Bullseye

by Jessica Andersen

  Chapter Ten

  Fear slashed through Jacob. Hell. It wasn’t Search and Rescue. It was the bastards who’d sabotaged the plane, come to check on the survivors.

  Or to make sure there weren’t any.

  He grabbed Isabella with one hand and the emergency pack in the other. “Run!”

  “The radio!” She reached back, but he pulled her away.

  “Leave it. We don’t have time!”

  They bolted toward a ridge of stony outcroppings, where the desert gave way to the low scrub of vegetation.

  They were no more than halfway to the dubious safety of the rocks and brush when the helicopter crested on the far side of the canyon and dropped down, toward the wrecked plane.

  “Hurry!” Isabella sped up. “I don’t think they’ve seen us yet!”

  Sure enough, the bird dropped down into the canyon, aiming for the shattered jet.

  Staggering through sand that went from hardpan to soft mush and back again, Jacob and Isabella dragged each other to the rocks. Once there, he realized the red boulder formation was larger than it had seemed. He spotted a dark crevice and pointed. “Get in the cave!”

  Heart thundering, he grabbed her by the waist and flung her up to the nearest ledge. He boosted himself up behind her as she scrambled toward the dark opening. It wasn’t quite deep enough to be a cave, but the back of the shallow cavern widened just enough that they could hide from a frontal attack.

  Even better, there was a shaft of sunlight at the rear, coming through a body-size crack in the back wall.

  That was something, Jacob thought. At least they had an escape route.

  Tension laced through his body, the overwhelming need to protect Isabella tangling with the urge to sneak back toward the crash site and identify their pursuers.

  Had the jet been brought down by the MMFAFA or another group? Was King Aleksandr involved or was someone else masterminding the attempts on his and Isabella’s lives? And how the hell had their pursuers managed to not only identify the jet and their flight plans, but also to sabotage the plane while it was on the ground refueling?

  The questions battered at him, wrangling alongside another confusion.

  Isabella. Sex. What had just happened between them.

  She pressed close to him to peer through the cavern opening toward the crash site, where the helicopter remained out of view within the canyon. “Maybe they’ll believe we died in the plane crash.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up.” He shifted away from her, all too aware of the pounding arousal from their sandy encounter, all too conscious of the taste of her on his lips, the feel of her on his skin.

  The scent of her steeped all around him.

  Then the rotor sound deepened and the bird appeared from the canyon. Dark and anonymous and menacing, it hung just above the sand, facing the bright red plastic of the emergency radio and the line of footprints they had gouged in the sand.

  Jacob cursed, expecting a strafing run at any moment, half braced for bullets to spew down from the sky.

  But instead the dark helicopter landed near the radio. A black-clad figure emerged, silhouetted against the sand and backlit by the sinking sun. Weapon held casually at his side, the man grabbed the emergency radio, tossed it into the chopper and climbed aboard the skid.

  The bird lifted off the sand and paused, as though the pilot was waiting for something. Then it spun in a slow arc and headed toward the jumbled rocks.

  Isabella reached out and gripped Jacob’s hand. “Here they come. But why so slowly?”

  Jacob muffled a bleak curse. “They’re using the rotor wash to smooth out our footprints. By the time the real Search and Rescue folk get here, it’ll look like we never left the jet.” The bird neared the lowest rock outcropping and hovered. The dark-suited figure dropped down, then reached up to accept a small pack with the grace of a trained killer.

  A trained hunter.

  Then the helicopter turned and powered away, leaving the man behind.

  “Where are they going?” Isabella whispered. Tension thrummed through her body and into his.

  “They don’t want to be here when the rescue folk follow my mayday. Hell, they’re cutting it close now.” He wished he could touch her, comfort her, but now was not the time. He needed to focus on escape. On survival.

  On protecting Isabella from the hunter, who held his weapon at the ready as he sprang up to the first rock ledge and disappeared behind an outcropping.

  Tension hummed through Jacob. Knowing they only had a few minutes before the man worked his way up to their hiding spot, he reached for the emergency kit. Isabella watched him, eyes dark with questions and stress, and probably pain from the wound in her arm and a dose of fear, as well.

  She hid everything except the question. “What’s the plan?”

  He pulled a flat case out of the bag. “Take this and load her up.”

  She quickly flipped the lid, then raised an eyebrow at the sight of the sleek 9 mm. “What else do you have in there?”

  “Enough.” He pulled out a packet of flares and a pressure trigger. “We brainstormed these emergency kits when Cameron first expanded Big Sky, and we’ve added to them over the years. Most everything in the bag can be used for five or six purposes.”

  She slapped a clip into the 9 mm and pocketed three others before closing the case and setting it aside. “And what’s our current purpose?”

  “We’re setting up an ambush,” he said, and hoped he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt.

  He glanced over at her, took in the shadows beneath her eyes and the firm set of her chin, and wished there was another, safer way. But there wasn’t. This was the best shot they had at staying alive. Their assailant was keeping below the rock line, offering them no target for a turkey shoot.

  He was going to come at them at the last moment. It was what any trained killer would do.

  Hell, it was what Jacob would do.

  “You want us?” he muttered, gesturing Isabella to stand back. “You’re going to have to come and get us.”

  He set the flares on one side of the crevice opening and the pressure pad on the other, stretched a thin wire between them and gently brushed a handful of sand atop the mess.

  It was crude, but it would have to do as a distraction.

  “Come on.” He mouthed the words, figuring the hunter might be within hearing distance. “Out the back.”

  A true professional, Isabella didn’t hesitate, didn’t argue. She shouldered the emergency pack and handed him the 9 mm. Then she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his in a fleeting kiss that added a hotter note to the energy thrumming through him. “Kneecap him if you can. I want answers.”

  Jacob nodded. “You got it.”

  They eased out the back entrance, backing step by step and scanning their surroundings lest the black-clad man sneak up and around them. But Jacob was betting he’d head for the cavern opening. It was the obvious choice for a hiding spot.

  The air outside the cavern was hot and dry, though maybe a few degrees cooler than before. The shadows were longer, the sun nearly lost in the sky. Hurry, Jacob’s internal clock told him. Don’t let this go past dark. There’s only one pair of night-vision goggles in the pack.

  Some twenty feet from the cavern exit, he stopped and ducked behind a cluster of rocks. He waved for Isabella to take cover farther away.

  If anything happened to him, she would need to run.

  Shoving aside that thought, and the rush of emotions it brought, Jacob aimed the 9 mm toward the opening and waited for the flares.

  Any. Moment. Now.

  Flash! Bang! Orange-yellow light burst from the cavern along with smoke and fumes. The hunter’s dark figure emerged, but he wasn’t reeling from the fumes as Jacob had expected.

  The bastard had a mask on and his weapon at the ready. He aimed and fired. The bullet slammed into the rock wall, sending stinging shrapnel into Jacob’s skin.

  He snapped off two quick shots and t
he dark figure dove back into the cavern, which oozed orange flames and smoke.

  With a curse and a prayer, Jacob followed. He stayed low and moved fast, pumping two shots toward a hint of motion as he dove into the cavern.

  The bullets plunged through a waving curl of flare smoke and shattered on rock.

  The smoke was the only motion in the tiny space. Otherwise, it was deserted, save for a broken faceplate that included both night vision and a breathing filter.

  Jacob plunged through the smoke and out the far side. He tensed for a shot, for the pain of bullet piercing flesh, for an attack, any attack.

  He got nothing. The rocky scree outside the cavern was deserted.

  Its very emptiness chased a chill along Jacob’s spine.

  The hunter had escaped. Worse, he could be anywhere, including sneaking down on them from above.

  “You nicked him,” Isabella said. She crouched and touched a small, dark smear.

  “Probably when I broke his faceplate.” Jacob cast around for another spot of blood. He pointed. “There.”

  They found three more smears before the trail ended at the sand. But there were no footprints.

  The hunter had vanished.

  Jacob cursed. “We should get moving.” He kept his voice low. Though the lack of gunfire suggested the bastard wasn’t in the immediate vicinity, they would need to be careful until they pinpointed his location.

  Very careful.

  “It’ll be dark soon.” Isabella cast her eyes upward, where the first hints of fiery gold touched the horizon and set flame to her auburn hair.

  “All the more reason to put some miles between us and our new friend.”

  She glanced back the way they had come, toward the canyon and the swept-bare sand between. “We could fortify the cavern and wait for Search and Rescue.” Then she shook her head, blew out a breath and argued against herself. “Bad idea. What if this guy calls the black chopper back?” She turned toward him, eyes dark with tension. “We’ve got to find someplace safer, more defensible, where we won’t be pinned down.”

  Jacob nodded. “Exactly. And if I took out his night vision, we might be able to get a head start.”

  It seemed the best course of action. While the phrase “stay by your plane” had been drummed into his skull, his instructors had also allowed that there were times—such as in combat—when staying near a downed plane was the worst thing to do.

  This was one of those times.

  The black helicopter could return at any moment, with night vision, or worse, infrared scanners that would show their positions once the sun went down and the desert cooled below body temperature.

  Staying with the plane was suicide. But was leaving it any better? The hit man was a professional. He would follow them as soon as he was able.

  Jacob glanced out the back exit of the cavern, toward the low, rocky escarpment. He tried to picture the land as he’d seen it in those last few minutes before the crash. To the east, the desert had stretched for miles. To the west, sand bordered on rock, which gave way to forest at a higher elevation.

  His mental map, along with what he remembered from the flight charts, said that if they headed west and slightly north, a stiff three-day hike would bring them to the highway, and from there to civilization.

  And between the crash site and civilization?

  He would deal with the hunter as best he could. Capture him if lucky. Kill him if necessary.

  Whatever it took to keep Isabella safe.

  Convinced it was the right decision, the only logical one, Jacob jerked his head toward the opening. “Let’s go.”

  They didn’t discuss their destination as they worked their way across, leaving no footprints on the baked red rocks. The hunter’s watching presence sang along Jacob’s nerve endings like an itch. Like a promise of violence.

  Or maybe it was the sight of Isabella marching westward, trusting him to guard her back. The tense set of her shoulders made him want to comfort her, to pull her into his arms and promise that everything was going to be okay. But the long, lean curves of her legs and hips sparked an entirely different set of urges and images.

  She had screamed his name as she had climaxed from little more than his hands and lips. The memory humbled him.

  It inflamed him.

  And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  Within a half hour of steady marching, as the landscape darkened from orange to the dark purple of dusk, they reached a sparse forest.

  And a river.

  Isabella stumbled to a halt and stood, quietly staring down into the sluggish flow.

  Shame slashed through Jacob. She was exhausted and injured with the bumps and bruises of the past few days. He should have called a halt sooner, whether or not they still had light to travel by. Yes, they needed to outdistance their pursuer. But it would do them no good if they were too tired to fight.

  He moved up beside her and touched her arm. “Let’s fill the canteens and push on. We’ll camp farther in, away from the water.”

  A good hunter always checked near water first. And though they hadn’t seen or heard their assailant since leaving the crash site, Jacob’s instincts told him the bastard was out there.

  Somewhere.

  So he hurried Isabella away from the river, pausing only long enough to clean the gash on her arm, which was a nasty mess of torn flesh and clear, oozing fluid.

  She stood unmoving as he wiped away the scabby sand and splashed cool water on her arm. The surrounding flesh was hot to the touch. Inflammation or a fast-moving infection? He couldn’t be sure, but they were in real trouble if it was the latter.

  “I’m fine.” As though sensing his thoughts, she moved away and tugged her torn shirt over the wound. “Let’s go.”

  They worked their way deeper into the forest. He kept a close eye on her, but her step didn’t falter, though her fists were clenched and her jaw set.

  The light failed around them, bringing darkness. Not wanting to risk one of the two flashlights in the emergency kit, Jacob took her hand and guided her through the undergrowth, over a landscape made eerie and green by his night-vision goggles. When he saw the thick stand of brush and the shallow place beneath, he nudged her toward it. “We’ll stop here.”

  He guided her into the hollow and followed right behind. The branches closed in around them, forming both a shield and a barrier. He would have preferred to get higher up, maybe atop a rock formation, but Isabella was dragging, whether she’d admit it or not. This would have to do.

  Using the night-vision goggles rather than the light, he doctored her arm with antiseptic and a gauze bandage. The tear was jagged enough not to be easily stitchable, but the bandage, coupled with a jab of penicillin, would have to be enough.

  She stayed silent while he tended her, while their combined body heat warmed the hollow. Exhausted, she ate the food bar he offered and washed it down with river water from the canteens. But when he spread the lightweight space blanket over her and offered his thigh for a pillow, she touched his wrist.

  “Wake me for the second watch.”

  “Will do,” he answered, lying through his teeth. She was ready to drop, whereas he had another day or two worth of energy to call on.

  Feeling that energy lag, he pulled off the night-vision goggles and scrubbed a hand across his face, trying to rub some wakefulness into his skin.

  “And, Jacob?” Her voice turned serious. “About what happened earlier…”

  “Hush,” he cautioned. “We shouldn’t talk more than absolutely necessary.”

  It was a convenient excuse. The reality was that he didn’t want to talk about the kiss and what had come after. He didn’t want her to explain it away as survivor’s relief or adrenaline. He wanted to believe that it had been all about him. About them, though he didn’t know what to do about the need.

  “I know. I just wanted to say…” She trailed off.

  “Shh.” He touched a finger to her lips. “We’ll talk about it
when we get out of here. I promise.”

  Then, unable to help himself, he leaned down and kissed her on the lips. It was a brief kiss, as fleeting as the desert dusk, and equally as powerful.

  The sensations rocketed through him. His body howled with the urge to hold her tight and dive in deep. Hot, fiery want reared up and nearly claimed him. But instead of rolling her beneath him and pressing their bodies together with every breath of his being, he guided her head to his thigh and forced himself not to run his fingers through her short, sassy hair.

  Now was not the time.

  Worse, he was pretty sure there never would be a time for them. They were too different, too driven in opposite directions. She was east coast and he was northwest. She was organized government and he was freelance.

  And whether she admitted it or not, she was family and he was solitary. That had been true when they had known each other before, and it was still true. People didn’t change that much in thirteen years.

  So instead of sliding into another kiss, he set the goggles back on and waited for his eyes to adjust to the green-tinted darkness.

  Then, he waited for morning.

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, you’re not sure if they’re dead or not?” Boone’s shout filtered through the locked door and Tiff whimpered in reaction. Hope shushed her.

  She and the girls had been imprisoned on the second floor of what looked like a once-nice cabin set deep in the woods. The land rose up behind the house, so the small bedroom actually looked out on turf and forest not six feet below the single locked window.

  “It’s okay, sweetie. He’s not yelling at you,” Hope whispered, keeping her voice low. She cuddled her daughters on the narrow bed and strained to hear Boone’s side of the conversation. He and the others had congregated in the sunken great room on the ground floor.

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” Boone said in more moderate tones. “But you promised this would be taken care of.” There was a pause, then a series of lower comments that Hope couldn’t make out.

  She ground her teeth in frustration, knowing she needed all the information she could collect.

  “What happened? They lose the bounty hunter?” Lyle asked.