The Impossible Alliance

by Candace Irvin

  “Part two?”

  Hatch nodded. “You’ll team up with Morrow and complete the original mission. We’ve added a few more pieces to the puzzle since Morrow’s disappearance. At first we assumed DeBruzkya was stealing gems to boost his coffers. It turns out he’s also obsessed with an ancient Rebelian legend regarding some mysterious “Gem of Power.” You can memorize the file on the flight and fill Morrow in. If there’s a kernel of truth behind this legend, I want you two to find it. And then I want you both to stop this bastard.”

  Just like that, Jared’s decision reversed itself. “No.”

  Hatch stiffened. Blinked.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t accept the—”

  “Dammit, son, you just did. I could see it in your eyes.”

  That was before he knew this was more than a simple grab and bag, and the old man knew it. “You didn’t let me finish. I’ll do the snatch. But immediately after, I leave. I can’t hang around.”

  “What if Morrow’s injured?”

  Crap. His gut had been clenched so tightly since the moment the chopper had set down, he hadn’t considered that. See? He was already slipping. If Morrow was alive, the man was bound to be injured—beaten and tortured within an inch of his life. Why else was Hatch so desperate that he do the snatch?

  “Well?”

  “You can have another medic standing by.”

  “I want you standing by. I also want you to see the rest of this mission through.” When he refused to answer, Hatch stalked back to the windows. “Dammit, son, what else have you got waiting for you? A bunch of goddamned cows? You’ve owned this ranch for eight years now, so don’t rehash that half-assed line of garbage you dumped in my house about it being time to turn in your ARIES credentials and settle down. It stunk the first time.”

  Jared jerked up from the edge of the desk as the last punch landed square and low, deep inside his gut. “If you were so sure I was lying, why’d you let me go?”

  The man just stared. Breathed.

  That steel-gray brow finally arched.

  Horror congealed along every square inch of Jared’s body. A split second later, his stomach bottomed out as acid seared up his throat. Shame followed, hot and roiling. Hatch knew.

  The man’s slow nod confirmed it.

  Jared sucked in his air. Swallowed the bile. “Then how the hell can you even ask?”

  “Because I know you.”

  “Then you also know I’d do it if I could.” Hell, he’d still do the snatch. But not the follow-on mission. A mission that had the potential to drag on for weeks, months…or longer. “Find someone else. Someone who can see the job through. Please.” He didn’t care that he was begging. He couldn’t afford to.

  “I’m asking you. I trust you.”

  Jared slumped against the desk and clenched his fingers beneath the edge, dimly aware of the air ripping through his lungs as he worked to keep the tremors from racking his body. Of his heart hammering against the wall of his chest. Of the ice-cold void closing in as his remaining dignity died.

  “I’m sorry, son. I know Janice shouldn’t have called me, but she did. Even then, I’d hoped—”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Terse silence locked in once again. But this time, it was his. And this time, he was the one who finally broke it.

  “All right. I’ll do it.”

  Chapter 1

  The world had gone dark again.

  Silent.

  No…it was her. She remembered now. Her eyes, they were closed. She tried opening them, but her lids refused to cooperate. She was still so very tired. She forced herself to fight the exhaustion deep within her bones and gather the dregs of her strength. It seemed to take forever, but she finally managed to pry her eyes open, to focus. The world wasn’t dark. It was light.

  White.

  And it wasn’t silent.

  She could make out the constant hum and occasional clicks of machinery. The high-pitched, steady whine of electronics. A door opening and then closing somewhere in the distance. Voices. Muted and conversing in a clipped, guttural language she didn’t recognize, but voices nonetheless.

  Thank you, God.

  She searched the white and finally realized she was staring at portable, floor-to-ceiling curtains. That’s right. She remembered those, too. If she turned her head to the left, she’d be able to see the rest of the hospital room. Unfortunately moving her head took so much effort. So much energy. Energy she couldn’t seem to muster.

  Do it.

  Somehow she did—and gasped softly. The man was still there, handcuffed to the safety rails on the bed beside hers. He’d been beaten. Viciously. He was unconscious to boot. Or was he sleeping? She hoped so. She opened her mouth to call to him, to find out, but nothing came out. She tried again. This time, she managed a hoarse rasp. Evidently she still couldn’t speak. But at least someone had removed the oxygen and feeding tubes from her throat. She wet her lips, wincing as the saliva caused her flesh to sting. Her lips were as dry and raw as her throat. Cracked. Desperate to make contact with the man before she lost consciousness again, she tried whispering.

  An explosion greeted her. Then another…and another.

  In a hospital?

  Sweet mercy, what was going on? Just where was she? And how long had she been here?

  More importantly, why couldn’t she remember?

  She traced the intravenous line from the distended vein on the back of her left hand to the bag of clear fluid hanging upside down beside her bed. Disappointment swamped her as she realized she couldn’t understand the handwriting on the label.

  Another explosion rocked the room. The blast was so intense the resulting vibrations caused the steel frames of the curtained walls to separate and roll several inches apart. She forced her stare to the foot of her bed, horrified as the musty odor of bargain basement sanitation sealed her suspicions. The tangled roll of expended, bloody hospital gauze. The pile of soiled bed linens. Half a dozen bags of IV fluid, all empty. The nest of discarded needles and syringes.

  This was not your typical hospital.

  She shifted her right arm. Two inches later, it jerked to a stop. Bemused, she stared at the gleaming cuffs locking her own wrist to the rails on her bed. The heck with sanitation—this was not your typical hospital restraint. She flinched as another, louder, explosion reverberated through the walls of the room, hammering through her skull. The curtains parted another foot, affording her a partial view of a scarred slab of wood.

  A door.

  Where did it lead?

  Before she could ponder the possibilities, much less gather the strength to find out, she heard the voices again, jangling keys scraping against the lock.

  The other patient.

  She swung her head to the left as another explosion rocked the room. The man’s eyes were still closed, but he shifted, moaning softly as he twisted his battered body toward the side of the bed. Toward her. Her lips stung as she opened her mouth—but the door flew open, as well. She slammed her eyes shut instinctively. Dizziness swirled in along with the dark. She eased her lids up. Just a crack. It was enough. She watched as two men she didn’t recognize shoved the hospital curtains aside. Two more men followed them through. All four wore camouflage fatigues.

  Soldiers?

  Perhaps. But not American.

  Americans wouldn’t be brandishing Romanian Kalashnikovs rifles. One of the thugs shouted something to his buddies as he raised the barrel of his AK-47. The thug then sighted the automatic rifle in on the battered head of the man in the opposite bed and shouted again. She had no idea what he’d said, but the dialect wasn’t Romanian. The largest of the two thugs dragged the woozy man from his mattress, wrenching his arm behind his back as the smallest thug unlocked the steel cuffs. The man groaned in protest as his shoulder popped. He received a fresh bash to his skull in return. His glasses flew off, landing at the thugs’ boots with a slap. A distinctive crunch followed.

  Crude laughter filled the room.


  Another thug shouted above the din as they dragged the now moaning man from the room. Yet another responded. As before, she had no idea what the men had said, but a split second before the door slammed shut and silence reigned within, she caught several mangled syllables she did recognize.

  A name.

  Alexander Morrow.

  She stiffened, the implications of that memory alone giving her the strength to bring her free hand to her face. Dizziness and shock gave way to searing confusion as her fingers collided with the thick swaths binding her head.

  That pile of expended, bloody gauze was hers?

  Was that why she couldn’t remember where she was, much less how she’d gotten here?

  She searched the contours of her face, hoping for clues. Desperate for answers. But all she gained was another question. And this question burned more deeply than all the others combined. If the man those camouflaged thugs had just dragged from the room was Alexander Morrow—

  Who the hell was she?

  “Four minutes to the drop zone!”

  Jared adjusted his oxygen mask and flashed a thumbs-up toward the plane’s crew chief. He double-checked his parachute and gear one last time before latching on to the succession of safety straps dangling from the overhead as he worked his way down the belly of the CIA-modified C-130. Wind colder than a penguin’s ass slammed into him as he reached the plane’s yawning tail ramp, ripping through his pressure suit.

  He ignored it.

  This high up, he could take in ninety percent of the Rebelian countryside through the blanket of intermittent clouds, as well as all four major cities. Cities that were woefully dark despite the midnight hour. Hell, from here light pollution bleeding up from the destitute capital city of Rajalla put out less wattage than the subdued altimeter strapped to his wrist. Jared lowered the night-vision goggles from his helmet and locked them over his jump lenses. Seconds later the crew chief’s voice flooded his earpiece.

  “Two minutes!”

  Jared flashed another thumbs-up. The second he bailed out of this bucket of bolts, the pilot would swing the plane’s nose due west and hightail it back to Ramstein. By the time the droning C-130 reached German air space where he and Hatch had established a command post, he’d be knocking on DeBruzkya’s door. Or rather, his DeBruzkya. Jared muscled his way into the icy crosswinds, stopping when the tips of his boots were flush with the lip of the plane’s ramp. One predetermined electronic signal from the transmitter in his pocket and a well-timed blitzkrieg from the CIA team on the ground—artfully disguised as a renewed rebel offensive—would provide the necessary cover and concealment for the remainder of his objectives.

  He hoped.

  “One minute!”

  Jared grabbed on to the familiar, heady adrenaline surging through his veins and harnessed it, using it to beat down the unexpected flash of panic. The doubt. Dammit, Hatch trusted him to see this through. Hatch also knew the situation, understood the risks. Mentor or not, surely the man would have tapped someone else—hell, anyone else—for Morrow’s snatch if there was a chance of him screwing up, however unintentionally.

  But there was a chance he might slip, wasn’t there? The worst part was he’d never see it coming.

  Or was that the best?

  “Thirty seconds!”

  Pull it together, Soldier.

  The decade-old taunt worked. Two years with Army Special Forces, five more in Delta Force, another eight with ARIES. He hadn’t botched a snatch yet. And he’d never lost a package.

  He wasn’t about to start now.

  “Go!”

  Jared pressed his fingers to the gold medallion beneath his pressure suit for luck and tipped his helmet toward the crew chief, vaulting boots first into the icy void before the sergeant could return his nod. Three breaths of canned oxygen later, he popped his chute. The dark-gray canopy billowed out, jerking his spine into perfect alignment as the C-130 roared off into the night. A minute later there was nothing but eerie silence and overly bright stars. Then the chilling frost creeping across his goggles…and ten long minutes to kill. Determined to banish the doubt from his brain, he ran through the coming mission. He embraced the hope.

  Unfortunately, all three converged on one man.

  Alexander Morrow.

  Just let him be alive.

  His trusty medic’s bag would do the rest. Hell, ten seconds after he stabbed Morrow with the pre-filled amphetamine injector, he’d have trouble keeping up with the nerdy, myopic geologist, bashed body and broken bones notwithstanding. Jared studied the inky blackness as he continued to float down. The feeble lights of Rajalla had long since passed behind him. Even with night-vision goggles, the remaining flickering pinpricks were few and far between. Though he couldn’t yet make out the closing mountainous terrain, he already knew the only hazards between his silk chute and DeBruzkya’s private compound were the thousand and one massive pines crowding the jagged crags.

  Years of whizzing through the clouds warned him he’d passed the halfway point, as did the gradually warming air. A quick glance at his altimeter and his watch confirmed it.

  Ten thousand feet, 2410 hours.

  Time to lock and load.

  He slipped his right hand inside his pressure suit and retrieved his MP-5, automatically flicking the safety off with his thumb as he reintroduced the submachine gun to the night air. He reached inside his suit again, this time punching the kickoff button with his left hand. A high-pitched tone followed.

  One covert transmission sent.

  His confirmation arrived five seconds later as the terrain below came to deafening—and blinding—life.

  Minutes later, as fellow ARIES operative Marty Lyons and his band of masquerading marauders lobbed half the CIA’s local arsenal at the northern facade of DeBruzkya’s compound, Jared’s own boots slammed onto the granite roof of the castle’s southernmost tower. He rolled with the force, ignoring the shards of glass that ripped into his pressure suit. He severed the lines of his chute as he came to his feet. A quick snap of his wrists deflated the billowing silk. He expended precious seconds whipping the fabric into a tight ball, then raced across the roof, stopping to cram the chute into the first ventilation shaft he hit along the way.

  Christ, Marty!

  Jared hit the deck as the trail from a stray rocket lit up the night sky. The moment the explosion died out, he was up and running again. Marty and his men continued to pound at the northern facade of the castle as he tore into his rucksack and yanked out the waiting coils of rappelling rope. He dropped the bulk of the nylon to the roof and used one end to form his seat, threading the other through a makeshift pulley. Seconds later he scrambled over the granite ledge, his face and chest, as well as his submachine gun, front and center as he bounded down the wall Australian-style, face-first toward the now unguarded basement door at the base of the southern tower.

  He left his ropes dangling in the breeze and tore into his ruck again, this time snagging a block of C-4. He molded the plastic explosive to the array of dead bolts, then played out enough time fuse and pre-rigged the caps. He ripped off his night-vision goggles and glanced at his watch as he sought cover in an identical recessed doorway ten feet away.

  He jerked the ring on the fuse igniter.

  Ten seconds later, the C-4 blew the locks off the door. Jared wrenched the metal slab open and scrambled down the stone steps. He was already halfway down the main corridor by the time the smoke cleared, night-vision goggles firmly in place as he compared the doors and secondary corridors he passed against the floor plan ARIES agent Robert Davidson had managed to obtain before he was forced to evacuate Rebelia. The hair on the back of Jared’s neck snapped to attention as he passed the first door that didn’t belong. And then the second.

  He slammed the demons down as he swapped his goggles for the thermal imaging scope stashed in his ruck. A solitary heat source glowed within. It wasn’t moving.

  Morrow.

  Though the scarred slab separating
them was three doors away from the one Davidson’s source had pegged, Jared’s instincts locked in. They wouldn’t budge. Unfortunately neither would the door.

  If he blew this door, the resulting internal vibrations would announce his presence within the castle with all the finesse of a fragmentation grenade chewing through a sheet of rice paper. He double-checked his watch. What the hell—five minutes from now it wouldn’t matter. He was almost out of time and definitely out of options. He grabbed another block of C-4 from his ruck, this time rigging half of it. Seconds later, the locks on the wooden door followed the explosive fate of the outer metal one. With them went his sole chance at culling enough time to execute a quick search for DeBruzkya’s cache of purloined jewels before the exfiltration chopper arrived.

  Jared vaulted into the room and shoved a set of portable hospital curtains aside. Bypassing the empty bed, he leaned over the occupied one and peered through the darkness and still swirling smoke. The man’s eyes were closed, but Jared recognized him instantly, despite the bandages and missing glasses. He leaned closer and checked the man’s breathing. Prayed.

  Razor-sharp steel kissed Jared’s throat.

  His estimation of Morrow shot up a notch. The man wasn’t unconscious, after all. Not with those eyes wide open.

  “Name’s Jared Sullivan, ARIES. We met three months ago in a guest room in Director Hatch’s house.”

  Recognition flooded brown eyes as the scalpel clattered to the floor. Morrow’s relief was palpable. Humbling. Unlike many Jared had served with over the years, it wasn’t the adrenaline or the toys that had kept him coming back for more.

  It was that look. It made it all worthwhile.

  It made this particular job worthwhile.

  He saw Morrow’s mouth open, heard the air rip past his lips. “Where?”

  “Later. Can you stand?”

  He caught the man’s answering nod—and tore into his medic bag, anyway. Given the wobble punctuating the motion, Morrow needed the boost the amphetamines would provide. Jared scanned the makeshift hospital room as he snagged the syringe from his bag, biting back a curse as he recognized the array of machines and monitors. There was no way he could risk shooting Morrow up with speed now. He pitched the syringe, still capped, to the floor and leaned down to heft Morrow over his shoulder, clearing the still-smoldering doorway before the man could argue.