Heatseeker (Atrati) (8 page)

“I’m a damn sight closer to the door.”

The pain that went through Neil at those words staggered him. He hid his reaction by getting back to the task at hand.

“I’m not giving up on us, sugar.”

“You already did.” Wyatt had chosen his family’s acceptance over Neil, and Neil wasn’t stupid enough to ever forget that.

He couldn’t even really blame the other man. Wyatt had always been close to his dad and brothers; the whole Texan way was ingrained in him to the bone. And that way had kiboshed any idea that it was okay to be gay.

Hell, according to Wyatt’s daddy, it wasn’t okay to be single past your twenty-fifth birthday. Hence the fiancée who had ended Wyatt and Neil’s relationship.

But understanding and acceptance were two different things.

Neil knew what it meant to pay the cost of being true to himself, and he would have given up anything,
except
his self-respect, to be with Wyatt.

Despite all the times she’d said a mother’s love was unconditional while Neil was growing up, his mother hadn’t spoken to him in ten years. Not since he came out to her and his father as a teenager. She’d told him then that she’d never accept what she considered his “deviant lifestyle.”

She never had, and she’d never accepted him again, either.

His dad, on the other hand, had taken the news hard at first but ultimately decided that God didn’t make mistakes and no way was he cutting loose his son for being true to himself. Neil knew he was lucky.

His dad just wanted to know when Neil was going to settle down and stop traipsing around the world trying to get himself killed.

Wyatt helped Neil clear the area of track before they started moving again. “I made a mistake.”

Neil just shrugged. Some mistake. It had been hard enough having Wyatt hide their relationship from others like an ugly, dirty secret he was ashamed of. It had destroyed Neil to realize that Wyatt had been hiding things from
him,
too.

Like his casual dates with the woman from Texas he’d ended up engaged to.

Wyatt walked silently beside him for several minutes before saying, “I knew it was a mistake when I did it, but I was convinced the only way to have the future I wanted was to do what Daddy was pushing for.”

Neil didn’t bother to reply. They’d been over this before, albeit a hell of a lot more loudly, two years ago. That pain and anger were old enemies Neil wasn’t going to tangle with today.

Instead he focused on why the man had him so infuriated. “What the hell were you doing, going off orders back at the enemy compound?”

Wyatt made a sound of frustration. “We’re talking about
us
.”

“No,” Neil said very carefully, very succinctly. “We are not.”

“You’re more stubborn than a wild bull coming into pasture.”

Neil just gave Wyatt a sidelong glance and repeated his question, this time with fewer words and a lot more meaning.

Wyatt spied a mark of the others passing and cleared it. “Our targets weren’t going to believe my little setup if they didn’t have a trail to follow out of there.”

“That’s another thing: who told you to set the scene in the holding cell?” Neil demanded.

Wyatt countered, “Who told you to plant extra surveillance equipment?”

“It wasn’t anything big.”

“Neither was staging a false scene. A little fraying where Kadin cut the ties holding her, giving her chair a sharp edge where the blood from her wrists had stained it already. It wasn’t exactly my first rodeo, yeah?”

“And what if they’d caught you laying the false trail?”

“I’m too good to get caught.”

“So you think.”

“So I know.”

“What happens when they get to the end of the trail?”

“They keep looking. I ended it at a little stream.”

“How’d you know it was there?”

“I studied the satellite images on the way over in the plane.”

“You’re smarter than you look,” Neil acknowledged grudgingly. “In some things, anyway. But it was still a hell of a risk.”

“It’s my job,” Wyatt said way too complacently.

“Your job was to drug the guards so Rachel’s rescue wasn’t discovered immediately.”

“And yours was to plant listening devices, not to lay those extra cams.”

“Would you stop harping on that?”

“Only if you do.” Wyatt’s gray eyes challenged him.

“You took an unnecessary risk—that’s all I’m saying.”

“So did you.” Wyatt’s expression and tone held none of the amusement usually lurking there. “You take too many of them.”

“Like you said, it’s my job.”

“You’ve got a reputation in the Atrati.”

“When it comes down to it, a lot of us do.”

“Not like yours.”

“Old soldiers gossip worse than old women.” Neil knew his reputation, and he wasn’t interested in talking about it.

Even among the select members of the Atrati, he was known as fearless, or just plain crazy.

“Yeah, well, you give them plenty to talk about. In the past year, you’ve taken too damn many risks.”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“Luck.”

“Skill.”

Wyatt grabbed his arm, stopping Neil’s progress forward. “Damn it, Neil, you’ve got to stop living like you don’t care if you die.”

The concern in Wyatt’s gaze touched something inside Neil he didn’t want touched. Not anymore. Not by this man.

“How I live is not something you need to worry about.” He yanked out of Wyatt’s grasp and started moving again, his focus on the forest floor.

If losing Wyatt had hurt enough that there had been a few assignments when Neil hadn’t cared whether he came home or not, that was no one’s damn business but his own.

“That’s where you’re wrong, honey. How you live, that you live at all, is something I care about more than you want to know right now.” Sincerity rang in the other man’s tone.

Neil had believed that sincerity once and had ended up with a broken heart. He’d never known pain worse than he’d felt when he’d learned that the man he loved was engaged to be married. The betrayal had destroyed Neil’s ability to trust—and hope.

He wasn’t going to be fooled again. “Bullshit.”

Wyatt had made his choices, and they’d pierced Neil’s heart with the power of armor-penetrating bullets.

Kadin felt it through his whole body when Rachel relaxed enough to let her head fall against his shoulder. Her hold on his jacket didn’t loosen, but everything else did, her legs dangling limply over his forearms.

It felt just like the trust he’d vowed that Rachel still had in him.

And that about took his legs out from under him.

He didn’t deserve that trust, but he’d die himself and take out the enemy on the way before he betrayed it again.

Having her body pressed against his back recalled memories he couldn’t afford to dwell on, but even in her current state, Rachel got to him like no other woman ever had or ever would.

And as much as he hated the fact that she was so used up that she needed to be carried, he let himself revel in the stolen closeness of holding her. If she’d taken Eva up on the idea of piggybacking on Peace instead of him, he figured somebody would have ended up with a black eye.

Or worse.

Knowing that didn’t make him proud, but he had never been entirely rational where Rachel was concerned.

Faster than he expected and without incident, they made it to their hidden Land Rover. Rachel’s eyes barely fluttered as Kadin set her carefully on the backseat.

Eva pushed him aside to assess her patient and nodded to herself as if satisfied. “She’s looking better despite the hike.”

Rachel hadn’t technically hiked all that far, but Kadin didn’t bother saying so. Doc was happy with the other woman’s progress, and that was all that mattered.

They’d kept Rachel hydrated with sports drinks and his favorite protein powder. It tasted like crap mixed with water but had the right balance of nutrients and vitamins. He’d tested it plenty of times in the field himself.

“Doc, you and I will sit in the back with her. Spazz, you take point with Peace. And, Cowboy, I want you in the cargo deck, keeping an eye on our six.”

After stowing their gear in the back, leaving just enough room for Cowboy and his rifle with a scope, the rest of them took their positions, and Peace headed the Land Rover down the mountain.

They were coming into a more populated area when Peace asked, “The airport or the safe house, boss?”

“Safe house. Rachel’s not going to leave Africa without Jamila Massri.”

The tension in the truck ratcheted up.

“She needs proper medical treatment,” Eva said mildly, though her expression belied any sense of relaxation her voice might have implied.

“Rachel’s priorities are the job and that girl.”

“And what are your priorities?” Spazz asked from the front without taking his eyes off the rapidly darkening landscape beyond the windshield.

Cowboy shifted just slightly in his position behind Kadin, but his rifle remained at the ready. “Our orders were to bring her out.”

“I’m not leaving without her, and she’s not leaving without the Egyptian woman.”

No one said anything to that. And Kadin wasn’t sure what the silence meant.

If Roman had made that announcement, there would have been no doubt in his mind that they all would have followed the other man wherever he led. Chief had inspired that kind of loyalty.

Kadin, on the other hand, wasn’t sure where, exactly, he stood with his team. They’d been together in the same Atrati squad for two years, some of them longer than that, but he’d only been their captain for the past six months.

Before that, he’d just been one of them, a damn fine weapon and teammate but not their leader.

Part of him breathed out a sigh of relief when Peace passed the turnoff to the airport and headed toward the safe house.

Cowboy silently camouflaged his weapon, keeping it lowered but still at the ready while the other team members peeled off outer layers of clothing. Grabbing scarves and other items that made them look more like tourists than an extraction team, they prepared for driving through the streets of Marrakech.

All the while, Rachel dozed beside him, her breathing soft and regular.

In the midst of an op he could not afford to screw up, he was assailed by memories of a time when that sound had been what drew him into his own sleep.

Sleep not haunted by the eyes of the dead. From the time before killing became his calling card.

Cowboy was a damned fine marksman, but Trigger was better. He could shoot anything from a Glock to a grenade launcher with deadly accuracy.

What he couldn’t do was jettison memories that were more hindrance than help and always had been.

Their Land Rover didn’t arouse any interest that he could see on the crowded streets of the city bathed in the artificial light of night.

Peace pulled the truck into the alleyway behind the safe house. Spazz got out and did quick recon before signaling the rest of them that it was safe to exit the vehicle.

Rachel woke, blinking, her breath speeding up as she acclimated herself to her new surroundings. Kadin was impressed by how silent she was as she did it. Not so much as a gasp passed her lips.

“Where are we?” she finally asked in that ruined voice that made him want to kiss her and make it all better.

But he was a warrior, not a miracle worker, and even the most mind-blowing kiss wasn’t going to erase Rachel’s memories or her pain as she healed.

“Safe house.”

She relaxed a tiny bit, though no one else would have noticed it. Kadin, tuned in to the slightest nuance with this woman, was glad. He knew she had been worried he was still going to try to extract her from Morocco without Jamila Massri.

She let him help her into the house and voiced no protest when he swung her into his arms to carry her up the narrow stairs to the second floor.

Like most houses in Marrakech, this one was built on multiple levels with an expansive living area on the roof. The interior rooms were narrow and long, divided by thick walls and even narrower hallways.

The Abduls, the couple who cared for the house and those who used it, showed no surprise at their arrival. The man, a Moroccan of indeterminate years somewhere between his forties and sixties, explained that he’d been informed to expect them.

Roman.

Kadin was grateful the other man hadn’t left orders to evacuate. Chief might not like that Kadin had decided to stay in Marrakech, but Roman Chernichenko wasn’t the type of man to undermine his new captain’s orders.

And it was a damn good thing, because whatever Roman had said, Kadin wasn’t leaving Africa without Rachel, and Rachel wasn’t going anywhere without the young woman, Jamila.

There were empty bedrooms on the second floor. Kadin didn’t even bother doing mental calculations before carrying Rachel into one of them. His team could sort themselves out, but he was staying with the woman he’d come to Morocco to rescue.

Looking over his shoulder to Cowboy, Kadin asked, “Can you get my pack?”

“Sure thing, Trig.” Cowboy dumped a pack inside the door with a smirk.

The other man must have grabbed it with his own when they got out of the Land Rover. Kadin wasn’t even surprised. They were Atrati, after all.
Semper paratus, semper fatalis
.
Always ready, always deadly.

Kadin nodded his thanks and carried Rachel to the bed. Eva was right behind them.

The doc examined a barely-awake Rachel, taking her blood pressure before changing the bandages over the abrasions on her wrists. “These look better. She probably won’t need the gauze after tomorrow.”

“Good.”

“Without proper medical facilities, I can’t run the tests I’d like, but it looks like she’s doing fine.” Eva turned to face Kadin. “She needs sleep more than anything else right now.”

“She’ll get it.”

“You could use some, too.” Eva’s voice held censure.

Kadin just shrugged.

“Don’t have to watch over me,” Rachel slurred from the bed.

He turned to face her, wanting to rage at the vulnerability in her pale eyes. “It’s a pleasure, angel.”