Defender (25 page)

He would rather offer her this part of the real Mike Nunez before she stepped up in the waiting plane and out of his life. “Our new neighborhood was pretty much crap. So after school, I hung out where my mom worked at a physical rehab facility. They had a labyrinth garden used as a healing tool. I started walking it to pass time. After a while, I found that there, inside the labyrinth, I could finally be me, regardless of where we’d moved.”

Even if it was only for the twenty or so minutes it took him to walk the journey. “As an adult, I still seek out labyrinths at churches, hospitals, sometimes cut into a field. I find them . . . helpful after I finish an undercover assignment.”

Understanding lit her dusky eyes, chasing away some shadows. “You shed the fake persona and all the darkness that comes with people like my aunt. You reclaim yourself.”

This woman definitely had a scary-ass way of seeing inside his head. “I thought you might find something for yourself inside a labyrinth journey.”

“A way to shake off my past?”

“And keep track of yourself.” He lifted his hand from hers, the path back out complete.

“I don’t know what to say except thank you. I will treasure it.” She tipped it to catch glints from the sun, her thumb running over scratches that attested to its well-used life. “This is yours, I am guessing. You will get yourself another just like it?”

“I’d already planned on it.” He liked the notion of thinking of her using hers while he traced his. It beat the hell out of looking at the same star thousands of miles away from each other.

She cupped his face. “You are sentimental after all.” Her fingers caressed lightly along his cheekbone, the smile leaving her eyes. “If I can’t have any connection with my old life, I’m never going to see you again.”

He should answer how she was right, and that was simply a sad fact of surviving. Instead, somewhere in his black-and-white world of right and wrong, dead or alive, he found a tiny strip of middle ground. “If you want, I can check up on you. I’m really good at my job. No one will ever know. Except you, of course, since you can see through my ‘beneath the covers’ persona.”

“I would like that very much.” She tucked the labyrinth into her purse and stretched up on her toes.

Onlookers be damned, he angled his mouth over hers for what wouldn’t be their last kiss after all. She tasted sweet and familiar and every bit as good as he had wondered if she possibly could be.

“I will see you later, Mike.” She didn’t smile, but she waved, backing away as long as she could before turning to join her Raven escorts onto the medical C-17.

Stuffing his hands back into his empty pockets, he watched her board, the back hatch closing behind her and Chuck. The cargo plane taxied down the runway, engines roaring louder as it gained speed. He stared until the aircraft disappeared into the horizon, and for the first time in—well, he couldn’t remember when—he had something to look forward to.

He pivoted back toward the hangar, away from the empty sky. The rumbling under his feet gave him less than a second’s warning before an explosion vibrated the earth.

A black cloud of smoke plumed from the hangar.

TWENTY-FIVE

Jimmy sprinted toward the burning hangar half full of USO equipment . . . and people.
Chloe.

His heart pounded double time the rhythm of his boots. He should have insisted she leave on the C-17 with Chuck. He should have pitched her over his shoulder and dumped her on that fucking plane. Sure, she would have screamed the whole way and then never spoken to him again, but she would have been safe.

Please, God, let her be safe now.

Fire trucks and ambulances screamed across the tarmac toward the hangar.
Ambulances
.

The column of black smoke scared him spitless. Maybe she’d been delayed packing. If he hadn’t stormed out of her room earlier, he would have known where she was instead of having to play guessing games while his stomach fought to claw its way up his throat.

He shoved and shouldered and pushed through the crowd of onlookers. Someone cursed at him, but if the guy hadn’t wanted to land on the ground, he should have damn well moved. The noise swelled to near-deafening levels. The crackle of the flames. Sirens. Bullhorn announcements and shouting.

And nowhere could he find any sign of Chloe.

Jimmy charged toward the open hangar only to be stopped by a firefighter and cop grabbing him by the arms.

“Back away, sir,” the firefighter barked. “You’re keeping us from doing our job.”

He started to argue anyway but heard his name. He searched, listened.

“Gage, over here.” Nunez flagged him down from twenty feet away.

Jimmy brushed free of the firefighter and cop—“Sorry about that”—and jogged over to the agent. “What the hell’s going on? Where’s Chloe?”

“Don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

Two medics shoved a gurney free of the smoke, and holy crap, Livia Cicero was strapped down and groaning. Nunez cursed low and long. Livia stretched out an arm toward them as she tore aside her oxygen mask.

“Hotwire . . . Jimmy . . .” she rasped before coughing.

He and Nunez sprinted alongside, careful to stay out of the medics’ way. God, was that a bone sticking out of her calf? With blood everywhere, it was tough to tell.

Livia hacked through another cough. “Chloe . . .”

Jimmy leaned closer. “Do you know where Chloe is?”

“Saw her, before explosion. Tried to help.” She gripped his arm with surprising strength, insistence even. “Find police.”

Alarms blaring inside him as well as outside, Jimmy kept his hand on the edge of the gurney, running. “Why do we need the police for Chloe?”

“Man with a beard who took us,” she gasped, groaning at each rattle and jostle of the gurney. “And that woman, the one in the picture.”

Nunez pulled up closer. “What picture?”

“Picture you showed me. Asked if I recog—” She wheezed, pulled the oxygen mask back in place for a long drag before trying again. “Recognized her.”

The older medic held up a hand. “You’ll both have to step back. We need to load her into the ambulance now.”

Livia elbowed up, soot and blood streaking her face. “That woman took Chloe.”

The picture in the interrogation room. Marta Surac. The evil woman who’d kidnapped and tortured Chuck, leaving him bloodied and broken, she had Chloe.

And God only knew if she was still alive.

Trapped sitting behind Baris and Marta in the Fiat with a pistol pointing at her through the seat, Chloe stared out the windshield at the approaching shoreline. The Mediterranean Sea lapped at the edges of the small fishing town. She estimated they’d left the base about forty-five minutes ago.

The second they’d cleared the front gate, Marta had detonated the bomb.

Chloe fought down the urge to hyperventilate. She couldn’t think about what had happened back there. Fears for Livia and the others would cripple her at a time when she needed all her wits to salvage something from this hell.

She wriggled in her seat. Her iPod pouch clipped to her waistband was digging into her stomach like a son of a gun. At least they’d tied her hands in front of her this time. She slipped her fingers under the ruffled shirt and nudged the player aside.

Chloe leaned toward the front seat. “Authorities are going to find you. They already suspect you, and now there are going to be bulletins out for you all across the country. They’ll be looking for me.”

“They will think you died along with Greg in the explosion on base,” Marta answered while Baris drove. “It will be days before they sort through all the rubble.”

Very likely, but Chloe intended to press on. “If there is even one survivor from that explosion, he or she could tell the police what happened.”

“Unlikely, but I know better than to trust luck.” She hitched a slim elbow on the seat to look back at Chloe. “I am good at backup plans.”

“The police will alert every airport, train station, and bus terminal.” She had to keep the woman talking and distracted. “Everyone will be on alert. You set off a bomb with Greg’s help and took all that money.”

“Poor Greg. He thought he could manage me like he did his stage.” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand, her ruby ring catching the final rays of fading sunlight. “As for alerts, they will not be everywhere as you think. Things do not work the same way here that they do in your country. Thanks to my newfound wealth, we can rent a speedboat from a ‘sympathetic’ fisherman. Once we make it to Cyprus, we’ll board a private plane, take off, toss you into the water, then simply disappear.”

Tossed into the middle of sea? Been there, done that,
hate
the sharks.
And she wouldn’t have Jimmy to save her this time. Oh God, she couldn’t think about Jimmy right now and how damn sorry she was for wasting the chance to tell him how much she loved his stubborn, controlling, endearing self. “But what about—”

“Enough talking.” Marta cut Chloe short as the Fiat pulled off the main road, jostling over the rutted dirt strip along the small seaside harbor. “Baris, park over there, then untie her hands. We don’t want anyone to grow suspicious when we walk out on the dock. If she starts to talk, pinch her neck until she passes out.”

Chloe swallowed down hysteria at the thought of them using a Vulcan neck pinch of all things, and tucked her iPod back in her waistband under the camouflaging folds of her ruffled shirt. Thanks to the new voice recorder feature, she’d spent the past forty-five minutes taping Marta’s egotistical bragging about working with terrorists and snatching soldiers and about her Cyprus escape plan.

Chloe pressed her bound wrists against the tiny player/recorder, thanking God for about the thousandth time that she’d been able to use her fingers. She would only have one chance to get her SOS out there. A snap second to stumble against someone, pass over the iPod, and whisper the briefest of messages:
Help. Police.

Since she wouldn’t have time to ask if the person spoke English, she’d chosen those two words because they seemed the most universal. And if it somehow worked but help came too late? At least Marta’s confession would be out there, hopefully in the right hands. Chloe knew she had her faults, but she was a fighter to the end.

She searched the sparsely populated dock. A burly teenager cleaned his catch. An old woman fished off the side. Men of varying ages repaired nets and sails.

Who could she trust?

TWENTY-SIX

Jimmy had put his trust in a lot of things over the years when strapping his butt into the cockpit. Fliers were a superstitious lot, after all, with their rituals and good luck charms. But what a stretch, putting his faith in an iPod brought in by a little old lady with a fishing pole.

Luckily, he had the utmost faith in the integrity of Turkish grandmas.

Cruising his CV-22 out over the Mediterranean Sea, Jimmy prayed this grandma was as honest as he believed, prayed the Turkish authorities’ take on the taping was accurate. Once they’d gotten the word of Chloe’s recording, they’d been airborne in minutes. His crew couldn’t waste time listening to the lengthy playback again, given Marta’s head start. Jimmy plotted coordinates in flight for possible sea routes from the fishing village to Cyprus.

He had to shut down thoughts and rely on routine, training, instincts. Chloe had given them a window of opportunity. He wouldn’t let her down.

Vapor maxed the throttles and peered through the windscreen, searching for the fleeing boat. “I’m not seeing shit out there, Hotwire. You’re going to have to find them.”

“I’m looking.” He’d been searching and searching, and everything he found turned out to be a dead end. The radar sweep came around, giving Jimmy a view of the night water ahead.

Bright blips appeared in several spots on the display. Maybe this time. “I have six, no, seven contacts. One is heading back to shore, and so is that one. Two are too far north to be our contact. That gives us three to look at. Come right fifteen degrees, about four miles out.”

Vapor angled the stick, guiding the aircraft. Jimmy slewed the infrared camera toward the contact and locked on the boat. He studied the screen and shifted his display back to radar.

Frustration cranked up the heat until sweat dripped in his eyes. “Damn. It’s a barge. Come thirty degrees left, and I’ll check another one.”

He waited until they were lined up on the next target and switched back to the camera. He locked up and zoomed in for a closer look, grateful as hell for the technology that allowed him to see as much on a pitch-black night as anyone else saw in broad daylight.

A speedboat. Racing ahead in the dark with just the right heading to hit Cyprus. And please God, let it be carrying Chloe alive and well. He couldn’t stop the insidious fear that they’d already dumped her body into vast depths of the Mediterranean, that he might never know what happened to her.

“This could be it. Dead ahead two miles.” He stared into the screen and counted heads, zeroing in, tamping down hope. “I see three people in the boat. Do you want to come up from behind or offset to the side?”

Vapor looked into the darkness, appearing to weigh the options. “Let’s blow right over them and see if we can give them a jolt while you get a closer look to confirm it’s Chloe.”

It had to be. He refused to accept any other ending. He refused to lose any more people he loved, and hell yes, he loved Chloe Nelson. He’d just been too stuck in the past to see what was right in front of him.

He kept his eyes locked on the screen, ready for that up-close view. The speedboat appeared ahead, chopping through the waves. The CV-22 swept over the boat about fifty feet up. He zeroed the camera in tight. Chloe’s profile filled the screen, her hair trailing behind her. Just a flash of a look, but enough for him to be sure. “It’s her. It’s Chloe.”

His gut turned to stone at the sight of her with a gun to her head.

Vapor broke into a hard left turn and climb. “Bring up the distress frequency and tell them to stop.”

It was a long shot that Marta Surac would give up easily, but one worth taking. Anticipation hammered low and distracting in his gut. Jimmy dialed up the frequency and hailed the fleeing boat. “Attention speedboat six miles west of Antolik on a heading of two-seven-four. Heave to immediately. I say again, heave to immediately.”

He watched, waiting for any reaction, but the boat powered ahead. Not unexpected, but still. “Fuck.”

Vapor’s cheeks puffed with a sigh. “All right then. Let’s put a shot across the bow.”

Jimmy homed in his focus tighter than ever, because if he thought about bullets flying around Chloe, he wouldn’t be of any use to her. “Roger that. Arming the nose gun.” A second later, he added, “Nose is hot.”

He closed his fingers around the controls. The copilot’s turret gun was the newer, less tested of the two weapons on board, but with a more precise optical sight.

And as much as Jimmy trusted his crew, this was Chloe. He had to be the one to take the shots. Nobody argued.

Vapor flashed him a thumbs-up. “Hotwire, single burst in front of the boat. Boss man, could you please take control of the infrared and keep an eye on the folks outside?”

“Roger that,” Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon answered. “I have the camera.”

Jimmy put the aim point in front of the boat. No second guessing. “Firing.”

The aircraft hiccupped, and the sky lit up as the gun fired. Rounds ripped across the water just ahead of the speedboat, throwing spray over the bow. The boat blew through without altering course.

“Boys,” Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon called, “this might require a bit more force. I’m seeing some action inside the craft. Uh, it looks like two women are fighting while the guy drives.”

Jimmy stole a look at his camera and—“Holy shit.”

Chloe gripped the older woman’s hands overhead, fighting for a gun, kicking, kneeing, rolling out the moves he’d taught her and a few he’d never seen. Fear for her popped a cold sweat along his brow, even as he couldn’t deny a gut-slugging admiration for how she held her own.

Not that he intended to leave her to fight this battle alone. Marta Surac had tortured and killed.

“Drop back, Vapor. I’m gonna put a burst down next to the boat, see if I can offer Chloe the edge of a little distraction.”

“Roger that.”

The CV-22 slid back, and Jimmy lined up the gun five feet to the left of the boat. “Firing.”

Water spewed, eclipsing the boat from view. The speedboat cleared the spray in time for Jimmy to see Chloe score another wicked right cross. The weapon flew from Marta’s hand into the sea. Just as Jimmy started to savor that major victory, the woman stumbled backward, grabbing a fistful of Chloe’s hair.

Both women toppled overboard into the water. Chloe’s head slipped from view. The speedboat started circling like a shark ready for the kill.

Jimmy’s hand twitched on the controls, ready to pop the bearded bastard who’d taken Chloe twice now. “Two in the water. Need to shoot the boat.”

Vapor keyed up the interphone. “Boss man, what do you think?”

“Hell yeah, nail it.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. All his rage narrowed in as Jimmy locked onto the boat and speared a burst into the engine compartment.

The boat erupted in a pillar of fire.

Vapor turned the aircraft back toward the wake of the burning craft. Murky waves crested and rolled. Debris flamed like floating candles casting small circles of light.

Where was Chloe in all that churning water and wreckage? And what about the woman who’d hauled her into the sea? “Colonel, do you see Chloe or the Surac woman?”

“Roger, that. Think I’ve got them. Slow her down.”

Dots prickled his vision. He blinked fast to clear it along with the relief threatening to rock him to his knees. “Both?”

“Two women, and we’re damn near over them,” Scanlon answered. “Looks like one is unconscious and the other is struggling to keep her afloat. I can’t make out who’s who, but I think we can safely assume the Surac woman would have let Chloe drown.”

Only Chloe would have saved the person who tried to kill her. “Let’s get a move on, Vapor. We don’t want Marta Surac waking up and drowning Chloe.”

“Roger that,” Vapor responded. “I recommend we descend all the way down, rather than take time deploying the rescue hook. We can reach right in and haul them up the back ramp.”

Jimmy was already unbuckling. “Colonel, come swap seats with me so I can help Smooth pull them out. You guys are interested, but I am involved.”

Scanlon double clicked his microphone in response. Jimmy hauled ass out of his seat on his way back, passing the colonel heading front.

On the run, Jimmy snapped on a walk-around safety belt. He pulled up alongside Smooth at the open back ramp just as waves started slapping up into the CV-22.

“Three feet to go,” the flight engineer talked the pilots down to the water just above the women in some damn fine tight maneuvering. “Ease forward. Stop, that’s it. Down one. Stop.”

Water sloshing around his boots, Jimmy leaned over and grabbed Marta by the hair. He flung her back to Smooth. He might have to save the evil bitch, but he didn’t have to waste precious time being gentle about it.

“Jimmy,” Chloe shouted, bobbing in and out of reach.

“Come on, hang in there, damn it. I’m right here.” He inched closer, closer again until to hell with it all, he dropped flat on his belly and commando crawled to the edge of the ramp. Waves crashed over him tugging, sucking. He grappled through the water, determination growling through him louder than even the roar of engines, wind, and sea roiling together.

His fingers brushed something solid. He stretched, felt, grabbed Chloe’s arm. He tugged, muscles straining until the sea gave her up and her head broke free.

Gasping, she clutched his other hand, her wide eyes locked on his with complete trust

“Hey, Smooth,” he shot back over his shoulder. “Some help, please.”

Smooth gripped Jimmy’s flight boots and pulled, the extra torque just enough to tip the scales. Jimmy heaved Chloe the rest of the way in. Backpedaling into the belly of the craft, he held on tight every step of the way, even after the back ramp sealed closed.

He dropped to his knees on the deck, taking her right along with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Smooth restraining the unconscious woman in a red webbed seat.

Which left Jimmy free to focus all of his attention on Chloe. “Are you okay?”

She scraped away her dripping-wet hair from her face. “You’re really here.”

“Because you’re here.”

All this time he’d been so wrapped up worrying about protecting Chloe, he’d missed how this strong, competent woman could take care of herself—with the help of an iPod recorder and a mean right hook.

Chloe sagged against him, teeth chattering, her arms and legs shaking. “God, I love you so much. I’m sorry for not telling you before, but I mean it.”

Her words floored him, sucker punched him, and made his whole life at the same time. This woman never stopped surprising him.

“It’s okay; you’re okay. And damn straight I love you, too.”

She stroked his face, her hand still trembling from cold or exhaustion or adrenaline letdown. Probably all of the above. “I guess red shirts are lucky after all.”

* AFGHANISTAN, SEVEN DAYS LATER

Chloe nailed the final high note of the last show in her USO tour. Seven blessedly uneventful days of entertaining the troops.

She’d had the perfect airman to set her sights on for this last performance, but she’d still swept her eyes and her smile to encompass the whole crowd. She and Jimmy would have time to talk backstage.

With Marta in jail, Greg dead, Steven cleared, and the small terrorist cell apprehended, the USO had inventoried how much backstage gear had made it into the C-17 before the bombing. With some equipment loaned from Incirlik’s recreation center to fill in the gaps, they were able to go forward with the tour.

Minus Livia, who was recovering from surgery in Italy.

One of the backup singers—a past
American Idol
finalist—had taken on all of Livia’s well-known songs to round out the playlist. The USO always delivered for the armed services. They’d dedicated the revamped tour to Livia Cicero and Chuck Tanaka, while newspapers already began to chronicle the downfall of Marta Surac and the roundup of criminals she’d brokered deals with.

Chloe waved her last farewell to the troops on her way offstage, her smile wide even if tears already streaked her makeup. She’d hoped to repay a debt over here. She hadn’t even begun to realize how much she would gain.

She would even miss the sequins.

The lights went dark onstage and rose in the wings where Jimmy already waited for her. There hadn’t been more than ten minutes for them to talk since landing a week ago, and she’d been too emotional after the rescue to do more than hold onto him and babble. Jimmy and his crew had spent the last seven days incommunicado on some new secret mission, while she’d finished her tour.

Finally, their time had come.

Sporting the same skimpy costume she’d worn the day she met him, Chloe flattened her hands to his chest and her mouth to his, totally unconcerned with the cameras snapping away at their Kodak moment reunion. His bold, hot hands slid low on her waist, stopping just shy of her bottom but hinting at the promise of what waited for them once they were alone.

Desire humming through her veins, Chloe ended their kiss. She kept her arms looped around his neck, her fingers toying with his hair. “You’re here.”

“Because you’re here,” he echoed their words from the second time he’d hauled her out of the water.

“That’s really sweet of you to remember, but I mean you’re in Afghanistan.” It was a place that held so many horrible memories for him. “We could have met tomorrow in Germany.” Their stopover on the way home.

Jimmy held her gaze, and rather than just searching her, he let her see inside him. He didn’t show vulnerability often—mostly never—but Chloe found this human side of him drew her just as much as his touch, his charm, and even his occasional grouchiness.

He knuckled a lock of her hair behind her ear. “A very wise air force mentor of mine once told me that sometimes you have to go back to go forward.”

“He sounds like a smart man.”

“He was. His call sign was even Socrates. I’d like to tell you about him sometime.” The intensity in his eyes slid away, an equally enticing gleam taking its place. “Did you just call me ‘sweet’ a second ago?” He reached into his flight suit pocket and pulled out his travel-size Sun Tzu’s
The Art of War
. “Sweet is for the weak. Do you not realize I am a combat-honed warrior?”