On Thin Ice (Special Ops) (11 page)

He wondered if she could sleep in a chair. He laughed. “She’ll have time to find out,” he mumbled. “Two nights time before I call her father.” He was going to demand the money be deposited into an offshore account he already had setup. It would have to be wired the same day and if it wasn’t he would threaten bodily harm to Aaron’s precious baby girl. That would make the man rush to deliver. There would be no time for him to try to pull a fast one on him. Once the money was in he was going to kill her. She had a little time left and then he would take Aaron Bowman’s blood just as he had been the cause of Alexei’s blood being taken from him. He would let him live with that guilt for a while and then he would kill him. He would torture him with guilt first and then kill him.

It felt like it took forever to get to her. Never before had he felt this antsy on a rescue mission. It wasn’t as if he didn’t care about the previous rescue missions. He was always alert to the possible dangers and to the possible missteps that could throw his mission off, but this was different. This felt different. She wasn’t a package; she was Akira, sweet, innocent—relatively, he told himself. There was nothing innocent about the things she had written to him. But she was different. She wasn’t a package and for some reason, this rescue felt as if it were the most important rescue mission of his life. He had gone in to rescue Natalia and she wasn’t a package either, but what he felt then and what he felt now was not the same thing. It scared him. He was angry, anxious about getting Akira safe, and he was sad. God, he was sad for her, for what he knew she had to be facing, and for the fear he knew she felt. If he didn’t get to her in time he would never forgive himself.

That sense of urgency is one of the things that kept him moving fast. He had slept little, and that had nothing to do with the nature he knew was surrounding him and everything to do with the fact that he knew he needed to get to her. There was no time for resting because taking a leisurely pace or sleeping longer could mean life or death for her.

Now that he was inside, crawling through the over head shaft to the entry point, he was ready to get her out of there. He secured a climbing carabiner attached to one end of his rope to a secure metal loop over his head. He had to have a way to get her back up, and himself really, after he made the descent into the lower room. He used a small circular mirror, like the kind dentists used when poking around in the patient’s mouth, and he stuck it through the ridges of the gate trying to cautiously see if there was anybody else in the room. He could see Akira. From the limited angles he could reach he didn’t see anybody else. He was going to have to take a chance on moving the gate while presuming the room was clear of the enemy. He eased the gate over, slowly and quietly, before looking down into the room to check the room more clearly. Satisfied that she was alone he quietly entered and quickly made his way to her. The room was darkened except for the single fifty watt light bulb dangling over her head.

He pulled out his knife, ready to cut the bindings holding her in the chair. The moment he touched her shoulder she awakened with a frightened gasp. “It’s okay,” he whispered. He saw the tension in her body ease.

 
“Jet,” she whispered nearly breathless. “You came for me.”

He cut the binding on one ankle as he stayed behind her chair, watching the door and ready to shoot should somebody enter. “You knew I would come for you.”

“I had hoped, but I wasn’t sure you would.”

He moved to her side, ready to work on the bindings holding her wrists to the arms of the chair. “I will always come for you, Akira.” He placed one gloved palm on her cheek and she leaned into his touch. Her eyes closed and he could see the single tear escaping them. He quickly freed her from her remaining bindings. “We have to go.”

She nodded and tried to stand. Her legs gave beneath her and he helped her up. “I’ve been sitting so long it all feels numb.” She shook out her arms and tried to shake out her legs too. “I’ll be fine. My legs are strong.” She tried to assure him. He didn’t like her present condition, but he couldn’t wait around for the sensations to come back to her limbs.

“Are your arms strong enough to get you up that rope right now? I need you to crawl up there and wait off to the right.”

She hobbled over to the rope. He knew most her strength was in her legs and to climb that rope she would need her legs, but he hoped she could still get up there using her arms to support her weight. If not he would have to improvise. She nodded like the fighter she was and much to his surprise she used both legs and arms to get up the rope. He was certain years of skating and training is what was making the feelings come back to her leg more swiftly—either that or she was so determined to get out of there that she was ignoring the pain.

He climbed up behind her, pulled his rope up, had her move back past the gate before pulling it back in place and telling her to follow him. He needed her behind him and because it was a tight space there wouldn’t have been room to make the position change once they got up there.

It was still dark out, but it wouldn’t be for much longer. He wanted to get moving, to get a big enough lead that they could put distance between themselves and the bad guys.

Once he climbed out of his entry point he helped her up and then made it to the area where he had stashed his pack. He couldn’t make it through the space with it on his back so he had to hide it and go in without it. Once he got it positioned on his back he looked at her. “Can you run?”

She nodded.

“Then stay with me, every step,” he took her hand in his. “Quietly,” he gave it a gentle squeeze.

“All right,” she said softly.

He released her hand and took up a slow running pace that he thought she would be able to keep up with. He didn’t know how long those guys would be sleeping, or how often they checked on Akira, and he couldn’t risk that one would walk into that room any second now and realize she wasn’t there. They needed space—a lot of it—and he planned to make sure they had it. If luck was on his side he would make it back to the truck and off that mountain without having to get into a gunfight. He didn’t want to risk Akira taking a bullet.

When they had made considerable lead he slowed to a walking pace. She wasn’t full strength, no matter how much she wanted to pretend to be. Always the fighter, he thought and something about that thought reminded him of one of the things he liked about her. She didn’t just quit because somebody told her she couldn’t do it, or that nobody could do it; she worked hard until she figured out how to do it. She had attacked her skating in that manner. While it had led to some painful falls, it had also led her to the top of her sport.

“How badly did they hurt you?” He had slowed his pace so he could walk side by side with her. He hadn’t bothered to ask if they hurt her because he was sure they had. He could see the bruises on her already.

She shrugged. He stopped walking and turned her to face him. “How badly did they hurt you?”

“I tried to run the first day so…you know…and he pushed me around a bit when he would let me go to the bathroom. He always cuffed me when he untied me from the chair. I…he…well, let’s just say it’s hard to get one’s clothing down with handcuffs on; maybe it’s possible, but he never gave me the chance to find out.”

Jet growled. Henri had told him these guys wouldn’t…no, he had to remain calm and let her finish talking. He had to fight the urge to circle back and empty his gun in the man.

“He didn’t like me much I don’t think. I only saw four of them. I don’t know if there were more. I think there were only four because that’s all I saw at the station too, but everything happened so quickly that I don’t know. It’s like watching a major action movie where there is just so much going on that you can’t follow it—that’s what it felt like. I heard the gunfire and it took a while for it to even register that it was gunfire until people in front of me started falling and then the men with masks came into focus. It was like a nightmare really. I was so scared. When they killed Demetri I knew it was over. I tried to fight, but then he hit me.” She touched her fingers to her face. “They taunted me. I think that brought them pleasure, to try to make me afraid. I wouldn’t show them fear, but I think they could sense it—like a dog senses fear I think they sensed my fear.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. I know that doesn’t ease what you went through, but I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you faster.” What he really meant was that he was sorry he wasn’t the one guarding her body because the bastards would have never even gotten close to her. He, unlike Demetri, would have had a gun and he would have used it willingly.

“It’s not your fault. And you came for me,” she assured him. “I am…I will be,” she corrected, “okay. I’ll be okay, Jet.”

He would make sure of that.

“They didn’t even give me any water, or food.”

He could see the pain of hunger on her face. He pulled her over to a rock and had her sit down. He pulled his pack off his back and took out one of the protein bars and a bottle of the water. It wasn’t cold, but it would suffice to replenish what she was lacking.

“Here, eat this.” He watched her rip the paper from the protein bar. He took the paper from her. He didn’t want to leave a trail of wrappers for the bad guys to follow and right now she seemed more concerned with eating. She ate swiftly, as if she were afraid somebody would take it from her.

“Slow down, baby. Take your time.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she slowed from stuffing pieces of the bar into her mouth to actually chewing and finishing it one piece at a time. She finished the protein bar and he set about taking care of her other issue.

 
“Have some water,” he uncapped the bottle and handed it to her. She started drinking it so fast she chocked on it. He took the bottle from her, patted her on her back to soothe her, and once she was ready for more he held the bottle to her lips and tilted it so she could drink.

He tried to give her another protein bar; she needed it more than he did, but she refused. “You need to eat too,” she said.

“You need it more.”

“I’ll be okay. That one helped. I’ll be okay until we stop again.”

He nodded. They did need to keep moving. He put the supplies back in his pack and pulled his phone from his pocket. He turned it on, but there was no signals so he shut it right back off. “I’ll try calling when we get a little lower. I might be able to get a signal and call Alex. He’s with your father. They’re worried about you.”

“My father sent you?”

“No. I sent myself,” he took her hand in his and helped her stand up. She looked up into his eyes and he could see the appreciation shining in them. “Your father showed up after I was already on a plane heading here. He made some calls to make sure the local police gave me access to their limited information.”

“But you found me.”

“I have friends everywhere. The cops didn’t know about this place, but Henri did. She gave me everything I needed to get up here.”

“She?”

He laughed. “Don’t worry. She’s just a friend.”

“Like me,” she sighed.

“No; not like you.” He let his eyes caress her body, taking in the soft feminine curves from head to toe and back up. “Not like you at all,” he nearly growled; the sexual awareness hitting him so hard it almost knocked him over. “Now let’s get moving.” What he felt for her went beyond friendship. He would make sure she knew that later, but for right now he had to focus on getting them both off that mountain safely.

Akira thought maybe her time as captive combined with her desire to have Jet recognize her as a woman in love with him might just have combined to make her delusional. The way he looked at her made her skin tingle with awareness and she thought that maybe his look was laced with his desire for her. She couldn’t be sure. The look she had seen from him before didn’t even compare to this look. He hadn’t looked at her like this before, with his eyes dark and searching her body as if he were thinking about seeing it naked. Maybe she was just hoping. That had to be it. He had told her before that she wasn’t the woman for him; maybe not in those exact words, but he had made it clear. He had called her a kid. He had relegated her feelings to some childlike crush when her feelings were so much more than that. No, Jet didn’t like her. He couldn’t like her. She wasn’t his type. He liked taller women with darker skin and bigger breasts. He liked women like Charlie. Although how would she know that? When she met Jet he was dating Charlie. She had never seen him with anybody else. For all she knew Charlie might have been the woman who went against his norm. Although she doubted it. Jet didn’t seem much like a man who didn’t know what he liked and what he wanted. He didn’t want her; that was for sure. But that didn’t mean she had ever been able to, or would ever be able to, stop wanting him. He had come for her; that would have to be enough.