by Cherry Adair
He boosted Acadia inside as gunfire shattered the whoop-whoop-whoop of the fast-moving rotors.
Spincher grabbed her hand, hauling her all the way in.
Zak jumped after her, and the man yelled, “Go! Go! Go!” through his lip mic.
A bullet struck the side of the four-bladed, twin-engine Apache, pinging loudly as Zak pushed Acadia down and buckled her into a harness. Then he sat beside her and secured his own. The armor-plated door slid closed.
Normal conversation was impossible. Reith brought a pair of headsets back; Zak placed Acadia’s over her head and hooked her up, then settled his own back on his head.
They rose at seven hundred feet a minute, taking fire to the body, but giving back worse than they received. The 30mm automatic M230 chain gun fired at something like 625 rounds a minute. It took out the last SUV and several police cars with it. Whatever personal vendetta Buck had against Zak, he’d just made it into an international incident. Fuckit.
He looked over Acadia’s head as the vehicles exploded in another fiery display. The show had drawn a swarm of police cars, lights and sirens blazing.
Acadia trembled, her face white and streaked with dirt.
He touched her cheek. “Okay?”
Her eyes, fixed on the rapidly retreating tarmac, slowly swiveled to his face. Mutely, she shook her head and made a rocking motion with her hand. Zak pulled her into his arms and pressed her head against his shoulder.
They flew over downtown Caracas, and within minutes saw the smoke cloud over the safe house, now a big fucking hole in the ground. Jesus. No good deed went unpunished. Savin was going to have his ass. And Zak had a feeling he wouldn’t be invited back to Venezuela anytime soon.
It would all be worth it if—when—he found Gideon. Alive.
THEY FLEW OVER THE camp where the military helicopter carrying Buck’s security people had landed. There was nothing more than blackened earth from another massive explosion. Jesus—how much explosive did these assholes have? And why the fuck would Buck’s people blow up a multimillion-dollar chopper? Didn’t make sense. Fuckit. None of this made any sense.
Licks of flame leaped between smoldering parts of what was left of the Blackhawk.
“Any chance they’re already on their way in?” Zak demanded, although the smell of the lazily drifting smoke told the story. Jet fuel, burning rubber, and charred human flesh.
“That bird was shot out of the sky,” Reith told him grimly. “Nobody walked away.”
“Or it was set up to look that way,” Zak said grimly. Buck was a clever guy. Zak wouldn’t put it past him to pull something off like an “accident” to misdirect his partner into thinking he had a better shot at rescuing Gideon.
“Pretty fucking expensive hoax,” Spincher said into his lip mic.
The cost would be immaterial to Buck. “There’s a big payoff.” They left the smoking wreckage behind and flew low over the tree canopy as Zak gave them the coordinates again.
He drew in a deep breath, his focus on finding Gid. He’d deal with Buck when the time came, he suspected sooner than later, but for now his focus was on his brother’s rescue.
Two of Savin’s men would rappel down with him. The other two, with the pilot and Acadia, would remain in the air. The men would lay down cover fire when they found and extracted Gideon. The sun was a red-hot ball as it sank behind the treetops. Zak rested the fingers of his left hand over the face of Gideon’s watch, a talisman, on his right wrist. Wearing a too-big bulletproof vest supplied by one of the men, along with a helmet and goggles, and strapped in on a cord, Acadia huddled beside him, her gray eyes wide as she tried to take it all in.
She slipped her slender, slightly damp hand into his, linking her fingers with Zak’s.
He wished with everything in him that she wasn’t there. This whole situation was as fucking precarious as climbing Everest without oxygen tanks. The variety of possibilities for maiming, failure, and probable death was mind-boggling.
He changed his depth perception and visually fuzzed out everything around him, a trick he’d learned years ago for when he had to concentrate and focus. He had to trust that the trained professionals would keep Acadia out of harm’s way while he focused on his brother’s rescue.
Zak hated depending on other people to do his job: protecting the woman he l—protecting Acadia Gray, an innocent caught up in his mess.
He’d failed once with a woman who’d counted on him to keep her safe. Even from herself. He wouldn’t do it again. For a moment, Zak’s conscience warred with his heart.
What if he hadn’t developed a sixth sense after he’d officially died? What if he did have fucking brain damage and this was a hallucination?
What if he was responsible for dragging innocent people into this fucking delusion with him? Zak had to call it now. Time was running out. Rappel down and hope to God he found his brother? Or have the pilot change course and get Acadia to safety? The numbers in his head kept up their steady, uninterrupted scroll.
If he could believe them, Gideon was in the same position he’d been in an hour ago. That would make retrieval easier.
The chopper started slowing as it made its descent.
Acadia’s finger’s tightened in his. Call it, Stark.
Thirty-five years with a brother he adored, versus a handful of days with Acadia?
It shouldn’t be a hard choice.
“Stark?” Reith said through his headset, indicating the chopper’s GPS. Zak nodded. Correct coordinates. In fact, the numbers in his head were brighter somehow, more vivid the closer they got. Gideon was down there …
The other man flashed a five-second countdown with his fingers.
The chopper dropped another couple of hundred feet.
Acadia’s fingers looked small and bloodless clutching his.
The sound of the rotors would be heard on the ground now, and soon enough the chopper would be seen. But there was nothing but thick jungle for miles in every direction. Whoever was with Gideon wouldn’t get far.
Zak untangled his hand from Acadia’s. She turned to smile at him. A small, brave smile that tore a hole in his chest, as though something had been ripped out of him. It hurt, empty and aching and brutal. The breath left him with a harsh sound.
Because he couldn’t not touch her, he reached out and put two fingers across her soft mouth. Her lips brushed his fingers as she said softly, “Go get Gideon, Zak. Bring him home.”
Before either of them did something fucking stupid, he got to his feet.
Reith slid open the door, and dropped the rope bags. Zak fastened the M-16 securely across his chest. Checked to make sure that the KA-BAR knife and sidearm weren’t going to go on separate trips without him as he rappelled, and waited his turn as Reith disappeared over the side of the chopper.
Don’t look back, Stark.
The air whistled past him, and he took a deep breath. It didn’t fill the hole behind his heart.
Fuckit. He stepped over the side.
THERE WAS NOTHING SUBTLE about it. Zak, Reith, and Spincher saw the glint of firelight between the trees and went in guns blazing. Trying not to be distracted by the way the numbers were getting brighter and brighter, as if someone were turning up a dimmer switch, Zak fired the M-16, getting off the first shot at the two men unlucky enough to be the welcoming committee.
With a surprised shout, the first man dropped. Zak swiveled to drill the next guy, but Spincher got him first. That man also dropped to the recently cut vegetation, blood a crimson wash across his fatigues.
Repulsed, Zak was reminded of all the fucking reasons he didn’t like guns. They killed, and they killed fast.
Two men flanked Piñero in the rough clearing, Uzis in their hands.
“Buenas tardes, Señor Stark. Bienvenido de nuevo. You missed our hospitality, I see.”
Zak saw the hastily constructed shack out of the corner of his eye. Six by six. No windows, no ventilation. It would be like an oven inside. “Gideon!”
&nbs
p; It was a fucking Mexican standoff, the six of them standing there with their weapons pointed at one another. Zak itched to shoot them. It’d save time, if they were fast enough not to get shot in return.
Not likely. “Drop your weapons,” he told them coldly. God, he’d never felt such a strong desire to do violence.
“I think—” Piñero began haughtily, and Zak squeezed the trigger, firing a round close enough to the woman that he saw the whites of her eyes as the bullets whizzed by her ear. The man to her left screamed in fear and covered his head; his weapon sailed into the wall of green behind him.
“Drop them now,” Zak instructed, firing another warning shot. “Gideon?” he yelled again. A parrot screeched and jettisoned out of a nearby tree. Zak lifted the barrel to point directly at the middle of Piñero’s forehead. “Bring him out. Now.”
She didn’t move, but whispered something to the guy on her right. He was medium height and dressed in boots and camo, his cap pulled low over his eyes. The man responded, and Piñero, clearly reluctant, threw down the Uzi. Without having to be told, she clasped her hands on top of her head.
“All your weapons,” Spincher told them as he and Reith fanned out around them. A quick search showed the guerrillas were unarmed. “Go get him,” he added to Zak. “We don’t have much time.” Reith walked behind them, and told the men to put their hands behind them. Loida Piñero did so, an unpleasant smile on her thin, homely face. Her men followed suit.
“Me da pena que él no puede caminar sin ayuda.” Handcuffed behind her head, Piñero jerked her chin at the shack.
Zak turned for the shack. Suddenly a spray of bullets winged past them. Gunfire echoed from the surrounding vegetation, and Piñero laughed as she sprinted for the border of the clearing.
“Incoming!” Reith shouted, and added harshly, “Stark, go! We’ll engage. Go, go, go!”
Ducking low, Zak sprinted for the shack, his heart in his throat.
He raced across through the tall grass and small shrubs, and crouched, desperately aware of the report of automatic fire behind him.
The narrow door of the shack was nailed shut. “Gid! Stand aside, I’m coming in!” One hard kick from Zak’s booted foot, and the door ripped off its hinges and clattered to the floor inside.
“Ah, Jesus, Gid—” It only needed one large stride to reach the opposite side of the sweltering hot structure, where his brother was sprawled on the floor. His clothing was dark with sweat and covered liberally with blood. Zak didn’t know where to touch him to see if he was alive. The numbers were pulsing and so bright he wouldn’t have been surprised if anyone looking at him could see them too.
He crouched beside his brother and carefully turned his face. It was battered and bruised. One eye was swollen shut; his lower lip was split, already fat and puffy and crusted with dried blood.
“Gid …” Zak had to swallow bile and regret before he could go on. “I’ve come to take you home, you lazy son of a bitch. Rise and shine.”
He heard a volley of shots outside as he placed his fingers on Gideon’s throat. Holding his breath, he prayed harder than he’d ever prayed as he searched for a pulse. It was there, slow and thready. Zak thought Gideon was unconscious, until his brother slitted open one eye to give him a dazed, unfocused look.
“Z-zak.” He barely got out the one slurred word. Clearly Gideon was too weak to even lift his head, let alone walk. God damn it, he wouldn’t be able to climb up a fucking rope attached to a moving helicopter.
More shots were fired, and men’s voices shouted warnings and instructions. Fuck. Now what? Zak hiked the M-16 across his shoulder, and shifted to pick up his brother. “I’m going to lift you. Don’t try to help.”
“S-s-sh.” Gideon struggled to speak, his limp fingers weakly searching for purchase until they closed around Zak’s wrist. “S-she … ba-ack.”
“Hey. Hey, okay. Don’t worry about anything, okay? I’ve got you.” He grabbed Gideon’s arm and did a fireman’s lift. Knowing he was causing him untold pain by the movement, he went as fast as possible. Gideon’s dead weight hung over his shoulder, limp as a rag. “You’re going to be okay,” he grunted. “You’re going to be o—”
“… ant you …” Gideon’s voice was weak, but he plucked with surprising strength at the back of Zak’s sweat-soaked shirt to get his attention as they went through the door.
“Yeah. I know,” he muttered, concentrating on not letting his brother slide off his shoulder, trying to hold the M-16 in one hand, wondering where the fuck everyone was. “Buck wanted us both dead. He’ll pay, Gid. He’ll—”
A soldier stepped into the path, blocking his way. Zak lifted his weapon, finger squeezing down on the trigger as the guerrilla spoke in a low, deadly voice. “I see you haven’t changed, you selfish bastard. You’re still giving credit where it isn’t due.”
Impossible.
Improbable.
In the fucking flesh.
Zak froze. “Jennifer?!”
NINETEEN
Surprised?” Jennifer asked, cocking her hip and readjusting her hold on an Uzi.
Zak stared at the woman’s vaguely familiar face, which didn’t go with the very familiar voice. She’d been the “guy” standing beside Piñero, the one who’d convinced the soldiers to drop their weapons. The only thing familiar about her was her voice.
“What?” Zak asked blankly, incapable of wrapping his mind around the fact that he was talking to a woman he thought he’d buried two years ago.
Dressed in camouflage pants and shirt, an Uzi strapped across her chest, a KA-BAR knife in an ankle holster—Jennifer just didn’t fit. He was in another fucking dimension. Whereas once she’d been tall and slender, the sixty-plus pounds she’d packed on distorted her once-willowy frame. But it wasn’t just the weight gain that had changed her features so as to be unrecognizable; it was also the drastic plastic surgery that had thrown him off. She was a grotesque, distorted Angelina Jolie impersonator.
Brows, nose, cheekbones. He tried to superimpose his beautiful and elegant Jen, with her small delicate features and slender body, onto the bloated, altered woman before him. “I buried you.”
Jennifer’s laughter was harsh. She tossed a long, greasy black braid over her shoulder. “Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated, Zakary.”
No shit. “I went to bring your body home.” Zak’s chest ached at the bitter memory. “We buried an empty casket because there wasn’t enough of you to take home.” Two years of soul-eating guilt that he hadn’t been able to save her, even from herself. Two fucking years of blaming himself for what had happened to her. Her death had colored his world.
“I must admit, faking my death in Haiti was a little complicated. But nothing a few thousand American couldn’t expedite.”
Gunfire erupted beyond the trees, but Zak kept his entire attention on her. “Why?”
“I was bored, bored, bored, Zakary.” She took off her cap, keeping the weapon pointed at his chest. He didn’t doubt for a second that she’d shoot him right there and not bat an eyelash. Despite the sultry heat, his skin felt cold and his gut twisted with impatience and revulsion.
“I thought you’d be much more exciting than you turned out to be. You told me no a lot. I don’t like being dictated to. Marriage wasn’t working. I think you knew that early on. But you’re so fucking bullheaded, so sure you’re always right, you kept on trying and trying and fucking trying.”
“We’d made a commitment.” Jesus. He had to get Gideon on that chopper—“I believed if we worked at it, we could make it work. I did my best to make you happy.” And it had never been enough.
“Well it didn’t, and I wasn’t. You fell out of love with me before we even got married, didn’t you? Yeah. I knew you did. But you were fool enough to hang on, flogging a dead horse, for six interminable years.” She started as a troupial erupted out of a nearby tree, but even though she flinched at the sound and movement, her weapon was steady as she insisted he backtrack. “It was time to move
on. I had other things to do, other places to go.” She caressed her Uzi as if it were a pet.
He heard another series of rapid retorts of automatic gunfire beyond the trees, and the whop-whop-whop of the helicopter over the canopy. Sweat rolled down his temple. Gideon’s thready pulse beat right over the bandage on his own bullet wound. He adjusted his brother’s weight; the urge to turn his back on Jennifer and run like hell for the chopper was so powerful his muscles shook and his heart pounded. But an Uzi to the sternum, at such close range, was a strong deterrent. One bullet would kill Gideon with him.
A bone-deep ripple of revulsion swept through him. The loathing he saw in Jen’s eyes was as unfamiliar as her appearance. He just wanted to get the hell back to the chopper. Jennifer and her fucking theatrics could go straight to hell.
“We could’ve divorced, as I suggested a few weeks before you went to Haiti,” he said tightly. “You cried and begged me to give us another chance—What happened to the baby?”
She laughed. “Get serious.”
“There was no baby.” Of course not. He’d been talking divorce. The ruse had worked. He’d wanted to work things out.
“A divorce would’ve been a lot simpler than all this.” And he could have gone on with his fucking life without all the guilt eating at him like a staph infection.
“I was still making plans for this.” She swept her arm out to encompass their surroundings. “I wasn’t going to walk away with a paltry five million when I could have it all.” She’d been unpredictable and theatrical before, but Zak had no idea how to handle this Jennifer. Was this where she’d been heading, all those times before? What he’d thought of as moody … Christ.
“How did you know about the safe house?” Acadia could have died in the explosion. Fuckit. She could still die if a bullet hit the chopper.
“Your girlfriend made a call to the States.” With the barrel of the Uzi, Jennifer motioned for him to step back. Back to the shack where she’d held Gideon. Back, away from the helicopter, rotors throbbing overhead. “With the help of the local police, I was tracking your cell phones within half an hour of you buying them. Almost got her that time. But it doesn’t matter. It’s not legal. You’re already married.”
