Jameson (In the Company of Snipers Book 22)

by Irish Winters

  Jet fuel could burn for days without proper fire suppression. But not at Reagan. More than any other airport in the States, the crews at Reagan knew how to deal with disaster.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “No, Boss, stay with your family. There’s nothing you can do here. I’ll keep in touch.”

  Alex hesitated, something he rarely did. Mark was right. He could handle this. But two TEAM agents had died tonight, one newly hired, the other a damned good Protocol Officer who had no business being on that jet. What the hell had happened?

  “I’ll be there. See you in ten,” Alex told Mark, then turned to his wife and said, “I have to go. Sorry.”

  Kelsey blinked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Jet exploded on the tarmac at Reagan with two of my people allegedly on board. Mark’s already there, but I need to be there, too.”

  “Then go. We’re fine. Do what you have to do, Alex. Hurry.”

  He nodded, a hard lump stuck in his chest at the merciless whim of Karma. God, she was a bitch. Give a life. Take two? “I’ll call as soon as I know more.”

  “I know you will. Be safe, sweetheart.”

  “Take care of the people I love best,” he murmured as he dipped his head and kissed her mouth. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jameson came to in a thick black fog, disoriented, with blood and ash in his throat. His left side hurt. His neck felt tender as hell, sunburned, blisters and all. He coughed, then choked at the thing wrapped around his head and the knot stuck in his mouth. Slowly, things came back to him. The drive to Reagan… Miss Shade’s jet… Explosion… Fire and heat and…

  “Maddie!” he yelled. But the rag in his mouth turned his words into worthless mumbles. Another groan close by pierced the fog in his head, clearing his mind. Had to be Maddie. She’d been beside him in the jet. Then on the tarmac. Details came back swifter then. Maddie Bannister. Protocol Officer. His dream job. The TEAM. His first day at work. He and Maddie running for safety. For their lives. Lucy Shade. Her last words… “You let them get away?”

  Then arguing, closer this time. Not a memory. Jameson stilled, straining to hear, focused on the familiar voices coming from the room next door instead of his memory.

  One was full of venom. “You spoiled everything.” Her. The diva.

  “I had no choice!” the asshat with the oddly familiar brogue said. “That wanker got her out of there so bloody quick, what was I supposed to do, shoot them where anyone could’ve seen them? Maybe you didn’t know, but Reagan’s got more security cameras than the feckin’ Queen of England’s summer palace. And even if I had—”

  “Of course I know that, you fool! I needed my escape caught on film, Reagan airport’s film, too. But no, you set the charges wrong. They went off early. You thought kidnapping them instead of me was smarter?” Her again. “This is not what I paid for! They were supposed to die in that fire. So was Vlad, my feckin’ bodyguard. Can’t you do anything right?”

  A definite growl. Boots scraped over the concrete floor. Chair legs creaked. Then, “Shite, you’re a bitch.”

  CRACK! Okay, that was definitely flesh against flesh.

  “Feck you!” Her Highness shrieked. “You ruined my publicity stunt!”

  Say what?

  “Yeah, well feck you right back, you worthless blighter!” The Irish stooge.

  The chair again. Or another chair. Boots shuffled. A door slammed. Staccato clips against concrete. High heels. It was high time to move.

  Jameson fought the restraints at his wrists. Simple plastic ties bound his wrists together, not sturdy Flex Cuffs. Which meant someone hadn’t been prepared to take hostages tonight, or whatever he and Maddie were. He wasn’t hanging around to find out. With his bound hands in front of him, Jameson dispensed with the rag in his mouth first, then sucked in a breath of damned righteousness.

  Most folks would’ve thought themselves helpless when they came to in a strange place, groggy from being drugged and restrained. Not Jameson. He’d been almost drowned, shot at, tortured, humiliated, and spit on. He’d been made to carry water-logged inflatable boats through pounding surf, or his fellow wannabe SEALs when they’d drag-assed or had been injured. And that was just during BUD/S.

  Whoever’d abducted him and Maddie tonight was in for one helluva rude awakening. Yes, he was blind, well, so what? He was still a SEAL. Only now he was a pissed-off, lethal, son of a bitchin’, fight-til-you-die SEAL. And they’d hurt Maddie. They would pay.

  She hadn’t come to yet, but he remembered now that she’d fallen during their mad dash from the fire. In the mayhem, he hadn’t asked how badly she’d been hurt. He would. Later. The plastic ties had to go first.

  Jameson put his wrists together, both up to his mouth. After he pulled the tie as tight as he could with his teeth, so tight it cut into his skin, he flexed his arms and snapped that son of a bitch off. Odd, but the thing stabbing his side was his pistol. Another mistake the diva and Irishman had made. They’d left him in his jacket with his holstered pistol tucked under his arm. Guess they assumed blind men weren’t much of a threat and didn’t carry. Guess again.

  “Hey,” he growled as he removed Maddie’s gag, which was half of someone’s torn t-shirt. Still had one sleeve. “Are you hurt? Can you breathe?” At least that detail had come back to him. She’d said she couldn’t breathe once they’d cleared the jet. He’d thought she might have sustained a broken rib.

  “Hmmm,” she whined sleepily.

  He lifted to one knee, still crouched at her side, but needing to get the lay of the land before anyone returned and interrupted his escape plan. “Come on, Maddie. We’ve got to leave before they come back, and I could sure use your eyes.”

  Because, okay, being blind sucked at critical times like this.

  “Jameson?”

  “Yeah, babe. I’m here. Talk to me. Are you hurt? Can you breathe?”

  She sat up, breathing hard and panicked. “I’m fine. Where are we? Oh, God, what happened? Who’s they?”

  “We’ve been kidnapped by Lucy Shade and... some Irish guy.” His muddled brain couldn’t supply the name of that Irishman. “Hold still. Let me get you out of those cuffs.” He reached into his pants pocket, but his knife was gone. So were his wallet and everything else. His brand-new badge. Dumbasses had emptied his pockets.

  Okay then. Plan B. Since Maddie was still cuffed and wouldn’t be able to break those plastic ties… On second thought…“Put your wrists together,” he told her. “Hurry.”

  If a man could do it, so could a woman. Once she complied like he’d asked, he jerked the ties on her wrists tight until she hissed, “That hurts. Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours. I need you to focus. You’re a strong, capable woman, and I know you can do this. Put your heart and soul into flexing those gorgeous biceps and breaking these restraints. They’re just plastic. They’ll snap off if you do it right. I promise. You’ve got this.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “Yes. You can do it, too. I know you can.”

  He could hear Maddie breathing through her nostrils, and not once had she said she couldn’t. But damn. After three tries, he could smell the blood. Her wrists were bleeding. The ties were too tight, and either she wasn’t strong enough, or she didn’t believe in herself. Jameson called time-out. Plan B it was.

  “Tell me what you see.” His heart was hammering by then, but adrenaline did that.

  Maddie was shaking plenty, too. “It’s dark, but there’s light coming under the door. I can see. You lost your glasses. Oh, my gosh, the back of your neck is burned.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know. What can’t I see?”

  “Okay. Umm, well, we’re in a room without windows. Looks like a basement. Smells like somebody’s dirty bathroom. Concrete floor. One door directly behind you. Simple hollow core with four-square molding. But no doorknob on this side. A wooden workbench to
my right. It’s full of holes.” She must’ve looked upward because her voice shifted slightly away from him. “High ceiling. One large vent over the door. Two screws.”

  “Now you’re talking. How big’s that vent? On the ceiling or in the wall?”

  “The ceiling. Maybe two by two.”

  That was something he could work with. “Could you fit through the opening if I helped you reach it?” He already knew she could. The moment they’d collided in that explosion, he’d gotten an armful of delicate femininity that just might save their lives tonight. Or today or whenever the hell it was.

  “Yes,” she said with determination. “I’m small enough. But I don’t get it. Why would loan sharks kidnap us? They won’t get their money that way.”

  “That’s not who’s after us, and this isn’t about your ex. Lucy Shade planned this. I heard her and some Irish dipshit talking. This was supposed to be a publicity stunt, where we died in the fire, while her stooge rescued her from whoever allegedly blew up her jet. Then… she said…” Damn, his pounding head made remembering the exact wording difficult. Think! “… he’d set the charges wrong, that the jet exploded too early. That he’d thought kidnapping us instead of her was smarter.”

  Jameson ran a quick hand over his aching head, but stopped short of rubbing his blistered skin. “Shade doesn’t know what to do with us. So let’s get you up into that vent and out of sight before they come back. I’m relying on you to be extra-quiet moving through the ductwork. This place is old. You might run into spiders or mice or—”

  “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?”

  She needed to know, so he nodded. “Unless we get away. We’re supposed to be dead already. We’re just loose ends.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why would kidnappers still be in a jet they intended to blow up?”

  “She needed two dead bodies. That way she could claim she got away from us before the jet exploded. There’d be no one left alive to contradict her story. It’d be big news. She’d be the reporter who escaped wicked kidnappers, the next big star.”

  He could hear Maddie’s heartbeat soar and the sound of her dry swallowing. “You’re not coming with me?” she asked.

  Jameson came to a full stop. The tone in her question was blatantly plaintive and frightened. She’d never been in combat, much less what they’d lived through today. He could smell her fear. “Babe, I—”

  What could he say? That he meant to stay behind and kill Miss Shade and her stooge to give Maddie time to get away? That he meant to die before he let anything happen to her? That this had been, hands down, one of the best days of his life, and all because he’d met a waifish Protocol Officer who had once upon a time wanted to be a jarhead?

  Jameson swallowed hard, needing her to understand. “Hope that vent cover has at least one sharp edge so I can cut those ties off your wrists. But I’ve…” He cleared his throat. “I’ve never met anyone like you before, Maddie. You’re brave, but you don’t know it. And you’re strong, you just don’t believe in yourself yet. But once we’re out of here, I’d like to take you out for coffee or… or something. Whatever you want. I’d just like to get to know you better. Right now is your time to shine, Maddie. My shoulders are too wide to fit through a narrow vent. Get out of here, while I create a distraction. Get help.”

  The air shifted as she came closer and raised both arms.

  He knew what she meant to do. Jameson ducked and let her settle her joined arms around the back of his head, avoiding his burns. She needed something from him before she manned up, and he intended to give it to her.

  Especially when she asked, “Do you ever kiss on a first date?”

  He licked his lips, so damned hopeful. “Haven’t had any dates lately, but yeah, I’d like to.”

  “This isn’t exactly what I’d call a date, but…” She came to him as soft as a sigh, her lips sweet and tender, her kiss a breath of life he hadn’t realized how much he’d hungered for until now. Something warm and wonderful unfurled in his chest. Felt a lot like coming home from Iraq had.

  There in the dark, Jameson canted his head and kissed Maddie with all his heart. He wrapped her tight inside his arms and held onto the best thing he’d come across in a long, damned time. She was lush, warm, and soft, returning every last lick and fervent kiss, as if she felt the same things he was feeling.

  Lives would be changed tonight. People would die. But God, please not her. She tasted like minty toothpaste and hairspray and smoke, like an American woman who enjoyed what his mouth was doing to hers. As precarious as their situation was, it should’ve been a quick kiss. But he got lost in the warmth of being wanted and held by a gentle woman. Her mouth was sweet and slick, her tongue a luscious treat after tasting ash and dirt. Made a man feel wanted. Felt perfect.

  There was no pulling away from her. The plastic ties wouldn’t have allowed it if he’d tried. He didn’t want this magic to end, but time was a luxury they didn’t have. He needed her to live.

  Breathing hard with his blood humming like a hornet’s nest, he murmured huskily, “Sorry, but it’s time to go, babe.”

  “I like that you call me that.”

  “I like that you’re willing to fight for our lives.” Hint, hint.

  Her tongue took one last lap around his mouth, and she whispered, “Let’s do this.”

  Reluctantly, he ducked out of her embrace and took a step back. “Work bench?”

  “This way,” she said as she bumped hips with him. “Straight ahead. Looks heavy. We’ll have to drag it.”

  It was heavy, but with her help, Jameson managed. He worried while they grunted and sweated the sturdy table made of four-by-fours across the concrete floor. “Were you injured? You said you couldn’t breathe earlier.”

  “Just scared. It’s not every day a girl ends up in a burning jet.”

  “I think that was Pops Delaney working with Shade. Had to be him. They argued. She slapped him.”

  “Delaney’s a flat-out killer.”

  “So’s Lucy Shade.” Which meant Maddie was in more trouble than he’d thought.

  “Do you think there’s more than just them two?”

  “Might be, so be extra stealthy once you’re out of here. Run for your life, Maddie.”

  “What if my big ass gets stuck in the vent?”

  He couldn’t help the smile that broke through the gloom of her leaving him behind. “Trust me, you don’t have a big ass. One step at a time, Maddie. That’s how we get the tough jobs done. You can do this. I have faith.”

  “Aww, you say the sweetest things.”

  At last, Jameson positioned the bench at the door, so Maddie could reach the vent. He made quick work of the screws holding the vent in place. Maddie had climbed up on the bench and was at his side by then. Luckily, the screws were long and sharp. He used one to carefully saw the ties off her wrists, and she was ready to go.

  Interlocking his fingers, he crouched to boost her up to the ceiling. “Ready?”

  Her palms clapped over his shoulders. A dainty booted foot settled into his cupped hands. Her breath warmed his face when she kissed him again and said, “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “That’s the plan,” he whispered into her open mouth, loving the smell and taste of her. Wanting to know her better. It’d been ages since he’d felt this way about any woman. How could he let her go?

  She made the decision for him. With one little push, she was out of his life and into the vent. “Sure wish I had that bin of yours now,” she teased. “Lots of cobwebs up here. I could use a big, square helmet.”

  “I’ll let you borrow it next time,” he quipped, wishing it was him up in the vent, not her. Wishing he could see, damn it. Was she sitting there looking down at him? He doubted it. Ductwork wasn’t usually large enough to allow much movement but forward travel.

  Since the incident, he’d come to believe that everything happened for a reason. Karma had to work that way, else t
here’d be no balance in the universe. No yin and yang. No reason for mankind to struggle like he did. No challenge for life to go on. But now? Maddie was the one Karma had singled out today, and that kiss might be his last. Just when he’d finally caught his balance.

  “Be careful,” he told her one last time.

  But she was already gone.

  Chapter Nine

  Alex stood with the fire chief while his men finished fighting the blaze outside Reagan National Airport’s private hangars. They ended up using more Class B fire suppressant foam than usual on the aircraft, but at last, the fire was under control. Since airspace over Reagan was restricted, no media helicopters hovered overhead to fan the flames. Which they would have done, if this had happened anywhere else.

  What troubled Alex most was that Lucy Shade, an obvious stage name, was nowhere to be found. Yet Vladimir, who the fire chief had claimed was her personal bodyguard, was the person who’d placed the 911 call to report the explosion. He’d claimed two people were still on board. That he’d feared for their lives. Which Alex would soon find out. But if there were bodies in the debris, they’d be burned beyond recognition. DNA and dental records would be useless. To validate what his gut was telling him—that Maddie and Jameson were still alive—he’d requested access to Reagan’s security tapes. This portion of the tarmac was within view of several separate cameras. He’d know soon enough.

  Also troublesome was Junior Agent Walker Judge’s high opinion of former CPO Tenney. Walker had bragged about the mad ninja skills Jameson had developed since he’d lost his sight. For a SEAL to brag up another SEAL was telling. Walker was as solid an operator as they came. Which meant Jameson was just as good. Alex hadn’t yet met him, but upon Walker’s recommendation alone, he’d told Mark to hire the visually impaired warrior. Hell, Alex would have done that sight unseen. No pun intended. It just didn’t feel right, that a trained special warfare operator of Jameson’s caliber, would’ve been trapped and burned to death in a fire on his first night at work. The entire scene stunk, and Alex meant to get to the rat behind it.