Hard Target: Elite Ops - Book One (28 page)

Leland sucked in another deep breath at the discomfort, and Angelina nodded to the two men. She proceeded to prove herself more than decorative as Walters called out orders like he was in a metropolitan ER. It didn’t seem to bother him that his girlfriend-assistant had just performed an impromptu strip show for everyone.

Watching them work on Nick, Leland was impressed with the scope of the vet clinic’s supplies. Angelina pulled IV bags and monitors around the table like this was an everyday occurrence. And it could have been for all they knew. For the right price, Walters might welcome anyone with a bullet wound that didn’t want to go to a hospital.

Leland realized he was staring at the activity but no longer seeing anything when the doctor spoke. “Thanks, Bryan. We’ll take care of your friend there properly in a bit. Angie, get a line in. Now.”

“I’m fine.” Leland settled more firmly against the counter as Walters and Angie worked to stabilize Nick.

“Right,” said Walters.

“This may be a vet clinic, but the man sure as hell knows what he’s doing,” said Fisher.

“I see he does.” Marissa had joined them and was clearly as impressed as Leland at the veterinarian’s efficiency.

Anna and Zach were talking quietly nearby and doing their best to avoid seeing what was happening to Nick. Leland understood. They’d had enough of medical procedures over the past twelve months to last a lifetime.

“Do you need to sit, honey?”

“No, Mom, I’m fine. I’m just really confused.”

“I know. We need to talk,” she said.

Leland doubted Zach would get the real story in that conversation. But it wasn’t really his business. Was it?

Fisher grabbed another wad of sterile surgical dressing and pressed it to the shoulder. “You’re a lucky man. Looks like a very deep graze only. You may have nicked the subclavian artery, but I don’t think so. It’s definitely not perforated or you’d have bled out by now.”

“Well hell, that’s comforting.”

“Considering the alternatives, it should be.” Fisher smiled and squirted something out of a large bottle into the wound.

Leland squeezed his eyes shut in a vain attempt to block out the pain. It didn’t work.

“I’m irrigating this with saline for now, and I’m gonna pack it with gauze till Walters can take a look.”

Leland nodded, grinding his teeth to avoid whimpering. Marissa’s phone rang and she answered. He focused on her voice and could tell it was Gavin from her end of the conversation. Anna and Zach slipped away into the courtyard and Leland studied them from his vantage point on his makeshift bed.

Pale and looking a little shaky, the boy stared at the cages of dogs. Did he need his white pills? Leland reached into his jeans pocket and felt for the bottle. Instead, his fingers closed around his own prescription of pain medication. Zach’s meds were in his other pocket.

So about his little Vicodin issue? It seemed a moot point at present. He’d gladly swallow as many pills as necessary to ease the excruciating discomfort of whatever the hell it was Fisher was doing. But he couldn’t do that. He needed to stay sharp. Still, the painkillers rolling around in his pocket were incredibly tempting.

Once they were home and out of this mess, he was throwing the shit away. There were no other options. He wasn’t addicted, but he was on his way if he didn’t get a handle on the situation.

How long would it take to get completely clean? Could he do that? Would his shoulder slow the process down?

No. He could do it. This could be the first step to changing all those things he so desperately wanted different in his life.

God, he hurt, all over.

“Where’d you learn all this?” Leland asked in an attempt to get his mind on something, anything else. The adrenaline was slowing down. The only good thing about being shot in the shoulder was that it took his mind off how much his ankle was screaming at him.

“Afghanistan.”

Fisher didn’t elaborate and Leland didn’t need him to. He had firsthand knowledge of what that experience entailed, and his shoulder graze was insignificant compared to what Fisher had likely seen there.

He pulled up some medication in a syringe. “I’m sorry I can only give you a topical pain killer. It’s not much, but if I give you a narcotic, you’ll be woozy. We need you coherent.”

Leland nodded.

“This should hold you till Walters can take a look.” Fisher administered the shot around the edges of the wound and the site slowly numbed. As he fashioned a bandage, Leland focused on Anna through the remarkably clean windows.

She was smiling and petting a dog through the wire cage along with Zach when he noticed the smile disappear and she suddenly went still. He felt a frisson of concern.

Fisher finished taping him up and slipped off the bloody gloves. “Well, it’s not completely done, but at least you aren’t bleeding all over everyone now.”

“Definitely a step in the right direction.” Shirtless, Leland stood and moved to walk outside, feeling only slightly light-headed. He was anxious to check on Anna but stopped to shake Fisher’s hand. “Thank you.”

Fisher shrugged. “No problem.”

When he got to the courtyard Anna was pale and gripping Zach’s arm as she stared into the palm of her hand. Leland moved closer, slowly recognizing what she had cradled in her fingers.

The pager.

“Anna?”

She glanced up at him. The fear in her eyes from earlier was gone.

“Oh my god,” she gushed. “It’s CTC. They’ve got a heart for Zach.” Her voice was wobbly. “I have to call them . . . right away.”

She stared into his face, a look of shock and relief simultaneously colliding in her eyes. “I don’t have a phone.”

“Here,” Leland tugged Nick’s forgotten smartphone from his pocket and wiped at the blood still partially covering the screen before handing it over. She didn’t look at him again as she walked away to the far side of the courtyard and made the call.

“I don’t understand,” said Zach. “I thought . . . I thought we had a heart back at that mansion. What’s the deal?”

So Anna hadn’t told him what was going on. That wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it sure as hell wasn’t Leland’s place to enlighten the boy.

“You need to ask your mom about this.”

“She won’t tell me. She thinks she needs to protect me.” Zach shook his head and crossed his arms with an air of teenage defiance. “As if she could protect me from my heart stopping. It pisses me off that she doesn’t think I can handle the truth.”

Leland considered the situation and wondered if he could possibly explain. The kid needed to know what his mother had been willing to sacrifice for him and what his dad had “arranged.” But Leland wasn’t the person to set the record straight.

He’d knocked Anna unconscious and threatened her life. Hadn’t he done enough to her without butting his nose into this?

“I’m fourteen years old, dammit. I’m old enough to know the truth about my own health.”

The boy had a valid point. Zach should know the truth. About everything—his heart, his mom, and his dad.

After the hell the man had put them through, Zach shouldn’t go through life believing Max Mercado was some sort of hero. Max had been willing to kill his own wife, the boy’s mother. Leland still wasn’t sure Rivera would have followed through with Zach’s transplant. There’d only been one surgical team in evidence at Rivera’s clinic.

He sat down beside Zach on the low stone wall next to the dog cages. The scent of disinfectant and a stench no amount of bleach could ever cover wafted over them. Things weren’t going to get more private any time soon.

He probably should just keep his mouth shut, but after another glance at Zach’s intractable expression, Leland couldn’t do it. He couldn’t have the boy thinking his mom was in any way to blame.

“Your mom was going to give her heart for the transplant. Your dad arranged it all as payment for a debt he owed. That’s why you were kidnapped from the hotel room. They wanted to force your mom to come to Mexico so they could do the surgery here.”

Zach’s quizzical air was frozen in place so Leland kept going.

“The man who owned that house, Tomas Rivera, wanted you and your mom because his wife has y’all’s same rare blood type, and she needed a lung transplant. Your dad agreed to let Rivera have your mom’s organs for Rivera’s wife if they’d operate on you, too, and give you Anna’s heart.”

He stopped talking and took a deep breath. He’d explained. Zach’s eyes widened and he gazed into the courtyard, speechless.

It had probably been a little too fast, but Leland figured the “ripping a bandage off” approach was best. He was pretty sure he’d done the right thing, but he was concerned about the boy’s reaction, not to mention Anna’s. He reached in his other pocket to feel for the bottle of Zach’s heart pills and relaxed slightly.

The boy shook his head vehemently from side to side, a look of utter confusion on his face. “But Mom told me . . .” His voice trailed off as Leland assumed he was remembering exactly what Anna had and hadn’t said in that hospital room at Rivera’s compound.

Zach’s eyes filled with tears. “She would have done that? For me? But . . .”

Leland nodded. “I couldn’t talk her out of it. That’s why . . .” Now it was his turn to trail off.

“That’s why you knocked her out and why you knew she could be a shield in the driveway,” finished Zach.

“She wouldn’t have come out of there willingly. She wanted you to have a new heart that much, and Rivera needed her badly.”

Zach stared at a fuzzy black dog in the cage in front of them. “I can’t believe she would have—” His voice broke. “That she would have done that for me. She would have given up everything.”

His eyes were wet, but when he looked up at Leland, his face was peaceful. “Thank you for telling me. She never would have.”

“No, I don’t believe she would have, either. Not sure it was my place, but you needed to know. If I were in your shoes, I’d want to know.”

Zach nodded and they both glanced at Anna, still on the phone. “How’s your shoulder?” The boy asked.

“Deep graze. Hurts like a bitch.”

Zach smiled at his profanity as Leland had hoped he would. “Thank you for helping us. I don’t know what to say.
Thank you
doesn’t seem enough.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” Leland reached out and shook the boy’s hand. “You can always trust me. It’s my job.”

Leland realized he meant that. Taking care of people
was
his job. They sat in companionable silence for a moment, petting the dogs through the cage bars and watching as Anna ended the call and hurried over to speak with Marissa.

“It looks like you may have some good news.”

Zach sighed. “Maybe.”

Marissa seemed to listen then made a quick call herself before she motioned for Fisher to join them. They all talked before making their way to Zach and Leland. Anna didn’t acknowledge his presence, but the uncertainty in her face from earlier had clearly turned to relief. She was completely focused on Zach.

“CTC has a heart,” Anna reached out and took the boy’s hands in hers as she spoke. “The donor is on a ventilator but will have to come off soon. We just have to tell them if we can get there. We have a little less than five hours.”

“Can we make it in time?” The hope in Zach’s voice was palpable.

Anna looked to Marissa for the answer. “Yes. Our plane is at an airstrip, about twenty minutes from here. We’ll be in the air three hours. If we leave right now, we can get there. But we have to get on the plane immediately.”

“What about Nick?” asked Leland.

“We’re leaving him here till I can drop you all at the airport and come back. Bryan will fly you home.” Marissa was typing a text as she spoke.

“Why don’t I stay here with Nick?” suggested Leland.

“Because you don’t work for AEGIS yet. And you’ll be in more danger than me if you stay. Besides, you won’t be much help riding shotgun with that shoulder. Rivera’s gunning for you and he’s got cause to want you dead.”

“Well, I know he’s angry, but no more so at me than Nick or anyone else here, right?”

Marissa shook her head. “Afraid so. I heard from Gavin. Rivera’s compound was just leveled in an explosion. Early reports are it was a gas leak. It must have blown right after we got out of there, but the timing is a little too convenient. Gavin was asking if we had anything to do with it.”

“Did you?” Leland’s mind immediately went to his conversation with Nick in the stairwell of Rivera’s house.

“No,” said Marissa, irritation evident in her tone.

“Don’t get pissy,” replied Leland. “When Nick found us at Rivera’s, he said he was just ‘finishing up.’ I assumed.”

“Yeah,” Fisher spoke up. “I can see how that would look suspicious to you. It would look bad to Rivera as well, if he knew.” He focused on Marissa. “But Nick was setting surveillance equipment, that’s all. No explosives. Rivera doesn’t know about that. He just knows you, Anna, and Zach were running loose before the place blew up.”

Risa jumped in. “We don’t do wet work, ever. Not that people haven’t tried to hire us for that before. Gavin refuses and I agree. But we needed some information for a case we’ve been working on for a while.”

“What kind of case?” Leland asked, painfully aware that they really didn’t have time for this.

Risa exchanged another long glance with Fisher. He nodded and she answered. “Kidnapping. The Elizabeth Yarborough case.”

Leland blew out a breath in surprise. “The college student who was doing foreign aid work? I thought she got murdered by her American boyfriend when he came for a visit. Didn’t they arrest the guy?”

“Yeah, but he didn’t do it,” Fisher explained. “And currently he’s rotting in a Mexican prison because authorities don’t want to look at what really happened. There’s a lot of human trafficking down here. We’ve got reason to think Rivera’s men may have had Elizabeth at one time. We were hoping we could get something from bugging the compound.”

“How long have y’all been working this?”

“Too damn long,” Fisher said.

“A while,” answered Marissa at the same time.

It was time to change the subject. “So if Nick didn’t set explosives, who did?” asked Leland.