Dangerous Illusion

by Melissa James

  “Roger that.”

  “Go, teams,” he said, feeling as if they’d walked into a trap.

  “Get down, Beth. Keep out of sight, but check the back for possible points of entry and barricade them, any way you can.”

  Beth nodded to Mitch, dropping to her hands and knees. “Danny, there are bad men out there. I want you to hide,” she whispered. She couldn’t chance Danny’s safety on the bet that the threat wasn’t Falcone. “Come with me toward the back, and when I tell you, climb the bell tower. I’ll join you as soon as I can, but I need to help Mitch now.”

  Danny, wide-eyed but well trained in his fear of bad men, nodded and crawled beside her toward the ragged altar.

  “Nighthawk Team Three, Skydancer needs urgent assistance at Mankara village church. I repeat, urgent assistance, stat, with all available firepower. Request SAS backup!”

  “Roger that, Skydancer,” Panther snapped. “ETA two minutes.”

  Beth, crouched over, ran with all speed toward the presbytery and nave at the back of the long-abandoned church. Peering over the edge of the broken windows, she saw young men, dressed in secondhand-store army fatigues, belly-crawling toward the door. They looked like kids playing dress-up, barely older than Danny, except for the assault rifles in their hands…

  “Danny, go,” she whispered. And with one terrified look, Danny took off running for the bell-tower stairs. Grabbing the half-blackened but sturdy chair, she shoved it against the doors, then slammed the partly rotten wooden bar into place between the old-fashioned twist-up handles.

  It might hold them for a minute or two. She pulled out the Glock that Brendan had given to her before he’d headed out. “Just in case,” he’d said with a short, serious look and a hard kiss.

  Right now, she’d give anything to be able to have that moment back, forget her guilt and return his kiss.

  Mitch started firing his rifle through a hole he’d punched into the locked front doors. Turning to her, seeing the gun in her hand, he yelled, “Hold them off until backup arrives!”

  She nodded, her stomach roiling. Brendan, I need you now! What do I do?

  And then, as the belly-crawling kids came closer, she whispered a brief prayer, took careful aim and started firing out the hole in the nave window.

  Oh, yeah, baby, this reeked of setup…

  Only two people on board each cruiser, and only the most basic of handguns for defense? And hell, they’d given up in two minutes flat without more than a shot or two fired. If these guys were in the arms trade, he was a raw recruit. So what did that make the people on the ship? What was really on that ship?

  As they neared the small ship, more like a barge than anything else, he knew he was about to find out, but he had a gut feeling that he was going to hate the answer.

  “What’s the status on the Hardwicke, boss?”

  For answer, Anson cocked his head toward the eastern horizon. “Two, three miles max. Keeping out of sight, but ready to go full steam. Can get its choppers there within two minutes.”

  Not close enough. His gut was churning, the pain behind his eyes like a fire; his every instinct screamed danger. “Call in the choppers from the Hardwicke, boss,” he said softly.

  Anson only glanced at him for a moment, then he nodded. “I already prepped them to coincide with our arrival. This stinks. I feel it in my gut.” He pressed send on his paging device.

  McCall smiled grimly. He hadn’t realized how much he depended on Anson’s having the same deep-gut reaction and forethought.

  As the two cruisers approached the ship, McCall saw fifty men on deck, but among them was a face he recognized. Nobody important, just a lackey, a beefy no-brain brawler—but a faithful one. Two choppers lifted off from the back of the ship—big, shiny Apaches, built for speed, heading for the island.

  Suddenly he wanted to puke. For he knew who was behind this elaborate scheme, including ordering Skydancer to fly a convenient jet. He’d been had—all of the Nighthawks had been taken for a ride. Big-time. The rogue had struck again.

  “There are no arms in that ship—it’s Falcone, boss. He’s after Beth and Danny—and our jet to get them all back to Minca bel Sol. Get that ship here fast, and every chopper—and clear two of all but the crew. I need them,” he yelled. “We have to get back to Makanra—now!”

  Beth felt like the painted red bull’s-eye on a dartboard. A ring of furious kids with assault rifles surrounded them. All four of the Nighthawks and a single SAS team tried confusing them, to draw their fire. Mark time until the rest of the team returned. “We need to find out what the hell’s going on,” Mitch yelled grimly.

  So Beth kept shooting, one careful bullet at a time, aimed just before or beside one soldier, to stop their advance toward the church. Yet closer they came. And while Mitch and the others had to dodge bullets everywhere, none came near Beth. No one attempted to burn the church to smoke them out. As if they’d been told to keep the people inside safe.

  Dread pooled in the pit of her stomach. There are no arms on that ship. It was a decoy to get me where he could take me.

  As if in answer, the soft whump-whump of rotor blades came to her, growing louder as they came closer. A chopper…no, two of them…and bile rose in her throat. Her deepest instincts told her it wasn’t Brendan. Falcone was here.

  And the boy-soldiers moved a little closer.

  Time to stop playing. And she used all her skills to shoot now. Stifled screams came from the kids one after the other as she shot rifles out of their hands, or hit their fingers when she couldn’t manage to hit the weapons. She couldn’t make herself kill, or even seriously hurt these kids, even if it meant—

  She shuddered and kept firing to disable, to disarm as many as she could, and prayed desperately for Brendan and his team of angel-rescuers to come back to her.

  Chapter 22

  “N ighthawk Teams One and Two, we are under attack. I repeat—we are under attack at the Makanra church!”

  “We’re on the way, Skydancer. Repeat—five teams on our way to you!” Chafing, McCall sat with his team in one of four S-70B Seahawks on its way to Makanra, the fastest the Australian Navy had and, thank God, the equivalent of Falcone’s sleek, fast Apaches. They hadn’t lost sight of Falcone. The navy pilot pushed the Seahawk to its limit of a hundred and eighty knots; the engine screamed and every green light on the futuristic black console had hit max.

  Not fast enough!

  But the pilot knew what he was doing. The objective was to take Falcone alive, not engage in an exchange of firepower with their machine guns or torpedoes. The gunners crouched behind their armaments, ready to go, but held off. The tactical coordinator beside the captain checked for deployment from the Apache constantly, ready for evasive action.

  The Apache began descending, and as they followed it down, McCall saw the tower of a ruined church…and an advantage. “Secure and drop lines! Prepare to enter by way of the bell tower!”

  Nightshift secured a line to the chopper and tossed it to him. “How many?” he yelled back.

  “Full team. Nighthawk Team Two, secure the jet. Navy Teams One, Two and Three, join the outer perimeter of the church and take Falcone. NH Team One rescue subjects by way of tower.”

  After a quick-fire set of affirmatives, he spoke over the headset to the captain. “Captain Davies, hover over the bell tower as long as possible. Gunners to cover us!”

  “Aye, Commander!” Davies bore right, to the rickety wooden tower. McCall prayed fervently that Beth and Danny were okay—

  And then he heard the bell ringing!

  As they reached the bell tower, to the deadly, whining symphony of constant bullets, McCall slithered down the rope with trained agility, and his heart almost burst with pride. For, all alone in that unsteady bell tower, jumping up and down to reach the bell, and whacking it with a ripped-up piece of flooring, was his little boy. “Help!” he was screaming between thuds to the brass bell. “Daddy, come back! Help us!”

  “Danny-boy!”
he yelled as he slid the last few feet and swung into the massive hole on one side. “Danny!”

  “Daddy!” Danny screamed, and threw his skinny, shaking little body at McCall. McCall hugged him close. “Good boy, Danny. You did good—you did great! Now get down behind the bell, pal—there are bad men firing bullets. I’m going down to get your mom and Mitch, and we’re all going for a ride in a helicopter, okay?”

  “Okay, Daddy.” Danny, still shaking with the valiant effort not to cry, dropped to the floor.

  When the final man dropped into the bell tower and hit the ground running downstairs to support Skydancer, McCall shouted, “Rig a harness to a second line, Heidi.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “I’ll be sending Danny up on it. Stay there to take care of him when he reaches the chopper.”

  “Yes, sir.” Heidi’s voice soured a little.

  McCall didn’t have time to care about Heidi’s nonexistent maternal instincts. He raced down the stairs, leaping three at a time when they were uncertain or rotting. “Beth!” he roared.

  “Brendan!” she screamed from the direction of the nave, and he bolted there. She stood in the shadows of a shattered stained-glass window. On either window beside her, Wildman and Braveheart were shooting lines in the dirt, creating dust clouds so thick it choked the kids outside and they couldn’t see to shoot straight.

  McCall hauled Beth so close she felt like an extension of him, part of his skin. “I’m sorry, so sorry to put you through this. We should have known, should have seen the setup!”

  “It’s my fault. He’s after me,” she cried fiercely, and dragged his mouth down to hers for a fast, hard kiss. “Now let’s get to Danny, and out of here!”

  He nodded. “Braveheart, Wildman, go ahead into the chopper. Remaining Nighthawks, block all exits and prepare to evacuate!”

  They split into two groups—one man covered them as the others blocked the exits. Within a minute, all eight men would be in the bell tower.

  McCall led Beth up the stairs as quickly as safety allowed.

  Confused shouting reigned outside as dust clouds from more chopper blades sent dirt into unprotected eyes, throats and lungs. With deadly intent, Falcone’s Apaches closed in on the outer ring of Nighthawk/SAS fighters, but the navy teams had landed, and men poured out to reinforce the rescue efforts.

  The ragtag army of teenagers screamed and started to run.

  And the second Nighthawk chopper remained hovering on the other side of the bell tower, covering the rescue operation in the church, facing off against Falcone’s hovering Apache. Firepower against firepower, a bare three hundred feet apart: mutually assured destruction. It would just take one button.

  But the Nighthawks inside never faltered. If that was what it took to stop Falcone’s men moving in with relentless purpose on their mission subject, so be it. If they could take Falcone alive, kudos for them—if not, they would get Beth and Danny away safely, whatever the cost.

  In the tower, the wind blasted around McCall and Beth as they tried to get Danny, squirming and crying, into the harness. “No! I can’t! Mummy, I’ll fall down and the bad men will get me!”

  “No, baby, it’s all rigged up to make you safe,” Beth soothed frantically. “Come on, sweetie.”

  “No! No! The bad man will get me! I want Daddy!”

  “He’ll follow us. Come on, sweetie, you’re such a big, brave boy. It’s just a little ride—”

  “No!” Danny screamed, wrenching out of her hold. “I want to go with Daddy. I want to go with Daddy!”

  “Danny, sweetie—”

  “Stop coddling him, Beth! No one’s gonna shoot him when Falcone wants him safe!” McCall picked up Danny’s wriggling body and dumped him in the triple-locking harness, strapping him up safely. “Danny-boy, you can’t fall out of this, and the only way someone will get you is if you don’t go now! If you want Mummy and Daddy up there with you, stop fighting us. Now make me proud of you, son, stop crying and go!”

  Danny stopped crying with a savage hiccup and stared at McCall for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Y-yes, D-daddy.”

  “Good boy. Go!” he screamed into his two-way. Braveheart and Wildman, who’d swarmed up into the chopper ready to lift Danny, hiked him up and into the chopper while the gunners kept the Apache in their sights. Beth watched in open terror.

  Not a single shot fired while Danny was in the harness; but as soon as he was inside safely, the Apache started moving in.

  “Team One! Remain on ground and make your way to the other choppers or the jet. Rendezvous on board the Hardwicke for debriefing ASAP.”

  “Affirmative, sir!”

  As soon as the harness fell again, McCall started shoving Beth into it, to the violent whirring wind of two choppers’ rotors too close together. “Send a line for me, stat!”

  “Affirmative, sir!”

  A line fell. He wrapped it around his waist, then looped its midsection around one wrist. “Let’s go,” he yelled into the two-way. “Take Beth up, stat. I’ll haul myself, and cover her.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “No!” Beth screamed as her line yanked up, and he lifted himself on his line at the same time, forming a human shield for her. “No, Brendan, I’ll go alone!”

  “Don’t go against the Team Commander’s orders in an op,” he yelled back. “This suit’s double-lined. I’m SEAL-trained, Beth, I can protect myself.” And God forgive me for lying to you. “Now go!”

  She rose another foot, her lip bitten down hard, her eyes filled with fear and love as he matched her, motion for motion. He smiled at her. Her hand reached out to him, then fell. She looked so helpless. “Don’t die, amado,” she mouthed. “Please don’t die.”

  He smiled again, but didn’t answer, and the terror in her eyes grew, knowing as well as he did that he was unable to lie in the last words he might ever speak to her. “I love you,” he mouthed back. “I always loved you, Beth. I always will.”

  Her eyes closed, and tears dripped down, splashing over him as her body jerked and swayed with the movement of the lifting harness and he kept perfect pace, jump and hold.

  They made it out of the bell tower, out of the possible dangers from broken tiles and splintered wood. She harnessed helplessly, he using all the strength he had to lift himself up, hand over hand, with palms and fingers he’d roughened with dirt from the floor to gain better grip. Even with his arm aching from the recent stitches, he kept pace with her. He gave her a cheeky wink. “Halfway up and all’s well—” Another hand, another—

  Thwack.

  He jerked on the rope as the pain smacked into his side through the thick, padded wet suit he still wore. He’d known all along. Of course Falcone would bring a sniper with him to take out Beth’s bodyguards. He’d take Beth someplace where some of his cronies would see him kill her, slowly. He couldn’t let it happen. He had to keep climbing…if only he could breathe.

  “Oh, my God!” Beth cried, as Brendan’s body snapped backward, and he roared in agony but kept climbing, kept her covered with his body. “Brendan! Brendan’s been hit!” Thwack.

  Another hit. Oh, no, she couldn’t see where, but she could see his hands, slipping just a fraction, and he fell a foot, two—oh, God, they were killing him.

  “Take me down!” she screamed, making frantic hand movements in case those in the chopper couldn’t hear her.

  An inch down, two…and she twisted her totally-harnessed body around, reached down to him. “Brendan!”

  Slowly, his face lifted. It was ashen-white. “Go.” She couldn’t hear the word, only read his lips. “Too close. They’ll hit you.” His right hand, above the left, gripped another foot higher on the rope.

  He was still climbing in an effort to cover her, to save her.

  “No! Damn it, McCall, no!” She threw her entire body into the reach and got a hold of his right wrist, still with the rope wrapped around it. “Damn you, help me!” she screamed.

  Again, he said something she couldn’t he
ar, but three she could read clearly. Falcone catch you.

  She strained with her free hand, panicking as her left, gripping his right, began to slip. “I don’t care! I won’t live without you, McCall. Now give me your hand!”

  He gazed at her one last time, his tortured eyes searching her face. Then, with agonizing slowness, as if his body fought his will, his left hand came up, gripped her right.

  The chopper took off, racing for the sea and the safety of the waiting ship. Even in his agony, Brendan swung his body right and left, making them both a moving target as the bullets kept flying, flying around the fight going on below them, and at them.

  Thwack. She felt another small, sickening thud, and the horrifying jerk of his beloved body. Three shots…and he was losing strength to hold on…

  She’d never blessed her tough potter’s hands more than now. Her rough skin gave grip that nicely moisturized model’s hands never would. But oh, how she wished she’d wrapped the rope around her wrists first for strength. She was losing more every moment.

  Thank God, they were out of range of the bullets, it seemed. Hang on, Brendan, meu amado! Hang on! Fight!

  Falcone’s Apache was chasing them! Thank God, it was held up by returning fire to the Navy chopper behind it, but it was coming after her, after Danny. Was Falcone that insane, that obsessed with his so-called honor, with killing her and taking Danny that he’d chase them all the way to a navy fighter ship?

  She couldn’t look up, or cry out, or think. All her strength was focused on holding Brendan, on trying to ignore the agonizing burn of pain in her wrists and shoulders, elbows and every muscle in her upper body, stopping that sickening fall to earth—

  She fought it with all the desperation she had, but Brendan could no longer help—he was unconscious and a dead weight, too heavy for her to hold. Another twenty seconds, and her left wrist snapped, her right shoulder popped—and he fell from her useless hands. “No! No!” she screamed in despair. “Brendan! Brendan!”

  He fell only twenty feet, jerking with a snap against the rope tied against his waist—the snap of a fraying rope…