Rogue (SEAL Team: Disavowed Book 1) (5 page)

Handing one to Maisey, Nash said, “If I give you the signal, as quietly as possible, duck underwater. Use this as a snorkel.”

She folded her arms and scowled. “I can’t put my head under water. You know that. Remember Allysa Franklin’s thirteenth birthday? She had a pool party and Johnny Preston dunked me? I almost drowned.”

“Stop the histrionics. And for the record, I saved you.” Judging by the frantic baying, the hounds couldn’t have been more than a quarter mile away. Nash considered himself unflappable, but his usual companions were SEALs. Without question, they did what needed to be done. Maisey was a delicate unknown. He not only had her to worry about, but her baby. The closer the dogs came, the more he feared he might not be up for this challenge. Palms sweating, pulse racing, he shook off his nerves. This was no time to fold. “When I say, you
will
put that stem in your mouth and duck. Not only your life, but your baby’s depends on you following my instructions to the letter. Understand?”

Her doe-eyed stare left him regretting his rough demeanor.

Hand on the small of her back, he led her slowly into the water. When he’d initially covered the boat, he’d laced the camo netting with reeds and grasses. Honestly, he was surprised Vicente hadn’t assigned hired guns to wait for them at each boat. It would have been a logical move. The fact that he hadn’t made Nash wonder just how adept his team was at hunting human targets. “This waterway looks like it has a slight current. We’re going to ride it with this mini-island over our heads. You’ll be able to breathe, but I'm not gonna lie—it won’t be pleasant. To Vicente’s men, we’ll look like debris.”

The barking and baying was near enough to raise the hair on the back of Nash’s neck.

“The bad guys are close, Maisey. This is basic snorkeling. Piece of cake.”

Though her eyes read pure panic, she again nodded. With her teeth already chattering, Nash placed their odds at about fifty/fifty in making a clean escape. Toss in the gator/snake/hypothermia/wild-card factor and it was shaping up to be a seriously lousy day.

Having reached the center of the narrow channel’s flow, Nash adjusted the net in time to spot a hound alternately baying and lapping at the algae-covered water’s edge.

Maisey whispered, “He doesn’t look like he wants to kill us, does he?”

“All he wants is to find our scent.”

Crashing foliage and a deep, Southern drawl alerted Nash that the dog’s master wasn’t far behind. “Stupid mutt. Told Vicente to search with a heli, but he said it would draw too much attention.”

“Ask me,” a new voice sounded through tall grasses, “Vicente’s pretty little thing is long gone. This search is a waste of time.” Approaching a second frantically barking dog, the man patted him between his ears. “What’re you all excited about?”

“Got your
snorkel
ready?” Nash whispered in Maisey’s ear. The current was painstakingly slow in clearing them from danger.

Fingers trembling, she held it for him to see.

“Good girl. On the count of three, we’re both going to slowly descend. Got it?”

“Uh huh . . .”

“One . . .”

“Hey, there, fella. See something?” one of the men called to his dog.

A bald hulk of a man sporting full sleeve tattoos and a goatee, stared right at them. Nash had taken special care weaving plants through the netting and knew to the men onshore they looked like a floating isle of weeds, but that didn’t stop the event from being unnerving.

“Two . . .”

Having entered upstream of where their hunters had emerged from dense undergrowth, Nash and Maisey were ten yards from being dead even with them. If his pulse raced much faster, he feared passing out. On his own or with his team, there was no emotion—only adrenaline in its purest form, something that sharpened frayed nerves. Now, he was consumed by
what if
scenarios and concern for Maisey that he couldn’t control.

“Popcorn, what the heck are you—”

Before Nash could give Maisey her signal to duck, an eight-foot gator erupted from the shoreline’s thick algae, snapping off the nearest hound’s right front leg. Before the dog’s handler fully grasped what was happening, the gator returned to finish his meal, dragging the howling canine into the water until the swamp fell eerily silent.

“That slimy fucker killed my best hunting hound!”

“This is voodoo. I’m out of here.”

Breathing shallow, Nash could only imagine the riot raging in Maisey’s chest. He wanted to comfort her, but couldn’t risk the movement. No matter how distracted Vicente’s men might currently be, there was no guarantee they might not look up to discover their intended targets right before them.

Maisey silently cried. Lips pressed tight, silvery tears streaked mud on her cheeks. He admired her for holding her emotions in check, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t wish for the right thing to say to calm her.

“I’m gonna kill you, stupid sumbitch!” The dog’s owner used an M16 to shoot wildly at the water.

Though mini-explosions formed a wake and turned algae into projectiles, Nash held firm to Maisey. She, in turn, clung to him so tightly he wouldn’t be surprised to find bruises. Which was all right. Whatever she needed to get her through.

Over and over the guy fired his weapon, not stopping until running out of ammo.

Ten feet upstream, the gator rose belly-up to the surface.

What remained of the dog followed.

Maisey tensed alongside him. Little convulsions told him she wasn’t in a good way.

“Relax,” he whispered in her ear. “Everything’s going to be fine.

“No. No, it’s not.” Though she’d spoken so softly he’d hardly heard her words, the panic in her eyes and complexion’s pall said more than she ever could to describe her terror.

“Shh . . .” Temporarily releasing her to bracket her face with his hands, he begged, “Trust me. We’re almost home free.” For a moment, he lost himself in her achingly familiar blue gaze. They were no longer in a swamp, but on her mom’s back porch, on the verge of sharing a kiss. What was wrong with his mind that it had chosen now for a trek down memory lane?

“Nash?” She licked her lips. Her pupils widened, and if possible, her eyes grew even wider.

“Yeah?” He didn’t even know the asshole inside him who couldn’t look away from her plump mouth.

“In case we don’t make it, thank you for trying.”

“Stop. We’ll be fine.”
Assuming I forget the way things used to be between us long enough to focus on the task at hand
.

Then, the unthinkable happened when the dog’s owner crashed into the water. The dog’s body had floated into the current and was now a mere five feet from Nash and Maisey.

“Leave him!”
The guy still on shore urged.

“No! He was a good dog and deserves a decent burial.”
Who knew? A thug with heart.

Nash’s adrenaline spiked. “I need both hands. Think you can hold on to me?”

Maisey’s answer was to hug his chest.

“Good girl . . .”

Hands free, with their hunter fifteen feet away and the dog practically on top of them, Nash withdrew his Glock that he’d already outfitted with a sound suppressor. Given luck, the goon would be too focused on his dog to inspect floating grass.

“Stupid waste of life,” Vicente’s man mumbled on his approach to his dog.

Nash pushed past his latest swell of nerves.

“He was a good boy.”

The dog was now three feet from Nash.

Maisey tucked herself behind him.

His pulse thundered in his ears.

The guy was now in water over his head. His thrashing strokes surged the dog’s body against the grass-covered mat. Unless the man was fully focused on his pet, there was no possible way he and Maisey wouldn’t be discovered.

“Sorry, boy. You shouldn’t have—”

In his struggle to tread water, the guy kicked Nash. Time froze for the instant it took him to realize he wasn’t alone. He tossed the netting aside, shouting to his friend on shore, “Hey! Found them!”

Bullets ripped the water.

With no way to escape, Nash did what he’d been trained to do—double-tap the forehead of the man shooting at them from shore.

Maisey screamed.

The guy in the water grabbed for Nash, but lacked the swimming strength to stay afloat. Nash lunged for him, but the guy had been smart enough to swim underwater for shallower ground. Once able to stand, he sloshed for shore, snatching up his weapon with one hand and radio with the other. Simultaneously, he radioed for back-up and shot wildly at the water.

“Duck!” Nash shouted to Maisey.

The guy had lost it, firing dozens of rounds to the accompaniment of his own roar. When he was forced to stop shooting long enough to reload, Nash made his second kill of the day.

Maisey had floated further downstream and now cried hysterically. “You killed him!”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Nash shouted back. “It was us or them, and sorry, but I’m not in the mood to die.”

Having reached her, he tried lightly grasping her in a lifeguard-style hold, but she wasn’t having it. “Let me go! I can’t take this anymore!”

Ignoring her protests in favor of getting her safely ashore, Nash grabbed the back of her shirt, dragging her as best he could.

From over the dead guy’s radio, a tinny voice asked, “LeFlour, copy? You there?” Was that Vicente on the other end? “Did I hear right and you caught the intended targets? LeFlour? Come in! What’s your location?”

Once Nash delivered Maisey to the muddy shore, he started to gut the radio, but then thought better. Information could be gleaned from chatter.

Nash put his hand over his mouth to muffle his voice. “False alarm. I repeat false alarm.”

“We heard shots.”

“Wildlife kill. No sign of your lady, sir.”

“Keep looking!”

“You’re no better than Vicente.” Maisey sat up, hugging her massive belly. Rocking and crying with her hands over her face. “You shot those men right between their eyes.”

“Woman, are you crazy?” Searching the dead for usable equipment, Nash could scarcely contain his rage. “I killed those two men for our safety—your baby’s. They shot at us first. Dozens of rounds. It’s a miracle we’re even alive.”

She was back to shivering. Teeth chattering, she continued sobbing.

“You and me?” Kneeling before her, he tucked his fingertips beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “We’re in a war. People
are
going to die. The goal is for those people to not be us.”

She nodded.

“No,” he again forced her gaze to his. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you understand I’m not a stone-cold killer like your ex.”

“I do, but this is all too much.”

“Agreed.” He took a bandana from a pocket, then cleaned it with drinking water. “Things got dicey there for a sec, but all’s good now.”

“
Good
?” Her sad laugh rode the fringe of madness. “Oh—our situation is far from good. I’m cold and hungry and tired and thirsty and that dead man won’t stop staring at me.” Hand trembling, she pointed at the nearest corpse. “Plus, Vicente said over the radio he heard gunfire. That means he’s not far behind.”

As tenderly as he could, Nash wiped tear-streaked mud from Maisey’s cheeks. He stroked it from her forehead and nose and chin. When she closed her eyes and exhaled, he cleaned her brows and the smile lines at the corners of her eyes. And when she opened those eyes, he leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. “I
will
protect you.”

“I know.” For the first time that day, her voice rang strong. Sincere. Her trust further heightened his resolve to see her and her baby safely through.

She exhaled. Her warm breath hit his lips, tightening his stomach in a way he hadn’t felt in well over the year his wife had been gone. While the sensation was far from unpleasant, it was also unwelcome. Retreating to a safe distance, he asked, “Hungry?”

“Very. What’s on the menu? Snake? Gator?”

“Actually . . .” Nash eyed the still-fresh gator kill lying on the shore. “Seems a shame for the little guy to have died in vain.”

“Little guy?” She laughed. “That alligator is longer than I am.”