The Omega Team: Spurs (Kindle Worlds Novella) (2 page)

Isbet Gutierrez knew more about Ryder Carmichael than anyone without her former government position could possibly hope to find out. She would bet she knew more about his team’s position at the moment than he did. If his group had high clearance, hers was invisible. She’d been trying to step completely away from her past career and into her new one as a private eye, doing the kind of work the Omega Team had hired her to do, with little success. Her former handler, Gordon, wouldn’t let go.

She waited to see what Ryder would say about his limp. She also had trod and ridden, both on horseback and ATV, over most of the ranch in her two weeks there, so she was glad when he set off away from the buildings despite her glib request for a “grand tour.” What made her say such silly things around this man?

“Not exactly. Military, but I can’t say more.” He strode along beside her, hardly limping.

“That’s okay. Thank you for your service.” It came automatically but was always sincere. “I hope you don’t have any permanent damage. Are you out? Permanently?”

He stumbled over a rock, and she fought the urge to grab his arm and steady him. A proud man wouldn’t welcome being fussed over by anyone. “Dammit!” He recovered and walked on, his gait a little less smooth. “I’m waiting to hear.”

The dusty path rose slowly toward the foothills, dark-green pine trees on either side perfuming the air. She drew a deep breath. “I hope you get whichever outcome you want.”

He paused and stared at her. “Thank you. My brother wants me home, my old friends all say I should just move on, and my team is rooting for me to get back soon, but nobody has said it to me just like that.”

She stopped next to him. “Well, it isn’t your decision, I know, but I’m sure you have an opinion of where you’d like your life to go from this point.”

“I thought I did.” His earnest expression, the softer set to his mouth than she’d seen yet, twanged at her heart. Leaving her previous career had always bothered her, enough so when Gordon came to her, she’d accepted his requests for her to work part-time undercover, but she’d seen Ryder as someone more determined.

So she asked the question she’d asked herself when she’d made the decision to change fields. “If the doctors call it done, what will you do with the rest of your life? Help run the ranch?”

He started forward again, the limp more pronounced as the slope steepened, and she hop-stepped to keep up. “Isn’t that the question? I never thought of myself as a rancher, although I worked with my dad growing up until I enlisted. But I always figured I was in for the career then I’d figure out something in my forties or fifties when I retired.” Had he pictured himself with a family to spend time with in his retirement? Or was he like her? A loner.

They walked along, only the crunch of their footsteps over the pine needles and the occasional snap of a twig and twittering of birds filling the silence.

Finally, he stopped where a small trail disappeared off to the left. “Want to see something?”

“Sure.” The path was not wide enough for two, so she waved. “Lead on, soldier.”

Ryder took a step and froze. “Just call me Ryder. I don’t think soldier will apply anymore.” He continued on, and she followed. Men like him had their whole psyche tied up in their service. Thank God they did, or the country would be defenseless They took the hard jobs, the scary jobs, and the ones from which they didn’t always come home. Always put others first. While she enjoyed the rear view of his wranglers cupping one fine backside, she considered how different he was from the men her mother hooked up with in her childhood.

One after another, a swinging door of stepfathers and sort-of stepfathers. Mom always thought she’d find the right one, someone to support them financially and emotionally, but she never did. If Isbet learned one thing, it was a girl had to be able to take care of herself and not expect some guy to fill the holes in her life.

“So, where are we going?” The trail dipped down then rose again, the trees thinning out around them. “Is it okay for you to do all this hiking with your injury?”

“Fine,” he bit out. “Don’t worry about me. Do you need to turn back?”

“Not me,” she called, taking a few fast steps to catch up. “Except my legs are a lot shorter than yours, so if you leave me behind, I’ll get there eventually.”

He slowed. “I’m sorry. I spend so much time trying to prove to myself I’m okay that sometimes I forget to be considerate of those around me. My mother didn’t raise me to act like that.” The path disappeared, and he scooted around a tree and headed off cross-country then stopped again. “God, I’m an ass.”

“No,” she said, “you’re not. But be careful you don’t reinjure yourself in the process of proving you’re fine. Don’t ruin any chance you have of living life the way you want to, whatever it may be.”

“You have a gift for making me feel better.” He held out his hand, and, without thinking, she took it. It was warm and hard, swallowing her much smaller one up, and, instead of feeling overwhelmed like she had by big men in the past, something inside her purred.
Ugh.
But nothing he did was more than friendly, and she was probably making too much of it. So she ambled along at his side over the rough slope. “We’re going just up there.” He pointed with their linked hands to a pile of boulders perched on the side of the mountain. “It’s a little steep but not far now.”

Steep didn’t half say it. A few yards later, she let go of him to scramble on all fours up the loose scree below their goal, delighted to accept his hand back to clamber onto the heap of boulders. Settling onto the biggest one, jutting out into open air, she gasped.

“I hope you don’t have a thing about heights,” he said, dropping next to her, one leg extended straight out. “I should have asked.

“No…not at all.” She’d never have been accepted into her training group if she had a “thing” about anything. “This is breathtaking.” The mountains rolled out above and below them on the other side of the narrow valley they perched over.

“It is a couple of thousand feet down.” He grinned. “Last time I coaxed a girl up here, back in high school, she took one look and ran all the way back down the trail.”

“Not this girl.” She took in the panorama of dark, brooding pines, aspens with their light-green quivering leaves catching the sunlight, and bare-rock formations. “I love climbing, but this is my first time in the Sierras. You’re so lucky to have grown up here.”

“So I remember from time to time.” He rubbed at the extended leg, and she frowned. Really, their climb was not one someone with an injury should have attempted.

Lips parted to ask if he was okay, she snapped them closed. No fussing. She wouldn’t want it and neither would he. Old soldiers’ code—even if she wasn’t a soldier, exactly.

Casting a glance at her, he smiled. “Thanks for coming up here. It reminds me of the good things in life. Nature and the blue sky and the breeze.” He lowered his voice, and she had to lean in to hear over the wind. “And the company of a beautiful woman.”

Heat flushed her cheeks, and her body went on alert. He looked good, he smelled good, and she was ridiculously glad he called her beautiful. Could almost believe the words when accompanied by the open admiration in his eyes. His mouth hovered inches from hers, and she licked her lips, dry in the low humidity. Her lids fluttered as he closed the distance and kissed her, tentative, at first, as if waiting to see if she’d object, but when she opened her mouth, he took advantage and deepened the kiss. His tongue lapped at her teeth and passed inside to twine with hers.

Fear of heights…no, the tremors starting in her core were related to a much more insidious terror. Not only her body but also her heart awakened when his arms closed around her. He smelled like the mountains, the pines, and the clear water and the fresh air. His big, muscular frame made her feel small and protected. Safe.

Heart thudding, she jerked free and gave a shaky laugh. “We’d better be careful or we’ll roll off into the valley.” Like falling was her concern.

He eyed her, and she wondered how much he bought of her explanation, but he didn’t ask. Instead, he did something much worse and pressed his advantage. “Maybe we can take this up again somewhere with a shorter drop in case we lose control.”

The fall waiting for her had little to do with the altitude of the boulders and much more to do with the crack in the walls she’d erected around her heart. So she changed the subject. “How much of what I’m looking at is part of the ranch?” She opened her water bottle and took a deep drink.

Thank heavens he went along with it. “Everything you see to the left, the foothill area, all the pastureland, that’s our property. The little dots are the stock and that…. Shit!” He was on his feet with only a wince to show he’d slammed his weight on his wounded leg. “We have to go.”

She scanned the area he’d pointed out, trying to determine what got him going then, following the sound of an engine, leaped up and followed him, sliding on her butt down the slope in her hurry to keep up. Somehow, despite his injury, he took the slippery pebbles without losing his footing.

Ryder paused at the bottom of the slope, but Isbet hollered, “Go ahead, I’ll catch up,” and he took her up on it. He’d already overdone it, and his leg told him so as he limp-ran along the path. True to her word and due to his damaged muscle, she caught up before he’d gone fifty yards. Isbet grabbed his hand, and they loped down a half-ass path toward the big pasture where a large part of their herd, cows and calves, grazed.

He couldn’t believe what was going on in broad daylight. A small plane flew over their heads, gaining altitude as it headed south. At the edge of the pasture, he stopped, bent over, and breathed heavy, patting his pockets. “Dammit, I don’t have a radio on me.”

She held up her cellphone. “No bars.”

“No,” he gasped, the pain shooting up from his thigh a really bad sign. “Never are any bars up in here. That’s why the hands all carry radios, and so do I, when I have a brain.”

Flattened grass showed where the plane had landed and taken off. The cattle all clustered at the other end of the field, and he limped on down to check on them while Isbet got down on hands and knees and patted the grass, finally standing up coming to his side. “Look at this.”

She held a small metal cylinder painted fluorescent yellow, and his leg throbbed harder. He took it from her, horror shooting up his spine. “Oh no. Don’t touch it.”

“What?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“And I hope you never do again. It’s a new type of weapon. ” He swallowed hard and pulled a kerchief out of his pocket to wrap it in. “It’s what almost cost me my leg.” And if it had made its way to the States, he needed to tell his commanding officer. If the cartel they’d battled in South America—the only people he knew for sure had this lovely little item—had begun to act in the US, the carnage possible terrified him. “We need to get back to the ranch house. I have some calls to make.”

Isbet stuck by Ryder’s side, trotting down the open hillside at first then fast walking, then having to slow her pace. She rather missed being behind him for both the view of his amazing backside and the knowledge he could move quickly. But the day had taken a toll on him, and his short, panting breaths and pale cheeks under his tan indicated at least exhaustion and perhaps something more. How bad was his wound, anyway? The sun slanted down on them at an angle, warm, but not hot enough to account for the droplets of sweat rolling down his face and darkening his shirt. While she tried to decide whether to take action, they left the open pastures behind and rejoined the pine tree-lined path a little above where they’d left it earlier that afternoon.

Glancing down, she saw a stain darkening the front of his jeans. Blood?
Dammit.
“Ryder, I can find my way to the house. Why don’t you sit against one of these big trees, and I’ll go get your brother and an ATV. I’m sure the trail is wide enough for it and…and I think you’re bleeding a little.” Or maybe not a little.

He followed her gaze and cursed softly. “Perfect. No, I can’t stop. It’s not too bad, and I have to get down there and tell Andrew what we saw.”

She gripped his arm, and he halted. Even his wrist was clammy. “Sit. Down.” When he no longer protested, and allowed her to ease him onto the pine needle-covered ground, her fears grew. Leaving him there, unarmed, where animals could come upon him, or maybe someone who had gotten off the plane and still roamed their lands couldn’t be a good idea. Luckily, her invisible agency was even more concerned with being prepared than the Boy Scouts and trained their operatives accordingly. She reached into her boot and pulled out a tiny pistol and big, sheathed knife. “Take these.”

He stared at her. “Do you always travel ready to repel invaders?”

Her lips curved in a smile few who opposed her lived to tell about. “Yeah, I guess I do. My mama told me boys can be pushy.”

“Whew. I’m glad I didn’t try for more than a kiss without asking permission.” Easing his back against the tree, he groaned and pressed a hand to his leg. “But I’m not buying it. What did you say you do?”

The suspicion in his eyes sent a pang straight into her chest. She couldn’t tell the truth.
I’m a private eye who has been snooping into your family. Oh, and a part-time contractor who helps eliminate certain problem people who endanger the safety of others. On behalf of our government.

Yeah, way to end their romantic afternoon.
He’d react badly to one or the other. Maybe one day she could tell him how she helped to reunite him with his cousin—was he there by now?
Please let him be.
But her service record, if one existed, would not make her a dream date. Shoving the disappointment into a small part of her heart she’d never quite managed to close off, she gave him the warmest smile she could. “I didn’t, but, right now, I’m just glad I had these. You’re military, right? You know how to use them?”

He nodded. “Yes, and I am not keeping both. Unless you have a grenade launcher in your bra?”

She patted her chest. “No. Not today.” She considered the possibilities. Bear, mountain lion, whatever other animals these mountains held, and maybe a bad guy or two. “Okay, keep the gun. And here.” She fished ammo out of her other boot. “I hope you don’t need it. I think the knife is a better choice for me because I’m on the move. Just don’t bleed out, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can, and I’ll move a lot faster on my own.”

His jaw clenched. “Not on an ordinary day, with those short legs.” He handed her back the knife.

Isbet smiled. “Well, maybe if I’m still here when you’re feeling better, we can have a race.”

“Just go.” He smiled back, but his eyes reflected infinite pain. She was so angry with herself for going along with his crazy hiking when he clearly needed rest and then…well, she was angrier with the trespassers—and if they returned or were still on the property, she’d see to it they understood what a bad idea upsetting her was. “And, Isbet? This isn’t over. We have a lot of things to talk about.”

She paused, unsure if he meant their conversation about her job or what simmered between them. Then hesitated a moment longer. Even with the gun, he was vulnerable. But the only thing she could do was move fast, so, in a move very un-Isbet-like, she returned and dropped a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll be right back. If you hear anything, crawl into the brush, okay?”

He stared at her as if she’d grown two heads, but when she made no move to leave, nodded. “You got it. Be careful.”

Isbet had torn off down the path as if the hounds of Hell nipped at her ankles nearly a half hour before. And maybe they did. What were those people doing in the top pasture, and why did they have the XP427? The Viper or, in its creators’ native language, Vibora. Its bite as poisonous as that of the most venomous serpent, the spur-like barb could cause extreme tissue damage in a very short time, resulting in slow and painful death.

Rumor had it the designer was a woman named Nina. She’d been educated in the US and was the widow of a drug magnate. But they’d never been able to track her down.

He’d come so close to death; if Jimbo hadn’t taken extreme action, he’d have been past saving when extraction arrived only twenty minutes later. The doctors didn’t yet have a way to stop its spread past a certain point, and the fact his wound lay so close to a major artery almost sealed his fate. If the weapon became common worldwide, he didn’t even want to think about the results.

His mouth dry, he realized he’d lost his water bottle somewhere and hadn’t noticed hers in her hands when she left. What a shame.

He hated that his team continued to battle the menace without him. As the soft thud of Isbet’s boots faded into the birdsong and wind sough, Ryder contemplated his unusual display of chest-beating machismo. The doctors had summoned him one more time before making a final decision on his military career, and, if they saw him now, they’d have no trouble calling it over.

The damp patch on his jeans grew, but not fast enough for him to think he’d bleed out, and he didn’t care to look at it, so he leaned against the rough pine bark and closed his eyes. Listening worked better. Nobody and nothing would be able to come close to him without his hearing them in the wilderness. Not like the noisy cities and villages of South America where his team even now faced an enemy armed with a weapon like none before it. He’d grown up in the mountains and could recognize a sound that belonged from one of encroachment.

Ryder gritted his teeth and forced away the images of the night the Vibora shot out of the darkness and into his thigh muscle. It’s fluorescent-yellow ooze burned the skin and the smell…what the hell was in the thing? A nostril-singing combination of bleach and teriyaki sauce. So far, they’d only had the results of its damage to deal with. Nobody had found one intact.

Until now.

Opening his eyes, he reached into his pocket—how had he dared to slip it in there?—and drew out the pinwheel-shaped barb. If he hadn’t been hurting so much, he’d have been exultant to find the item. And if it hadn’t been on US soil, on Carmichael Ranch property.

They knew it was self-propelled and remote operated. According to the short video on the Darknet, the operator stood within a few yards in order to detonate the item. A video! The bastards looked to sell their new nasty toy worldwide but so far as he knew had not made enough of them yet to distribute. At least that had been the theory since they had only been used in a small area of a very small country.

And now…finally…he could present his superiors with the item they’d sought and the bad news that the XP427 had reached the US. Would his evil prize convince them to put him back in the fight? He shifted and pain shot up into his groin. Not if they got a look at him now.

How could he ensure nothing slowed down finding out how to stop both the distribution of the item and healing those struck by it without ending his very slight chance for a military career?

He couldn’t.

The moment he returned to the ranch, he’d have to call in and embrace the higher moral ground.

His late mother would be proud. His grandfather, a veteran of three wars and a very practical man, might have a different outlook. As he wrapped the little harbinger of death, the distant growl of an ATV met his ears. It grew louder and higher as it came closer, climbing the trail toward him. Dang, she must have really beaten feet all the way back to have help come so soon. He hoped they brought painkillers with them.

Why was their little dude—guest—armed to the teeth for a stroll in the mountains? The small pistol he held was not something available in an ordinary gun shop. Plastic. He turned it over in his palm, admiring the engineering and checking the safety before tucking it in his waistband. It reminded him of an image he’d seen of a gun from a 3D printer.

He’d been in the field too long if it hadn’t struck him as more than odd when a woman pulled serious weapons from her boots.

Lucky she hadn’t taken a dislike to him. He had a feeling nobody would have found the body after she applied her wicked sticker to his corpse. The glint in her eyes when she’d handed him the weapon told him more about her than anything she’d said so far.

Ryder turned to face the tree, pressed his palms into the rough bark, and climbed to his feet, favoring the left side, but the stain spread. Bleeding couldn’t be good. Why wasn’t the damn thing healing? Of course he’d pushed it today, but it shouldn’t still be so easy to reopen, should it?

He rested against the tree as the pair of Kawasaki Mules came into sight. Isbet drove the first and a pair of men rode in the second. She stopped just short of him and hopped out. “Still alive, I see?” Her words were casual, but the tightness in her tone told another story. “Put your arm over my shoulders and let me help you to the car. You need to get to a doctor right away.”

His brother gave her a little push. “He weighs twice what you do, little lady. I’ll get him comfortable and then you can drive him back down and call the doc. The number’s by the phone.”

“I’m right here, people.” He allowed his brother to help him limp toward the vehicle, but kept his eyes on the other man. He had lighter hair than they did but eyes the exact color gray he and his brother shared. “Hey.” Pausing by his cousin’s side, he extended his free hand. “Cousin Carson?”

“Yep.” He took his hand but without the warmth a long-lost relative might exhibit. Of course, maybe he didn’t know he’d been long-lost. “Carson Ames. Good to meet you, Ryder. Sorry about your injury.”

He jerked his hand back. “You didn’t cause it. And looks like we called you out on the wrong mission. I don’t think we have cattle rustlers.” His bad leg gave out, and Andrew half-lifted him into the passenger seat in the front ATV.

“No? Then what kind of bad guys were flying in and out of the pasture where we have our best stock?” Andrew asked, reasonably.

The Vibora in his pocket was a military secret. He didn’t intend to tell anyone he didn’t have to about it. His only goal was to pass it along to his commanding officer. Who would then call him a civilian.
Thanks for helping, Mr. Civilian.

Isbet grabbed a water bottle from the back of the mule and handed it to him. He opened it and, while he drank it in one long gulp, Isbet said, “Weapons dealers, maybe? Ryder, where’s the barbed thing we found. It’s not a bullet or like anything I’ve ever seen.”

Oh, yeah. Could pain distract him so much he forgot someone else already knew about the item? He couldn’t hide it now. He’d just have to stop the spread of info as quickly as possible. “I’m just going to turn it in to the proper authorities who can take it from here.”

“Really?” Isbet said. “You’re going to take a weapon nobody has ever seen before and hand it to the local sheriff?”

Andrew and his new cousin Carson jerked to face her. He licked his lips and tried to force the pain down. “How do you know nobody has ever seen this item before?” With the cat so out of the bag, he pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and opened it. “What do you do again, Isbet, that you know all about weapons?”

Isbet’s cheeks reddened. “Well…it…it looks like something out of a comic book, doesn’t it?” Again she managed to deflect questions.

Carson held out his hand, and, reluctantly, Ryder placed the handkerchief and its evil burden in his palm. “I’ve been on the civilian side for a short time, but I can say with almost certainty this is something new. And I am sure, Ryder, you know that as well.”

He nodded. First chance he got Isbet alone, he’d question her further, but, for now, the weapon was the thing.

“I’m keeping this.” Ryder moved to protest, but Carson waved it away. “You are in no condition to chase me, so give it up. I just need to know what, if anything, you know about this. Is it going to explode in my hand?”

Why did he assume Ryder knew a thing about the Vibora. Still, in the interest of saving time, he shook his head.

“Does it explode?”

Ryder’s hand jerked to his leg, which screamed in agony just at that moment. He swore.

Carson looked from the item to Ryder’s jeans. He nodded. “Okay, I get it. But for safety, I need to know what it does.”

“It explodes by remote, and the operator has to be within a few yards of it to make that happen. Some kind of mechanism lets it fly on its own. Again, not far, and that’s all I know basically, except it’s one of the most insidious weapons I’ve ever seen. It can cause necrosis and death.”