“Don’t look.” Hunter stepped in front of her to block the view, cussing internally that he’d allowed her to see it. This was a dammed ugly sight, and she was no soldier. It was bad enough for a guy who’d seen it all, but a woman? He laid a hand to her shoulder and turned her to face the opposite direction.
“Is that Eric?” she asked, blinking through tears.
“Maybe,” he muttered, not wanting to think of his friend like that. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
She acquiesced quickly, her face ashen and tears clinging to her eyelashes. They’d gone no more than another twenty yards when he heard the sound of boots coming toward them. Lowering Teague’s litter into the dense brush, he motioned Meredith to stash the carton, then tugged her into the shadows with him. The only problem was she landed with her back to his chest.
Damn. He didn’t mean to grab a handful of her breast in the process. Hunter dipped his nose into her hair, blocking the stench. The poor thing trembled, and he felt bad for being so thoughtless of her tender nature. This operation had to be hardest on her. Contrition for being a selfish man flooded his heart. He needed to back off and he knew it.
The assassins didn’t seem worried about being overheard. The two men headed straight toward him and Meredith. Well, good. He was maybe a little distracted by the very feminine ass rubbing against him, but willing and able to take them on nonetheless.
If only he could think a little clearer. Meredith melted into him, her butt against his groin, and it was all he could do to focus. She was soft and warm. His body responded involuntarily with all its pent up angst, and of course, she was bound to notice the flashlight pressed hard against her backside. Any woman would. Years of abstinence didn’t do a thing to calm the effects of a good-looking woman in too close proximity.
Damn it. Not now.
The adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream didn’t help, not with two assassins only feet away. He held his breath and willed Meredith to do the same. Oddly, she did.
The assassins stopped directly in front of their leafy hideaway.
With Meredith plastered against him, the tiniest thing in the dead-cold center of his heart unfurled once more. Warmth blossomed inside him.
“Why are we still out here in this crap shoot?” Assassin One asked the other. “Nothing’s going on.”
“To finish the job,” Assassin Two declared hoarsely.
Hunter cocked his head, hoping to think better. Instead, his nose landed deeper in Meredith’s hair, a sweet smell no matter what the circumstances. A good sniper shouldn’t have to deal with so much pleasant distraction.
“Damn it, they’re not here. For all we know, the big cats got the last of ’em last night. We’re wasting time. Them two are already dead. They’ve got to be.”
“No,” Assassin Two replied. “We would’ve found body parts. Blood. Clothes or something.”
“Not if them big cats dragged the bodies up into the trees.”
“Panthers don’t do stuff like that.”
“Sure they do. They’re all the same, only these bad boys are pitch black,” Assassin One argued. “Don’t you know anything?”
Very aware of how close these two murderers stood to him and Meredith, Hunter opted for the best defense. Nothing. He cocked his head and listened instead.
“All I know is this job isn’t what I signed up for.” Number Two had stopped with his back toward Hunter and Meredith. The short-stocked rifle snug under his arm turned with him as he scanned the jungle at his left and then his right. “Burdette thinks just because he’s paying us that we’re going to do everything he says. I got a problem with that kind of thinking. I’m all about making a buck, but I’ve got my standards.”
Assassin One cocked his head sideways and shot Number Two a quizzical look. “You got standards? Like what?”
“Like I don’t like killing unarmed people, for one thing. I don’t like draggin’ bodies up here, neither, and I don’t much like what he’s doing to that other guy. It ain’t right. He might have been military, but he would’ve talked by now if he knew where she was.”
Hunter’s ears perked up. What other guy? Who should’ve talked by now?
Assassin One pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. “Let’s move. I need a smoke, and this place stinks. We’re downwind from the dump. Come on.”
Before the men had time to move out of range, Hunter eased Meredith to his left side, immediately freeing up both hands. That was all he needed in order to work without making a lot of noise. He crept forward until he was in Number Two’s shadow, and, with one quick twist, he snapped the guy’s neck.
Assassin One responded with a lightning-quick weapons-up, but Hunter was quicker. One fast sideways kick connected with the man’s Adam’s apple, crushing his larynx and dropping the guy to his knees. The man gurgled on his way to the ground, his eyes wide with the knowledge he was slowly suffocating to death. Hunter stuck his boot in the guy’s back and rolled him over so Meredith didn’t have to watch him die.
Good work, Christian, Hunter told himself, proud to have struck a blow for survival. He knelt and quickly began the prerequisite disrobing of one’s enemies. Both bodies were stripped in record time. Again, the dead men were armed with the same hypos and vials of the lime green fluid he’d found on the other three men he’d killed. He tucked them into his pants pocket, intent on having them analyzed the moment he got back to civilization.
After he stored their clothing and miscellaneous gear alongside Teague, he draped their rifles over his shoulder and removed the batteries from the walkie-talkies concealed in their shirt collars.
It took a few minutes before it registered that Meredith hadn’t moved or made a sound. He twisted his neck to see what she was doing. Their eyes locked, hers wide with horror at what she had just witnessed him do. Both hands covered her mouth. Ashen now, the soft, compliant women he’d just held in his arms had turned rigid with the most condemning glare.
He finished his work and pushed up from the ground, not caring for one second what judgment might be running through her head. He was back in warrior mode, his gentle thoughts for her stowed. This is war, and war is damned ugly. Get the hell over it.
“Who are you?” she hissed.
“The man who’s going to save your sorry ass so you can run back to Fast Eddy, that’s who,” he hissed right back at her. “Now buck up. Get moving.”
“Why would I—? Do you have to kill everyone you run into?”
He bit his tongue and stowed his sarcasm. That stupid question deserved no reply. The only thing keeping her alive was his ability to end her enemies’ lives and do it quickly. How hard could it be to connect those dots?
As per his usual method of dealing with feminine confrontation, Hunter turned his back on Meredith and left her with a decision to make. She could follow and keep driving him crazy or she could stay with the dead men. Leave or not. Live or die. Up to her.
He secured the litter in his blistered palms and began what he hoped was the final leg of the journey to the river. At least, there’d be two less predators in the jungle tonight. Good riddance.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Meredith couldn’t process what she’d just witnessed fast enough to know what to think or what to do next. Every step with Hunter seemed to lead to death and destruction. He’d just murdered two men right in front of her, and he’d done it swiftly, without hesitation or remorse. Within seconds, he’d methodically stripped the bodies clean and left them at her feet. Like trophies. Or a morgue.
Her feet wouldn’t move. She couldn’t make them. Awful smells wafted upward, filling her nose. Her head and her stomach roiled. She squeezed her eyes tight against the sight. The smells. The sounds. The awful look in the men’s eyes when they died.
He killed them.
Hunter’s butt disappeared into the jungle beyond the murder scene, the litter jostling behind him. Only this time was different. To follow she’d have to step over one of the still w
arm bodies, dragging the supply crate, too.
I’m supposed to follow him? But he’s no better than they are.
Her legs refused to obey. There was no way to make them. She was turning to stone and Hunter was leaving. Again and again and again. That was all he’d ever done. Leave her when she needed him most. Walk away and never look back. Only now...
The jungle stilled.
He really was gone this time.
The thick blanket of insects from the corpses droned in an unrelenting buzz. Just the thought of what all those bugs were doing to the bodies sickened her. Bile crept up her throat. She didn’t dare breathe, the stench too nauseating to pull into her lungs. A wave of dark shadows swarmed up from the humid jungle floor, bringing another wave of odors she’d rather not inhale nor remember. The jungle shimmered into a mirage of sickening pea green and gaseous putrid air.
Even Mean Girl trembled as darkness swirled around her.
Stupid woman.
Hunter had banked on making it to the river to save his life, not to mention Meredith’s and Teague’s. Rivers overflowed and when they did, they created eddies and swirling pools of calm in their wake. They eroded rocks and boulders. If they were strong and turbulent enough, they hollowed out sandstone and granite into hidden caves where a man might find a safe place to hide. This mighty Amazon has been working that miracle for millennia. Surely there was a cave behind one of the many waterfalls along the river.
What he hadn’t counted on was dragging Teague while he carried Meredith. Still, she wasn’t that heavy. His palm on her ass was pleasantly splayed over both cheeks, soft and warm, nicely rounded. She was a fit woman, not flaccid and flabby. A misguided thought skipped through his mind. How many babies has she had with Welch? One? Two? They must be ugly kids with him for a father.
She moaned, both arms flopping down his back, lightly slapping against his backside as he tromped through the jungle, pulling the litter behind him with one hand and balancing her on his shoulder with the other. Because of her fainting, he’d have to make another trip back to retrieve the supply crate from where he’d stashed it.
But that was what men like him did—their duty. At the start of this operation, he’d planned on catching a lazy day fishing the Amazon after the war games. He’d heard there were red-bellied piranha and armored catfish in the river. Bull sharks and the giant river fish called pacu. Now he just wanted a place to hide.
Meredith moaned and lifted her head. When it dropped against his back, Hunter swatted her ass. “Shh,” he ordered, not wanting her to spoil their only good luck. “Be quiet. Stay down.”
She didn’t move again.
Meredith was right, as much as Hunter hated to admit it. He needed to stop killing every assassin he came across, if only for her sake. Once he got her settled, he planned to interrogate the next joker he came across, but he couldn’t do that with her watching.
He found himself being extra careful not to bang her head on passing shrubs or tree branches. As it was, her hair dragged through every branch in his way. It would be one big rat’s nest by the time they were safe.
Time was short though. By now, he’d taken out five of Burdette’s men. An alarm would surely sound when those last two guys didn’t return to camp.
At last, he came to the thunderous river’s edge. Hunter stayed to the shadows while he scanned the best way forward. There was no opposite shore at this point in the river, just a solid wall of stone and jungle. A waterfall fell from the top ledge of the stone, but there was no cave behind the sluicing water, only sheer granite interspersed with rock ledges, all stained and smoothed by eons of erosion at work.
It was a long shot anyway. Hunter lumbered onward, but stuck close to the river. The sun beat down. The jungle steamed. Still, he marched. Meredith must’ve hit her head pretty hard when she fainted. She hadn’t stirred since he’d told her to stay down, and he was glad. He didn’t need her confirming how stupid this idea was.
If Burdette was behind that fence back there, this area made sense. Between the river, and the sheer wall on the opposite shore, Hunter and what was left of his team were in a controlled area.
It took miles of traipsing the riverbank before he found what he was looking for—a set of three waterfalls, again on the opposite shore. Hunter eased his two burdens to the jungle floor and stretched his back, cracking the ache out of his spine. If this was a waste of time, well, he’d be looking for cover in another stand of bamboo.
The waterfalls roared down the opposing mountainside. East of the falls, the mountain curved into a shallow shoreline. No bizarre fencing came into view and no sign of construction, either. Just a vertical wall of stone. Vines and trees. Monkeys and birds. The usual.
A stretch of rocks and boulders across the river had created a natural dam that, combined with several fallen logs, had enclosed a pool closest to where he stood. When a long silver fish jumped from the still water in the center of that pool, Hunter smiled. Maybe he’d get some fishing in after all.
The rest of the river flowed into two channels, one bucking white water, the other leveling out into spans of slower moving flat water with swelling undercurrents. This wasn’t the mighty Amazon, though. Probably just one of the many tributaries that spread like veins and arteries through this stretch of South America.
Hunter made short but cautious work of the distance to the nearest waterfall. The USMC boots on his feet had served him well over the years. Water hadn’t hurt them before, and it wouldn’t hurt them now.
Careful not to lose his balance, he jumped feet first into the river and sloshed along the gravel bed to the front of the first waterfall. The sheet of water sluicing down that portion of the rock wall hid nothing but a hollow depression, not deep enough to serve as shelter. When the second waterfall wasn’t any better, his hopes sank.
Hunter scanned the riverbank in both directions, looking for bamboo. This waterfall was his last chance to find a cave, and he was tired. It was a foolish idea anyway. So much for Hollywood.
The river bent at that point, creating a natural corner where the third waterfall faced the second. To his left, the stone wall ended in the river. He’d come this far; he had to try. Still fighting to stay on his feet in the swift current, Hunter bypassed the last waterfall and came at it from the farthest side where the riverbank was dry and sandy. He flattened his back to the cold wall and edged forward along a narrow ledge. So far so good.
This last-chance waterfall arced off a stone shelf in the granite face before it tumbled maybe twenty feet into the swiftly moving current. Darkness shadowed the wall behind the falls and Hunter kept going. This portion of the mountain faced north so it was cold and mossy. He splayed his fingers, searching for traction to keep upright. Gradually, the ledge widened into a dirt path, and, thank you, God. He’d found an actual hollowed-out divot in the rock that could pass for a cave. Nearly ten feet by ten, it sloped upward from the noisy waterfall, opening into damp and chilly darkness.
He shook the chill off the back of his neck and checked for animals, lizards, or snakes. It wouldn’t do to have to fight off the local wildlife on top of the murderers roaming the jungle. Casting a beam from his flashlight into the darkest recesses of the cave, he took stock of their new digs.
Crystals glistened in a myriad of rainbow shards under the focused light. The floor appeared to be relatively dry. The innermost walls were also dry while the mouth of the cave ran with streamlets from the thundering falls overhead. It was noisy erosion at work, and Mother Nature at her best, but it also made for a decent shelter, and he was damned glad he found it. From where he stood, he couldn’t see beyond the veil of sliding water. He doubted anyone could see through the falls to him.
Retracing his steps, Hunter gathered his unconscious friends and transferred them to safety. First Meredith. Once across the river, he dropped to one knee inside the cave and settled her onto the driest patch of earth he could find, extra careful to cushion the back of her head as he laid her down.
Then Teague endured a bumpy ride over boulders and logs, but there was no choice. Lowering the litter inside near the mouth of the cave, Hunter turned back to Meredith. She was a little wet, but she should’ve come to by then.
His heart stilled. For the first time in twenty-four-hours, the world took a break, and it was just Hunter and Meredith in a deep, dark place where they were finally safe. Teague was unconscious. There was no Fast Eddy in the background tapping his patent leather toes to make her jump to his bidding. No cheerleader squad waited for Hunter or her to step out of line with someone not worthy of the in-crowd. There was only nerdy Hunter Christian with the prettiest girl in the world.
My girl.
He stroked the side of her face, his thumb on her cheekbone just below her closed eyes. Meredith hadn’t changed a bit. She was still the one and only girl he thought of. Dreamed of. Wanted.
She turned into his touch with a sigh. That old familiar pinch in his heart was something else again. The damned thing never let up, and it had only gotten worse since he’d discovered she was also on this op. He froze, bent over her in a lover’s pose. Wanting her with every beat of his tried and true USMC heart. Needing her to the depths of his warrior’s soul. Loving her with the most torturous unrequited love in the universe of lovers.
Only he wasn’t her lover, was he? How well he knew. Hunter hadn’t been good enough for her before, and he wouldn’t be now, not after what she’d witnessed today.
Killing those two men was just plain bad timing, but he’d really had no choice. Still, he wished he’d planned better, at least been more thoughtful, more considerate of her. She hadn’t needed to see that side of him. Not her. Not ever. Like so many times before, he wished he’d been a smarter man.
“Hunter,” she whispered, and immediately, his heart kicked into second gear.
Did she just call his name? Or did he imagine it because he wanted it so badly to be true? “Yes?” he answered hopefully.
“Hmmm,” she replied with nothing more than a dream answer.
Hunter (In the Company of Snipers Book 14) Page 12
