Harlequin Intrigue June 2015 - Box Set 2 of 2: Navy SEAL Newlywed\The Guardian\Security Breach (52 page)

“Echols!” he yelled, in full panic mode now. “Call him, man! You've got kids, just like me.”

“Call the sheriff,” Tristan pleaded. “You know Lee's got a copter on the way. You've got to know the sheriff is searching for us, too. He mentioned the Coast Guard. We all heard the fire trucks. I'm sure the sheriff was right behind them.”

“I'm sinking, Echols! Help me! Make the call!”

Echols made a shushing gesture, then asked Tristan, “How do I know you won't shoot me?”

Tristan shrugged. “You don't. But I haven't shot you yet and you and your buddy both are wide-open. Not to mention you could shoot me, too. Come on. You're trading certain death for a trial and a possible prison sentence.”

“And if I decide to take my chances with my boss?”

“It's your funeral.” Tristan shrugged. “Oh, wait a minute. I forgot to mention one thing. Lee won't have the pleasure of blowing you up after all.” He reached into the box and grabbed one of the grenades. “See what I've got?” He held it up high so Echols couldn't help but see it.

“What the hell?”

“This? It's a good ol' US-military-grade grenade. You know what a grenade is, don't you?”

“You won't detonate that so close to you.”

“That could be a smart bet, but the stakes are pretty high, I guarantee. We've got a lot more room over here. We can run. Besides, I can throw it way on the other side of you. Of course, if you call the sheriff for me, I won't have to waste these.”

Echols was silent. Farrell talked almost the entire time, his tone varying from pleading to screeching to rationalizing.

Finally Echols switched the rifle to his left hand and picked up the satellite phone. “Give me the number.”

“And one last little thing,” Tristan said. “Thanks to you guys, the sheriff thinks I'm dead. You might have to do a little explaining to convince him that I'm alive.”

“What? How am I supposed to explain that?”

“You could tell him about your boss, Vernon Lee.”

Farrell was still pushing himself toward the knoll. He'd figured out that lifting each leg high enough and shaking it could help the water melt the sticky mud. It was excruciatingly slow, but it worked.

Tristan made a show of setting down the metal box of grenades and the automatic pistol. Empty-handed, he called out to Echols. “Come closer to the edge and hold the phone up so I can talk to him.”

Echols started forward, but Tristan held up his hand. “First, drop your weapons. I did.”

“Nope. I'm keeping my handgun,” Echols said emphatically. “And I'm not talking to the sheriff. You can do your own explaining. You'll have to yell at the phone.”

He could do that, but he did not really want to leave his cover and walk over to the edge of the dry land in order to be heard. That was probably stupid. Either of the men would have an easy shot.

“What are you doing?” his wife's voice whispered from behind him. “You can't go out there.”

Tristan's heart jumped. “Damn it, Sandy. What are you doing here? I told you to go back to the hideout. I should have known you weren't going to listen to me. When have you ever?” He shook his head as he started forward.

“You know that this is the best chance we've got to get out of here. I've got to let the sheriff know that I'm alive. The only way he'll believe it is if he hears me himself.”

“They will shoot you. Then they can call Lee and tell him you're dead and they'll be safe.”

She was right. That was a possibility. But he'd heard Echols's voice on the phone. Echols knew that Lee was going to kill them. “It's a chance I've got to take,” he told her, then looked at Echols. “Okay,” he called to Echols. “I'll trust you.”

“Tristan!” Sandy snapped. “That's like telling a hornet on your leg you'll trust him not to sting you while you're trying to get him off. So what if they trust you. You cannot trust them.”

“Give me the number,” Echols shouted.

Tristan gave him the number. He keyed it in and waited, the bulky phone held to his ear. Within a few seconds, his face changed from trepidation to a vague relief. But then how relieved could he feel about the certainty of being imprisoned for treason, kidnapping, assault with intent, arson and whatever else the government might want to charge him with. Of course, one difference was that when he faced a United States court, he could be relatively sure he'd come out alive. From how he'd responded to Vernon Lee earlier, it sounded as if Lee's plan was to wipe the slate clean. Get rid of not only Tristan, but the assassins he'd sent.

“Is this the sheriff?” Echols asked. Then he went on, “I'm calling regarding Tristan DuChaud.” There was a long pause, then, “You don't need to know my name. Not yet. But I've got news for you. DuChaud is not dead.” He listened for a moment, his gaze on Tristan.

“I'm standing here looking at him. Where? Hell, I don't know. Somewhere in the swamp.”

The sheriff talked again and Echols looked at Tristan, frowning. “I don't know about his wife. She was in the house?”

Tristan shook his head.

“DuChaud is telling me she wasn't in the house.” He listened, then sighed. “Yes. Fine. Fine. I set the fire. Yes, that was us, too. We shot at you when you tried to take the path to the dock.” Echols listened some more, then looked at Tristan again. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Sheriff!” Tristan shouted. “Can you hear me?”

“Hello?” the sheriff said. “I was about to hang up. Who the hell is this?”

“Sheriff Nehigh,” Tristan yelled. “It's Tristan DuChaud.”

“What? DuChaud's deceased. What's going on here? I warn you, I've got helicopters on the way. You guys are in big trouble and this is not funny. I'm having your phone traced.”

“Barley,” he yelled desperately, hoping that using the sheriff's nickname would convince him. “I'm Tristan DuChaud. You dated my sister in high school. We're on a satellite phone. I'm
not
dead. Boudreau, tell him.”

Boudreau sat up and bellowed, “Sheriff, it's Boudreau here. Tristan tells the truth. He is alive.”

“Boudreau? DuChaud?” Sheriff Nehigh said. “I just got word from the Coast Guard that their helicopters have picked up your signal. They'll be on top of you in no time.” The sheriff cleared his throat. “Now, we got some time. Tell me this. What the hell is going on?”

Chapter Fifteen

When Sandy opened her eyes, everything was glowing an odd, ugly sea-green color. She blinked and looked around. It was a hospital room and she was in a hospital bed.

Her first thought was that she'd lost the baby and her pulse leaped in fear, but then he kicked.

“Ow, bean,” she whispered. “That was a good one.”

When she took a breath the harsh smell of antiseptic stung her nostrils and made her sneeze.

Sneezing made her hurt, deep in her stomach. She moaned a little, then lifted her head to look around. She wanted to shift her position, but when she tried to put her hands down on the mattress, she felt a pull and a small sting on the back of her right hand. IV solution. Bandage. Soreness.

On the wall in front of the bed was a whiteboard and a plastic box. It was too dim in the room to read what was written in green marker on the white board, but the box was labeled
Biohazard
,
Warning: Risk of Contamination
and
Dispose of Properly
in red letters.

Of course. She was in a hospital room.

She tried to remember how she got here, but her brain was hazy and the memories were more like dreams that always fluttered away on butterflies wings when she tried to catch them.

A vision of Tristan yelling across the swamp came to her. Was that the last thing she remembered?

She closed her eyes and explored her memory as well as she could. What had happened between that snippet of time and now was in there. She knew it was, if she could just access it.

Within seconds of closing her eyes, she began to drift off to sleep. While sleeping some more seemed like a great idea, she wanted to remember, so she flexed her right hand and the pain from the IV cannula stung her again, pushing away her drowsiness.

A memory of the prick of a needle and a voice promising that she'd relax soon came to her.

Well, she'd relaxed, all right. She could barely hold her eyes open. She glanced at her left wrist. Her watch was gone.

That made sense. They didn't let anyone wear jewelry into surgery.

Surgery? She'd had surgery? From somewhere came a faint recollection of a male voice telling her she wouldn't remember a thing, then lots of painfully bright lights hurting her eyes.

She wondered what time it was. She squinted at the clock on the wall above the whiteboard, but the green glow in the room was too dark to see the time.

Suddenly, she had to know the time. She felt along the edge of the hospital bed, looking for the buzzer. And she was thirsty.

When she turned her head as she felt for the buzzer, she was startled to see a figure in a chair beside the bed. She pressed her left palm against her chest, where her heart pounded.

The sight of the shadowed figure triggered more memories, this time of endless questions.

Suddenly, it all came rushing back. The hammering interrogations had started with the EMTs on the helicopter and continued with the emergency-room staff downstairs.

But they were nothing compared to the grilling she'd gotten from the sheriff, a Homeland Security Agent, a member of the Governor of Louisiana's staff and a rather handsome, if uptight, young man who had never explained who he was.

And now here was
another
stranger, waiting for her to wake up? No. She pressed her lips together tightly.

“No,” she muttered. “No more questions.” Not until she got to ask a few of her own.

She reached for the buzzer again, so she could tell the nurse to get rid of this man, whoever he was, but she couldn't find its cord.

Suddenly tired, she laid her head back on the pillow. “Well?” she said, letting her eyes drift closed. “What do you want?”

The man didn't answer. She glanced sideways at him, then lifted her head to look more closely. He was sitting awkwardly, his head bowed.

He'd fallen asleep. She leaned as far to the left as she could and squinted, trying to make out his features in the early-morning sea-green light. As soon as her eyes focused on his face, her heart skipped a beat.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Tristan.”

He stirred and lifted his head.

She reached out to him.

“Hey, San,” he murmured, reaching out to take her hand. “Are you all right? The nurses wouldn't tell me anything except that you were
resting comfortably
.”

“Oh, Tris.” Her voice broke. He was really here. “Oh, my Tristan.”

And then her brain was awash with everything that had happened, from the fire to the running and hiding in the swamp to listening to the doctors talking about the miracle that was her baby.

The images and words rushed past her like fast-flowing river water. After a moment, she tried to verbalize some of it.

“I remember waking up in the ER and thought the past few days were a dream. I thought I was back in that world where you were dead.”

He took her hand and wrapped his around it, then kissed her fingers. “I'm not dead,” he whispered. “Feel this?” He pressed a trail of kisses onto her skin, from the back of her hand to her forearm to her shoulder, all the way up to her cheek. Then he said softly, “Tell me what the doctors said? Did they get the bullet out? Is the baby okay?”

Sandy smiled. “The doctor said we were very lucky. The baby's fine.” A delicious warmth spread through her when Tristan gently pressed his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes as he pulled away just enough to kiss her.

But behind her lids, new images appeared, of bullets flying and blood spattering. She frowned at him.

“What about you?” she asked, looking him over. He was dressed in scrubs. His face was scratched, probably by branches, and his eyes were sunken with fatigue, but he was here. He was alive.

He nodded. His hand tightened on hers. “I'm fine.”

“Are you really okay? And what about Boudreau?”

“He's here. We're in Houma. Terrebonne Parish Hospital. They're releasing Boudreau this afternoon. One of the rifle bullets parted his hair, on the wrong side, no less,” he said, the frown fading a little as the corner of his mouth turned up. “They admitted him because the slug that hit him in the forearm kind of pulverized the bone.”

“Oh, no,” Sandy said. “He won't be able to get along with one arm.”

“Okay,
pulverized
is probably the wrong word. They put several pins in it and they think it's going to heal okay. It'll hurt him when it rains, though.”

“I hope it does. Heal, not hurt.”

“He's been asking about you. He wants to come see you as soon as it's okay with the doctors.”

“Really? I'd have thought he'd be chomping at the bit to get back home.”

“Well, that, too.”

She paused to look at him. The light in the room was getting brighter as the sun rose outside. “Tristan, please tell me. You're really okay? Have you been here the whole time?”

He shook his head. “I had to be debriefed. They flew me to DC. I guess they wanted to see for themselves that I was alive.”

She frowned at him. “Really?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Just kidding. It's standard procedure to be transported in for a debriefing after a...situation.”

“You look exhausted,” Sandy said. “How are you? Have you been able to rest? Did the doctors look at your leg?”

He angled his head. “I'm fine, really.”

“Fine? That's all you have to say after everything that's happened?”

Tristan lowered the guardrail and leaned forward. He rested his palm on top of her head and stroked her forehead with his thumb.

“Homeland Security had me thoroughly checked out, mentally and physically. I must have talked with every acronym in the city. FBI, CIA, NSA. But they also sent me to Walter Reed for a complete physical. I might have to have surgery, but it can wait awhile.”

“Surgery. On your leg? Oh, Tristan, maybe they can fix it,” she said, squeezing his hand.

He frowned. “We'll see. Anyhow, I've been back here since yesterday evening. Spent about three hours talking with the sheriff, then I came to see you about eight-thirty, but you were asleep. They let me stay in here, a booby prize, I guess, since they wouldn't tell me anything specific except that you and the baby were resting comfortably.” He stood and bent over to kiss her on the lips.

For a moment, Sandy floated in the blissful knowledge that Tristan was real, he was alive and nothing could change that.

When she opened her eyes and took her first good look at him, she saw that his face was drawn and pale. He looked worried and—as she'd told him—exhausted. More than anything in the world, she wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted to feel the vibrancy of his skin, the warmth of his lips. She wanted to soak in everything about him that proved to her that he was alive and real and here.

But because of the way he looked, all she said was, “They got them, didn't they? The bad guys?”

The frown returned to Tristan's face. “Oh, you surely remember that. Lee had told Echols, the guy on dry land, that he was sending a helicopter to strafe the whole area and kill us and them. That's the reason he finally decided to call the sheriff for me.

“The sheriff managed to get the Coast Guard to send two helicopters to intercept Lee's bird and send it running back to where it came from. Then one copter airlifted you and Boudreau here, and the other one picked up our two friends and me.”

“I remember floating really high up but I thought that was a dream.”

“Nope. No dream.”

Sandy stared at him, openmouthed.
Butterfly wings.
“Not butterfly wings, helicopter propellers,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. And they put you and those two killers in one basket? Tristan. They could have killed you.”

He shook his head. “They were too happy not to be killed by Lee. I understand they're in DC now, singing their little hearts out to Homeland Security and the FBI about Vernon Lee and his plot to bring down the US from the inside by supplying automatic handguns to kids on the street and organized crime.”

“Have they caught Lee?”

Tristan shook his head. “They can't find him. I was told there was evidence that he'd been shot, or had shot himself. But all that was found in his penthouse office in the Lee Building in San Francisco was a gun with his fingerprints on it and a fair amount of his blood. I don't think anybody connected with this case is going to make an assumption about whether he's dead. Not after they all assumed that I was.”

“So he could still be out there?”

Tristan didn't answer for a beat. “He could be,” he finally said.

“You don't think he is? Do you think he's dead?” she asked on a yawn.

Tristan frowned and was silent for a long time. “I don't. I think I'd have to say show me the body.”

“Tristan,” she said. “I have to tell you something. Lee Drilling sent a really nice condolence letter and they have set up a trust fund for the little bean.”

“A trust fund? Screw that.”

Sandy shivered. “I know. It kind of makes me nauseated to think about it.” She lay quietly for a moment. “I might be sleepy,” she murmured.

Tristan smiled at her. “You'd better sleep while you can. Everybody from the sheriff to the media to the government's going to want to talk to you, too, now that you're awake.”

“I've already talked to them,” she protested.

“Apparently not enough. I was given the times by my boss at Homeland Security and told that the alphabet agencies would like me to be at the interrogation, too.”

He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I'm afraid all this will go on for a long time. I'm sorry.” He sat there, pressing her hand to his cheek, that frown back on his face.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

She pulled her hand away and took a long breath to try to push through the drowsiness. “Oh, no. No,” she said sternly. “You are not going to keep on doing that. I won't stand for it.”

Tristan lifted his gaze to his wife's eyes, which were blazing. But he couldn't hold it. Anger and fear shone from their depths. He stood and walked over to the window, where the sun was just coming up.

What could he do, if anything, to repair their broken hearts? They'd grown so far apart during the past few years. And then all this had happened and he'd let her down so completely that he was sure she could never forgive him.

He'd done it for her and their baby, and to try to stop a murderous terrorist, but had he lost everything important to him in the process? “Sandy,” he said without turning around. “I'm sorry.”

“What?”

He turned awkwardly, favoring his bad leg. “I let you down in so many ways. I hope you can forgive me.”

“For-forgive you?” she stammered. “Are you kidding me?”

He closed his eyes, pain wrenching his sore heart. “I know. It's not enough, but I swear to you, I'll do everything I can to make it up to you if you'll let me.”

“Tristan, there's only one thing I want you to do.”

He nodded. “Of course. Anything.”

“Come here and turn on the overhead light.”

Baffled, he did as she said. When he looked at her, her face was glowing as it had when she'd first found out she was pregnant. He almost gasped aloud. From the time they were nine years old, he'd always thought she was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. She still was.

“Unless I dreamed it, too, there should be a big manila folder around here somewhere. Do you see it? I'm pretty sure the doctor left it here.” She looked around.

He saw it lying near the sink. He picked it up. “Is this it?”

“Yes. It's my sonogram. They printed it out so I could show you. They made a DVD for us, too.”

“Of what?” he asked, still confused about what she was doing and saying.