“Save your breath. I’m coming with you.”
Her lip curled. No doubt about it this time. It was definitely a sneer.
“Is there anything you won’t do for a story, Quinn?”
“If there is, I haven’t bumped up against it yet. Better get it in gear, Hamilton. Unless I miss my guess, our daily deluge is only minutes away.”
A quick glance over her shoulder had Tess stifling a groan. In the mere minutes since she’d last checked their position, the cotton-puff clouds had turned dark and threatening. Blown by a breeze that felt blessedly cool on her face, the thunder-heads scudded in above a sea that was now gray and choppy.
Great! Just great! She had armed unfriendlies possibly lurking nearby. A thoroughly obnoxious reporter dogging her heels. And now, what looked like a first-class tropical storm about to dump on her. Muttering a curse that would have shocked even her salty-tongued granddad, Tess continued up the steep slope.
As Quinn had predicted, the sky split open just minutes later.
The rain didn’t bathe the two climbers in cool, refreshing mist or drift down in gentle streams. The fat, bloated drops dive-bombed out of the clouds and hit with the force of hailstones. In the process, they made the rocks so slick that Tess slid down a foot or more for every yard she climbed.
The first time she slipped, her fire-retardant Nomex flight suit protected her knees. The second time, she sliced a palm on a razor-sharp outcropping of black rock. Cursing, she swiped the bloody cut against the leg of her flight suit and pressed on.
Quinn wasn’t faring any better, she saw in a quick glance over her shoulder. Those wrinkled shorts didn’t provide anywhere near the protection of her flight suit. Blood mixed with rain to run in pale-pink rivulets from a gash in his left knee, and he was sporting the beginnings of a nasty bruise on his right.
Home-based in Hawaii, Tess knew these tropical storms blew over almost as fast as they blew in. She hated to delay retrieving the recovery box and heading back down to the plane, even for a few minutes, but they couldn’t make much headway on these wet, slippery rocks. Wiggling around, she called back to Quinn.
“We’d better find a spot to hole up in until the storm blows over.”
He looked up, blinking the rain from his eyes, and surveyed the steep grade above her. “Best I recall, there’s a ledge a little farther up, with a good-sized overhang.”
With the way her luck was going today, Tess thought grimly, the unfriendlies had taken shelter from the slashing rain on the same ledge.
Signaling Quinn to stay put, she crawled up another few yards. Her fingers closed around a loose piece of lava rock. With a hooking, over-arm throw, she lobbed it onto the ledge. Her finger tight on the trigger of her automatic rifle, she waited for a startled shout, a scrabble of boots, a burst of gunfire.
None came.
Relieved but still wary, she inched up and confirmed with a quick, visual sweep that the ledge housed no other inhabitants. None of the nape variety, anyway.
Grunting with the weight of her equipment, Tess hauled herself onto the rock shelf and collapsed. She lay on her back for a moment, panting, while the rain pelted into her face. As soon as she gathered her strength, she’d roll onto her side and give Quinn the all clear.
She should have known the blasted man wouldn’t wait for her signal. Flexing an impressive set of muscles under his now-tattered shirt, he, too, hauled himself onto the ledge and collapsed. Right on top of her.
The breath she’d just sucked into her tortured lungs whooshed right out. She pulled it in again and waited for Quinn to roll off. Instead, he settled his weight more evenly over hers and pressed her into the rock.
“Well, well. Isn’t this cozy?”
The nasty gleam in his whisky-colored eyes told her he intended to milk the awkward situation for everything it was worth.
“I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were you,” Tess drawled. “You’re in a pretty vulnerable position at the moment.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
All it would take was one knee to the groin, one twist of her hips, and she could send him over the edge. She knew it. He knew it.
Tess was tempted. Lord, she was tempted! The guy was really starting to get on her nerves.
And under her skin.
To her consternation, she felt little pinpricks of sensation at every point where his body pressed into hers. He packed some weight onto his tall, lean frame. She could feel him along every inch of her body. Disconcerted by the way her nerves jumped at every contact point, she shifted her hips and glared up at him.
“I’m not here to play games, Quinn. Don’t think you’re going to add another trophy to your collection.”
“Trophy?”
“What else would you call that red lace thong? Unless, of course,” she added with a saccharine-sweet smile, “you’re into cross-dressing.”
Her tone implied she wouldn’t be at all surprised. Quinn answered with a wicked grin. “Nope, I’m not into cross-dressing. I am, however, into undressing. Ever get naked and fool around in a tropical rainstorm, Hamilton?”
Tess knew he was goading her, knew he’d no more strip down and leave himself vulnerable to attack at this moment than she would. Still, the mere suggestion raised some pretty potent images in her mind. She’d fingered more than just a few loose coins when she’d slipped her hand into the pockets of his khaki shorts.
Sternly banishing the memory of his hard thigh and seriously impressive equipment, she blew out an exasperated breath. “Enough of this nonsense, Quinn. How about we get out of the rain and behind some cover before one of those unfriendlies lines us up in his gun sights?”
With an agility he’d already proven during the arduous climb, he rolled to his feet and reached down a hand to help her up. Tess wasn’t too proud to take it. With the SAW and the extra ammo she’d stuffed in her pockets, her equipment weighed almost as much as she did.
The overhang provided some protection from the pelting rain. The fissures at the back of the ledge offered more. Most of the cracks were narrow, barely big enough for vegetation to take root and sprout, but one appeared wide enough to squeeze through.
“Looks like a cave of sorts,” Tess murmured, examining the opening.
“It probably is. This whole mountain’s riddled with them. I think the molten lava trapped air pockets when the volcano erupted who knows how many millennia ago. Every time the earth shifts, new fissures like these open up.”
She speared a glance at the drop beyond the ledge. From here, it looked a long way down. The idea of this narrow slice of rock shifting under her feet didn’t particularly thrill Tess at the moment.
“Does the earth move often around these parts?”
As soon as the question was out, she wished it back. Quinn, of course, took it exactly the way it wasn’t intended. His brows waggled. A lecherous grin creased his whiskered cheeks.
“Not often enough, sweetheart.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake! Give it a break, will you?”
“I’ll think about it,” he tossed back, unrepentant, just before sticking his head inside the fissure.
“Quinn!”
She leaped forward, intending to hook the waistband of his shorts and jerk him back. Someone who’d gone into Kandahar with the 101st should damned well have more sense than to poke his mug into a cave that hadn’t been cleared.
No one pumped a bullet into him, however, and Tess let her hand drop before she got into his shorts. Again.
“This one looks pretty deep,” he announced. “And dry.”
He wedged in sideways. Muttering under her breath at the risks he took, Tess followed.
“Move away from the entrance.” His impatient order echoed hollowly from deep inside the dim interior. “You’re blocking the light.”
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”
If Quinn heard the sarcastic reply, he didn’t respond in kind. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all
for some moments.
Tess used the short interval to prop her weapon against the rock wall. Water dripped from her hair into her eyes. Rain had drizzled down the back of her neck. She felt as though she’d taken a bath fully clothed.
There wasn’t much she could do about her soaked socks and boots at the moment, but at least she could get her wet hair out of her eyes. Pulling off her blue beret, she shoved it into the breast pocket of her flight suit. A quick tug released the plastic clip that held her hair up and off her shoulders. Using her fingers, she combed the fly-away tendrils back from her face. Once the clip was in place again and her hair semi under control, she squinted into the gloom.
“Quinn?”
He didn’t answer. His continuing silence was starting to make her nervous. Quietly, she reached for the SAW and checked the safety. Her finger was inching toward the trigger when Quinn emerged from the darkness.
His shirt hung open, gaudy and tattered. His knee still trickled a trail of watery red. But it was the deep, tight grooves bracketing his mouth that stopped her breath.
“We may be in trouble here,” he said grimly. “Deep trouble.”
Chapter 3
Tess didn’t like the sound of that terse pronouncement. At all. She searched the darkness behind Quinn but saw only shadows. Her glance zinged back to him.
“Just what kind of trouble?”
“Remember me telling you that the trail of terrorist-supplied arms I’ve been following had gone cold?”
“Yes.”
“It just heated up. This cave is a damned arsenal.”
“Great! Just what I needed to hear right now.”
“Take a look.”
He flattened against the rock wall to give her room to edge by. Her heart thumping, Tess squeezed past him and moved deeper into the dim interior. Barely enough light filtered through the narrow opening to illuminate the dark shapes stacked one on top of the other at the rear of the cave.
She couldn’t read the Chinese markings on the cases, but from their size and shape she had a hunch they contained AK-47 assault rifles, 20-caliber machine guns and mortars. The smaller boxes had to be ammo.
Two larger crates lay off to the side. The lid of one had been pried open. Tess scooped out a handful of packing material and found herself staring down at the weapon U.S. intelligence officials had dubbed the Red Parakeet, Tweet for short. It was a Chinese knock-off of the U.S. Army’s Stinger—a man-portable, shoulder-launched, heat-seeking missile. Despite its small size and simple “fire-and-forget” operability, the Tweet could knock a 747 out of the sky.
Or a C-130 transport.
The thought made her throat go dry. She scooped out more of the packing material and saw there were six of the missiles, securely mounted one above the other in special racks. Their launch tube lay nestled at the bottom of the crate.
Quinn materialized at her shoulder. “Are those what I think they are?”
“If you’re thinking Stingers, you’re close.”
With a low whistle, he angled his body to let in as much light as possible and snapped a half dozen shots. Tess barely heard the digital camera’s whirr. She was thinking hard and fast.
“I’ll have to rig up some kind of delayed fuse,” she murmured, more to herself than him. “Something that will give us enough time to get down the mountain before this stuff blows.”
He lowered the camera. “Come again?”
“The guys who stashed this stuff here could return at any time. I’m not real keen about letting them aim one of these Tweets at our aircraft when it takes off.”
“So you’re going to blow the whole cache?” he asked incredulously.
“That’s the general idea. I’d stack a few crates at the entrance of the cave and try to fire into them from a safe distance, but the angle’s all wrong. I’d be shooting up instead of down.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I’m thinking a delayed fuse of some sort. Or maybe…” Thoughtfully, she stroked her fingertips along a small, sleek missile. “Maybe I’ll just generate a little heat for this baby to lock onto. Yeah, that would work.”
“Christ, Hamilton, have you ever fired one of those?”
“There’s a first time for everything. Besides, I hear they’re idiot-proof.”
“Oh, yeah?” Planting his hands on his hips, Quinn blew that theory all to hell. “Tell that to the kid from the 101st I saw loaded onto a chopper in a body bag. He managed to detonate his supposedly idiot-proof missile before it left the launch tube.”
That didn’t sound good. Not good at all. Tess didn’t see any other choice, though. The missiles were the only option at this point.
“Look, I’m going to go up and retrieve the recovery box. Do me a favor and empty as many of these crates as you can. Stack them by the entrance to the cave, then make tracks down the mountain, okay?”
His jaw set. “No, it’s not okay. It’s not anything close to okay.”
“What’s your problem?”
“If you’re climbing up,” he said flatly, “I’m climbing up. So we’d both better start emptying crates. We’ll set them ablaze on our way back down.”
“Have it your way,” Tess snapped. She was tired of trying to save his scruffy hide.
The tropical storm ended as dramatically as it had begun. One minute, rain was sheeting down outside the cave. The next, the clouds parted, the sun blazed out, and Tess was steaming in her ankle-to-neck flight suit. The heavy auburn hair she’d wrung out and clipped up came loose again. It straggled down and lay hot and damp on her neck as she emptied crate after crate. Between them, she and Quinn managed to make a sizeable mound at the entrance to the cave.
“I just hope this stuff burns long enough for us to get down the mountain,” she worried.
“And hot enough for the Tweet to lock onto,” Quinn muttered, throwing another crate on top of the would-be bonfire. “There, that’s the last of them. Ready to climb?”
“Ready.”
He hefted his camera. She slung the SAW onto her shoulder. They’d pick up the Tweet when they came back to light the bonfire.
With the sun beating down on her back, Tess found a foothold in the black rock and edged off the narrow ledge. The lava still felt dangerously slick in places, but was drying fast. She climbed swiftly, propelled by the gnawing worry that the unfriendlies might return with reinforcements at any moment. Quinn was right at her heels when she reached the spot where the recovery team had been ambushed.
Equipment lay scattered everywhere. Shovels. Picks. The acetylene torch necessary to cut through the wreckage. A laptop computer. A box of calipers used, Tess guessed, to measure bone fragments.
Ignoring the scattered equipment, she made straight for a gray knapsack and went down on one knee. To her relief, the small wooden recovery box was nestled safely inside.
Relief gave way almost instantly to a stinging combination of sorrow and regret. This was all that remained of a man who’d gone off to war in defense of his country. Maybe he’d left a young wife behind. And children who’d grown up with only a few faded black-and-white photos to shape their memories of their father. Parents who’d never known what had happened to the son they’d sent off to war.
Slowly, Tess pushed to her feet. Spine straight, shoulders back, wrist as stiff as a pine plank, she brought the fingers of her right hand to her brow. She held the salute for several seconds in silent tribute to a fallen comrade before slicing her hand down to her side.
Only then did the soft whir of Quinn’s camera pierce her intense concentration. A snarl rose in her throat. She whirled, ready to rip the damned camera out of his hands and smash it against the rocks.
Quinn read the fury in her face. His own expression hardening, he issued a soft, lethal warning. “Don’t even think about it.”
“You’re starting to piss me off, fella. You want to know what you can do with that damned camera?”
“I’ve got a good idea. You wouldn’t be the first one to sugg
est it, either.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“What’s your problem?” he countered. “We made a deal, remember?”
“The deal didn’t include me,” she spat, snatching up the knapsack.
Oh, yeah, baby, Quinn thought. It did.
More and more his gut told him Sergeant Tess Hamilton formed the heart of his story. Or maybe that was his libido talking. No doubt about it, the woman had snagged his interest. Not once, but twice. The first time when she’d poked her hand into his pockets. The second when he’d landed on top of her down there on the ledge.
He could still see rain slick on her cheeks. See the surprise in her green eyes, their dark red lashes spiked together with the wet. He’d had to battle the almost overwhelming urge to dip his head and take a taste of her full, ripe mouth.
Matter of fact, he was still battling the urge.
That surprised him, considering his tastes usually ran to softer, more cuddly females. He’d never tangled with one who probably knew a dozen different ways to inflict bodily pain using only her thumbs.
Wondering how it would feel if she applied her thumbs to one or two of his more strategic pressure points, Quinn looped the camera strap over his head. Maybe he’d give her a call when he got back to Hawaii. Catch her between missions and find out if she looked as sexy in civilian clothes as she did in that figure-hugging green bag. Better yet, find out how she looked wearing nothing at all. His gaze lingered on her trim rear as she stood with her back to him and radioed the C-130.
“Raven Two, this is Raven One.”
“Go ahead, One.”
“I’ve secured the recovery box. Has the team returned to the plane?”
“That’s a rog, One. The gang’s all here. We’re just waiting on you.”
“Tell the aircraft commander to rev the engines. I’ve got one more little task to attend to, then I’ll join you.”
When a bullet splatted into a rock just inches from his head, Quinn’s vague plans for the future morphed into gut-clenching immediacy. The bad guys were back. It was time to get the hell out of Dodge!
In Love and War Page 3
