Armed And Dangerous (The McKinnon Legends - The McKinnon American Men Book 2)

by James, Ranay

  “Don’t walk away from me.” He tried to turn her around only earning him a dagger in the literal sense. She had pulled her knife again.

  Then he saw what she was doing as she cut a strip off of her t-shirt to use as a tourniquet.

  “This is not about you, Mason. I’m getting back to camp before I bleed to death,” she said as she tied off the leg just above her wound which was open again and bleeding profusely. She prayed she had not left a trail of blood for the guards to track. She had been extremely careful where she could, but circumstances being what they were, she feared she had not been completely successful.

  “What the hell happened?” Then he softened. “Did I do this to you?” It was the only thing he could think of as to how she could have come away with a wound this profound. She had not gotten it last night, he felt sure. There was no gash in the material of her fatigues. Then he remembered seeing the blood on her jeans from the day before.

  “No, this isn’t your doing.” She shook her head. “It was the combination of the pothole and that rattletrap you call a jeep,” she said tying off the scrap. “Ouch, ahh, God that hurts,” she grimaced in the process.

  He knew exactly what she was referring to as he also had a cut on his forehead where he hit the rear-view mirror, knocking it off the windshield before the jeep flipped over. He believed her comment at the time was that his head was obviously harder than the jeep. It looked to him as if she was a bit hardheaded as well, maybe more than he.

  He quickly set her down asking her to shed her pants so he could get a closer look. The look she gave him was telling.

  He snapped. “Barbara, for God’s sake just do it and don’t buck me! I’m not trying to get into your pants!” Then he softened. “Look, I just need to see if I need to field dress it or not.”

  He saw her hesitation and indecision, and then her acquiescence as she slowly undid her pants. He turned to give her some privacy. If she weren’t so tired from thirty-six hours without sleep and in pain, she might have found the gesture to be sweet, pointless, but still sweet. The gash was very high up on her thigh, extending over past her hip and onto her right butt cheek. There was no way to avoid him seeing a lot of skin.

  What Mason saw when he turned around nearly choked him. Tender creamy skin was red with fever and torn jagged edges were bleeding leaving a trail of crimson. The line of damage disappeared under her panty line. He had no way of knowing just how far the damage extended. He did know she needed medical attention.

  She has to be in pain, he thought. The gash was deep and ragged. There was no way she wasn’t in some degree of pain and discomfort as the muscle was torn as well. This was no superficial cut and was in dire need of attention, yet she had said nothing. Not one single word.

  Furthermore, she had lied to him the day before when he saw the blood on her jeans and asked her point-blank if it was hers. She said it wasn’t and he had no reason not to believe her when she answered. He had not questioned it any further. Now, he was wishing he had pressed her for more details as he dropped the pack off his shoulders and began to pull out the necessary medicines and tools that he would need to give her a proper field dressing. He was not a rookie to field wounds, but this time it was Barbara who was hurt and what he needed to do to her would not be painless. He hoped that she didn’t faint on him.Tossing her over his shoulder and trudging back to camp held absolutely no appeal.

  “Jesus, Barbara. What were you hoping to accomplish by not telling me that you were this badly hurt?” He pulled off a length of thread, snapping it with his surgical scissors.

  “And give you ammunition to protest my ability to complete this mission? I was not about to give you the very excuse you’ve been looking for since the minute you found out it was me in Robert’s office. Don’t think that I didn’t hear you and Robert talking last night.” She had heard and just chose to ignore him.

  As she lay on her side on the jungle floor other than a few sharply inhaled breaths she was silent. He too was silent, clinching his teeth not only from the pain he was causing her, but from the anger he felt at her outright lying to him. Tight lipped and without a single word, he dressed her wound.

  He freely admitted both to himself and Robert that it might have started out with him looking for any reason to leave her behind. Maybe, at first, he was looking for an excuse because he did not want to deal with her. Let’s face it -- their relationship until a week ago was nothing other than pure and simple hell. Now, he was looking for an excuse for her to be left off the roster because he cared. How was he supposed to tell her that?

  Chapter 20

  Josh and Robert were waiting impatiently for them to return. It had been an extremely long night for all of them. The tension in the camp was so thick it could be cut with a knife. As a result, sleep was hard to come by for the team.

  Barbara limped in under her own power after repeatedly refusing to be carried in like some abandoned bag of field gear. A disgruntled Mason was not far behind.

  They still had to get back to their own campsite, get some rest, then break their camp, and make preparations for the evening. It was going to be a full day, and in his current state of mind, the further he was from her the better. There had been too much togetherness.

  It was beginning to feel just like old times, and he was amazed at their self-restraint. By the Graces of the Jungle Gods or maybe just from years of self-indoctrinated control, neither one pulled out a gun to shoot the other on the way back. The hike back to base camp was a combination of heated, bitter arguing, or freezing silence.

  Mason hated both.

  Chapter 21

  After Barbara assured Josh that Jesse was alive, all waited as patiently as possible for Barbara to finish her drawings of the interior of the compound and placement of the cameras and guard posts. They all understood the importance of accuracy and full comprehension of the area they were going to invade under the cover of darkness.

  Mason was sure he had seen Agent Vega. “And unless he chills out, he’s going to be picked off like low hanging fruit once the shit starts flying. He was acting like a man with something to hide.”

  Robert’s fear was confirmed. “Vega could very well be a hindrance more than an asset.”

  Mason and Barbara both nodded.

  “What were you able to see?” Josh asked eagerly.

  “There are only eight cameras total if what I saw is accurate. There are three on this wall.” She pointed marking an X approximately on the drawing. “Mason can take care of these and get the looped feed into them.”

  Mason nodded in agreement.

  She noted the one at the main gate. “This one is the trickiest and best if we avoid it if possible. The only good thing about its placement is there is a palm just beside it. With a little creative movement, we might be able to dance a leaf in front of the lens a time or two and then sneak past. Chancy and a last resort.”

  They all agreed. Going in through the front gate was not exactly the smartest move if they had other alternatives.

  “There are two in the trees just to the west and north of the main house. Reese, you and Dark Man need to take these two. Here is the loop footage for you to use.” She handed Reese the state of the art equipment. “By the way, good to see you back on your feet. We are going to need you two.”

  Reese nodded his understanding. This placed them in the trees for the best sniper locations. It also meant that they were going to have a harder time getting away.

  “There is one more camera back past the pool area and one facing what I assume are the warehouses for his exportable goods. I counted twelve guards in all outside. Six were back by the warehouses, two per.” She drew two single lines in the sand to represent the placement. “None posted at the rear of any of the buildings. Jesse signaled that there were four more in the house excluding Carlos and Emilio.”

  “That makes twenty that we know for sure. What about weapons?” Robert asked, mentally calculating the odds of success.

  “
No shortage of funds here, Robert. They were all very well armed. Considering the dirt bag is an arms dealer, I’m not at all surprised. All were sporting at least an AK-47, sometimes multiple side arms, and each had a knife strapped to the thigh. I also got close enough to see that most all the vehicles have reinforced undercarriages and bullet-proof glass installed.”

  Mason groaned inwardly. He saw where the cars were parked. They were next to the villa, in the driveway, right beside the guard shack which had been manned with two men. If she got that close to the cars then she was close enough to smell the guy’s arm pits. Gutsy move, crazy, but gutsy, he thought.

  He was really beginning to wonder what else she was capable of doing. She was not like any other women he knew, and he did not know what to think about her. Was she brave or just as unrestrained and reckless as he was, but just in a different way?

  “Good work,” Robert nodded his approval to both Mason and Barbara.

  Well, Robert reasoned, whatever happened to bring back the deep freeze between the two of them happened after the recon was completed. Either that or they were professional enough to push it aside. He felt Mason was too emotionally entrenched at this point to be that objective. Whatever the circumstance, it had happened since sunrise and he was not sure he really wanted to know given the history between these two.

  “Tell me about Jesse?” Josh asked eager to hear word of his baby girl.

  She nodded. “She is a brave little warrior, Josh. She will help us when the time comes, fully understanding what she needs to do. She is scared but holding up.” Barbara reached out placing a sympathetic hand on his arm. “We’ll get her out safe and sound, Josh. I promise on my life.”

  Mason did not have any doubt someone’s life would be lost. He just prayed it was not any of theirs.

  Chapter 22

  On the way back to their camp, Mason grabbed her by the arm, gently spinning her around. “You can just drop the cold shoulder, Barbara. You have to talk to me sometime and besides, I need to know, not only did you see Jesse, you spoke to her didn’t you?” Mason asked after they finished with the briefing. They were making their way back to their campsite bringing with them a wild boar to slow cook in a pit. It was their excuse for being out all night in camouflage. They were hunting should anyone ask. Barbara’s wound could well have been sustained from the boar, so chances were no one would even inquire. His tusks were enormous.

  She hated it when he called her Barbie Doll. It was usually when he was feeling defensive. That much, she did know. However, so much of her conceptions of Mason were being shattered, and she was not sure she really understood him any longer. She questioned her motives, her understandings, and her feelings. She was beginning to doubt that she ever really had understood him. There were greater depths to him than she ever could have fathomed, and much to her dismay, she was really beginning to like him even if he did still chap her ass from time to time. She was seeing the more deeply intellectual and serious man, yet there was a playful side to him, as well. And like it or not, she was going to have to keep her secret. She was falling for him. As much as she tried to put the skids on her feelings, it was in vain. She was just trying to stop herself from feeling what she knew she had to push into the deep recesses of her heart.

  He was so wrong for her. She could not taste this weakness. If she ever got a taste of that sweet candy, she might not be able to walk away unscathed when the time came and she would be damned before she became just one more conquest for Mason McKinnon, notorious ladies man.

  She pulled her arm away and started walking away. If he wanted to talk he could do it walking. She was about to fall down and needed to keep moving.

  “I did speak to her, yes. And I’m not giving you the cold shoulder, Mason. I'm just tired as hell, and I have nothing to say, and by your own admission, you like your women seen and not heard,” she shrugged.

  “Real funny,” he said while pulling her up short again.

  He looked at her face and for the first time saw just how tired she was. She was swaying on her feet, yet she had not uttered a single word of complaint. She was full of inner strength and tough as any man he knew, yet managed to stay all female. He was finding a new admiration for his boss. Any of the other women in his life would have been railing by now, screeching at him for the dreadful conditions and complaining that they needed a manicure.

  In actuality, he would have probably promised them paradise only to deliver the current hell they were in at that moment. She had not said a word of complaint. He wished she would. She was giving him a massively cold shoulder, and he found that he did not like the feeling of her closing him out. He only had himself to blame and if he could go back and undo the last three or four years he would. That was not happening. He could do nothing about the past. It was just that, the past, but he might be able to have a better future with her as a friend rather than just a verbal sparring partner. He liked her. He liked her a lot.

  “So, you really could have gotten her out last night,” he asked more for his own confirmation.

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” she shrugged. “If my leg was one hundred percent, then I might have seized the opportunity. I felt it more prudent to follow the plan.”

  He heard her heavy sigh. It went bone deep and he felt for her.

  He could only imagine what the decision to leave the kid behind must have cost her. “Don’t second guess yourself, Doll. You did make the right decision.” He cupped her face and gently stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I’m just sorry you had to make that call at all, Barbara.”

  She stared blankly at him. She did not know what to do with this Mason who was actually kind. It was throwing her off her game with him. Sparring or overbearing Mason, she could handle. She had years of practice in dealing with him. This guy was just too nice to even try to fight.

  He wondered if his comment even registered with her. From her look, he wasn’t sure she was even still with him. He was close to shutdown himself. So, until they got some sleep, this conversation was going to have to wait.

  He pushed her into the tent after he found them water to freshen up.

  “Go in and get some rest,” he urged. “By the way, good work last night,” he complimented her.

  She nodded her understanding. “I had good backup.”

  He followed suit after a few minutes to give her some privacy. Dropping the sides down on the tent allowed for more darkness, but left the tent stifling. Mason opted to split the difference leaving the flap facing the sun and facing the camp closed. The other two would remain up for ventilation. He crawled in beside her to get some much needed sleep. She was lying there on top of the sleeping bags sound asleep.

  He pushed her over to make room for him. She sighed and rolled over settling against him in sleep. She trusted him last night to have her back, and she trusted him to keep her secure now. He just prayed that trust was not misplaced.

  Chapter 23

  Mason realized where he was instantly. They were in the jungle and it was night. He had overslept. The night sounds grated his nerves and were loud like the buzzing of a thousand florescent light fixtures.

  He felt her breathing, ragged and labored, beside him. He reached out to touch her for reassurance. She turned into his arms, warm and willing, only it wasn’t Barbara. It was the face of one of the regular dancers at the club he frequented.

  She was old, haggard, and completely worn from her life in the fast lane. He pushed her away disgusted by her heavy smell of cigarettes and beer. Her appearance was anything but appealing. He looked down at his hands. They were gnarled with age, his knuckles twisted from arthritis. She laughed at him. “This is all you got, Mason. I am all your life ever got you.”

  He pushed away from the nightmare.

  Looking for Barbara, he needed to see her. He tossed the tent flap back. There she was just as the previous nights before moving gracefully through her Thai Chi. Her grace and beauty were reassuring as he stood there at a distance just
breathing her in. She felt like a spring rain, cleansing his mind and spirit of all the dirt collected from the years of living hard and fast.

  Out of the shadows, Carlos Del Torres appeared, he was coming fast and out of nowhere rushing her from behind. Mason felt his heart race and his blood curdle as he tried to yell for her to look behind, but he was paralyzed with fear, his voice silent.

  He watched in horror as Carlos put a gun to her back and pulled the trigger. She fell in slow motion. “Barbara! No!” He yelled before putting seven bullets into Del Torres.

  “Mason! Mason, wake up!” Barbara was lying across him trying to keep his big body down. She surmised the nightmare must have been horrific for him.

  “Shuuu. It’s all right.” She stroked his face and head. “It’s all right. It’s just a dream. I’m right here. I’m here.”

  He pulled her tightly against him. She could hear his ragged breathing and the fast beat of his heart.

  “I lost you,” he exhaled, finally able to feel the cold fear slowly leaving him. He held her head to his chest. He could see it was almost dusk. They had slept most of the day and time was drawing near for them to go. He framed her face bringing her close. “We have an audience,” he whispered.

  Slowly, bringing her face to his lips, she whispered back. “I know.”

  She understood that after the way they had taken ten steps back today for him this kiss was probably for show. However, for her this kiss was payment for all the danger he was about to put her through.

  “I’ll take one for the team,” she agreed.

  "And I’ll take one just for me," Mason vowed.

  For her, this was payment for all the hell and arguments he had forced her to be a willing participant through the years. This kiss was for her, the woman, who wanted to see what it would be like to have a man as beautiful and virile as Mason pour on her his full and undivided attention. She wanted to let him lavish his considerable charms and talents on her. And he was doing it freely and willingly. He would be the kind of man to leave a woman breathless, spent, but longing for more. He would totally dominate a woman and in this she would allow him to be the total Alpha male. There was no other way to let this affair play itself out. For the first time in her life, she was going to let a man take full and total control of her body, but not her mind or soul. It was an experience she wanted purely on a physical plane. Anything else was foolhardy. Anything else would only lead to heartache. She would let him lead in this dance of sensuality. She knew she was just a challenge to him, but right at that moment it really didn’t matter. It was more than just about having great sex. It was about connecting with a person at some deeper level. She wanted this just as much as he wanted the additional notch and the bragging rights to turning her back to the light.