“Down, grenade!” Ty shouted, holstering his gun even as he raced for Niki.
Of the three of theirs, she was the one who was too close, far too close, to the grenade.
All he was focused on was Niki, covered in nothing but thin leather, not even a bulletproof vest. She was too exposed…
In that last moment, Nike saw it…the grenade…and knew she couldn’t escape. Time seemed to stop as she watched the thing tumble. She heard the clatter even as she spun away from it in a last desperate attempt to save herself.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Ty dive at her and turned her head away, let her body go loose as the full weight of his body hit her. Hard. Drove her, them, toward cover.
It seemed as if the world exploded around them.
The sound of the blast was incredible as the grenade went off in the confined space of the yard, Ty’s body covering her own. The sound of it rang in her ears, shattering, deafening. Fear exploded through her even as she curled into Ty’s body and he wrapped himself around her.
They hit the pavement hard, Ty taking the worst of the impact on his shoulder, sliding across the concrete apron with her beneath him. Nike took the rest. Pain seared across parts of her shoulder, her back, as they slid across the concrete.
For an eternal moment Nike was dazed, the wind knocked out of her as dust and debris rained down in an eerie ringing silence. Then she looked up into Ty’s lean handsome face.
His blue eyes were closed, his long lean body loose over hers. Limp.
No.
Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Terror shot through her as she took his face in her hands, ran her hands through his silvery hair, felt it curl around them. Everything seemed too sharp, too clear. She was suddenly aware of every inch of his long body, lax over hers, every feature of his face, the high cheekbones, the hollows beneath them, his firm mouth…
He couldn’t be dead.
It seemed as if her whole world had stopped.
Nike stroked his hair, his face, breathless. Her throat was tight.
“Ty.”
Her ears rand so badly from the explosion that she couldn’t even really hear her own voice.
“Ty!”
Hearing his name through what seemed like thick cotton batting, hearing the fear in Niki’s voice, Ty fought to clear his head, forced his eyes open to look at her. He saw the look in hers as she touched his face, seeking reassurance, her eyes too bright behind the sunglasses. Needing to know he was alive.
It was more emotion than he’d ever seen her show. A fear to match his own when he’d seen her standing so close, too close. to the grenade.
“Niki,” he said.
He touched her face, seeing her eyes too wide, too bright, even behind the yellow glasses.
Briefly, quickly, Ty cupped her cheek, looked into her eyes to reassure himself she was all right, and so she could see that he was.
“Are you all right?”
Nike bowed her head. Alive. The relief that flooded her when his eyes opened nearly brought tears to her eyes. Clearing her throat, she nodded, her heart unclenching. Then she lifted her eyes, looked at him.
Reality set in, as a new fear shot through her and that fear was reflected in his eyes.
“Buck, Jake,” Ty said as he remembered himself, as fear for his friend, for the Ranger they’d co-opted, raced through him.
He rolled to look, scrambling to his feet, drawing Niki to hers as he did, both of them drawing their weapons again, Niki covering his back.
Like him, she looked for any sign of Buck or Jake.
Ty called their names as they advanced on the bodies that lay in the center of the truck yard.
Blood was everywhere. Shrapnel from the grenade had torn through the bodies there.
One of the bodies moaned.
“Here,” Buck called in answer to Ty’s shout, staggering around the side of the forklift.
Coughing, Jake said, “I’m here, too,” as he stepped out from around a corner.
Enrique and his three buddies hadn’t fared so well, caught out in the open as they’d been when the grenade had gone off. All were bleeding. Only one moved, moaning with increasing volume.
Enrique.
Kicking their weapons away, Ty went to the man, checked his pulse.
“He’s alive,” he said.
The man’s eyes fluttered at the feel of Ty’s fingers on his throat.
Bending over one of Enrique’s buddies, Nike did the same. “This one is, too.”
So was the third.
For the moment.
“Luck, pure dumb luck,” Ty said, shaking his head.
Jake used his radio, called for an ambulance and assistance, backup.
“Niki,” Buck said, catching a look at her back. She hadn’t been wearing any protective gear. “Jesus…”
Nike didn’t bother to look. Some places stung. Others she couldn’t feel much at all.
Outside the hospital windows it was dark, the stars invisible behind the myriad lights. The view from the prison ward of the hospital was of the barren rooftops of the various wings of the hospital.
They were all tired. They had all done triage. It had taken time to get Enrique and his friends loaded into ambulances, to answer the questions of the responding police officers while the EMTs looked at Niki’s back, picked the pieces of gravel and glass out of it to get it clean enough to evaluate before declaring her clear.
As ironic as it was, Enrique’s friends had suffered the brunt of the grenade’s force and shrapnel. He’d been knocked unconscious and suffered a few cuts, but his buddies bodies had shielded him so other than that he’d come away relatively unscathed. At the moment they were only holding him for observation in case of concussion and because Jake had asked them to.
Ty and Jake flanked his hospital bed; Niki was perched on the ledge by the windows. Buck lounged with a shoulder against one wall, the handcuffs securing Enrique to the bedrails a guarantee that this time he couldn’t run.
“Man,” Enrique said, and Ty could see real fear in his eyes. “I can’t talk to you people. They’ll kill me, you understand that? Do you know what they do to people who talk? And when they’re finished with you, all they send back to your family is your head.”
“We can make them think you’re already dead, that you died when the grenade went off,” Ty said. “We can protect you, but only if you help us.”
“As it is,” Jake added, “they’re already going to think you talked. You’re a dead man, Enrique. The only people who can help you now is us., but we’ve got no reason to help you if you don’t help us.”
From the window, Niki said quietly, “Daniel Garcia.”
Enrique Silva went utterly still, his face haunted.
“Brujo,” he whispered. “He’s a ghost, the devil.”
Niki looked at Ty. She’d said much the same, but still…
Enrique’s admission though, was all they needed. He knew Garcia. Garcia was here.
“No, he’s not…but he can shoot you through that window. One shot, that’s all it would take.”
Sitting in the window, perched on the ledge, she pointed a finger at Enrique as if it were a gun. And pulled the trigger.
“Done.”
There was still Jackson Cooper. What was Garcia’s plan? A long shot, or up close and personal? What was he armed with? Another line to tug on come morning.
“I’ll tell him you asked about him,” Nike said with a thin smile. “When I see him.”
Terror had Enrique’s monitors going wild. Nike pulled the plugs on them, one at a time.
Her smile grew more wicked.
“No,” Enrique cried. “I don’t need that man looking at me.”
She looked at him. “It’s too late, Enrique. You know he’s already looking at you. You know too much, you put it together, you’re the weak link. He can’t take that chance.”
Her gaze went to the windows beside her.
“It’s all a matter of distance and windag
e,” she said, her voice speculative as if she measured distances mentally. “A single shot. You’re handcuffed to the bed. If he already has the gun, you’re an easy target.”
“Fuck that!” Enrique cried.
It was late, but he began to talk, and once he did, it was a torrent.
They tag-teamed him, Ty, Buck, Nike and Jake, hammering him with questions, picking up what one missed, getting names, the next place along the chain to look.
Enrique verified that the Gulf cartels were on the move and a war for control of the territory might very well be on the verge of breaking out among them and the others. Hard pressed by the army in Mexico and the US government crackdown in Arizona and Atlanta, even so it wasn’t enough to stop them, not with a multi-million dollar business that had put one of them on the Forbes list.
They were proud of that, the cartels were. Poor Mexicans, one of their own was now a multi-millionaire.
It was late, very late when they all made it back to their quarters.
None of them made it very far, collapsing in the common area to talk, make plans, decide what to do come morning.
Taking the seat on the couch next to Ty as Buck and Jake dropped into the two wing chairs, Niki tried to stay awake, only partly successfully. She was hardly alone. All four of them were yawning. She shook her head, trying to fight the weariness, pulling her boots off with a groan of relief.
Exhausted, Ty rolled his head on his shoulders.
“We’ll need to have protection on Enrique,” he said.
Blinking, Jake said, with a yawn. “DPS is taking care of it.”
“Not just to keep him safe, but to keep him quiet about how much we know. If the cartels find out, they may go back to square one, and we’ll have to start over again. The longer we can keep them in the dark, the better off we’ll be.”
Jake nodded.
With a scrape of his hand over his face, Ty said, “Now that we have confirmation we’ll need to meet with Blanchard, some of your top people in DPS, in the Rangers, come up with a plan to deal with it.”
Yawning, Jake said, “I’ll arrange it.”
“Jake,” Niki said, blinking, “what do you know about Jackson Cooper?”
Stretching his long legs, Jake said, “Actually, to weapons aficionados he’s pretty famous. He’s modified and created guns like you’ve never seen before or even imagined. He’s also pretty easy to find. We didn’t know he was making illicit weapons, though.”
“Now you do,” she said, curling into the corner of the couch. “We also have to start searching through the property records, see if we can find if and where the cartels have bought property.”
It would be tedious, mindless work.
“We’re working on that,” Jake said. “Loan you a couple of clerks. You’ll have them tomorrow.”
“Good,” Niki said, closing her eyes. “Dust makes me sneeze.”
“Niki, do you feel comfortable talking to Jackson Cooper alone, or do you want to take Mitch with you?” Ty asked.
It was a pretty good guess that once he got into that meeting with the DPS, he’d be there for the duration. He hated to leave her with no backup.
She nodded, eyes still closed, visibly fighting yawns. “If he’s that well known, I think I can handle him. If Jake can get the clerks for me, I’ll get them started looking and then go see Cooper.”
“All right. Buck, you and Jake hit the streets again tomorrow…today,” Ty said. “One confidential informant isn’t enough, see what else you can find out. We need more information.”
Amused, Buck nodded and then lifted his chin at Niki. “She looks comfortable.”
Niki’s eyes were closed and her breathing had evened out. She was asleep, completely out, her cheek against the back of the sofa.
The three men looked at her.
“Wish I could do that,” Jake said.
“You can,” Ty said, “It’s late. Go home, Jake. Grab a couple of hours sleep. Meet us back here a few hours.”
He was pretty beat himself.
Buck said, “I’m for bed.”
Tiredly, Jake nodded and levered himself out of the chair, glancing at the brittle light of the stars, hazy in the night sky.
“Morning isn’t that far away,” he observed as he headed for the door. A couple of hours at best.
Looking at Niki sleeping so peacefully, Ty said, “I almost hate to wake her. Good night, Jake. Go on, Buck.”
“Night,” Buck said and stumbled down the hall.
Ty looked at Niki, brushed a hand across her cheek lightly.
“Niki, wake up,” he said.
The sound of Ty’s deep voice saying her name brought Niki up out of sleep.
“Love the sound of your voice,” she said, sleepily.
“Do you?” he said, oddly touched by the comment.
She opened her eyes and reached out without thought to touch his face.
“Hmmmm,” she murmured, sleepily. “So nice to wake up to, so beautiful.”
She was going to destroy him.
“You need to get some sleep,” he said as her eyes drifted closed.
Opening one eye to look at him, she said, “Was sleeping. You woke me.”
“In a bed.”
That eye opened again, looked at him and then closed.
He chuckled and got to his feet, gathering her up in his arms like a sleepy child.
Despite the leathers, it was hard to imagine the woman in his arms as the tough, hot-looking woman who’d walked into the cantina that afternoon.
Then he remembered the grenade going off, how close she’d been to it, and tightened his arms around her as he carried her to her room.
Chapter Twenty Three
The nightmare drove Niki up and out of sleep. She made it to the bathroom before she retched and lost her dinner, what little she’d been able to grab at the hospital. For a moment she sat beside the toilet, leaning her head against the cool porcelain of the tank, trembling, fighting back the weakness and the tears.
Her dreams had been a jumble of images. Garcia and the square in Prague. The grenade. Her fear for Ty. Santiago. The guns.
The close call had rattled her, stirred up her post traumatic stress disorder and kicked it into high gear.
She scrubbed her face with her hands, brushed the back of her hand over her mouth. Her breath shuddered in her chest. She couldn’t, wouldn’t think about the fear. Or the weakness.
Resolutely, she brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth with mouthwash until the taste of sickness was gone. Dragging herself into the shower, she washed away the fear sweat, pushed away the images that battered at her, drag her down into memory, made her relive it all over again. For a moment, she simply leaned against the shower wall and let the water beat on her, the heat soothe her. Until she felt almost clean.
It was over. Past.
She took a couple of deep breaths and forced herself to relax.
This time she would get him, and then maybe the nightmares would stop.
She knew better than to try to go back to sleep. It would be impossible. To keep herself occupied, she took pains with her hair and face.
For this trip, she’d packed dresses along with her working clothes. After so many years of wearing mostly leathers, it felt good to dress like a woman now and then. It might be impractical, but in the early days of the investigation, she could still choose what she wore. Until they got close to Garcia, to some action.
Then there was Ty.
Consciously, she wouldn’t admit she dressed for him, but part of her knew she did, wanting to be a girl again, feminine again, not what they’d made her…
If he knew.
She wasn’t that person any more.
Vaguely, she remembered him carrying her to her room.
Deliberately she chose a light sundress, open in the back, the pattern on the dress nearly the same color as her tattoos, which was the reason she’d bought it…it was just too perfect. For once she had a chance to wear it. That it a
lso came with a matching jacket to hide her weapons was a plus. It looked feminine and there were times she needed to remember that she was, too.
She drew the dress over her head, settled it neatly over her hips. It was also high summer in Austin and hot, so the dress would be a lot more comfortable than leather. Let people think what they liked.
After the nightmare, though, she needed something to clear her head, a cup of coffee or maybe orange juice, something to moisten her parched throat. Now that she’d settled a little, she was also a little hungry.
Moving quietly so she wouldn’t wake the others, Nike slipped out of her room. She made her way down the hall toward the common room with its kitchen and then suddenly stopped, caught completely unprepared and momentarily breathless at the end of the hall. Her throat locked.
She wasn’t alone, and she’d gone one step too far to stop.
It seemed she wasn’t the only one who needed something to drink.
Ty stood at the refrigerator doing the guy thing, leaning against it on one arm as he drank directly from the full quart of orange juice. His head was tilted back, his eyes closed as he swallowed.
Obviously he hadn’t been prepared to run into anyone because all he wore was pajama bottoms, his concession to propriety in case someone else came down the hall. They hung loose on his hips.
With only the thin predawn light and the light from the refrigerator to see by, every line of his body was etched in pale light. Breathless, she froze in place and drank him in with her eyes.
He was as beautiful as she remembered, long and lean, the muscles of his chest still firm, still tight and flat, his ribs visible, his abs taut. A flood of warmth went through her as she remembered how it had felt to touch him, to make love to him. To feel him inside her. Heat surged. With the dream just behind her, she felt oddly fragile, and the tug of his presence was strong. She remembered what it had felt like to take shelter in his arms. Suddenly and fiercely, a part of her wanted that, to get it…and to give it.
Ty had had a rough night, plagued by nightmares of Qatar. It was hardly the first time – action always brought the dreams back – but as always it felt as if he went through it all over again. Once more he was bound to a plank, the hood over his head as water was poured over the cloth. The sensation of drowning, of desperately trying to breathe around the water-saturated fabric as he coughed and choked. Only the sure knowledge that if he talked it would be Buck who would be here with him had kept him quiet. That and his determination not to fail himself, his country, his duty.
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