Storm Warning (Security Specialists International Book 4) (7 page)

DJ strained to hear the men’s conversation, but the wind had whipped around and was now blowing snow and sound in the other direction. But they only had one move—

“They’ll head around back,” DJ muttered just as Keely said, “I’ll cover the back.”

Keely laughed. “It’s their only other choice with Callie covering the front so well.”

“Exactly.” DJ belly-crawled toward the back of the gas station roof and positioned herself so she had a view of the back corner.

“I’m in position,” Keely said. “Be prepared for anything. They’re stranded and desperate.”

“In place.” DJ muttered, “Let’s hope they make stupid moves and make it easier for us to take them down.”

“I love mean women,” Vanko muttered.

DJ heard Keely’s brother snort and mutter, “Yeah. I practically raised one of them.”

“You did good, big brother,” Keely replied.

There was a lot of affection in the siblings’ voices. A pang of envy cut through DJ like a knife. Her brothers despised her and would pimp her out in an instant.

“DJ…”

Head in the now, Dahlia Jane.

“…don’t make your move until at least one more of them is down,” Keely said. “Then you can get off the roof to cover the others.”

“Am I that easy to read?” DJ asked.

“It’s what I’d want to do,” Keely said. “I frick-fracking hate waiting around, especially in the snow and the cold.”

“But I’d beat your sweet ass if you did, sprite. DJ…” This was a new male voice. His tone was rougher, more of a low growl. “Wait for Tweeter and Vanko to arrive. Let them handle it.”

“Ren…” Keely spoke.

DJ cut her off. “No time. They’re on the move again. I hear them.” She placed her eye on her scope and zeroed in on the corner of the building about where an average height man’s hip would be. “They’ll shoot at the chopper. Why take that chance? Keep the Hawk back until we secure the scene.”

Just as she finished countermanding her boss’s order
—I am so fired
—the barrel of a gun peeked around the corner.

“Wait for it,” whispered DJ.

“Oh heck yeah,” Keely muttered back.

When no shots rang out, the gun’s owner followed.

DJ aimed lower, going for the man’s legs. Just as she took her shot, Keely’s rang out from behind her. Both shots hit—hers in a thigh; Keely’s low on the man’s torso as he went down.

“Another one down.” Keely’s voice was eerily atonal. There wasn’t even a hint of emotion to indicate she’d just shot a man. “Two more to go.”

Another shot rang out from the front of the building. It was the Lapua. “Nicked one on the arm. He’s still mobile. Sorry, girls,” Callie said.

“No worries,” said DJ. “Once I get off this roof, consider the rest of the assholes immobilized.”

She chanced a bigger look over the edge of the roof, exposing her upper torso for a few seconds. No one shot at her, so she took her time and looked all along the rear of the building to find her roof exit strategy. When she spotted the closed trash bin, she dropped back to her stomach and belly-crawled toward the back corner of the station, closer to Ma’s.

Once there, DJ looked over the side again and did the mental math—approximate height of the building minus the approximate height of the bin equaled approximately her almost six feet height plus or minus half a foot. “Easy drop.”

Before she exited the roof, she ejected the old magazine from her rifle and put in a fresh one and then slung the rifle over her back. She pulled her Beretta and made sure it was in ready position then slid it down the front of her jeans, leaving her jacket unbuttoned. She took several deep breaths and then held one to listen for sounds of movement from the other side of the station.

Hearing nothing but the wind, she whispered, “Evacing the roof.”

Rumbles of male pissed-off cursing were white noise. The only thing that pierced DJ’s focus was Keely’s calm, “Go, DJ. Your ass is covered.”

DJ lay on her stomach, close to the edge. Then she swung one, then the other leg over the edge. She wiggled back until her upper body was braced on her forearms at the edge of the roof with her legs dangling down the back wall. She then slowly shimmied off the roof, allowing her body to slide down the wall until the only thing holding her to the building were her hands gripping the roof’s edge.

“Looking good, DJ. Drop.” Keely’s encouraging words were all she needed.

DJ let go and took the impact of landing on the bin’s lid with bent knees. The
boom
when she hit the bin sounded as if a cannon had gone off. Heart racing, mouth dry as a desert, she didn’t mess around and dropped to her ass and scooched off the lid. She wouldn’t get any points for grace, but it was effective. The deep snow behind the trash bin absorbed most of the shock to her legs and butt. She stood up and shook the snow off then checked over her rifle.

“You okay, DJ?” Keely asked.

“Yep, other than feeling like a human snow cone. See anything? They had to hear me hitting the bin.” DJ had her rifle in the ready position as she peeked around the edge of the thick metal of the trash container.

“Nada. What’s your plan?” Keely asked.

Before she could answer, a man crept around the back corner of the gas station.

DJ took a quick shot. It chipped some brick off the building at the man’s shoulder height. He dove back around the corner. “Dammit. Missed him.”

“Bad angle. But you scared the hell out of him.” Keely snickered. “He won’t be popping around the corner again anytime soon.”

“Good,” DJ said, “’cause I’m heading into the trees to get closer and above the last two bastards.”

“Good plan,” Keely said. “I’ll keep them pinned down.”

“Me, too,” Callie said.

DJ had spotted the tree she wanted from the roof. It was huge and had excellent climbing limbs. She slipped silently through the spindly, new growth trees at the edge of the forest. Her gaze kept touching the corner of the gas station where the two mercs were trapped and the one she and Keely had shot lay, alive and still armed.

When she reached the tree, she muttered, “Climbing.”

“Anyone so much as twitches. I’ll shoot.” Keely sounded as if she wanted them to twitch.

DJ licked her dry lips, then slung her rifle across her back, grabbed a branch, and pulled herself up. Once on the lower branch, she began climbing swiftly—reminiscent of the innocent and eager tomboy she’d been for the early years of her life before she’d “blossomed” as he mother had called it. Her teen years had been hell and a constant battle to keep hormonal teen boys—and other male predators—at arm’s length. She paused in climbing as dark images of the one time she’d failed threatened to—

Shove that shit away. It’s over.

Then the sound of a chopper came on the breeze, bringing her fully back to the present.

She spoke in a low, savage tone. “Keep that Hawk back. I’ll put these fuckers out of commission once I’m set.”

“You have two minutes.” Keely’s brother’s tone matched hers. “Then I’m bringing this bird in with guns blazing.”

“Shit. Roger that.” DJ swung up the last two branches in less time it took to think about it. She lay along a thick branch and inched farther out. Using a convenient notch, she braced her rifle and sighted her shots. The two men stood between one truck and the side of the building. She eyed first one merc, then the one called Cervantes.

“Targets in my sights.” She never took her eyes off the men who were arguing. Her finger was on the rifle’s trigger.

An exasperated, macho-male sigh over the headset was followed by the low growling voice of her boss, “DJ, just wound. Understood?”

“Affirmative, that was my plan.” DJ shot at the man closest to her. She hit him in the leg and then his shoulder as he went down. This opened up her next shot. The merc leader Cervantes turned to run, she placed two shots at his legs, both hitting his thigh, as he twisted away. She prayed she missed anything vital since he’d be the one who’d have most of Ren’s answers.

“Both men are down with shots to the legs. Approach with caution. Both are moving and still armed. I’ll be there by the time the chopper lands.” DJ set the safety on her rifle, slung it over her shoulder, and began the climb down.

The SSI chopper swooped in over the parking lot and hovered perfectly over the two trucks, even with the fierce swirling winds. Stuart held the bird level as if he were flying on a calm sunny day.

Steady hands—as good as any Army rotor pilot she’d served with. Hell, the computer geek handles that Hawk like an ace.

His older brothers had never mentioned their baby brother had skills other than communing with computers and riding herd on Keely through M.I.T.

“Shove the guns away from you and remain lying flat.” Vanko’s voice came over the Hawk’s speakers.

DJ looked up after she reached the ground. A leanly muscled blond man was strapped in and stood in the open cabin door, an automatic rifle aimed at the two men she’d just taken down. Okay, so she wouldn’t have to take control of the situation. No skin off her nose. She’d back the man-who-had-to-be-Vanko’s play.

The chopper moved to the side of the trucks and, in a feat of some damn fine flying, hovered even lower to allow Vanko to jump to the ground. The chopper then rose smoothly and swooped off to land farther away from the building.

“DJ…” Keely’s voice came over the headset. “Callie and I are going into the restaurant to give the all-clear, then we’ll disarm the man in the front. Paramedics are en route. ”

“Tell my momma, I’ll come to her as soon as the scene’s cleared. She doesn’t need to see this. I’ll check on the guy at the back of the station, then move to assist where needed.”

While DJ was sure her mother knew that her daughter shot people while in the military, she sure didn’t want her mother to view the end results up-close-and-personal. DJ planned to buffer her mother from the realities of what SSI did as much as possible. Her mother had already experienced her share of violence in the world; she didn’t need to live through DJ’s share, also.

“Roger that,” Keely replied.

DJ pulled her Beretta and moved toward Juan, the man she and Keely had shot. She approached with caution. Old Juan was unconscious. He’d bled a lot. One of the bullets must have nicked an artery. She took his rifle, two knives, and pistol and threw them several feet into a stand of new-growth trees, leaving them for whatever law enforcement crime scene crew showed up to work the scene. She then used Juan’s belt and applied a tourniquet to his leg. She checked his pulse and respirations.

She clicked her headset. “Ren?”

“Yes, DJ?”

“Tell the paramedics the guy behind the gas station has a suspected nicked femoral artery. I’ve applied a tourniquet. He’s unconscious. Vitals aren’t great, but he’s holding his own. He’s disarmed.”

“Roger that,” Ren replied. “See you soon.”

“Roger that.” After cleaning Juan’s blood off her gloves in the snow, she headed for the side of the building where Vanko stood watch over the other two men she’d shot.

The chopper’s rotors had wound down and once again she could hear the fiercely blowing wind whistling through the thicket of trees behind the buildings.

So, she shouldn’t have been surprised to find the man who had to be Stuart Walsh checking the two downed mercs for other weapons while Vanko covered him.

Looks as if he is also a full member of the SSI team.

She paused for a second taking in the picture he made. Damn, Stuart was nothing like what his brothers had described. Just proved, she should never make assumptions about a person—or even a situation—until she’d observed both for herself. From mere hearsay—albeit, in her defense, from his family’s own lovingly shared and often humorous stories—she’d labeled Stuart a pencil-necked, pasty, less-than-physically-fit computer geek. In the flesh, he sure as hell didn’t look like a nerd who spent all his time communing in a virtual world.

Stuart Allen Walsh was what some of the women in her pilot classes would’ve called a hunk. He was tall—taller than her six feet by maybe four or five inches—with broad shoulders and long, leanly muscled legs as outlined by tight, well-worn jeans. Dirty-blond, slightly long, shaggy hair flew around his hatless head. His facial skin was darkened by exposure to the out-of-doors, and he had sculpted facial features accented by a five o’clock shadow.

Her nipples tightened. Her core clenched. Her clit throbbed—and her panties dampened uncomfortably.
Holy shit!
What a time for her latent libido to awaken.

DJ had never had an immediate sexual attraction to any male since being raped by Sean. Yeah, she could objectively admire a guy’s good looks and even understand why some women lusted after them, but she hadn’t lusted—ever. The men she’d served with were her teammates; they had her respect and that was that. She’d fully expected the same attitude to carry over to the SSI team.

It’s a fluke. Really. She didn’t even know him. He could be a total jerk.

But, in point of fact, she did know him in an indirect way. His parents and brothers had praised his—and Keely’s—attributes to the skies. Stuart wasn’t a jerk. He was smart, loyal, a good brother—a responsible, decent human being. He looked and sounded as if he’d be a perfect match for any woman.

But DJ wasn’t one of those women—couldn’t be. She’d never intended to find a mate—or even succumb to desire for a man. Just look at where love and desire had landed her mother. DJ’s father had taken everything her mother had offered and abused it until the love died.

Button it up, Dahlia Jane. He’s a team member. Think of him like your Army chopper crew. He’s just one of the guys.

Yeah, she could do that. Had to do that. This SSI job was far too important for her to piss it away by being attracted to her employer’s brother-in-law.

DJ moved closer to where the two mercs lay on the ground. She’d automatically aimed her gun at the man lying on the ground closest to her as Stuart checked both men out. She took several deep breaths and absently noted that upon her arrival on scene, Vanko had switched his full attention to the other merc.