Chapter Twenty-Six
TEN HOURS AFTER he’d snuck out of his bedroom like a man on the run, Mac banged his head against the helicopter’s padded wall. Unfortunately it didn’t pound any sense into his head.
You’re a moron.
A fucking cowardly moron.
Mac shifted against the Eagle’s wall, and the vibrations from the engine numbed his back.
You should have woken her—asshole.
You should have told her how you feel instead of sneaking out the door like a fucking loser escaping a drive-by fuck.
Mac grimaced, more disgusted with himself than he’d ever been in his life.
They’d yanked the seats out of the Eagle to scale back on weight and give the extra team of six men room to sit. But even camped out on the floor, this bird was a hell of a lot easier on the spine than the Black Hawk.
Yeah, things could have been worse . . . much worse.
It had been a stroke of luck that David Coulson had stepped in to host this quarterly meeting after the previously scheduled one had gone bye-bye. Coulson, the selfish bastard, had apparently opted for his own convenience rather than his compatriots’—who’d had to fly in from around the world. Good news for Mac and Shadow Command, since the jackass had scheduled the meeting on his wife’s family’s yacht, which was currently cruising the Gulf of California, a distance of five thousand klicks from Denali or ten hours by Shadow Mountain’s experimental Eagle—eleven plus change if you included the two pit stops to refuel. Even with the bulk of their intel coming in just twenty-four hours premeeting, the boat’s location had made the mission a possibility.
According to Link, the typical MO of these guys—when the meeting took place at sea—was to chopper out to the yacht at night under the cover of darkness. The actual meeting took place during the day, and then the bastards would depart the following night—once again under the cover of night. Which meant his team would be fast-roping down to the yacht during the middle of the fucking day, in front of God and everybody, in the hopes of rounding up all the bastards at once.
Yippee.
With luck, anyone who saw the choppers out over the water, or even boarding the Princess, would assume they were HQ1 training missions from Coronado. The base was only 725 klicks to the northwest, and the Gulf of California was an old stomping ground for team training.
Chances were if this meeting had been held anywhere else, they would have lost their window to take out the NRO, which meant most of humankind would have died a silent, sonic death within a matter of weeks. So eleven hours of joint-stiffening inactivity was a small price to pay when you were saving the damn world.
Mac pulled his knees to his chest for a count of twenty and then stretched them flat again. It had been a long time since he’d been packed like a sardine in a chopper, his ass and legs numb from the constant vibrations under and around him, while his brain spun off in one direction after another, obsessing over things he should have done differently, things he should have done better. Like being a fucking man and waking up the woman who’d just given him the best three hours of his life before he walked out that door. Like doing the adult thing and telling her goodbye, telling her he loved her, while she was awake to hear his damn confession.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
What the fuck were you thinking?
He’d pound some sense into his own skull if he’d thought it would do any good.
Sighing, Mac closed his eyes and fought to focus. They were somewhere around ten minutes from their target—give or take. Which put the bird at somewhere around five hundred fucking klicks an hour. Unfucking believable. That was a hell of a lot faster than the Black Hawk’s three hundred klicks an hour. Taking the Hawk would have added another six hours to the time frame.
Still, eleven hours of stiff muscles wasn’t something he enjoyed. There were plenty of ways he’d rather be spending his time.
An image flashed through his mind: Amy’s flushed face, the sensual glaze burning in her hazel eyes, her high, firm breasts with their rosy nipples . . . the way they’d barely jiggled as she rode him . . . His muscles tightened at the memory—so did his cock.
Yeah, last night was not something he should be thinking about right now. Not when they were about to rope down onto the Princess’s quarterdeck and engage the enemy. Fuck, he was already stiff as hell and dreading the slide down the rope. The last thing he needed was to go down with a bazooka packed in his briefs.
Amy had been fast asleep when he’d snuck out of the room, sprawled facedown, her hair a spiky halo of fire against the white of the pillow. The curve of her naked spine relaxed. What he could see of her face was softened, blurred. She’d looked so damn content he managed to convince himself that he was doing her a favor by not waking her up. Christ knew she needed the sleep. The woman had spent the past two weeks taking care of everyone but herself. She could use a few hours of solid shut-eye.
But after five thousand klicks, twelve hours, and an eternity of looking back . . . he could see his retreat for what it was. An act of pure cowardice.
He’d been too much of a yellow-bellied lizard to step up for the after-sex talk. Too fucking scared to admit that he had feelings for her . . . strong feelings. Feelings an awful lot like love.
He was a fucking coward, that’s what he was. So damn terrified of making himself vulnerable he couldn’t even force himself to utter those three little words. Which was beyond pathetic because he knew—he knew, damn it—that Amy wasn’t his mother, or his ex, or Jenn.
Unlike Mommy Dearest, Amy would never leave her kid in the car in the middle of a drug district so she could have some uninterrupted fuck time with some guy she’d just hooked up with in a bar. Unlike his ex, Amy would never entertain half the base in their bed while he was deployed thousands of klicks away. Unlike Jenn, Amy would never cry rape or accuse her husband’s best friend of that despicable act because she was jealous of the unbreakable bonds between platoon buddies.
Unlike most of her gender, Amy had principles and courage and . . . He paused. Frowned. Shook his head.
Come to think of it, he couldn’t see Beth, Kait, or Faith doing any of the things his mom or his ex had done either. Hell, Faith had insisted on inserting with his men when they’d gone after her lab mates in case her clean energy generator was used against the rescue team. Kait had stood toe to toe against Cosky’s fury and inserted with them to liberate Embray. Even Beth had faced down armed killers back at Marion’s house and rescued herself and Marion using common sense and courage. Hell, all three women were in the same percentile as Amy.
Which just made the four of them an anomaly.
Movement near the cockpit caught his attention. He looked over in time to see the cockpit door slide back and the crew chief hold up five fingers. Five minutes to go. Men stirred, pulled on their ballistic helmets, checked weapons and radios. One of Wolf’s warriors checked the fast-rope bags and their attachments to the fuselage.
Mac stared at the two canvas bags, each bulging with their cargo of thick, plaited rope—the rope he’d be sliding down in a matter of minutes. Time to get his head back in the game and stop the damn daydreaming and self-castigation. Distraction was the number-one reason missions went south and operators lost their lives.
No fucking way was he going to be the cause of either.
He pulled his helmet on, tested his radio, and completed one last weapons check on his suppressed MP7 submachine and Sig Sauer pistol. The MP7 wouldn’t be his first choice for any other missions. But it was the boss on ship boardings, the quietest gun out there. They may have lost their overall stealth advantage by coming in hot with the chopper, but they still needed near silence while clearing the decks. It wouldn’t do to have the security force following his progress by the gunfire. Which meant the MP7 was the way to go. The damn thing was so quiet you could take someone down in one room without anyone next door hearing the shot. Once the radio and weapons checks were completed, he pulled on his heat-resistant gloves. Sliding down the rope fucked with unprotected hands.
The ship they were about to board was famous when it came to ridiculously expensive and overly indulgent boats. Hell, it was listed on multiple sites as number seven among the ten most expensive yachts in the world. Among her many luxuries were six decks, three swimming pools, four hot tubs, two helicopter pads—both of which were currently occupied. All of this on a whopping 520 feet of marine muscle. Her cruising speed was an impressive twenty-five knots an hour, although she could hit peak speeds of thirty knots. She even boasted a fucking theater and ballroom.
Her fame had made it ridiculously easy to track down her blueprints, which had seemed suspicious as hell until word had trickled in of her other, less public enhancements. She came equipped with an antimissile radar system, a deafening L-RAD acoustic device, armor plating, bullet- and blast-resistant doors and bulletproof glass at the bridge and master bedrooms, two mini-escape submarines, antisurveillance equipment, and a couple of citadels—or fancy-ass panic rooms—with enough food and water to last weeks.
Rumors also abounded of military-grade weapons—regardless of maritime law—and security details trained in special operations. Hell, according to the articles they’d pulled up on the Internet, half these damn mega-yachts were crewed by former SAS operators—British Special Air Service.
All those sweet enhancements made her the perfect meeting ground for a cabal of the most powerful, ruthless, and paranoid men in the world.
Boarding this baby was going to be an absolute fuck fest. They’d have to hit the ship’s electronics hard, three hundred feet out, to render the missiles, citadels, and L-RAD system inoperable before the captain and crew realized they were about to be boarded and passed on the news to the council. No sense in sending the little bastards scurrying off to their panic rooms before his men had a chance to nab them.
Thank Christ that Faith and Shadow Mountain’s tech team were beyond fucking brilliant and had already developed a localized EMP cannon that would fry every electrical circuit, microprocessor, and electronic system within a thousand-foot radius—with the exception of the Eagle’s, which had EMP shielding. Fuck, with the cannon being mounted outside the bird on the inboard pylon pair, the crew and teams inside would even be protected from the nasty shock that accompanied an EMP pulse.
Go, Shadow Mountain ingenuity.
Before the EMP cannon had come out to play, they’d considered a two-pronged attack. Wolf and his team would fast-rope to the quarterdeck. Mac and his team would pull alongside in the Hurricane and use a compressed-air launcher to attach a flexible ladder with grappling hooks to the ship’s rail and board from the water. They’d scrapped that plan once they’d discovered it was forty-five feet from the water line to the main deck and that the Princess could hit speeds of thirty knots per hour. Climbing that flexible ladder while the Hurricane was bouncing around like a fucking rabbit trying to keep up with her quarry would put them way behind the rest of their party. To maximize success, they needed all boots on deck at the same time, and it was a hell of a lot easier sliding down a rope than climbing up one.
Hence, the EMP blast and two choppers, with two sets of fast ropes per chopper. It was the fastest and safest way to deploy their teams. With snipers targeting opposition from above and an operator heading down the ropes every three to four feet, they could safely deploy in minutes. Or at least that was the plan.
They’d see how well that went—the best-laid plans had a habit of getting pretty fucked up.
At one minute to go, the crew chief stepped into the cockpit door again and held up one finger. There was a muted high-pitched whine, and a sudden static charge swept over him, lifting the hairs on his arms. They must have fired the cannon. If their luck held, the Princess had just gone dark.
The men surrounding Mac rose calmly to their feet, stretching legs and arms. Two of Wolf’s warriors dragged the cargo doors back, and the roar of the engine flooded the cabin, sucking every other sound from his ears. The fast-rope bags were unzipped, the line attachment rechecked and then checked again.
As the wind rushed in, whipping his BDUs into a frenzy, Mac felt the Eagle’s forward momentum slow. The bird slowed even more. Went into a hover. Began to drop. Settled into another hover. The coiled ropes were pulled from their bags and tossed out the cargo doors.
A couple of Wolf’s snipers took position in the corners of the doors. One by one the operators grabbed the rope and slid down it like firemen sliding down a fire pole.
Wolf’s men deployed first, four to five feet apart, sliding down the ropes from one cargo door or the other. Zane went next, followed by Rawls and Cosky, and then it was Mac’s turn. Beside him he could see the snipers’ eyes scanning the decks below, looking for opposition. The fact that no shots rang out was good news; they’d caught the security detail by surprise.
Maybe. Or maybe all those SAS operators were holed up somewhere, ready to ambush.
The wind was even worse here, trying to tear him from the chopper, but the instant he grabbed the rope, his respiration, pulse, and nerves chilled. Old business, this. Muscle memory. He’d fast-roped down from more birds than he could count, during both training and combat. This was routine, familiar.
Then he was out the door, sliding down, the rotor wash doing its best to tear him from the rope.
Amy awoke to cool sheets and an empty bed.
She stretched lazily and rolled over to check the alarm clock on the bedside table—6:00 a.m. She hadn’t slept that hard or that peacefully in months. She felt fantastic. Alert. Focused. Able to face the world and anything it might throw her way.
Like waking up alone in a cold, empty apartment.
Mac wasn’t here. The cool sheets had registered the moment she’d gained consciousness. Granted, she’d known he had an early-morning liftoff. She’d accepted that. But he could have woken her up and kissed her goodbye.
She vaguely remembered him maneuvering her pliant, barely conscious body under the sheets. Getting them situated must have been difficult without picking her up. He’d crawled into bed beside her; she remembered that too. Only not to hold her. Instead he’d lain there next to her, his body toasting her from toe to ear.
She’d drifted into sleep feeling warm and secure and wishing with every cell in her body that his arms were around her, cuddling her close, holding her tight.
Had he regretted the lack of after-lovemaking intimacy too? Or had he been relieved? Had it made it easier for him to roll out of bed and leave her behind? Had he looked back on the night and decided she wasn’t worth the effort? That she was too much work?
She frowned as she threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. He’d showed her so much care. He’d put her first, focused completely on her pleasure. For a man to treat her like that during the night and then walk out the door come morning, without a goodbye or a kiss or even a “hey, the sex was great; let’s do it again sometime”—well, it was hard to reconcile.
Scenarios that she wouldn’t have considered the night before started to nibble at her mind, eroding her confidence about where the relationship with him was headed.
Maybe he was tired of her . . . already.
Maybe he’d decided her baggage wasn’t worth his trouble or time.
Maybe the sex hadn’t been as mind-blowing for him as it had been for her.
He’d been pretty handicapped, after all. He hadn’t been able to hold her, or lift her, or even remove her bra without freaking her out. He hadn’t been in control either, or on top. She’d pretty much run the entire show.
She groaned, a sinking sensation hitting. He’d seemed to appreciate the grounding—with all their touching. He’d even turned it into a game. But had it worn thin? Had he felt used in the end? Like a tool rather than a participant? Was that why he’d left without a goodbye? Under the circumstances she could see how he might feel like that. How he might think she’d just used him to get off. Although he’d come too, his orgasm could have resulted from simple male physiology.
Shaking her head, she headed for the bathroom.
It was a damn good thing she hadn’t confessed her love for him. That mistake would have given her one more thing to overanalyze and agonize over.
The damp towel but lack of humidity in the bathroom indicated he’d been gone awhile—several hours at least. He was probably halfway to California by now. Which kicked up the memory of what he was doing in California. A surge of apprehension mixed with the irritation.
Still, it was early, barely six thirty when she walked through the clinic door.
“Well, you certainly look better this morning,” Nurse Cheerful said. “A good night’s sleep will do wonders.”
The woman was right about that. Although a bout of mind-blowing sex followed by eight hours of solid sleep produced even more miraculous results.
“What were Benji’s last temperature and blood pressure readings?” she asked, pausing at the nurses’ station.
“Both normal.”
Amy smiled in relief. “And Brendan?”
“Normal and normal. Both boys are doing great.”
In some ways the update on Brendan was the best news of the morning. Normal temperature and blood pressure meant Leonard’s reversal compound wasn’t affecting him, which meant they were one step closer to giving Benji the N2FP9 antidote.
She checked on Benji first. He was still sleeping. His face was tranquil. His cheek was cool and smooth to her fingers, proof that his temperature hadn’t spiked again. So far, so good.
She found Brendan sitting in the armchair beside his bed, tying his shoelaces. He looked up as the curtain slid back. “I’m hungry.”
The sheer normalcy of his complaint brought a smile and sense of ease. Brendan was always hungry. So was Benji, for that matter. “I could use a hot meal myself. Why don’t we head to the cafeteria?”
The clock was just hitting 8:00 a.m. when they finished eating and returned to the clinic.
“Perfect timing,” Dr. Zapa said from the nurses’ station, where she’d been chatting with the nurse on duty.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Amy asked, looking at her son. She didn’t have to look down far. He was almost as tall as she was—at eleven years of age. He was going to be tall like his father.
“Nah. That’s okay.” He stoically accepted the kiss she pressed to the top of his head before walking off with Dr. Zapa.
She eyed the clock as she made her way to Benji’s cubicle. When would Mac and the teams reach the Gulf of California? Her breathing accelerated as anxiety dug in.
It was an hour before Brendan joined her in Benji’s room. He immediately took over her laptop and began playing games. She tried to occupy herself with a surprisingly current edition of People magazine, but with each second the nervousness increased until it felt like her chest could explode from the pressure.
What will the tests reveal?
How long before Mac’s boots hit the Princess’s deck?
The edginess from just one of those concerns was bad enough, but the two of them in tandem seemed to multiply the apprehension by more than a factor of two. By the time footsteps sounded outside Benji’s cubicle, her skin barely contained her nerves. She jerked up from her armchair the moment the curtain was pushed aside.
“Relax.” Dr. Zapa’s smile was blazing, brilliant with relief. “Brendan’s test results look amazing.”
The breath Amy had been holding escaped on a whoosh. She looked to the right as Leonard Embray wheeled into view. “The new compound is working?”
“It appears so.” He wheeled farther into the space. “There was a fifty-nine-point-two percent reduction from yesterday’s blood test.”
“How much total?” Amy asked, relief slowly working its way through her.
“Ninety-one-point-seven percent total,” Leonard responded readily. He rolled up to the bed and took hold of Benji’s wrist to check his pulse. “Brendan has less than nine percent of N2FP left in his cells. At the current rate of dissolution, he should be clear of the isotope by midday.”
The news was almost unbelievable. It was difficult to wrap her head around. Dizzy with relief, she turned to Benji. He was so small under the covers. So fragile, with the tubes running down his nose and into his veins. He looked like a distant memory of the child who’d raced from room to room, roaring like a dinosaur.
She wanted her son back.
“What about Benji? When can he get the reversal?” She looked Dr. Zapa squarely in the eyes, searching for a flicker of hesitancy. An iota of resistance. But only relief and confidence shone from her face and gleamed in her eyes.
“Yes, it’s time to discuss our options.” Slipping past Leonard’s wheelchair, she picked up Benji’s clipboard and flipped through the top pages. “We can wait for a few more days until N2FP is completely clear of Brendan’s system, and we’ve had a few days to assess how his body is handling the reversal compound. Or”—she looked up, clipboard in hand—“we can give the reversal to Benji now, while Kait’s healing is buoying his system. While his organs are strong and his temperature is down. If we wait to administer the antidote until we’re certain there are no side effects, we may lose our window. We know Benji’s organs will begin failing again. We know the N2FP isotope will multiply even faster through his body the longer we wait. The faster it proliferates, the greater the chances of massive, irreversible organ failure.”
Amy nodded slightly and inhaled deeply. “Okay, what do you suggest?”
“My instincts tell me we need to act now. That we can’t afford to wait. Every minute we hold off, that damn isotope is spreading inside him. Last blood test showed a fifty-nine percent proliferation rate. We need to kill it now before it gets out of control.”
If there had been even an ounce of hesitation in Dr. Zapa’s voice, Amy might have hesitated herself. But there wasn’t. So she didn’t. With a firm nod she made the decision.
“Do it then.”
The actual injection was almost anticlimactic. They already had the correct dose for Benji’s weight ready and with them. They swabbed Benji’s small bicep, slid the needle in, and depressed the plunger, and it was over.
Except for the praying . . . and the worrying.