by Ford, Lizzy
They entered his tent. Lana looked up from her seat on the couch. Her searching gaze lingered on him. He withdrew the micro and handed it to her.
“Emerops stations,” he directed, watching. “Send the coords to Dan.”
She chewed her lip but complied. He removed the micro from her hands and took her injured wrist. She’d tried to change the bandage on her own. It was messy and uneven.
“Did you use the anti-bac?” he asked.
She gave him a blank look.
“Damn feds. I’ll get it,” Dan said, crossing to the kitchen, where one whole cabinet was filled with medical supplies.
Brady pulled a chair beside her. She was studying him again. He glanced up at her, caught by her direct gaze. They gazed at each other for a long moment, and he tried to figure out what was going through her thoughts.
“Incoming!” Dan called, tossing a small package.
Brady caught it and pulled out the medical supplies.
“Cleanser, anti-bac, quick wrap. Don’t use the traditional bandage next time. The quick wrap is easier,” he instructed, holding up each of the products as he spoke. He stripped the bandage and showed her the steps again. “Dan’s going to move you somewhere safe today to one of our permanent sites. I’ll rendezvous with you all late.”
“You always have the good shit!” Dan exclaimed, pulling chocolate out of the cabinet.
“Drop it, Dan. I’ve killed men for less,” he retorted.
Lana looked at him, frowning. Dan ignored his warning and snagged two pieces of the precious few he had remaining.
“It’s supposed to alleviate bad moods,” Dan said to Lana. “Doesn’t work on him though.”
“You, behave,” he ordered the woman, rising. “You, too, Dan.”
“I’ll leave you some.”
Brady shook his head, wanting nothing more than to return to the sparring ring. Instead, he hefted his pack and left for the awaiting helo.
Tim was already on the large screen when Brady entered the comms center several hours later. Brady peeled off the top of his suit, drenched in sweat and splattered with blood.
“Never seen you sweat, son,” Tim said.
Brady grunted in response. The two-hour hike had turned into a six-hour battle when his men tripped over a scout in the lower valley. Brady was burning up, his blood thrumming. Tim, on the other hand, looked as if he’d gotten some sleep since their last talk. He wore a breezy, short-sleeved shirt. The commo room where he sat was large with marble walls and leather chairs, a sign of the upper class’s decadence.
“It’s a little rough back east,” Brady said.
“I’ve been reading the reports from both sides.” Tim frowned, disturbed.
Even without their shared history, there had always been something about Tim that Brady liked. He was ruthless, beyond loyal to the few he trusted, and quick to use his influence to get Brady access to any of the government’s supplies, technology, intelligence, and anything else Brady requested it. And Tim never asked why.
“You hear about the Peak?” Brady asked. He threw himself into one of the beat-up chairs in the tiny comms center.
“Indeed I did,” Mr. Tim said. “Never saw that coming either, though I hoped …”
“What?”
“I knew something was wrong there. I hoped we’d find out what—or who—was responsible before it all went up in smoke.”
“I think someone did figure it out, or it wouldn’t have gone up in smoke at all,” Brady replied.
“Possible.”
“Lana’s with me.”
Tim’s gaze sharpened. Brady assessed him, not sure what to think of the sudden guardedness to Tim’s face.
“Is she okay?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“She know you for the Guardian?”
“I haven’t told her. I don’t think she’s figured it out.”
“Keep it that way,” Tim said. “She doesn’t need to connect the dots back to me. She’s a brilliant analyst and one of the few non-PMF members I trust. I’m happy to hear she’s okay.”
Brady was surprised to see a genuine smile on Tim’s face. He’d often wondered what it was that drew Tim to Lana and suspected it was nothing more than what drew him to other women. That the smooth politician genuinely cared for her never crossed Brady’s mind. Tim didn’t show much affection, even to his thirteen sons.
“She won’t say whatever it is she figured out,” he said. “And she’s transporting something. She won’t talk to anyone about it.”
“How big is it?”
“It’s in a vault the size of my hand.”
“It could be anything. I got her access to everything, even shit the President didn’t have access to,” Tim said with a shake of his head. “There are many secrets in the government.”
“I get that,” Brady said dryly. “One of them took out the Peak after we left.”
“Bring her to me. We can meet at the Peace Command Center. I have reason to believe that’s about the only place that hasn’t been infiltrated by those professing allegiance to East or West.”
“Will do. How do you know her anyway?”
Tim flashed a smile. “Her grandfather knew my father a long time ago. Class loyalties run deep, and he called me up about twenty years ago and said he was calling in a favor my dad owed him. He said he had a granddaughter who was special and he didn’t want her to get stuck doing some sort of manual labor. I agreed to enroll her in school. I have thirteen children among my companions, so no one asks questions. I figured I’d open the door and then pawn her off as a companion to someone in the government.”
Brady pulled out his water bottle as he listened.
“He was right. She was brilliant, loyal, sweet. I’ve never been a saint; I saw I could use her, so I put her in college and brought her to work for me. Had her trained in intelligence, emergency operations, technology. She can learn anything. Sent her to half a dozen agencies on rotation. I turned her into something I could use in my office to open more doors for our cause.”
“I didn’t think there was anyone capable of the nukes, if not us,” Brady observed. “You think she knows who did it?”
“I think she knows enough to help me put the final pieces of the puzzle together. Things haven’t been right since the war, but the issues haven’t been out in the open. And, the government chose to pursue the PMF rather than risk another civil war by going after people with a lot of influence and money. The last civil war set us back fifty years.”
“Who would want to start another civil war?” Brady breathed.
“A civil war where both sides have enough dangerous shit to destroy the world twenty times over. How big is the vault she has?”
Brady held up his palm and drew a square around it.
“You think you know what it is?” he asked.
“Not at all. But if she’s not talking, I’d take extreme precautions if I were you,” Tim said, again thoughtful.
“We’re breaking camp and scattering today,” Brady confirmed.
“She’ll probably have an issue with being under the protection of the PMF,” Tim said.
“I have it handled. I explained that she needs to do what I say or else.”
“Gently, Brady,” he chided. “Take her underground, if you must. Keep her safe until I know who’s after her.”
“I’ll take care of her.” Brady promised. “I think it was General Greene.”
“Greene? Not Smith?”
“Smith went crazy and dove off a cliff.”
“What do you mean crazy?” Tim asked, eyes narrowing.
“I mean, totally insane. They said he’d been a basket case for almost two months by the time he jumped. The doc declared him unfit.”
“Greenie wasn’t on our list,” Tim admitted. “He spent too much time overseas.”
“Maybe Arnie found out about Greenie.”
“Maybe. I’ll run his name through a few different people. Can you check in again in a few days?�
�
“I’ll do my best. It’s a warzone out here,” Brady said. “My time is up. I can’t risk being on this channel too long.”
“Take care of my girl.”
“I will. Brady out.”
The viewer turned off, and he pulled his suit back on. The eight-hour ordeal to get there was worth the ten-minute conversation. At least he’d confirmed that whatever secrets Lana had were well worth hiding. He replaced his weapons around his body.
“Brade.” Dan’s breathless voice came over his net.
“Yeah, Dan.”
“We’re leaving now.” The grim note in Dan’s voice made Brady quicken his movements.
“What happened?” Brady asked.
“I had a gut feeling that we needed to leave. Thank God we did. Someone ordered a strike on us. Most of the camp was gone already and all the important stuff airlifted this morning.”
“You all right?”
“Yeah. The girls are fine,” Dan said.
“I’m on my way to the hard site.” Brady chuckled and strode from the communications center. “Send me your coords.”
Chapter Nine
“LANA, THAT’S MY GUN arm!” Elise said in irritation.
Lana eased back without breaking contact. Elise and Dan were a good team, relaying hand signals and other silent communications with nothing more than a glance at each other. Lana, on the other hand, couldn’t shake the paralyzing fear that came with knowing they were being stalked by men who wanted them dead.
Dan leaned back into the hollow of the tree in which they’d taken refuge.
“This doesn’t look good,” he whispered.
Elise pursed her lips. Lana peered around them to see the five or more armed men about twenty meters away. If the flares going up short distance away were any sign, the five men were part of a larger force between them and their destination. Brady’s men had dropped her, Elise, and Dan—along with two others—into the forest by helicopter two hours before. The forest looked little different from the one they’d just left. If the helo ride hadn’t taken three hours, she would have thought they never left.
Soon after, the men in black mowed down two of Dan’s men, and the three of them were left to fend for themselves.
Dan settled onto his knees and flipped out a tracker. Elise looked over his shoulder. Lana was helpless. She had no micro, no genetically engineered body or weapons to fight off anything that came at them.
Dan handed the tracker to Elise, who tapped the screen, pensive. He touched his earpiece.
“Yep, still here,” he replied. “Me ’n’ the girls and a shitload of bad guys where there shouldn’t be any.” His gaze rested on Lana, and he smiled.
She hugged her knees to her chest to keep from shaking. Not only were they surrounded by adversaries, it was cold. Dan had given her a jacket, but their slow crawl through the forest had left her soaked and shivering.
“Elise is plotting them,” Dan said, gaze again on the tracker. “We think there are fifteen.”
“Ish,” Elise added. “Fifteen-ish.”
“Send our coords, too, so they don’t blow us up,” Dan directed in a hushed voice.
Lana never thought she’d end up in the middle of a forest, defended by the PMF against those who seemed to want to start a second East-West civil war.
“Can you shoot, Lana?” Dan asked.
“Not straight. Been trying to teach her for weeks,” Elise answered without looking up. “She closes her eyes when she fires.”
“So, no, that won’t work,” Dan said to the person on the other end of his conversation. There was another pause. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
They looked at her, and she suspected they were silently cursing the defenseless civilian.
“Stay here. They’re calling in a strike. Elise and I will take out the rest,” Dan said.
Lana nodded, afraid to ask what happened if the plan didn’t work. He patted her arm then moved to crouch beside Elise, waiting.
The screech of incoming missiles was audible long before they hit, but the laser strikes were silent. She plugged her ears, watching as the missiles distracted the men into one direction while the laser strike knocked them dead. The ground shook beneath them as the weapons hit the ground. The scent of burnt metal and flesh soon followed, then chaos as Elise and Dan moved away from her, each going in the opposite direction under the cover of smoke.
Lana stretched onto her stomach, watching them from the safety of the tree. The strikes were enough to disarray, if not kill, most of the men. More laser fire lit the area where Elise had gone.
She sucked in a breath, heart racing. Another man dropped, this time from Dan’s direction. She couldn’t tell how many there were, not with the smoke and darkness. She heard the sounds of a physical scuffle and another shot from Dan’s direction. The adversaries were regrouping, with one barking orders to those remaining. She watched dark shapes mill and drop as the smoke cleared until they wised up and took refuge in the forest.
One charged her hiding place, and she scrambled back, pressing herself against the tree. She held her breath, listening as he prepped his weapon. Another shot pierced the tense darkness, then there was a flurry of movement. The man inches from her fired into the melee, along with the laser guns of several more. She couldn’t tell what was happening, but it seemed like there were a lot more guns in the fight than there had been a minute ago.
The gunman rested back on his heels to load a new laser charge pack. The gunfight gave another burst of life before winding down. She froze, willing the man not to look left, or he’d see her.
She heard Elise’s whistle. She couldn’t respond without drawing the man’s attention. Elise whistled again. More gunfire sounded. The man beside Lana rocked back suddenly, pounding his gun on the ground as it jammed. He looked up.
Their eyes met. Lana’s heart stopped, and she opened her mouth to shout for Elise. He slapped his hand over her mouth and wrenched her up, the laser gun at her head. He wrapped a thick arm around her throat and dragged her from the forest. Dark corpses littered the small clearing.
“You have until the count of five to put down your weapons!” he bellowed. “One.”
She strained against him. His grip tightened, and she stilled. Two more of his men moved cautiously from the forest, looking for Elise or Dan to appear.
“Two!”
“I’m here,” Brady’s growl came from the fog. Lana made out his form as he emerged from the bushes.
“Where are the others?” the man holding her demanded.
“Just me.”
“Weapons down!”
Brady raised his gun instead, aiming it at the man holding her.
“You get one warning,” he said in a tone far more lethal than he’d ever used with her.
“You’re outnumbered, idiot,” one of the others snapped.
One shot rang out, followed by two more. The man at her back dropped, followed immediately by the other two. Dan and Elise rose from the bushes and lowered their weapons. Lana shoved away from the dead man, horrified. Brady gripped her arm, pulling her quickly through the forest. Dan ran ahead of them, Elise behind, and they flew down a deer path to a creek, then darted across rocks to the other bank.
Cold water soaked Lana’s boots as Dan kept them on the creek’s edge for a few hundred meters before veering into the surrounding forest. They stopped at a rock wall. Dan hopped onto a boulder and placed his hand on the wall. The keypad lit up, and light spilled from a door that opened slowly.
“Dan, go,” Brady ordered, releasing her. Dan and Elise ducked into the dark entrance. Brady turned away and started towards the forest. Lana caught his arm, alarmed.
“Brady!”
He faced her, and she realized how stupid it was to expect he’d do anything else but return to the fight.
“Thank you,” she managed. “Be careful.”
Brady gazed at her intently. Heart hammering, Lana rose to her tiptoes and gave him a light kiss on the li
ps. He snatched her, though instead of pushing her away, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, deep and hard. She returned the kiss, thrilled by his passion and her own mounting hunger.
“Lana!” Elise called from the hallway.
Brady released her suddenly, and Lana wobbled. She watched him disappear into the dark forest, her body thrumming with desire.
“Come on,” Elise said.
Breathless, Lana obeyed and joined them in the tunnel. Dan led them into a narrow hall and to another locked door. He opened it. Lana turned as the door behind them closed. Brady remained outside. Elise nudged her, and she trailed Dan as he strode down another hall. He led them through the maze until they emerged into a yawning cave lit by lanterns then continued into another set of halls. He stopped at one and pressed his thumb to the keypad.
“Lana, I’m gonna leave you here. He’ll probably be pissed at me, so don’t get comfortable,” Dan said, waving her in.
Lana entered, in shock from the night. The suite was small and comfortable with a small living area, utility area with lockers, and a door leading to a bedroom with its own bathroom. She stood shaking for a moment. Woodenly, she peeled off her wet clothes and climbed into a hot shower. The water stung her skin, and she grimaced as her attacker’s blood ran down the drain.
For once, she almost understood Brady’s ability to kill without regret. If she had a laser gun, she just might have pulled the trigger. She didn’t know how he could take the chance of hitting her, though! What kind of man risked the person he was trying to protect?
Overwhelmed, she closed her eyes, enjoying the heat. She turned off the shower and rifled through the room’s contents. The dresser contained neatly folded boxers and T-shirts but nothing else. She pulled on a set and dropped into the bed, exhausted.
A while later, the sound of movement outside the bedroom door pulled her from her sleep. She roused herself and opened the door from the bedroom to the living area.
Brady had piled his weapons on the couch and stripped down to a pair of pants and nothing else. Her breath caught at the sight of his wide, muscular chest, and the pants that dropped dangerously low on his hips. Her blood quickened, and she felt too hot.
