Top Gun Tiger (Protection, Inc. Book 7)

by Zoe Chant

  Ethan recognized the voice. It was Ayers, the man who’d seemed to be in charge of the agents who’d captured his fire team. “We thought we’d lost you. Thanks for coming all the way here. Now we have the complete team, just like we’d intended in the first place.”

  “I’ve already radioed for air support,” Ethan said. “You’d better start running now if you want to have any chance of getting away.”

  Ayers smiled. “Good try. But if you’d radioed anyone, we’d have detected it. Now, how did you get here?”

  Ethan didn’t reply.

  “Kritsick!” Ayers snapped his fingers at the man beside him. “Hurt him.”

  Kritsick punched Ethan in the mouth. Pain exploded through his head, and he felt his lip split. Warm blood trickled down his chin.

  You’ll have to do better than that, Ethan thought.

  Getting punched in the face was no fun, but it wasn’t as if he’d never been knocked around before. In fact, that hadn’t even hurt more than his head already hurt from the concussion. He was tempted to say so, but decided keeping his mouth shut was the better part of valor.

  “Not like that,” Ayers said, sounding exasperated. “You think a Recon Marine can’t take a punch?”

  Ethan saw something in his captor’s eyes that unnerved him. It wasn’t sadism; Ayers didn’t seem to be getting any particular enjoyment out of the situation. It was a total lack of feeling. This was a man who might do absolutely anything to anyone without flinching or caring at all, so long as it got him what he wanted.

  Still, presumably they wanted Ethan for the same reason they’d captured the rest of his team: to force him to work for them. They couldn’t damage him too much, or he’d be useless to them. But that thought didn’t reassure him. There was plenty of damage that could be done that wasn’t physical and wouldn’t impair his usefulness. You only had to take one look at Shane to know that.

  Ayers leaned in close. As if he’d read Ethan’s mind, he said, “We can break you without damaging your ultimate effectiveness. There’s so much that can be done with very simple means. Water, electricity, loud noises. Or no noise, no light, nothing. Just you, alone in a dark silent cell, with no way to even tell how much time is passing. Everyone has a breaking point. We have your teammates, you know. How would you like to watch while I try to figure out theirs?”

  Ethan’s blood ran cold at the thought. He didn’t particularly get along with them, but the thought of watching them being tortured made him feel sick. Trying for a bravado he didn’t feel, he said, “Fuck those assholes. Do whatever you like to them. I don’t care.”

  “Is that really how you feel?” Ayers rubbed his chin. “We could find out.”

  Some treacherous part of him said, Just tell him you hid in the cargo bay. What does it matter?

  Another part forced him to keep his mouth shut. He’d been trained for exactly this kind of situation. Once you started talking, you didn’t stop. The best thing to do was to delay that moment as long as possible.

  The two men stared into each other’s eyes, neither backing down. Finally, Ayers broke eye contact, shaking his head in disappointment. “Fine. We’ll start with one of the simple means. Lay him on his back.”

  The guards forced Ethan down and pinned him to the ground. The concrete was hot against his back, the sky a sheet of blue-white glare. They were holding his head in place, so he closed his eyelids, all but a crack, against the sun.

  Ayers knelt down beside him, fishing in his pocket. Despite Ethan’s resolve, fear cramped his belly. He knew Ayers wanted him to wonder what he’d pull out, but that didn’t make him stop wondering.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ayers inquired, pausing in his search. “Sooner or later, you’ll talk. Might as well be sooner. No one’s going to swoop down and save you.”

  I know, Ethan thought.

  In the corner of his eye, he saw Ayers take out a pocket knife. Ethan took a deep breath, held fast to his resolve, and kept his gaze fixed on the sky. It was cloudless, featureless except for a black dot. He’d focus on that, no matter what Ayers did to him, and distract himself by trying to figure out what it was. Might be a hawk… No, it was too big for that. A hawk wouldn’t be visible that far up in the sky. A vulture, maybe.

  Sharp pain stabbed through Ethan’s hand, jolting him all the way up and down his spine. He forced himself not to flinch. The black dot. It was getting bigger. The vulture must have spotted something. Another stab of pain. His jaw was clenched so tight, it hurt.

  The black dot was even bigger now. It wasn’t a bird at all. It was a small plane, coming in fast. A two-person plane, like Destiny occasionally rented to fly for fun. She’d taken him up for a spin once, and he’d had to sit on his hands to stop himself from leaning over and kissing her. She’d offered to teach him to fly, and he’d meant to take her up on the offer, but he’d deployed before he could get the chance.

  The plane came close enough to hear the faint roar of its engine.

  Ayers looked up, and unfeigned shock spread over his face. “That’s not one of ours!”

  A wild hope made Ethan’s heart leap. Seizing the opportunity, he said, “I told you I radioed for help.”

  He had the satisfaction of seeing a flash of panic in Ayers’s cold eyes. “Vega, Jeffries, get the prisoner inside and lock him up! Park, sound the alarm! Kritsick, get me an RPG! I’ll shoot that thing out of the sky!”

  Two of the guards yanked Ethan up. He fought as hard as he could, kicking, head-butting, foot-stomping. Another two guards were forced to join the fray just to hold him in place.

  The plane was a black silhouette against the brilliant desert sky, but he could see now that it had a single pilot. Ayers drew a pistol and took careful aim. With a burst of strength, Ethan got one arm loose and lashed out, knocking the gun from Ayers’s hand. The shot went wild.

  Another gunshot sounded, and one of the guards holding Ethan collapsed. As the grip of the other guards loosened in shock, Ethan broke free, snatched the gun from the downed guard’s holster, and fired at Ayers. Kritsick lunged for him as he did so, grabbing for his gun. Ethan knocked the man aside, but his hand was jostled and he missed the shot. The bullet ricocheted off the concrete.

  The plane was coming in for a landing. Ethan bolted toward it.

  “Ethan! Hurry!” The pilot’s voice was hard to hear over the roar of the engine, but he recognized it nonetheless.

  It can’t be…

  But it was. As Ethan reached the plane, he looked up, incredulous, into Destiny’s warm brown eyes.

  Chapter 7

  Destiny

  Destiny had followed that strange inner conviction all the way to India, where it had become a directional pull. Ethan’s in trouble, it told her. That way.

  If she was losing her mind anyway, she might as well be crazy in style. She’d rented a small private plane and started flying that way. She’d worried about crossing the border into Pakistan, but that wasn’t where her directional sense led her. Instead, it sent her farther into India, and away from cities, towns, and villages. The terrain got wilder and wilder, shifting from scrubby hills to forest to jungle. And then the pull shifted as well, from forward to downward.

  Here, that inner sense told her. Ethan’s here.

  And he was.

  He was battered, bruised, and bloody. His uniform was torn and muddy, and he looked pale and exhausted. But he was alive.

  She threw open the door and helped him scramble into the passenger seat. He slammed the door and turned around, firing his gun in rapid succession.

  They were taking fire, too. What in the world was going on?

  Well, she wasn’t going to waste time wondering. Destiny accelerated for a take-off. “Buckle up!”

  Ethan fumbled to do so. When she took a quick glance at him, she saw that he wasn’t just distracted by providing covering fire; his left hand was bleeding. She snapped the restraint into place.

  “Thanks, mudpuppy.”

  “Any time, jar
head.”

  The plane lifted off and began rapidly gaining altitude. Just a few seconds more, and they’d be out of range of gunfire…

  “Evasive maneuvers!” Ethan yelled. “They’ve got an RPG!”

  Adrenaline flooded her system as she swung the plane sharply around. Even a glancing strike from a rocket-propelled grenade would take down this little civilian aircraft. It was intended for fun, not for war.

  A black streak of a missile barely missed the wing. She veered away. An instant later, the grenade exploded in midair in a burst of flame. The shockwave buffeted the tiny plane, knocking it off-course. She struggled to regain control.

  “Veer left!” Ethan shouted.

  Destiny tried, but the plane responded just a hair too slowly. The second grenade clipped the right wingtip, sending the plane into a spiral dive.

  She couldn’t pull it up. Nothing seemed to be responding. Her heart pounding, she began to pray aloud as she wrestled with the controls.

  A warm, strong palm pressed into her back. Calmly, Ethan said, “You’ve got this, Destiny. We’re out of range now. Just fly the plane.”

  Her panic receded. She did know how to deal with this. Taking a deep breath, she managed to get control of the plane and pull it out of the dive. Compensating for the damaged wing, she sent the plane skimming over the jungle, back the way she’d come. After a few tense moments, she was able to relax. The plane might not be in the best of shape, but it should get them back.

  “No pursuit,” Ethan reported as he peered back. “I think they might’ve had to go fetch the pilots, and by then we were out of sight.”

  “Who were those people?” Destiny asked. “They didn’t look Indian.”

  “They’re not,” Ethan replied. “I’m pretty sure they’re Apex.”

  “What?” She groaned. “Them again! I thought we were done with them.”

  “Not quite yet.” He quickly described what had happened to him and his team.

  “Those bastards,” Destiny swore. “Don’t worry, Ethan, we’ll rescue your men before Apex can do anything to them. We’ll call in my team as soon as we get to the airport. I don’t want to risk it now. Apex is probably monitoring all frequencies, trying to figure out where we are.”

  “Good plan.” He sounded more tired than relieved.

  She glanced at him. He had his forearm pressed to his side, bracing it. She knew that position all too well. “Did you break some ribs?”

  “Cracked, maybe. It’s no big deal. I’ll be fine once I tape them.”

  She also knew the automatic dismissal of any injuries that weren’t literally incapacitating. He’d said he’d hit his head and been unconscious for a while after he fell into the river, so he must have a concussion too. Once they got to the airport, she’d radio Protection, Inc., then drag him to a doctor and have him looked over while they were waiting for her team to arrive.

  “Any other injuries you haven’t bothered to mention?”

  “Well, this, but you saw it already.” He held up his left hand. The fingertips were bloody and bruised. It looked incredibly painful.

  “Did someone stomp on it?”

  “Nah. Stuck a knife under my fingernails.”

  Destiny saw red. “Who did that?”

  “Some guy named Ayers. He was the leader of the group that ambushed my team.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Destiny swore.

  “My team, my hand. I get dibs.”

  “That’s fair,” she said reluctantly. “Man, Ethan. You’ve really had a rough day.”

  He chuckled. “It improved a lot once you showed up. Hey, how’d you know to come here?”

  She was incredibly tempted to lie. If it hadn’t been for the extremely recent proof that she was absolutely terrible at it, and also for the fact that she couldn’t think of anything even remotely plausible, she would have. Instead, she confessed, “I know how weird this will sound, but I had a feeling you were in trouble, and I followed it here. I flew into India—”

  “Is that where we are?”

  “Yeah. I told my team I was going there on vacation. I didn’t bring any backup because I thought I was out of my mind.”

  “Huh. Well, you were right. I’m glad you trusted yourself enough to come. Nothing like that ever happened before?”

  She shook her head. “Not remotely. In fact—”

  The engine sputtered, sounding like a car running low on fuel. Destiny checked the fuel gauge, and was baffled to see it reading almost empty.

  “Can’t be,” she muttered to herself. “It should have enough for four more hours!”

  Then, with a sickening lurch in the pit of her stomach, she realized that shrapnel from the wingtip must have pierced the fuel tank. They’d been losing fuel as they flew, but it had blended invisibly with the water vapor and exhaust, so she hadn’t noticed.

  “Fuel tank’s hit,” she said. “I have to make an emergency landing. See anything flat?”

  “Just a lot of trees.”

  “We’ve got about five more minutes,” Destiny said, trying to keep her voice steady. They had very little chance of surviving a crash into a lot of trees.

  She scanned for anything but the dark green of thick jungle. Then she spotted an area of lighter green. It might just be a different type of tree, but it was the only thing she saw that even had a chance of being flat. She turned the plane toward it.

  The engine sputtered and choked. Her heart sped up as she realized that they were going to go down in that light green area, whatever it was.

  “Ethan, brace,” she ordered. “We’re going down.”

  “But you—” he protested.

  “I will too, but not yet. You brace now!”

  “You can do this.” He cupped her cheek in one warm hand, letting her draw strength and courage from his trust. Then he braced his knees and elbows, and buried his face in his arms.

  She could see the light green now, a small glade within the jungle. It would be a hard landing to make and they’d hit some trees for sure, but it was just barely possible. Destiny kept her touch light on the controls, tempted as she was to grab them hard. The plane bucked and lurched, and would have thrown them both out if they weren’t strapped in.

  Lightly, lightly, she thought. Skim like a seagull over the water…

  She’d lied to Ethan, she realized. She wouldn’t be able to land the plane and brace at the same time.

  Keep the nose up, and touch down lightly, lightly, light as a feather…

  The plane slammed into the ground, skidded to the side, and crashed into the trees. Her shoulder hit hard, then her head. She wasn’t knocked unconscious, but she was dazed, unable to react quickly. White smoke rose up from the engine, then a tongue of orange flame.

  I have to get out, she thought. I have to get Ethan out.

  But she couldn’t move. It was as if she was locked into a straightjacket.

  Ethan moved fast enough for both of them. He unsnapped his belt, reached over and unsnapped hers, and tried to yank her out of her seat. But she was stuck tight. Crumpled metal had folded over her chest and knees. Her arms were pinned, so she couldn’t exert any leverage to free herself.

  Swearing, he pulled harder. She didn’t budge. Then he fumbled under the seat, yanked out a crowbar from the tool storage compartment, and used that to pry the sheet metal away from her body.

  The flames were coming closer. The heat was searing. Sweat poured down her face and chest. The plane could go up in a fireball at any second.

  “Get out, Ethan,” Destiny begged him. “Forget me. Save yourself!”

  “No!” Ethan yelled. “Never!”

  He gave a desperate wrench with the crowbar, and the sheet metal moved. Destiny pushed with her feet as he wrapped his arms around her body and pulled. Her shirt tore and her skin was scraped, but she came free.

  Together they leaped from the burning plane. Ethan tugged her toward the safety of the trees, but she saw her backpack dangling from the wreckage. It had survival equip
ment in it that they’d need. She grabbed it and yanked. It had been snagged on a sharp piece of metal and tore open, spilling some of its contents into the fire. She tucked it under her arm, clamping down on the torn part to prevent anything else from falling out, and bolted with him.

  They got three steps into the jungle when the plane blew up. The shockwave of heated air knocked them both sprawling. Destiny looked back, worried that they’d have to get up and run if it started a forest fire. But the jungle was too damp for that, and there had been very little fuel left in the plane. The fireball went out, and the few patches of flame on the ground flickered, then died. In minutes, nothing was left but blackened metal and singed moss.

  They lay in a tangle on the mossy ground, shaking with spent adrenaline. Ethan was pale beneath his tan, and the wounds in his head and hand were bleeding again. When he wrapped his arms around her, he left smears of blood on her skin.

  “You’re safe,” he whispered. “You’re safe. I thought you’d never come free.”

  “You saved me.”

  “You saved me.”

  She sighed, letting her head rest on his shoulder. It felt like something forbidden—don’t touch if you can’t commit—but his solid muscle and warmth was so comforting, and the rise and fall of his chest reassured her that he was safe and alive.

  Destiny would have liked to lie there indefinitely, but they hadn’t flown all that far, and if she’d seen a landing area, any pursuit from Apex could have too.

  As if Ethan had read her mind, he said, “I hate to say it, but we’d better get moving. That wreck is going to look like a bulls-eye from above.”

  They reluctantly scrambled up. Ethan went back to the burned-out plane to see if he could salvage anything useful. While he was cautiously poking through the wreckage, Destiny did an inventory of what remained in the backpack. She still had several changes of clothes—the least important thing in it, though she couldn’t help being glad that she wouldn’t have to wear filthy rags around Ethan—a survival blanket, a compass, a lighter, a tiny sewing kit, a canteen, some granola bars, and a lightweight tin pot for boiling water. The medical kit was still there, but it had come open and most of the supplies were gone.