees—quintessential America. She desperately hoped all this bucolic beauty was still here at this time tomorrow.
Twenty-five hours and counting.
They’d been driving for maybe an hour when she spotted something diving and swooping outside, swallow-like, yet too big and fast to be a bird. “What’s that?” she asked.
Carter looked where she pointed. “Crop duster.”
“That looks dangerous. He’s coming so close to the trees.”
“It is dangerous. Those guys are a little bit crazy. Look, he’s coming this way. If you stick that red teddy out the window and wave it at him, I bet he’ll buzz the car.”
“Carter!”
He grinned at her.
The plane was indeed coming straight at them. Maybe a hundred yards from the highway, the bright yellow plane veered hard to its left and swooped up into the sky out of sight from inside the vehicle.
But then, without warning, a mighty roar of sound blasted overhead, and the crop duster filled their windshield entirely in shocking yellow paint. He couldn’t be more than ten feet above the SUV. And then a cloud of white spray completely covered the windshield.
“The bastard just sprayed us!” the driver shouted, slamming on the brakes. Carter barely heard the guy through the glass partition. Carter glanced back over his shoulder. There was no other vehicle anywhere close to them. A frisson of alarm skated up his spine.
“What the—” the driver slurred. The SUV swerved violently, and the guy slumped over the wheel all of a sudden. White foam spurted from his mouth.
“What’s happening?” Lily cried.
“Brace yourself!” Carter shouted.
The SUV skidded off the highway, slammed head-first into a ditch and then rolled over violently twice. Carter hit his head on the window and saw stars, but grabbed frantically at the door. “Get outside!” he hollered.
He tore at the door handle, but it didn’t release. Punching at the window button, he nearly cried in relief as the bulletproof glass panel slid down about three-quarters of the way. He grabbed Lily’s arm and yanked her toward him.
She was conscious, but disoriented and dazed. He didn’t feel much better. The vehicle was upside down, but she’d managed to release her seat belt and tumble in an awkward pile to the roof of the SUV.
“Take a deep breath, chère, and don’t let it out until I tell you, okay?” She nodded fuzzily but obediently took a deep breath and held it. He did the same. Whatever that crop duster had sprayed on the car had taken out the driver in a matter of seconds. His guess was nerve gas. Sarin, maybe. Had the glass privacy panel not been raised, they’d both be dead already.
He crawled out the window, never letting go of Lily and forcing her to crawl out after him. They were in about six inches of muddy water, and the cold of it seemed to shock her to fuller consciousness. His lungs burned with the need to breathe, but grimly, he held his breath. He dragged her up and out of the ditch and blessedly felt a breeze on his skin. He turned until they faced upwind of the SUV.
“Okay, you can breathe,” he told Lily.
She exhaled gustily. “What happened?”
“I think someone just made a darned good attempt to kill us.” He heard an airplane engine droning in the distance and he swore violently. They needed cover. Now! The nearest tree was all the way across a large field.
He talked fast. “We’ve got to hide from that crop duster. I think he sprayed a nerve agent at us. Deadly gas may be collecting down in that ditch. We have to hold our breaths and go back down there and use the SUV for cover until he passes. Can you do that? It’s absolutely vital that you not breathe.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
They both took several deep breaths as a yellow speck came into sight in the distance. It grew larger rapidly.
“Let’s go.” He took one last deep breath and rushed down the steep bank to the front end of the SUV. He scrambled under the engine block, which upside down, made a nice overhang for them to hide under.
Lily joined him, but then lurched hard against him. He glanced over at her. Oh, Lord. The driver, clearly dead, his face frozen in an agonized rictus of terror and pain, was crumpled against the windshield no more than a foot from her face. Carter grabbed her and pulled her face down against his shoulder.
The drone of the airplane drew closer. Closer. And then with a deafening whine, it shot past them. He scrambled out of the ditch once more, dragging Lily with him. They both panted, catching their breath as the plane arced off to the west and disappeared into the distance.
“I don’t think he’ll be back,” Carter said quietly.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“My guess is Russian Army. Spetsnaz, probably.”
“What? Why?”
He answered grimly, “I’d lay odds the attaché we spoke to yesterday didn’t go to the Russian ambassador. Instead, he took your information and ran it up the Russian military chain of command. They’re freaking out that the Americans know about their nasty little secret in Siberia, and they’re desperate to keep you and me from telling anyone about it. Notice that this attack was definitely designed to kill, and was targeted at both of us this time and not just you. I’d say you and I just vaulted to the very top of the Russian Army’s most wanted list.”
“Great. Now what?”
He looked around. There wasn’t a house in sight, and not another car in either direction. “We keep moving. For all we know, the Russians have a team in the area prepared to move in and confirm the kill. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Seriously? You think they’re that determined to get us dead?”
He took off hiking down one of the rows of tender corn plants in the field. “They just attacked us with an airplane full of what was probably highly illegal and difficult-to-manufacture-and-store nerve gas. That pilot had to be wearing a full chemical warfare suit or he’d be dead, too. They knew where we were going. What route we took. What car we were in. When we’d be passing by here. Do you h
ave any idea the amount of coordination and resources this hit took? And the Russians pulled it together in under twenty-four hours. Speaking from an operational perspective, it’s as impressive as hell.”
She stumbled along behind him, her jaw agape. “This isn’t happening. I’m dreaming.”
“I wish you were, sugar. But this is entirely real. Can you go faster? I want to get under those trees as soon as possible.”
“Are you going to call H.O.T. Watch?” she panted, hustling along behind him in the soft dirt.
“As soon as we’re under cover.” And then he was going to pray. Hard.
Chapter 11
She must be dazed from the accident because Lily was having a hard time wrapping her brain around the fact that someone had just sprayed poison at them and nearly killed them. Had the driver’s reflexes not been so fast and had he not slowed the vehicle down so much before he died and lost control of the SUV, the crash alone could have killed them.
Carter put on a last burst of speed that nearly left her in the dust of the cornfield, but she forced her tired legs to go just a few more steps. Thankfully, he stopped as soon as they reached the shade of a long row of trees.
“Get down,” he ordered. “These blackberries are scratchy, but they provide decent cover.”
She didn’t care if the bushes had knife blades growing on them. She plunked down next to Carter on her rear under the bushes and stretched out her cramping legs gratefully as Carter dialed his phone, angled between them so she could hear, too.
“H.O.T. Watch Ops. This is Boo and subject. We have been attacked. Driver’s dead. Vehicle down. We’re on foot and possibly under pursuit by a hostile hunter/killer team. Request immediate backup.”
She expected some sort of exclamation of surprise at that transmission, but all she heard faintly through Carter’s phone was a calm, “Say status.”
“We’re banged up but ambulatory. Fully functional.”
He could speak for himself. She felt anything but fully functional at the moment. She felt like she’d just run a marathon and, if she remembered her ancient first-aid training correctly, she was a little bit in shock.
“Roger, Boo. Stand by.”
“That’s all they’ve got for us?” she demanded in disgust. “Stand by?”
He smiled grimly. “Oh, trust me. All hell’s just broken loose in the bat cave. If I were duty controller today, I’d be on the horn with the FBI and maybe the Marines at Quantico seeing who can scramble a helicopter full of armed SWAT guys the fastest. They’ll be swarming this area in a half hour. In the meantime, I might call the state police and local sheriff and see if they can get some units out here sooner.”
“Uh, Carter,” she murmured. “We may not have that long.”
He glanced up and swore quietly. Okay, so she wasn’t mistaken. Those were a half-dozen men carrying really big guns climbing out of a van right where their SUV had gone into the ditch.
“We’ll never outrun them,” he whispered. “We’re going to have to hide. Fast. Help me.”
He carefully lifted a layer of dead, wet leaves aside, doing his best to keep the mats of leaves intact. She mimicked him as best she could. Then he started scrabbling at the earth below with his bare hands. She pitched in, breaking nails and grinding dirt under their remains. Thankfully, the soil was rich and black and soft and gave way easily.
“That’s wide enough. Now start lengthening the trench,” he whispered. She helped eagerly until he said, “Lie down in it.”
“Why?” she asked warily.
“I’m going to bury you.”
Oh, God. Her worst nightmare come true. “My claustrophobia!” she gasped.
“I’m sorry. You’re going to have to grin and bear it. It’s either that or we both die.”
Terror unlike anything she’d ever experienced ripped through her. But Carter was adamant. He helped her lie down in the shallow grave—ohgod, ohgod, ohgod—and began shoveling dirt over her quickly.
“You’re not going to be with me?” she asked, horrified.
“Can’t. I’ve got to lead them away from you. Lay a false trail to buy us time to slip away. If I’m not back in an hour, go to the road, get out of sight of that van and flag down the first car you can. Call H.O.T. Watch. They’ll send someone to get you. Proceed to Camp David without me. You’ve got to tell them what you know.”
“I can’t leave you—” she wailed under her breath.
He leaned down and cut her off with a fast, hard kiss. “Be brave, chère. Everything depends on you doing this.”
She shook with horror from head to toe as he buried her under a foot of dirt and carefully covered his work with the matted leaves. He sprinkled a light covering of dirt over her face and the last batch of leaves descended toward her face. An urge to leap up and run away came over her so powerfully that she wasn’t sure she could restrain it.
“I love you, Lily.”
And then the leaves pressed down over her face, enclosing her in blackness.
What? Whoa. Love? He loved her? The concept distracted her just enough from her panic attack that she was able to force herself to lie still for a moment. Another. She counted to ten in her head.
He loved her!
Count to sixty. Exhale slowly. Ignore the taste of dirt and the rotten, wormy smell of the leaves. Count to sixty again. Carter loved her. Her! She could lie here for him. Another sixty count. By God, he didn’t get to skate clear of hearing her declare her love to him. She was going to lie here as long as it took to get her chance to blow his mind back. She started imagining different ways she could spring the announcement on him for maximum impact.
And then she heard a sound that made her freeze, every scintilla of her panic rushing back full-force. A male voice had just whispered low…in Russian. She heard swishing like someone was shoving aside branches. Kicking at leaves maybe. The whispered voices drew closer. Good grief. They sounded like they were standing practically on top of her. A faint pressure brushed across the tops of her legs. Oh, my God. Someone had just kicked aside the leaves there. Thank God Carter had insisted on actually burying her or else she’d be staring down the barrel of a gun right now.
She drew in the shallowest, most silent breath she could. Released it with painful care. Another breath. A violent need to hyperventilate was building up inside her. She must not breathe fast. Must control her fear. Must live. For Carter.
The voices retreated a bit. Dizzy with fear and oxygen deprivation, she took a slightly deeper breath. Another. The spots before her eyes disappeared.
She counted to sixty ten more times before she dared take one delicious, deep breath. She listened as hard as she could, but only silence surrounded her. After counting to sixty another half-dozen times, she heard a tiny, tentative noise. A cricket chirped. A simple little cricket, but she could’ve cried at the beauty of that sharp, tinny sound. The Russians must be gone if the animals were resuming their regular chorus.
Her thoughts turned then to Carter. Where had he disappeared to? Had he hidden somewhere by now or was he out there running for his life? What if he’d had an episode and was out there somewhere, frozen, without her to help him unwind? Knowing him, he would let the Russians spot him on purpose and then use himself as bait to draw them away from her. He was just that kind of guy. He would always protect the lady, even if it cost him his life.
She alternated praying and counting until she’d judged a half hour had passed. The cavalry ought to be here soon to save the day, shouldn’t it? Except only silence reigned around her. What was going on? Her claustrophobia gave way to burning curiosity that threatened to get the best of her. Had Carter not fired that last salvo before he left about loving her, she’d so be out of here right now! She would bet he’d said that intentionally, knowing it was the one thing that would ensure her cooperation with his instructions. Jerk.
And then, just like that, the leaves lifted away from her face. She jolted, startled horribly. Carter. She hadn’t heard him comin
g. At all. How did he do that?
He put a finger over his lips, but thankfully began pulling away the leaves and dirt, freeing her from her prison. In a few seconds she was able to sit up. Her clothes were full of damp, cold dirt, but when Carter wrapped her in a fiercely tight hug, she didn’t care.
“Where’s the cavalry?” she breathed.
“Some yahoo at the FAA panicked when he heard our report of the poison gas attack and decided to be a hero. He called everyone and their uncle and pushed every panic button they have. Homeland Security had to shut down the airspace over this whole part of the country to chase down that crop duster,” he explained in disgust. “No helicopters can get here. Local cops have also been tapped to find the guy. We’re on our own for a little while longer.”
She grimaced. Could this day get any worse?
“The good news is our Russian friends bit on the false trail I laid and are racing through the woods on a wild-goose chase as we speak.”
“So we’ll just head for the road and flag down a car to get us out of here?” she asked hopefully.
He flashed her a regretful look. “That van the Russians showed up in probably has a driver and a bunch of radios in it. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
“Now what?” She had complete faith he would know what to do next.
“We’re going to crawl along this tree line for a while and use it for cover. Once we’re out of sight of that van, then we can head for the road and get help.”
A simple plan in theory, but the execution of it sucked rocks. She was hot and sore and scratched to pieces, covered in even more dirt than she had been before, when Carter finally signaled a stop in front of her.
“You see that tree line up ahead? The one running perpendicular to us, out to the road?”
She nodded, too exhausted to speak.
“We’ll crawl to that and then follow it out to the road.”
She groaned under her breath, her entire body screaming its protest at being forced onward. “I was going to tell you I loved you back. But you can forget that. I hate your guts.”
