Undercover with the Enemy

by Christine Michels

  Heather laughed. “That I do.” He began to trace the flower gently over her chin and cheeks and Heather couldn’t help wondering what could ever have prompted him to leave this place. “What made you become a cop?”

  His gaze lifted to meet hers, and the teasing light slowly faded from their depths. Heather realized that in some way she’d trod on something private. To reassure him, she lifted her hand to cup his whisker-shadowed cheek. “It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Really. You just caught me by surprise.” He rolled over onto his back and stared up into the sky. For the longest time, he remained silent. Then, finally, he spoke. “I had an older sister named Carly. We were only a year apart, and about as close as a brother and sister can get. But Carly had a wild streak a mile wide, and she quit school right after high school to take off for the big city. She ended up in Los Angeles, angry and rebellious and determined to prove that she needed no one.” He fell silent a moment, then drew an audible breath before speaking again. “Within a year she was dead.”

  Heather gasped at the brutal finality in the way he spoke the words. “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “She met the wrong kind of people. They got her into drugs. By the time she admitted to herself that she needed help and called home to let us know where she was, it was too late. Dad and I got there to take her home, but she was already dead of an overdose.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Court.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. It was rough. I blamed myself. I was closer to her than anyone else. Maybe if I’d tried a little harder, I could have found her sooner. Could have gotten her to come home. But, I was angry with her for leaving, so I didn’t. And after she was gone, there was no way to make it up to her. I decided there was only one way to give her death meaning—I had to find and punish the people who were responsible for her death.”

  He fell silent, and Heather concluded for him. “So you became a cop.”

  “Yeah. I figured joining the DEA would be the best way, so I set out with that in mind. It took a while, but I made it.”

  “And did you ever find the people responsible for Carly’s death?”

  “No.” He shrugged slightly. “But I like to think that I may have gotten them anyway by just doing my job. It’s taken a lot of years, but I don’t feel quite so guilty any more.”

  Heather sighed and rose on her elbow to look down into Court’s face. “I know about guilt.”

  “I know you do,” he murmured as he lifted his hand to brush her hair behind her ear. “We’re a lot alike, you and I.” Then, cupping the nape of her neck, he tugged her down to kiss her.

  Yes, they were. And that made her wonder…

  She was falling in love with him, but afraid to face that fact and all the choices that would come with it. And, now, hope—foolish hope—began to blossom in her heart that maybe, just maybe, he, too, was growing to love her.

  Rick DiMona lowered the binoculars and smiled a self-satisfied smile as he gripped the case that carried his high-powered rifle, pulling it closer. Years of practice enabled him to assemble the weapon in mere minutes. He made a minor adjustment to the telescopic sight, attached the silencer that would muffle the report, and then settled down to await the perfect shot.

  Damn, he was good! Armed with little more information than Brett Sanders’s name, he had used every avenue of information available to him, and he had found Court Gabriele. Or rather, Court Morgan. It hadn’t been as difficult as he’d anticipated, actually. Simply a matter of determining who had been Brett Sanders’s closest friends within the agency. Who would have taken his murder personally.

  Court Morgan’s name had come up readily enough. And then Rick had simply had to pay enough high-priced computer gurus to track down everything they could. Within six hours, one of them had provided DiMona with the location of the Rocking M Ranch. Since he knew Morgan would have taken the bitch and her brother to somewhere secluded, he gambled on this being the place.

  The gamble had paid off.

  Rick had staked the ranch out. Watching. Waiting. Anticipating the opportunity of catching Heather Buchanan and Court in the open. He wanted them both so badly he could taste the bitter tang in his mouth. The hate, the need to kill them for what they’d done, was like a fever in his blood.

  Court Gabriele and his associates had circumvented Rick’s security measures, tumbling the empire he’d been building. Hypocritical cops had stolen his life once. He wouldn’t allow them to get away with it again.

  And Heather…Heather had dared to defy him. To betray him. To screw up his plans. It was partially because of her that he’d lost this round. And he never accepted defeat. Only by killing her could he transform his defeat into a draw. Although he still wouldn’t like it, that he could accept.

  Win was his only motto. The cost of the win was unimportant.

  Now, he watched the lovers for a time, awaiting the perfect moment. Their laughter drifted to him on the heels of a crisp breeze, and he allowed the sound to fan the ice-cold flames of his hatred. He’d take out the cop first, he decided. Get him out of the way. Then he could deal with the woman at his leisure.

  “We need to find a more private spot.” Court observed as he looked down into Heather’s flushed face.

  “Why?” she asked.

  He chucked her under the chin. “Do you really need to ask?”

  She grinned. “No, I guess not.” Then she glanced beyond him. “But if we don’t catch those horses soon, we won’t be going anywhere.”

  Court looked over his shoulder. “They won’t go far. They’re just grazing.” Even as he watched them though, both horses’ heads came up sharply and they looked back the way they’d come.

  Had somebody followed them?

  “What?” Heather began to speak.

  As a sudden chill raised the hair on the back of his neck, Court placed a finger over Heather’s lips to halt her words. “Shh.” Without moving enough to draw attention to himself if he hadn’t yet been noticed, he scanned the surrounding hills. Was that a flash of light on glass?

  Instinct told him there was a threat out there somewhere. From who or what, he didn’t know. Damn! He should have chosen a spot that provided more shelter. There was a single large boulder about fifteen feet away, but that was it. And the horses were a good thirty yards away across on open grassy meadow.

  “Come on,” he said, rising to his feet in one fluid motion as he held out a hand to Heather. “We’re leav—” But in the next instant something kicked his leg out from under him with tremendous force, and he collapsed in an ungainly heap. “What the—”

  “Oh, my God! You’re bleeding!” Heather’s voice was frantic as she dropped to her knees at his side.

  He looked down at his right leg to see a small geyser of blood squirting from a wound high on his thigh before Heather placed her hand over the injury, putting pressure on the wound. “It’s not bad,” she assured him quickly. “Just a slight nick to the artery, I think.”

  He’d been shot!

  In the next instant, he was moving. “Get behind the boulder,” he yelled, trying to push Heather to safety.

  Not bothering to waste her breath on argument, Heather gave him a furious look that told him more clearly than words just what she thought of his plan. Then, scooting around behind him, she gripped him beneath the arms and began dragging him toward the boulder.

  “Damn it, woman! Will you never listen?” he asked as he pushed with his good leg, helping her to maneuver his body across the ground.

  “Only when you make sense,” she gasped out as she strained to drag him while keeping them both low to the ground. Smaller targets.

  Something that sounded like a bee whistled by Heather’s ear, struck the boulder toward which they were moving and whined off in an unknown direction. Heather muttered an uncharacteristic curse be neath her breath. She was terrified. For both of them, but more for Court.

  She needed to slow the bleedi
ng and get him help as quickly as possible, or he could bleed to death. The thought of losing him… She refused to contemplate it.

  Apparently realizing that she wasn’t about to leave him, no matter the danger, Court shoved harder, helping her to get them both behind the huge boulder. Two more near-miss shots whistled by them, but they made it.

  Propelled by icy fear, as soon as they’d reached the relative security the large stone provided, Heather removed Court’s shirt and, using teeth, hands and finally Court’s jackknife on the sturdy fabric, managed to tear it into strips. Moving as quickly as was humanly possible, she bound the wound as tightly as she could without cutting off the blood supply. Then, she used a doubled strip of cloth to fashion a tourniquet through which she inserted a small but thick branch that Court could use to tighten and loosen the tourniquet as needed. That done, she finally slowed the frantic pace at which she’d been moving and sat back on her heels to meet Court’s eyes. “How is it?”

  He shrugged. “Deep down, where it should hurt, I can’t feel a thing. But I’ve got one of those pain echo things happening on the surface. Hurts like hell.”

  Heather nodded. “We need to get you to a doctor.” She looked around as though the answer to her dilemma would surface in their surroundings, then looked back at Court. “Any ideas?”

  Grimacing against his pain, he stared thoughtfully at the horses. Although they twitched and stamped nervously, both well-trained horses had stayed pretty much where they were. “There’s a cell phone in Benny’s saddlebags, but that might not be any help anyway. The reception up here isn’t always the greatest. The rifle is on the horse, and there’s no way to get to the horses.” He was talking aloud, almost musingly as he tried to plan their way out. “All we’ve got is…” He leaned forward and tugged the hem of his jeans up until his boot was exposed. Then, with a grunt of satisfaction, he removed a small handgun from his boot top. “…this,” he concluded wearily.

  Heather nodded as she took the small gun from his hand to study it. “A .38?” she asked for verification.

  He looked at her in surprise. “Yeah. It’s a .38 Chief’s Special.” He grimaced at a sudden pain, and then commented, “I thought you hated guns.”

  She met his gaze. “I do. But you have to know something before you can hate it. My counsellor always said, ‘It’s best to know your enemy.’ He advised me to take shooting lessons and get to know guns in order to get over my fear of them.”

  Court eyed her curiously. “It didn’t work?”

  Heather shrugged. “Oh, it worked, I guess. As long as the gun is in my hand.”

  She paused, looking at him worriedly. “What do we do?”

  Court’s expression was grim as he looked back toward the rocks from where the shots had come. Then he met Heather’s eyes. “I’m in rough shape, sweetheart. So, I’m going to have to rely on you to get us out of this. Okay?”

  Heather swallowed. She didn’t want the responsibility, but there was no other way. Not with Court so badly injured. Nodding, she asked, “What do I have to do?”

  “Since we can’t get to the horses, you’re going to have to work your way around the other way, using the rocks on the hill as cover. You’ll have to get behind the shooter and…” He gasped in sudden pain. “And disarm him, or take him out, or something. Whatever works. A handgun against a sniper’s rifle makes the odds a bit uneven, but its all we’ve got. I’ll do my best to keep his attention focused on me while you get close to him.”

  Heather eyed the path he’d outlined. Some of the rocks looked barely large enough to conceal her. But that wasn’t what was bothering her. “Court…I don’t think I can kill a man.”

  Court considered her. “I wouldn’t ask you to kill anyone, Heather. Just try to get the drop on him. Make him give up his weapon. If it comes down to it, and you have to shoot, aim for his leg or another nonvital part. Understood?”

  Slowly, Heather nodded. “Understood.” But could she do it?

  “Good. Once you’ve disarmed him, you’re going to find yourself in a standoff situation. If you get too close to him, he could overpower you and take the gun. So, keep your distance.”

  Heather nodded. She could see his reasoning, but… As though sensing the direction of her thoughts, Court continued. “That’s where I come in,” he said. “Once you’ve gained control up there so that I can get into the open without getting shot, I’ll grab Benny and come up to help.”

  Heather took a deep breath. “Okay.” The plan was the best they were going to get, so she’d better make it work. “I guess that means I’d better leave you with some means of maneuvering. A crutch or something.”

  He nodded. “Good point.”

  She spotted a large stout branch nearby that, if it wasn’t too old and brittle, would suffice. Although it certainly wouldn’t be comfortable for Court. With a cautious glance over her shoulder to gauge whether or not she’d be exposing herself, she crept forward to grab it.

  Darn! At close range she realized it was too short.

  Sensing her hesitation, Court said, “It will work as a cane, Heather, and we’re not about to find anything better.”

  Realizing he was right, Heather grabbed the branch and crept back to his side. Then she swallowed, facing the question she’d avoided until this point. “Who do you think is up there?”

  Court considered her solemnly as he automatically tightened the tourniquet again. “DiMona,” he said finally. “Its got to be DiMona.”

  Heather nodded. “That’s what I figure, too.” The decision of who would face DiMona, and when, had been taken out of their hands. Heather had to face him alone and triumph quickly enough to get help for Court. Court had saved her life—hers and Des’s—by storming DiMona’s beach house and now it was her turn to repay him.

  If she could. She wondered what odds a Las Vegas bookie would offer for her chances of success. The possibility of failure made her realize that there was something she had to say to Court before she left. Because she might not ever have another chance.

  Reaching out, she laid her hand against Court’s whisker-roughened cheek. “Court. This isn’t the best time to say this, and I may be making a complete fool of myself, but I want you to know before I… Well, just in case things don’t…”

  Court looked at her with worry-shadowed eyes. “What is it, baby?”

  “I—I love you.” She blurted the words out before second thoughts could make her hold her tongue. Then, coward that she was, without waiting for a response, without even waiting to see Court’s reaction, she scurried over to the next boulder.

  “Heather—” Court called after her in a stage whisper, but she ignored him. The last thing she wanted was to hear him try to let her down easy. She knew as well as he did that there was little hope of them sharing a life together. He was a career cop, married to his job, and she doubted that there was room in his life for him to love anything or anyone else. And she simply couldn’t bear the uncertainty of being married to someone who faced danger every day. Unfortunately, that hadn’t prevented her from falling in love with him, but there was little she could do about that now.

  “Damn it, woman, you can’t say something like that and then just take off. I have something to tell you, too.”

  Heather looked back at him. “Tell me later,” she whispered. She took a deep breath and focused on the jumble of rocks where DiMona had concealed himself. It was now or never, and failure was not an option.

  Chapter 18

  Ignoring her trembling hands, Heather focused on climbing toward the spot where Court believed DiMona had concealed himself. She was terrified, but she didn’t have any choice. Even if she and Court could have gotten to the horses, with DiMona still up there with a rifle, they wouldn’t have stood a snowball’s chance in hell of riding out of the meadow alive.

  Inside the waistband of her jeans, she felt the small handgun pressing against her back. A constant reminder of what might be required of her when she reached DiMona. Could she do it if
she had to?

  A vision of Court bleeding to death in the shelter of the boulder while waiting for help flashed in her mind. She wouldn’t allow that to happen. She couldn’t! She’d face a lifetime of counseling to deal with that trauma. So, she’d do what she had to do to get them out of there. That was all there was to it.

  Her resolve solidified, Heather crept to the next boulder. And the next. She heard the pop of another shot, followed by a ricochet and knew that Court had done something to keep DiMona’s attention on him. Please, God, keep him safe, she prayed. She was almost there.

  Catching sight of DiMona’s head in the rocks just above and to her right, she ducked. Court had said she had to get behind him, surprise him.

  Stepping cautiously to avoid loose stones, she continued on, seeking a way to do as Court had directed. There! A place to move into the rocks behind him. She’d come out a little above him, but…

  She was about fifteen feet behind him now, on a ledge only about four feet above the large flat area DiMona had chosen to shoot from. But getting down to that area wouldn’t be easy. There was no path, and the sloped area between the two ledges was covered with loose shale which would alert DiMona to her presence if she attempted to walk down. She couldn’t jump without climbing up onto the boulder behind which she was concealed, which meant adding another three or four feet to the distance. And a jump of seven feet would definitely make enough noise to attract DiMona before she could regain her footing. She’d have to distract him first.

  Picking up a fist-size stone, she was about to throw it off to the left, when a small shower of gravel fell from her ledge, and she froze in horror. DiMona spun, bringing his rifle to bear on her almost before his gaze found her—which happened so quickly she didn’t even have the chance to duck. Then, he grinned. “Well, well, well. What have we here?” He answered his own question. “Just what I was wishin’ for. A hostage.” The smile faded from his lips as though it had never been, and he eyed the stone in her hand. “Don’t tell me you were going to hit me over the head.” He didn’t wait for her response. “That’s not very friendly, Heather.” Something in his eyes grew colder. “Get your ass down here before I decide to shoot you where you stand.”