by Vicki Hinze
When the guards passed the cabin and walked on, Amanda let out a ragged breath. Soon, they took the next row, and finally disappeared out of sight. Amanda sneaked inside, eased the door shut and pressed a fingertip over her lips. Quickly, she untied Harry and then the other man and motioned them to follow her. Rather than going out the door, she led them to a window at the back of the cabin, popped off the screen and climbed out.
Harry followed her, and the second man brought up the rear. Amanda motioned and led them into the woods. When hidden by the dense leafy trees, she glanced back at the cabin. Two guards now stood watch outside at the bottom of the steps to the front door.
Paul Reese, blast him, had trusted his instincts. They didn’t have much time. At any moment, those guards would enter the cabin to pull a visual check and they’d sound the alarm. “Hurry,” she whispered, leading them to the spot where she’d stashed Simon.
“God, I thought you’d never get back.”
“Later, Simon,” she said, heading to the golf course fairway—the closest route to the helicopter. She checked her watch. Mark should be in position now with Joan and Jeremy and ready to move in. “We have to move fast. They’re on to us.”
She and the three men cleared the woods and hit the fairway in a dead run.
Sirens blared.
Spotlights flooded the course with blinding light. “Get to the trees,” Amanda motioned, seeing half a dozen guards run onto the fairway and several others coming at them in golf carts from different directions. “Simon, take them to the safe zone by the hangars. Tell Mark to go on. I’ll hold them off for you.”
Harry frowned. “No, we’re not leaving you.”
“If you don’t, you’ll be dead,” she said bluntly. “And no one will know what Kunz is doing. The truth will die here, Harry. I won’t let that happen. Now get to Mark and tell him to get that chopper airborne and get you out of here.”
“Okay. Okay.” Harry frowned. “Thank you, Amanda.”
“SAIC Marcus Brent, ma’am.” The second man spoke softly. “I appreciate the assist.”
SAIC—Special Agent in Charge. FBI. Great. Just as Joan had said, Kunz had infiltrated beyond the military. Obviously, at least as far as the FBI. “You’re welcome.” Amanda nodded, seeing the golf carts and men on foot running closer. Pulling a quick count, she tagged about a dozen of them. They hadn’t yet spotted Amanda’s group, but it would be seconds, not minutes, until they did. “Go!”
Simon, Harry and Brent ducked into the trees, ran parallel to the fairway, heading to the helicopter safe zone. Amanda moved behind them, close enough to provide them cover but not enough to jeopardize them being caught if she went down.
A bullet whizzed past her ear. She dropped to a crouch, spotted the shooter and returned fire. The man fell to the ground. Amanda kept moving, clipped an ancient oak, bumping her winged arm. Pain shot through her, stealing her breath. She slumped against the rough trunk and waited for the initial streaks of pain to pass, then focused on burying the pain and getting a lead on her pursuers. Wincing, she leaned out to peer under a low-slung branch to see what was happening.
Oh, man. Everyone was now speeding in her direction; the shooting had snagged their attention. She sank deeper into the woods. The carts couldn’t make it through the dense underbrush. That maneuver took out part of her opposition. Swinging wide, she worked toward the safe zone.
Lights swept the trees—ankle and then waist-high, flooding through even the squatty bushes. She flattened her back against a tall pine. Her lungs air-starved, she drew in deep breaths, her mind racing. Enemy footsteps crept closer and closer.
She squeezed her eyes shut, determined not to fire unless absolutely necessary. They’d be all over her in seconds. Three men moved within striking distance of her.
One stepped in front of her, saw her. She chopped at his windpipe, and when he bent double, she followed up with a second blow with her foot. His knees folded, and she knocked him out.
Killing them nagged at her relentlessly thanks to Gaston’s “not of their own free will” comment. Everyone had breaking points and Kunz, the sadistic misery lover, was a master at exploiting them. Yet under these circumstances, how did she quickly determine who was here by choice or by force?
In a split second, she made an executive decision on policy. Given the opportunity, she would let them live. Anyone who pushed to kill her died.
She wiped the sweat from her palm, freshened her grip on the pistol. A second man nearly stumbled into her. Amanda hit him from behind. He plunged forward into the dirt, not knowing what had hit him. Avoiding the third man, a burly redhead with shoulders the size of mountains, she moved again, closer to the safe zone.
Something flickered and caught her eye. A team dressed in covert gear was headed her way. She counted five of them, armed to the teeth with rifles with high-power scopes. Certainly they were night-vision equipped.
So much for lucky breaks. Her stomach knotted. She was screwed.
In the distance, she heard the plop of chopper blades. Mark. He’d gotten them off the ground. Relieved by that, Amanda focused fully on evading the approaching team. She couldn’t avoid them forever, but she had to avoid them long enough for Mark to clear out with the detainees.
Why weren’t Kunz’s men firing the Triple-A?
There could be only one explanation: they thought their own guards manned the chopper. They didn’t know yet that Mark had appropriated it. Nearly giddy that he wasn’t dodging bullets, she dived into a little ravine and hunkered down to catch her breath. She had a good two minutes, maybe three, before the covert team would get to her grid. They swept methodically, thank God. These guys were professionals. From them, she knew what to expect.
Breather time over, she moved again, using stealth tactics.
At first, she outmaneuvered them and made decent progress. But within minutes, the team began closing in on her, tightening the perimeter circle to the point that she had no safe out. She assessed her position on the run. Her best odds were to hit the fairway and run full out. That was her only hope of evading them a while longer and keeping their focus off Mark and the chopper.
She took off like a shot, blowing past two men on foot and one driving a golf cart. Bullets fired behind her, speeding past her ear, lodging in tree trunks too close for comfort and raising stinging clouds of dirt and leaves. Dodging, she ran a zigzag pattern to up her odds of not being hit. The bullets kept coming, sending dirt flying near her feet, pinging dirt against her slacks legs and shoes. Close. Too close.
The sounds of the chopper grew louder and then deafening. What was Mark doing? He was supposed to be headed out of the compound, not into it!
Mark swooped, dropping the chopper lower to the ground twenty yards in front of her. Someone—Harry maybe—dropped down a rope ladder. Glimpsing a slim shot at survival, she ran full out toward it, pulling on every ounce of reserve she could muster. Shots rang out from the chopper, aiming over her head at the men firing on her. Harry? Brent? Simon? Probably not Simon; she couldn’t see him with a gun in his hand. But Kunz had messed with his family. Probably Simon, too.
The covert team rendezvoused with the guards. Bullets cross-fired all around her. Pulling up her last threads of energy, she pumped her legs hard. Her muscles burning, throbbing, her chest threatening to explode, she extended as far as humanly possible and lunged for the ladder.
A rung slapped against her palm. Half-surprised, she grabbed hold, locking on, and looked up the rungs. Harry stood in the door, looking down at her. She signaled him to haul it out of there. He cupped his hand at his mouth, yelling something she couldn’t decipher, then whatever he was saying was lost under Brent’s rifle fire as he leaned farther out the door and blasted the ground steadily.
In a momentary pause, she heard Simon shout, “We got her, Mark! Go, go, go!”
Amanda looped an arm around the ladder and returned fire on the men shooting up at her. Men on the ground ducked for cover, lay belly down on the gr
ass.
The chopper lifted with a swoosh and made a jerky, sharp turn that sent Amanda swaying in a wide arc and had dragonflies swarming in her stomach. Swinging wildly, dangerously close to the trees, she took the ladder rungs as quickly as she could, dived into the chopper then tugged the rope ladder up after her.
Heaped between Harry’s and Joan’s feet, Amanda caught her breath and then looked up and over at Mark. “Thanks.”
Mark smiled. “I never leave my partner behind.”
Amanda fought the urge to smile back. “Coming back for me was a stupid thing to do, Cross. I’m questioning your judgment again. You could have lost everyone.”
“Could have,” he admitted. “But didn’t.”
She grunted. He was adorable and incorrigible, and that was that. And as partners went, he was a pretty good one.
“Oh, man,” Brent said.
“What?” Amanda moved to the front of the chopper. “Mark?”
“Triple-A.”
Antiaircraft artillery. Kunz’s men had discovered that the chopper had been stolen. Tracer bullets streaked through the sky toward them.
“I can’t pinpoint the source location.” Harry shouted. “I can’t find the freaking source!”
Amanda grabbed the rifle from Harry, moved to the door and prepared to take aim. The scope wasn’t equipped with night vision. Their luck was holding for catching minimal breaks. “Everyone, grab hold. Mark, drop fast and hang right. Standard evasion tactic.”
He did. The chopper bucked and groaned and the tracer bullets rose harmlessly into the sky above the chopper. Amanda tracked the trajectory and fired in rapid succession.
The Triple-A ceased.
“We should be getting out of range,” Harry said, sliding a look at Brent.
Simon sat in back, one arm around Joan. They both held Jeremy. Rather than the scared kid she expected—being shot at was no picnic even for an adult—Jeremy was smiling. “You okay, buddy?”
“It’s an adventure,” he told her. “Mom said.”
Amanda laughed. “It is that.” She moved up to Mark, planted a kiss on his cheek and dropped into the copilot’s seat. “Thanks for doing the stupid thing for me.” She reached for the radio, putting her headgear on and tuning to the emergency frequency monitored by Intel 24/7.
She’d nudged his headset, knocking it askew. Mark adjusted it. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“This is Alpha Tango 135812. Please verify and secure communications.”
A moment later, the tower chief’s voice crackled through the headset. “Alpha Tango 135812, identity verified, communications secured. What’s your situation, ma’am?”
“Code three,” Amanda said, assigning a value on the standard one-to-five scale for rating emergencies.
“Code three recorded.” The chief’s voice took on a tense edge, befitting a Code three. “How can we assist, ma’am?”
“I need a secure patch to the Puzzle Palace, Tower Chief,” she said, giving the slang term for the Pentagon. “OSI, S.A.S.S. action officer.”
A moment elapsed and then the tower chief said, “We’re ready to transmit your message, ma’am.”
“Seven,” she said, revealing the number of passengers on board. “Returning critical load. Arrange immediate transport.”
“Roger, ma’am.”
Amanda took special pleasure in her next transmission.
“Arrest and detain Captain Amanda West’s double, and if one is there, Captain Mark Cross’s.” Mark’s double, if he had one, could be at Providence wreaking havoc. She pondered on disclosing more, but decided that even with secure measures activated, she didn’t dare. No communications were totally secure, and the last thing they needed was for this to show up on the news before they located all the doubles. “Please track signal and guide us in.”
“Order verified and confirmed, Chief.” Amanda felt beads of sweat trickle down her chest and soak her clothes.
Moments later, the chief fed in coordinates. Mark heard them through his headset and locked them in on the chopper’s control panel. “Could you give us an ETA, Chief?” Mark asked for an estimated time of arrival.
No response.
Amanda interceded. “That’s my pilot making the request, Tower Chief.”
“ETA is in thirty-seven minutes, ma’am. The S.A.S.S. has been patched, notified, and the message delivered. Transport has been scrambled and awaits you on the flight line, ma’am. Do you require an escort?”
Amanda looked at Mark, Harry and Brent. Between them, they had four sharpshooters on board and adequate ammunition to fight a small war. “Negative, Chief. We’re covered.”
“Roger that, ma’am.” He sounded relieved. “If you need anything else, we’ll be monitoring on secure standby status.”
“Thanks, Chief. Alpha Tango 135812 over and out.”
“Tower Chief out.”
Mark raised an eyebrow at her. “The lady has enormous clout.”
“No more so than you,” she said. He had a hot wire to Secretary of Defense Reynolds. “Actually, I would guess you have more.” So why hadn’t he used it? Underestimated again? She’d thought they were past that.
“Actually, if I had more, I’d order you to come kiss me. I’ve been worried about you. I would have been extremely upset if my lead partner hadn’t finished her job.”
Oddly touched, she smiled. “Me, too.” She leaned over, pecked a kiss to his jaw. He was letting her get the glory for this one. Seeing the truth for what it was, she brushed off the tiny niggle that something wasn’t right. Mark looked at Amanda. “They’re bringing us into Lackland Air Force Base.”
San Antonio, Texas. Lackland was well known for its medical facilities. “Great.” Feeling guilty for doubting him, she kissed his cheek, sniffed gently, and was surprised by the difference in his scent. Was it the change in his diet while detained? Or just his favorite body soap that was missing? “Did they feed you?”
Sensing her fear that he’d been starved, he looked over, his eyes tender. “I didn’t go hungry, Amanda.” He smiled.
Not just with his mouth. He smiled with his eyes, and starving people didn’t usually smile much. He was okay. They were okay.
“Will they follow us?” Joan asked, her voice shaking.
“Not immediately,” Mark said. “The hangars were empty. I stole Kunz’s emergency ride out.”
Chapter Fourteen
Mark landed the chopper at Lackland Air Force Base.
A flat-blue bus sat parked at the edge of the landing pad, waiting for them. A lieutenant—Amanda didn’t see his name tag—ushered them from chopper to bus and, once they sat loaded inside it, he signaled to a base police car that then escorted the bus directly to the flight line. A C-5 had positioned to taxi out and take off, its lights on and engines running.
The seven escapees boarded with little fanfare and took their seats. Amanda clicked her seat belt into place and saw a ruddy-faced pilot step out of the cockpit.
Wearing a major’s rank, he approached and then addressed Amanda. “Captain West?”
She stood and nodded, half expecting to get reamed for her slovenly appearance. Old habits died hard. She looked as if she’d been doing exactly what she had been doing—running hard through the woods—and half the leaves and grass on the compound still clung to her clothes. “Yes, sir.”
The major nodded. “We’ll be taking you to Providence.”
“Providence?” she asked, surprised enough to question him without first thinking. “Why not the Pentagon, sir?”
“Colonel Drake’s orders.” He shrugged, looked her over, and understanding flitted through his eyes. “Mine is not to question why, Captain.” He put a lilt in his voice and turned back toward the cockpit. “Mine is to but fly the C-5.”
She smiled and sat back down beside Mark. Across the aisle, Jeremy sat between his mom and dad. The boy kept staring at his dad with hungry eyes. He was thrilled to be with his father again. Harry and Brent sat directly behind them.
“Unless I miss my guess,” Amanda told Mark, “Colonel Drake will be at Providence waiting for us when we get there. Probably General Shaw, too.”
Mark grunted his agreement. “And unless I miss my guess, Colonel Gray will be with them. He won’t be able to resist the opportunity to strut his stuff and make Colonel Drake ask for his help on everything he possibly can.”
Amanda hoped not. The last thing they needed was the one-upping contest going on between the two colonels. At least if General Shaw was on-site, he’d keep them both toeing the line and their energy focused. She rolled her shoulder. The wound where she’d been winged had started to seep, and fresh, wet blood stained her shirtsleeve.
Mark noticed. “We better put a patch on that.” He got out of his seat. “I’ll get a first-aid kit. Be right back.” He headed to the cockpit.
Amanda watched him move, appreciated his long lines and sturdy build, the confident set of his shoulders, the thoughtfulness in his tending to her wound.
He returned with a kit and nodded for her to move to the back of the plane. She walked to the tail section and sat down in the aisle seat.
“Pull your arm out of your sleeve.” Mark set up directly across the aisle from her.
She shrugged her shoulder out and exposed her arm, pretending she hadn’t also bared the left half of her bra and a lot of skin. Her cheeks heated and she felt like a fool. Why this bothered her, she hadn’t a clue. It was beyond ridiculous. She’d been on missions where she’d had to strip naked in front of an entire team, who also had had to strip naked in front of her, and she’d never given it a thought—neither had the team—and that was the problem.
In a professional or clinical situation, anyone looking at her bra didn’t strike her as any different than them looking at her ankle. But this wasn’t anyone else, it was Mark, and while it was a clinical situation, it didn’t feel clinical. It felt personal, and Mark would notice. He’d note every minor change in her. The color and texture of her, the sweaty dirt smear streaking down from her throat—he’d see it all. Her face heated hotter, threatening to catch fire. Totally absurd, but she was breathless, too. Shy and breathless. It was appalling.
