Chapter Eighteen
THE SKY WAS boiling with thick black clouds that pounded their bodies, the boat, and their weapons with a constant swath of icy rain. Mac wiped the lenses of his NVDs—again—trying to clear his vision as their Zodiac powered through the heavy waves. There was no second boat beside them this time—or third behind them.
They were alone on the choppy seas.
Alone in the relentless rain.
Christ, the Pacific Northwest could be a total bitch sometimes.
They’d been lucky Neniiseti’ had loaned them the Eagle. Their experimental birds were more stable in iffy weather. A Black Hawk would have been grounded, which would have pushed the assault back a couple of days. Hell, they were lucky they had a full crew too. Without the magical hands of the Shadow Mountain healers, Zane wouldn’t have been fit for duty. A thigh hit during a ST7 mission would have laid him up for weeks, if not months.
Since visibility was practically nil in the heavy deluge, they were relying on compasses and state-of-the-art GPS systems. As they’d done two nights before, Zane and Rawls were in front, Mac was in the middle, and Cosky worked the throttle.
But unlike two nights before, there was obviously something wrong with Mac’s LC.
Amid the constant stream of rain running down his helmet and blurring the NVD lenses, he saw Zane double over, hugging his abdomen. If it had been anyone else, he’d have suspected seasickness. Christ, the hard lift and bang of the boat and the endless bounce of the waves were bad enough to give anyone digestive distress. But this was Zane, and his LC had been on much rougher seas without hugging his belly and puking his guts out.
Turning to Cosky, Mac drew his finger across his throat and waited for Cos to cut the engine. Once the boat sat silent, bouncing on the waves, he looked at Zane again.
Rawls had already turned to his buddy and was busy taking his pulse. “Fast and thready,” Rawls said through the radio.
Zane doubled over again, his grunted groan following Rawls’s voice into their helmets.
Whatever was wrong had hit hard and suddenly. He’d been fine on the trip down in the Eagle. He’d been fine as the bird had dropped to the water and launched the skiff. Hell, he’d been fine as they’d taken their baths and swam over to the Hurricane. It wasn’t until they’d climbed aboard the boat and headed for Embray’s island that Zane had started to fidget and then doubled over.
“What’s the deal? Appendix?” It was the only thing he could think of that would come on so fast.
They were well into their mission, but they could call the chopper back. Airlift Zane out. While the chopper hightailed it to the nearest emergency room, the rest of them could continue the mission. They’d be down one man, but hell—Zane was useless to them now anyway.
Fuck, he was a downright handicap.
“Not me,” Zane grunted and followed it with a moment of rigid silence. “Beth. The baby.”
It took a second for his explanation to register; when it did, an explosion of startled breaths hit their comm units.
“Ah hell, Skipper,” Rawls said, his sympathy stumbling into silence.
Ah fuck.
Over the past few months they’d found a lot of humor in Zane mirroring Beth’s symptoms. His morning sickness, complaints of bloating, and swollen feet—hell, even his craving for pickled eggs and avocados had been funny as hell.
Nobody was laughing now.
Fuck, nobody had thought about what would happen if something went wrong with the pregnancy. Nobody had thought about what a handicap that link between Beth and Zane would be during a mission, when their lieutenant commander’s focus needed to be on the operation ahead.
Nobody had considered that the link between the two could get them all killed.
“Can you tell anything from what you’re getting?” Rawls asked, his worry clear.
“Just that she’s in pain—” He broke off, and a hiss sounded through the comm units. “Terrified for the baby.”
The raw grimness in his LC’s answer told Mac how much Zane hated knowing that she was in pain and fear, and that he couldn’t help her.
As omens went, this one didn’t bode well for the success of their mission.
The fucking storm, the fact that one of his men was in acute distress—any other operation would be called off at this point. Rescheduled.
But they couldn’t reschedule this one. Not with Benji’s liver and kidneys failing and his chances of survival declining.
No doubt Zane would kill to get back to Beth, but his life wasn’t in actual danger. No, they couldn’t rely on him, not in his current condition, but that was easy enough to solve. They could bench him, have him babysit the boat, while the rest of them carried out the mission. Link’s information had indicated there wasn’t much danger.
They should be fine.
He grimaced. Of course the fact that they should be fine almost always indicated they wouldn’t be.
Still, they had to chance it.
Cosky apparently read his thoughts. “It’s five hours back to Shadow Mountain. Another half an hour for evac and lift out. If we scrap this and scramble up, Zane won’t get to Beth’s side for six hours, give or take.
“Embray’s maybe fifteen minutes away. We can be in and out of his compound in half an hour. An hour more. That’s what we’re looking at,” Cosky continued calmly.
Tense silence claimed the boat. They all knew that anything could happen in that hour. People died in less than an hour every day. If things were that bad on Beth’s end, that hour could make all the difference to Zane.
But if they did pack up and head home, Benji would almost certainly die. Damn it, they needed more information. How bad was Beth? Zane could just be picking up the beginnings of a stomach flu and his gal panicking.
“Alpha One, Alpha One. Copy,” Mac said into the headset mic.
“Alpha One, copy.” The chopper pilot sounded crystal clear in Mac’s ears.
“Radio base. We need a status on Beth Brown ASAP.”
“Copy.”
The silence grew tenser and tenser as they waited for the pilot to report in. Finally a sputter surged over the line.
“She’s in ICU at the base clinic.”
“Which doesn’t tell us jackshit,” Mac snapped, his frustration building. “Diagnosis? Prognosis?”
“All I’m getting is that she’s in the clinic undergoing treatment,” the pilot responded coolly.
“Fuck.” Mac closed his eyes. They were wasting time just sitting here. He had to make a decision.
If he ordered the go-ahead and Beth died, Zane would never recover. Fuck, there was a really good chance that he’d lose both his best friends during this fucked-up night.
From Cosky’s attitude, it was clear Kait hadn’t filled him in on the change in plans. She was playing her conversation with Mac close to her chest. She probably wouldn’t tell him until the bird landed at the compound.
That explosion still loomed ahead.
He looked at Zane, who’d doubled over again. “We’ll get in and out ASAP. Get you back on the chopper and back to Beth in record time.”
Zane’s grim silence echoed through his radio.
“Cosky, light her up.”
Mac almost expected the engine to stall. Christ knew everything else that could go wrong was headed in that direction, but the engine immediately sputtered to life, and they were back on their way.
Landing took fifteen minutes, as Cosky had predicted. They hopped off the boat and tied it off on one of the rocks jutting out of the beach. Unlike their last beach landing, jagged rocks, a steep hill, and torrential rain confronted them.
“Stay with the boat,” Mac whispered into his mic, knowing everyone would recognize who the order was directed at. The fact Zane didn’t protest was proof of the shape he was in. Proof he knew he’d be a handicap during this upcoming snatch and fly.
Cosky took point, Mac falling in behind him and Rawls on their six. They climbed the craggy hill bent double, each step a struggle against wind and rain. Once they crested the top of the hill, the lights of the compound lit up their NVDs. The original plan had called for Zane and Cosky to take the south entrance while Mac and Rawls took the door that led from the east courtyard directly into the master bedroom and Embray.
With them down a man, one of them would have to breach their entry point solo.
“Rawls, Cosky. Go south. I’ll take east,” Mac whispered.
“Copy,” Cosky and Rawls said in unison.
The south entry point was closer to the bedrooms where most of the crew would be sleeping. While his men swept the bedrooms and secured anyone they found, he’d cover Embray’s room. Once the bedrooms were cleared, Cos would sweep the rest of the house while Rawls marched their captives to Embray’s suite. Mac would sit on Embray. Make sure no one had the bright idea of taking him out once they knew the compound had been compromised.
There would be no fucking repeat of what had happened at Link’s place.
As he turned a corner along the brick wall, a pair of windows shining like a beacon came into view. A door stood between them, light filtering through it as well but not quite so intensely. He buddied up to the window, his back against the brick wall.
“In position,” he whispered into his mic. He waited for his teammates to echo his readiness. Once they were all in position, Rawls would hit the electronics scrambler, taking out alarms, phones, and cameras.
“We’re a go,” Rawls said quietly, all business.
“Go,” Mac ordered.
There was a momentary flicker in the light streaming through Embray’s bedroom window as though the disruption to the electronics had affected the lights as well.
Whoever was in the room would have been distracted by the flicker and likely investigating the cause. Mac chanced a quick stretch and peek only to find the room empty. At least empty from his current viewpoint. Didn’t mean there wasn’t someone tucked in a corner he couldn’t see.
Plus, it wasn’t technically empty. There was the still figure in the hospital bed and the thousand or so blinking machines surrounding it. Fuck, Rawls hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that Embray would be surrounded by a gazillion machines.
Ducking below the window, he crept to the door and reached for the knob. Son of a bitch . . . it opened easily beneath his fingers. The sheer ease of accessing the room sent disquiet skating down his spine. Nothing ever came this easy, and when it did, there was hell to pay later.
He entered the room fast and low, rifle out and sweeping.
Nobody.
He booked to what should be the bathroom according to the multiple maps Link had drawn, barreling in fast and low as he’d been taught as a plebe. Empty.
Back out to the bedroom. This time he headed to the doorway that led to the rest of the house. He chanced a quick glance outside, exposing as little of himself as possible. Empty halls on both sides.
Where the hell was the nurse? Someone was supposed to be on duty.
He settled with his shoulder two feet from the left of the door, positioned so he could keep an eye on both doors as well as the windows.
He listened as he waited, expecting screams, or gunfire, or a muffled shout. Clues his men were at work. But the place sat still and silent and forbidding as death. It felt like forever before Cosky’s voice came down the wire.
“Alpha Two secure.”
“Copy. Alpha Three secure,” Mac whispered. “But the night nurse is AWOL.”
A soft snort traveled down the wire. “We got her.”
No shit? What had she been doing in the bedrooms? Yeah, after a bit more thought that question answered itself.
“The lambs are on the move,” Rawls said, but it was a few minutes or so later before Mac heard the shuffle of feet moving down the hallway. He stepped out to greet them, rifle up and ready—a silent threat in case anyone got the bright idea to run. With bound wrists, docile feet, and terrified faces, two women, followed by two men, trickled into Embray’s bedroom.
“Everyone down on the ground, backs against the wall,” Mac ordered.
“Now wait just one damn minute—” One of the men, a tall, balding guy with a condescending purse to his lips, squared off against him.
Mac shoved him to the ground. The minute the bastard’s ass touched the floor, the rest of their captives followed suit, and Rawls went to work zip-tying their ankles together.
Their four prisoners jelled with Link’s crew count during the night shift. But who the hell was who? An unexpected visitor would give them the same head count, but leave a crew member loose to cause trouble.
“You identify them?” he asked Rawls.
“The two women are the nurses. Meet the pilot.” He nodded at the guy he was zip-tying.
Which left tall, bald, and patronizing as the doctor. Figured.
“Which one’s the night nurse?” he asked Rawls, half-determined to light into her. Jesus Christ, the whole purpose of having a night nurse was to have someone on hand at night. Not raunching it up in bed.
A terrified gasp and low moan from the short, curvy woman at his feet answered his question.
“We’re secure. Call in the bird.” Cosky’s order traveled through his headset.
Tensing, Mac radioed the pilot, giving him the green light. Shit was about to hit the fan. As Rawls continued zip-tying their prisoners, Mac took up guard duty. Once he’d finished binding the last set of ankles, Rawls stood, stretched, and headed toward the still figure in the bed.
“Look,” the bald bastard with the thin lips said. “I’m Dr. Archibald. If you’re looking for money—”
“We’re not,” Mac said to shut him up.
“Well then, what is it you want?” Dr. Pretentious asked with a slight snip, as if he was annoyed they hadn’t prostrated themselves in awe over his awesome doctorness.
“We want you to shut up,” Mac snapped, keeping his voice low and mean, which wasn’t a hardship since tension had tightened his throat, increasing its normal gravelly tone. He scanned the assembled men and women at his feet. “Sit there, shut up, don’t move, and you’ll be fine.”
Rawls checked Embray’s pulse, studied the machines, leaned over the bed to roll their target’s eye down, checking for . . . something.
“That’s my patient,” Dr. Pretentious said possessively. “You’re not a doctor. You have no right—”
Mac tuned him out as soon as Rawls straightened, and he turned to the blinking and beeping machines. The old plan—the one Cosky had insisted on—called for Rawls to unhook and detach Embray from the apparatuses so they could carry him to the helicopter, where Kait would attempt to bring him back from the dead. Their new plan—which his corpsman wasn’t aware of yet—called for him to leave Embray hooked up until Kait tried to heal him in the room.
Christ, was that ever going to cause an explosion.
“Rawls.” Mac waited for him to look over before giving him the finger across the throat. With a quick unsnap and yank, he pulled off his headgear. “Change of plans. Kait’s coming here.”
Rawls froze, then tore off his own headgear. The face that emerged was soaked with sweat, or rain, or both, and full of shocked disbelief. “That isn’t what we decided.”
“Kait and I adjusted the plan.”
Rawls shook his head, then shook it again, as if the first time hadn’t been enough to get his message across. “Sweet Jesus, Mac. What the hell have you done?”
“What I had to do,” Mac snapped back, pushing aside the creeping sense of remorse.
Rawls swore softly beneath his breath. “You went behind his back and put Kaity in danger. He’ll never forgive you for this. You had to know that.”
Yeah, he did. Regret stirred. He hardened his resolve. There was no other damn way.
He’d do it again, damn it.
“You better tell him to meet the chopper. If Kait hikes all the way over here by her lonesome, he’ll kill you before anyone can stop him.”
Mac simply nodded. He’d already planned on alerting Cosky to the change in plans once the bird was in range. No sense in gutting their friendship any earlier than necessary.
Minutes later he heard the rotors. He put his headgear back on and keyed the mic.
After one long, shuddering moment of hesitation—there was still time to switch to plan A—he closed his eyes and set the course. “Alpha Three, head to evac point.”
“Repeat?” Cosky’s calm question came over the radio. “You’ll need help carrying the target.”
“You’re on escort from the bird. Target will walk out.”
There was a moment of confused silence while Cosky deciphered that cryptic comment. Then—“You. Fucking. Bastard.” Another moment of silence. Mac could almost feel the wave of volcanic fury rolling down the line, every bit of it directed at him. “You’re dead. You get me? Dead.”
Yeah, he got him.
But damn it, Kait needed to be here. He’d keep her safe. He’d keep her alive. He’d do whatever it took to ensure her safety. Embray wouldn’t survive being unhooked from those machines. That they knew for a fact. They couldn’t afford to assume Kait could pull the man back from death. Nobody had been able to pull Jude back. Fuck, if Rawls really had died, like he insisted, he’d been gone only seconds. Same with Faith. Embray would be officially dead for a hell of a lot longer than that—several minutes at least. They couldn’t afford to assume Kait could work a miracle and bring him back to life. No, he needed her in this room to heal Embray while he was still living.
Benji’s life depended on it.
Plus, there was this whole fucking NRO Armageddon agenda. Embray had been blessed with one of the sharpest intellects in modern times. If they couldn’t locate Coulson’s sonic bombs, they’d need strategies for neutralizing the devices’ effects. Embray’s mind, assuming he recovered with it intact, might just be the difference between humanity’s salvation or destruction.
Maybe Cos would forgive him for throwing Kait into the hot spot eventually.
Like in a million years.
The minutes ticked by as Mac waited for Kait and Cosky to join them. Their captives were sitting there all nice and quiet, like good little lambs. Embray was lying still and silent, machines expanding his lungs and pumping his heart.
The poor bastard.
Even if Kait—with Cosky’s help—did bring the guy back to life, Embray was still going to have a shitpile of work ahead of him. He’d spent months lifeless in that bed; his body was bound to have atrophied.
More minutes ticked by.
Finally, closing in on seven minutes after Cosky’s last livid response, Mac heard the muffled sound of boots in the hall.
Cosky’s cold, impersonal voice followed through the headset. “Alphas Two and Four, at rendezvous.”
“Copy,” Mac acknowledged quietly.
So Kait had gotten her way, which meant Mac had too—by default. Mac had suspected she would bulldoze into the room, but he hadn’t been 100 percent certain. After all, Cosky always had the option of hog-tying her and leaving her at the chopper.
When the pair reached the room, they immediately made their way to Embray’s bed, pulling off helmets and gloves as they walked.
Kait’s face, head, neck, and long golden braid were soaked. Her flex pants were as well, and they clung to her legs and hips like a second skin. Cosky was every bit as wet, although his BDUs repelled the water so he didn’t look as damp.
After one livid glance, his gray eyes so furious they looked burnished in steel, Cosky ignored Mac.
The pair converged on Embray. Kait leaned over the bed, her hands pressed to Embray’s head. Cosky’s hands joined them, his hands settling over hers.
One second, two, three—
Was it working? Mac shifted to the side so he could see the two sets of hands pressed against Embray’s head, searching for that weird glow that he’d seen in the woods when they’d worked on Rawls’s motionless body.
Nothing was happening.
Four seconds, five . . . come on, come on.
Still nothing.
Frustration and disappointment stirred. The magic should have started by now, right?
Nine seconds, ten.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
Rubbing a hand down his wet face, Mac leaned forward, urging the magic to flow.
Come on. Damn it, come on.
He was so certain that the power in Kait’s hands hadn’t sparked that when the bright light suddenly kindled across Embray’s face, Mac wondered whether he was imagining it—wishful thinking and all. He shut his eyes, counted to three, and reopened them. The luminescent glow had intensified and climbed up to Kait’s and Cosky’s wrists.
It was working.
The relief was a raw, shaky rush.
Rawls moved closer to the bed, watching Embray intently. “His eyes are moving.”
The bastard hadn’t awoken yet, so Mac wasn’t sure why the eye movement was important, but from the intense relief in his corpsman’s voice, it was.
If Mac hadn’t been watching his corpsman for signs of how well the healing was progressing, he would never have seen the narrow, elongated shadow slide across the window behind the bed.
An arm. A hand. A gun.
Fuckfuckfuck.
He couldn’t take the shot. If Rawls popped up, it would take out his skull.
“Gun. Down,” he roared, swinging up his rifle.
Rawls dropped, opening a line of fire, but neither Cosky nor Kait moved.
Jesus. Jesus. They were in some kind of fucking trance.
The shadow in the window shifted, settling at a direct angle with Kait’s head. He had a shot now, but a bad one. There was only an arm. A hand. A gun. No head, no chest. Through a window. Weird angle. If he missed, Kait would die.
With no time to think, he acted instinctively, throwing himself forward with every ounce of strength he possessed. He hit Kait and Cosky, knocking them to the floor as a gun coughed. The window shattered.
An icy pinch hit his chest, then a second. He went down hard, sprawled on top of Kait.
He tried to roll off her, get his feet beneath him, bring up his rifle. But nothing would move. A puddle of ice spread across his chest and around his sides and sank into his back until his entire torso was numb.
Ah fuck . . . this was bad. Really bad.
“Rawls.” The name burbled wetly from his mouth. “Gun. Window.”
“Got him,” Rawls barked. “You just fuckin’ breathe. Mac, breathe.”
Mac tried to follow the order, but his lungs wouldn’t cooperate.
Yeah . . . bad.
A blast of gunfire sounded. His men? Or the other . . . the tango Link hadn’t listed?
Fucking bastard.
Vaguely he registered hands on him. Pushing him aside. Dragging off his helmet, ripping off his ballistics vest. The coldness spread down his legs. His mind went fuzzy. Except for one thought.
One thought that kept recycling.
He forced open his eyes, tried to blink the fuzziness from them, but all he could see were black dots crawling across an ocean of red.
“Not me.” He forced the words past the blood clogging his throat. “Kait on Embray,” he wheezed, praying they understood. “Not me.”
Embray hadn’t awoken. She couldn’t heal both of them. She had to do Embray. Had to.
Exhausted, he fought out one more instruction. “Tell . . . Amy . . . sorry.”
No. No . . . not right.
His fuzzy mind tried to focus. Tried to get the words right. “Love . . . her.”
He wasn’t sure whether the words made it out of his darkening mind. He couldn’t feel his legs, arms, torso. Couldn’t feel anything anymore. No cold. No pain. Just nothing.
Why hadn’t he told her when he’d had a chance? He’d known for a while.
Despair followed him into the darkness.