No Turning Back (33 page)

Luke fired again. This time when she glanced at him for confirmation of a hit, his complexion was gray. He squinted out into the snowstorm, blinking fast. “Winged'm.”

Still two alive, then.

A second later Luke gagged and turned his head away, dry heaving.

The yelling grew louder as the enemy approached, until she swore she could feel the vibration in the ground from their pounding footsteps. “Can you get them?”

Luke didn't answer, only nodded, pulling himself up and aiming with brute determination.

“Want me to take the rifle?”

He shook his head, and the fact that he was unable to speak scared the holy hell out of her. Tamping down the rising panic, she risked a split second's peek over the pathetic barricade. Two of them, at least a hundred yards out. Could she hit them at this range? Assoud hung back, his accomplice still racing toward them. Taking deliberate aim this time, she got down as low as she could and peered through a gap in the rocks, picking the moment where she thought the pistol might reach him. Seventy-five yards.

Her hands clenched around the icy grip.

Over the swirling wind, the faint throb of rotors reached her. “I can hear you,” she said into the headset. “Can you see us?”

“Any second.”

Sixty yards. Assoud had stopped. He raised his rifle to his shoulder, sighted down the barrel. Her stomach did a terrified back flip.

The other soldier kept running, screaming at the top of his lungs in defiance of death. She squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in her hands. The man kept coming. She fired again.

A bullet smashed into the rocks in front of Luke. Her eyes shot to him. He was panting, eyes closed, his cheek pressed against the rifle stock.

“Luke.”

His lids lifted a fraction.

Shit. “Ben, Luke's going under.”

“Hold on, Sam. Any second now... ”

She didn't have that long. Raising her eyes, she focused on Assoud, still poised in position, aiming right at them. Through the veil of snow, she could see the blood from his fight with Tehrazzi staining his clothes. The other man sprinted at her. Sensing his victory as he closed in.

Fifty yards. The rotors came nearer.

She was on her own. No one could help her defend them. She had to do this herself.

A surge of power rushed through her body. Goose bumps rippled over her skin.

Forty yards. In the kill zone now.

As though detached from herself, Sam felt her body shove upward. She gained her knees, then her feet, driven up in an almost euphoric haze. Gripping the pistol, she vaulted the barricade. Her feet hit the snow-covered ground with a thud. Adrenaline blasted through her, fueling her thighs to eat up the distance. The man's mouth was open. She saw nothing but the fanatical expression on his bearded face. He raised his weapon. Her heart slammed against her ribs. He fired. The shot whizzed past her right shoulder.

A scream of rage and power tore out of her throat. She leveled the pistol and squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. Over and over. He jerked backward. A look of astonishment transformed his face. She kept firing. His left arm flew up. Blood erupted. The rifle fell. She fired again. He arched back. A dark hole bloomed in his chest. She fired again, still screaming. He toppled over. Lay still. His hate-filled eyes stayed on her, and then turned glassy.

She stopped running. The screaming died away. He was dead. She'd killed a man.

Her entire body started shaking. Her stomach heaved and twisted as she stared at the pool of blood spreading from the body.

“Give me status, Sam.”

She couldn't answer Ben. The chopper must be close.

Then something slammed into her chest, hard as a sledgehammer, and threw her off her feet. She crashed onto her back in the snow, unable to breathe as the snowflakes swirled down to land on her face. A bullet. Her hands grabbed at the burning pain in her chest as she struggled for air.

“Sam?” Ben's voice registered through her earpiece.

Her frozen fingers touched the Kevlar vest.

“Sam!”

Air raced into her starving lungs. She tried to raise her head. Not dead, she thought, lifting her eyes.

Assoud lowered his rifle. He smiled.

I'm not dead, you son of a bitch.

Her fingers closed around the pistol.

She struggled onto her elbows. He raised the gun.

The rotors were loud now. Her eyes fixed on the end of the rifle's muzzle. She'd never hit Assoud at this distance. She raised her weapon anyway.

Lifting her gaze, she stared into Assoud's eyes, and prepared to fire.

A second later the front of his head blew out in a bloody mist. She jerked, paralyzed as she watched him topple forward. As he hit the ground, the report of a rifle echoed through the stillness.

“Sam? Sam!” Ben shouted into the radio aboard the Pave Hawk. He'd heard that gut-wrenching cry enough times to know she'd been hit. Fear grabbed him by the throat. God dammit, he was moments away from being in range to help her...

Fighting back his panic, he held on until they cleared the last ridge.

“Got ‘em,” the co-pilot announced.

His heart was beating so fast he was almost hyperventilating.

“Three targets down.”

Fuck! He grabbed a med kit, closed his eyes and prayed he'd get to her in time to save her.

“Fifteen seconds.”

Ben counted down to three, and made ready to jump. The rotors sent up a spray of snow that obscured his vision. The instant the wheels made contact with the ground he leapt out and sprinted out into the open, rifle aimed. When he finally saw Sam, his heart tripped. She wasn't moving. No shots came. Two bodies lay bleeding into the snow in the distance. He flung his rifle down.

“Sam!” he yelled, tearing over, afraid he'd find her bleeding out.

She rolled to her side and struggled up on all fours, dragging in thin breaths. He skidded to his knees beside her, yanked her up to flip her over. She grabbed his wrists. No blood, but she could have internal injuries. He grabbed the front of her jacket, ripped it open. Froze.

A silver dollar sized hole in the Kevlar vest met his eyes.

“Ben.”

He raised his head, met her tear-filled gaze. “Are you hit?” Ripping the thing off her, he passed a hand over her sternum. It came away clean. The vest had saved her. Hauling her up into his arms, Ben buried his face against her and rocked her back and forth, letting the shakes roll through him. “Shit, shit, I thought you were dead or dying.”

She clenched her hands into his jacket. “N-no.”

He pulled back and took her face in his hands. She was white as the snow, pupils constricted despite the darkness. “Oh, sweetheart.” He tucked her tight into his body and held her against his slamming heart.

“She all right?”

He looked up to see Luke standing there, supporting his weight with his rifle. “Yeah. You?”

The older man nodded, and sank down onto one knee. The front of his BDUs were covered with vomit. “Was close.”

Way too fucking close. Ben nodded toward the dead men. “One of them Assoud?”

“Yeah. Wasn't me who got him, though.”

He glanced at the top of Sam's head. “She did?”

“No. She got the other one.”

Ben frowned. “So who— ”

“The shot came from behind him.”

He turned his head to search through the falling snow. Whoever it was must still be out there. “Let's move.” He started to lift Sam into his arms.

“N-no.” She pushed away and stood on her own. “Help L-Luke to the ch-chopper.”

“I don't need help,” Luke argued, starting for it himself.

She swayed a little, and Ben took her by the shoulder. “Help him.”

“You first,” he said. “I'll come back for Luke afterward.”

But she shook her head. “No. More soldiers coming. Have to get the equipment from the CP.”

“I'll get it.”

“No, I have to be there.”

Screw it. He dragged her up and hauled ass to the helo, setting her down gently on the deck before going back for Luke and giving him the same treatment over his growled protests. The co-pilot was checking Sam over when they arrived. They'd never be able to land by the CP, it was too steep and there wasn't an area wide enough to set down. “We're going to have to go on foot,” he told her, searching her eyes. “Just tell me what you need and I'll go.”

“No. I'll come.”

He didn't think she was in any condition to go anywhere after what had just happened, but her eyes had fire in them and her color was better. “We've got to haul ass.”

“Okay.” She hopped off the deck and started jogging in the direction of the CP. Staying close while scanning the horizon for threats, he led the way with his weapon ready, matching his pace to hers, admiring the way she pushed herself up to a sprint despite how weak she must have felt. The snow was dying down and visibility was increasing. “The fighters are coming in fast,” he warned.

She didn't answer, just tore down the mountain, slipping and sliding her way behind him. When they reached the ledge the cave was located on, he stopped dead. Two sets of footprints tracked through the snow, one moving toward the CP, and the other leading away. The treads were covered with a dusting thin enough to tell him they were made recently enough that the snow had been petering out. He pushed Sam against the cliff and approached the entrance with his rifle up and ready, burst inside and swept around with his NVGs. Empty.

He stuck his head out. “Hurry.”

When Sam tore into the CP and flipped on a battery powered light, the first thing she saw was the crumpled candy bar wrappers lying on the ground. Her eyes automatically shot to her computers, all up and running except the one that had been monitoring the rest of the team at the rendezvous point. It was missing.

Her heart lurched. Had she moved it? She couldn't remember. Dropping to the ground, she shoved gear around, searching for it. Nothing. “One of the computers is missing.”

Ben frowned. “Missing?”

“It had sensitive stuff on it, intel and e-mails.”

“Must be here someplace.” He didn't sound hopeful, but squatted beside her. “What do you need?”

She didn't look at him as she raced to gather up the remaining equipment. “The laptops, radio and batteries. The rest we can replace.” At least, she hoped they could. Where in hell was that damned laptop? She searched around for it and the pad of paper she'd scribbled the coordinates on, but couldn't find either of them. “The meeting point location,” she blurted, yanking out wires and stuffing equipment into her pack, “it's missing too. I wrote it down— ”

“You
what
? Why the hell would you write it down?”

His anger made her heart beat even faster. “There were too many for me to remember, and— ” Her eyes fell on a piece of paper lying on the ground near her feet. As she bent to retrieve it, her stomach grabbed.

“What?” Ben demanded, hurriedly jamming electronic gear into another bag.

She stared at the Arabic handwriting. “It says, ‘You owe me your life, my brother.'” Cold began to seep into her skin. “The candy bar wrappers... Karim must have come back and taken the laptop and coordinates, then left this.” But that didn't make sense. Karim was an uneducated peasant, and only spoke Pashto. He couldn't have written that note. So who had?

“Shit.” Ben's face tightened. “Come on, let's get out of here.”

They gathered up what they could carry and Sam shut off the light before running with him out of the cave. Rounding the bend on the approach to the embankment, someone suddenly leapt out at her. She screamed and lunged back, falling on her butt in the snow. Ben hurtled past her to intercept the threat. He let out a vicious snarl and caught the attacker in a flying tackle. A deep grunt as they hit the ground told her it was a man.

Ben was both beautiful and deadly as he grabbed the assailant's arm and whipped it up and back. She'd never seen anyone move so fast. The man screamed and lashed out with his foot. Ben blocked it and twisted up, throwing him over his shoulder. The guy hit the ground with a thud near her feet, and Sam did a fast crab-walk to scramble out of the way. The enemy rose to his knees and drew a knife. She swallowed a shriek, but Ben smashed into the guy's wrist with a high kick and dove on top of the attacker, pinning him down.

“Don't look,” Ben bit out. He grabbed the knife.

Sam shut her eyes and turned her head away. A wet slice and a gurgling yell were all that met her ears. A second later, Ben grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. There was no body. Ben must have thrown it over the edge. Her terrified gaze ran over him and the blood staining his clothes. Was he hurt?

“Run,” he snapped.

Swallowing the bile in her throat, she did. On autopilot, she struggled back up the slippery hill, but he kept her from falling and dragged her up onto the flat expanse where the helo waited.

Luke appeared at the threshold, gray and grim. Gasping for breath, she thrust the note at him and scrambled aboard with Ben. Her head spun. She had the detached thought that her brain was about to short out. The engine powered up. She watched Luke pale even more as he read the paper.

“Tehrazzi,” he snarled, crumpling it in his fist. His eyes burned with deadly purpose. “Fucking with my head, as usual.”

Tehrazzi had killed Assoud? He'd had Luke in his sights and taken out his bodyguard instead? She scrambled to make sense of it. A gasp stuck in her throat. Oh, shit, the missing paper. “H-he knows where the team is. He's got the coordinates.”

“What?”

“He— I left a piece of paper with them on it when I came after you, and he got one of the laptops... ” The sudden rage in Luke's eyes scared her so much she backed away. Her useless apology stuck in her throat.

Scalding her with that lethal gaze for another moment, he turned away and rushed to the cockpit to order the pilot to do a search of the area. “He's got to be close, and the snow will make it easy to track him.” His residual anger was palpable.

“Alert the others, then let's nail the bastard,” Ben muttered, manning the door.

Right. Focus. Get to work. The mist in her brain cleared. Having a task to complete brought her back like a bucket of ice water in the face. Braced against the bulkhead, Sam opened up the laptop and waited for the satellite link to get a visual on Nev and the others. When it came on, relief slid through her. The screen filled and she zoomed out on their location, the infra-red sensors illuminating the four of them, either Rhys or Davis out front in a defensive position to guard Nev and the pediatrician. She zoomed back out, checking the perimeter. Then more movement caught her eyes. Six bodies were climbing up the mountain toward them.