Hunter (In the Company of Snipers Book 14)

by Irish Winters

  He leaned into her mouth, wishing he hadn’t stolen that taste of her sweet lips before. What a mistake to make after all these years of hardening his heart, stealing a kiss from the woman who’d literally changed his life for the best and the worst in a moment of weakness. Okay, he knew better. He’d been the one who’d made all the worst possible, wrong decisions those years ago, but only because she’d broken his heart.

  What a fool he’d been. Hunter slammed the door on his trip down Memory Lane. What was done was done. He sucked it up and he let it go.

  Meredith seemed to be sleeping comfortably enough. Lifting off, he distanced himself from her yet again. It was better this way. He pulled another shirt out from the bundle of clothes on the litter and draped it over her shoulders to keep her warm.

  The sight of her so peacefully asleep under that shabby covering was more than his heart could bear. He knelt at her side again and cupped her jaw. A thousand questions came to mind. Why had she played him like a fool? Better yet, why had he let her? Worse, how could she have married Welch out of the blue like she had? But worst of all, why had Hunter left?

  In all his life, he’d never wanted a woman as much as he’d wanted Meredith. Not then. Not since. Not ever. And yet he’d deserted her as surely as she’d betrayed him.

  The breath of her soft sigh caressed the palm of his hand. There was no waterfall crashing into the river outside and no cave—there was only the woman he’d given his heart to long before he knew the cruel ways of men and warriors. So long ago.

  Could a boy that young and foolish love deeply? Oh, yes. Stupid boys like him had been falling in love for hundreds of years. A silly verse from his past called to him with, “What light through yonder window breaks? It is the sun and fair Juliet is...”

  He let the lovely sentiment go unfinished and unspoken. Hunter bent down to Meredith’s mouth, aching to be the only man in her life. The man she confided in, and the one she ran to for shelter and companionship. The man she loved and made love and life with. But he wasn’t, was he? He lingered a kiss away, but he might as well have been standing on the moon. Life with Meredith in it was never meant to be.

  Not for him.

  With that well-known pain in his heart, he settled for a single chaste kiss to her forehead, one from which Meredith didn’t stir and one she wouldn’t remember. She’d never know the love he had carried all these wasted years for her, nor that she was the woman his soul longed for in the way of Shakespeare’s tender prose. Despite discarding every outward sign of his once poetic self, Hunter had never found a way to shed the softer dimension of his soul, not even in a hard man’s world. There was still a foolish, lovesick poet hidden away in the deepest crack in his warrior’s soul.

  Yes, he had killed, but that was the only way a kid survived the brutality of war. He’d learned fast. Man up. Get tough or earn the wrath of his squad. Kill or be killed. Yes, he’d been scared more times than he’d admit, but what Marine wasn’t afraid when it came time to march out, dig in, and dish out? Yes, he was damaged, but Hunter Christian was still alive and kicking. That ought to count for something, and he knew damned well it did, just not in Meredith’s world. She truly was fine Irish crystal, and he just an ordinary brown beer bottle of little value in the grand scope of things.

  She deserved better.

  Her turned-up nose wrinkled in her sleep. Always one of his favorite features, he longed to tap one finger to the end of that pert nose in the ways of their old camaraderie. He wished she’d open her pretty eyes, awaken, and for once, really see him for the man he was. For the lover he wanted to be.

  Pulling his wallet out of his rear pocket, he fingered through the few pictures he’d carried with him on his deployments. His mom and dad on their thirtieth wedding anniversary. His USMC class at boot-camp graduation. And one more. There she was in Technicolor perfection. Meredith Olivia Flynn. The perfect name for the perfect girl.

  And just that fast, it clicked in his hard head. Flynn? Not Welch? She was still using her maiden name, like one of those new-generation women who maintained their identity no matter how many times they married. Didn’t it figure?

  He removed the photo from its years-old shrine. Regardless of the tender thoughts he carried for her, the time had come to give the picture back. He had enough unfulfilled expectations to fill the Pacific Ocean. Why keep holding onto something that was never meant to be? Why keep inviting more pain?

  Besides, he might not return from this next reconnoitering foray. He wanted her to have it. One last time, he ran a gentle finger down the edge of her jaw to her chin. She sighed in her dreams, her brow knit as if she disagreed with what he was going to do. It didn’t matter. She belonged to someone else and giving her picture back would put a stop to any and all wishful thinking.

  Gathering what was left of his common sense, he tucked the memory between her fingers and did what he did best. Hunter lifted to his feet and he walked away without looking back. He had a job to do.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The beautiful ebony night sky filled with stars, each brighter and lovelier than the next. They sang and chirped, and Meredith was beyond pleased that stars could sound so much like birds. In her perfect dream, all was bright and beautiful. What could be better? Nothing—until two hands reached out of the shadows and latched onto her neck.

  She jerked upright, a scream crawling up her throat. For a frightening second, the dream lingered. She smoothed trembling fingers over her throat, sucking in huge breaths. The hands had felt so real, but it was a dream. Her neck wasn’t broken. Wherever she was it was dark and damp and noisy.

  Gradually, the horror from the dream faded. She could make out Teague’s litter alongside her. His steady breathing so close at her side calmed the nightmarish sensation of being strangled away.

  Swallowing hard, she took stock of the cave. That Hunter. He’d found one, just like he’d said he would. She leaned back onto her hands. Everything around her was dark and clammy. Only the sand beneath her fingertips felt dry. Pinpricks of light glistened overhead like the stars of her dream. She brushed a leaf away, thankful it wasn’t a spider.

  “Where am I?” she asked the darkness, hoping Hunter would answer and tell her to shut up. At least then she’d know she was safe because he’d be there in all of his grumpy glory. But the crashing waterfall at the mouth of the cave was the only reply. It also made a loud enough buffer of white noise that could have disguised approaching footsteps or enemy voices. Warily, she pushed to her feet, needing to know where she was, or if Hunter was close by guarding the place. He hadn’t left her to fend for herself, had he?

  Gathering her courage, she checked on Teague’s condition first. His fever had diminished, a good sign, but the rolling supply container was nowhere to be found. That explained Hunter’s absence. He’d no doubt gone back for it.

  Meredith’s innate mothering instinct kicked in. Teague and Hunter would both need food. Maybe, if she were lucky enough, she could find some more of that fruit she’d picked on the run last night.

  Cautiously, she ventured forth, scanning the jungle before she stepped around the shower plummeting at the entrance to her hideaway. Wow. Hunter certainly knew how to pick them. This particular waterfall was carved into sheer stone with an overhanging lip that propelled the water away from the entrance and almost made it easy for a person to come and go. Almost. Ducking through the misty curtain at the far end of the natural doorway still left her plenty damp.

  Meredith smoothed a hand over her tangled locks and picked out some leaves and tiny bits of other stuff in her hair. The last thing she’d remembered was her knees buckling. What had Hunter done, dragged her through the weeds? That would be so like him.

  A sandy shore lined the other side of the river, while rocks and boulders littered the side she stood on. Oh yeah, and that sheer stone wall to her right. Not a fruit tree in sight. Getting back across the river was the problem. That was where the trees were.

  Determined, she stuck
to the stony pathway across the river. She slipped into the fast flowing water between the rocks, but she made it. Once there, she took a deep breath. With her confidence restored, she studied her new hideout.

  A stone ledge far above jutted out of the dense undergrowth of vines and more vines. The foamy white water projected over that ledge tumbled into swirls of turquoise and teals to crash into a pool of coffee brown nearly at her feet. How lovely. Two smaller waterfalls spilled to her immediate right. The ethereal beauty of this misty paradisiacal hideaway took her breath. It seemed too good to be true, but Hunter had trusted his instincts, and it had worked.

  Meredith inhaled slowly, finally able to let a small portion of her tension go. Despite the horrors she’d seen during the last twenty-four hours, this place felt safe. Mist drifted upward from the churning falls, further shielding the cave’s entry. Brightly colored macaws flitted from tree to tree and flowers bloomed everywhere, on rocks, trees, and straggly vines, adding a delightful ambience to the surreal place.

  A sigh escaped her lips. For this one moment, peace seemed to flow outward from the falls, enveloping her in calm. She stood there, lost in the moment. How odd that Hunter was the one who’d brought her here. Of course, then he’d left her, but that was typical Hunter behavior. He had no problem confronting an armed and dangerous enemy head-on, but a woman? That was when he seemed to give up, turn tail, and run.

  Of all the hurts he carried, and he must’ve endured a lot during his military service, it seemed the one she’d caused when she’d married Eddy had hurt Hunter the worst. Meredith would’ve given anything to go back in time and change what she’d done.

  The anger in his eyes when he’d accused her of leaving him was justified, but she’d seen something else glimmering there, too. He’d tried to cover it with nasty words, but too late. She’d seen the truth. Hunter still cared.

  She gulped past the hard knot in her throat. He wasn’t alone in that feeling. She cared for him, too. Drawing in a slow, deliberate breath, she exhaled slowly through pursed lips. It was time to find something to eat.

  Free at last. Hunter moved quicker once he wasn’t encumbered. Now that he knew Meredith and Teague were safe, his mission had been reduced to one urgent goal: Rescue that military guy Burdette was torturing. God help Burdette if that guy was one of the guys from The TEAM. Hunter hated brutality, but he hated it when it was inflicted on one of his friends worse.

  But to get to Burdette, he had to search out the enemy camp and get inside. Heading back to what was left of the MI camp, he hoped one of those ACS1 suits had survived the fire. If not, what he had to do next would be a lot more difficult. Maybe bloodier.

  Closer to Meredith’s camp, his hackles raised as he detected two distinct voices on the trail ahead of him. The ACS1 could wait. Hunter backed into the shadows as a couple of guys in uniforms passed by, dragging two body bags. Judging by the bloated size of the bags, they’d found Big Guy and Fat Bastard.

  But what about the trap Hunter had rigged for a killer surprise? How could these two jokers hauling the bags still be alive? Hadn’t his booby trap worked? Or were these guys too smart to fall for it? He doubted that.

  Hunter hung close and let Tweedledee and Tweedledum lead the way. These guys were a joke. They made enough noise, cussing the weight and stench of their dead buddies. No way they were smart enough to avoid the spring-up-and-slap-you-in-the-face bamboo sticks. It might not be Big Guy or Fat Bastard in those body bags after all.

  Eventually, a clearing and a camouflaged tractor–trailer rig came into view. Then another. With high axles and wide balloon tires, both rigs appeared capable of traversing rugged jungle terrain by simply crushing everything in their paths. A heavy push bar at the front of the vehicles verified they were more tank than recreational. A generator hummed from the backside of the rigs.

  In plain view of Hunter’s hidden position, two tents faced each other. Camp chairs and a fire pit occupied the space between the tents. Several more men dressed in the same style of black uniforms as all the men Hunter had encountered came and went, seemingly at ease. Most weren’t carrying weaponry aside from a pistol at their hips. None appeared to be on high alert. One lingered at the door to the first tent, peering inside.

  Hunter crouched in the dense vegetation to watch and learn. These guys seemed well organized and well-funded. He scanned the perimeter, expecting some level of security for a camp this size, maybe a guard or two on patrol. Nothing. He looked closer, searching for trip wires, cameras, motion sensors, or spotlights. Still nothing. It didn’t make sense that an enterprise of this magnitude would leave itself vulnerable to attack.

  Suddenly, his spidey senses tingled. A shiver of goose bumps ran up his neck into his scalp. His inner sniper whispered: Hold still. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.

  He didn’t. Just scrolled his eyes from side to side until he knew why the instinctual alert. It took a minute to detect the silvery shimmer on the breeze that, at first glance, looked more like a spider web. Even then, portions of it vanished from view. The damned thing surrounded the entire camp like a gigantic sheet of mosquito netting draped from post to post and over the RVs. One moment there but the next it became completely invisible.

  He watched it fade in and out of sight. That had to be their early warning system, but what did it do? Hunter settled cross-legged to the ground, needing every last bit of intel these jokers had to offer.

  Tweedledee and Tweedledum had dropped the body bags at a framed gate comprised of what looked to be black propylene tubing. Fumbling in his pants pocket, Tweedledee brought up a key fob and pointed it at the gate. The netting shimmered into sight. All of it. Noiselessly, the gate swung inward, and into the inner sanctum he went, dragging his corpse behind him.

  Tweedledum followed, complaining at the heat and weight of his load. When the gate closed automatically behind them, the netting all but disappeared.

  Hunter pulled one of the many fobs he’d collected during his kills out of his pants pocket. So that’s what this is for. He pressed the only button on the fob, but the gate didn’t respond. Just as he’d suspected. No doubt the entry code had been changed when the first fobs had gone missing. Still, it was an impressive notion, all this high technology in the middle of nowhere. Most of these jokers might be dumber than dirt, but the place was technologically impregnable. Burdette, if he was the brainiac behind this, had to be after MI’s ActiveCamouflageSystem. That was the only thing that made sense.

  Only it couldn’t be. Big Guy and Fat Bastard had known—or thought they’d known—some pretty nasty intel about Meredith. Something else was going on.

  Hunter rolled away the pain in his neck that always came with the thought of what those jackasses said about her. Given the chance, he’d kill them again.

  It didn’t take long before a man in khaki pants and a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt stepped out of the first trailer, his chin held high. “Has he talked yet?” he asked no one in particular, his gaze on one of the tents.

  One guard snapped to attention. “No, sir. Are you sure he knows anything?”

  “I’m sure,” the important man answered. “Mr. Teach was very specific. Flynn is the key. McCormack’s beta test had to be completed by the end of this week to meet a Department of Defense deadline. If MI fails to comply, the bidding reopens to the public. This guy’s the only one we’ve captured so far. He has to know where she is.”

  That caught Hunter’s attention. Flynn is the key? To what? Only one captured? Exactly who did this guy have in that tent, Eric, Seth, or Ky? And why did that name, Teach, sound so damned familiar? Hunter stored it away for later scrutiny. He had his guys to rescue first.

  Mr. Khaki Pants lifted his head, his nostrils flared. “What on earth is that foul odor?”

  “Jonesy and Clark just got back with a couple more of our guys,” the guard replied.

  “We don’t have time for all that never leave a man behind bullshit. They should’ve dragged them to the dump like everyone
else. Teach is getting impatient. He wants results, not bodies.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard said.

  Paralleling the man’s walk back to the tent, Hunter stuck to the shadowy cover of the jungle and hoped for a glimpse inside. No such luck. Two flaps shielded the entrance, one overlapping the other. Nothing of the interior became visible when Khaki Pants ducked inside. The guard he’d been speaking with took up residence on a camp chair outside the tent. “Where’d you find these two, Clark?” he asked.

  Clark jerked his head in the direction of The TEAM’s camp. “Not far from camp two, but the place was rigged, Masters. You shoulda seen it. That son-of-a-bitchin’ ghost is a damned devil, is what he is. This is just Hoffman and Bauer. He got them cuz he set up a trap where he killed Stevenson and Daggett. Me and Jonesy still gotta go back for their bodies. It’s a mess back there is what it is. After he killed ’em, he stripped ’em naked. Animals been at ’em.”

  “Shit, Stevenson and Daggett, too?” Masters grabbed the back of his bare neck. “I wondered where they were.”

  “Yeah, and Hoffman and Bauer never knew what hit ’em. They both got it face-first with sharpened bamboo sticks. We thought they was standing up when we first seen ’em. Only they wasn’t. Crap, they was hanging there, impaled like a couple frogs on stilts over Stevenson and Daggett’s dead bodies.” Clark dragged a hand over his sweaty face. “All four of ’em was already bloated up. I hate the heat of this jungle.”

  “Damn straight,” Jonesy muttered. “We gotta catch this guy ’fore he picks off the rest of us like he did Johnson. He’s a mean SOB, the way he leaves our guys out there naked. Damned humiliating is what it is.”

  Masters pursed his lips, shaking his head and glowering. “I told Burdette to secure the ACS gear before we opened fire on these guys.” He kept his voice low. “We’re not dealing with regulars. These guys are spec ops. This mess could’ve been avoided if he’d listened to me instead of pretty-boy, Teach.”