Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (38 page)

The drug lord threw back his head and
laughed, exposing a small gold hoop earring in one ear, beneath his long mane
of black hair. Grinning, he cast a look at Nick. “Your woman is very entertaining,
Colonel, very courageous. She won’t keep me from finally getting my revenge,
though. Unfortunately, she will also have to die with you and your brother.”

Li Chen aimed his big handgun at
Lance, then at her. “But who first?” He made it a game, and chuckled while he
shifted his weapon back and forth, all the while watching Nick’s tautly drawn
face.

The finger on the trigger of the
handgun was without tremor. Hanna knew for a certainty that Li Chen would have
no change of heart. He’d shoot all three of them in the head, without
hesitation. She glanced at the two guards on either side of him. They both had
their weapons drawn and ready. Maybe she could create a little distraction and
give Nick an opportunity to do something. Since it appeared all three of them
were soon going to die, anything, at this point, was worth a try, she figured.

Gathering every ounce of courage she
possessed, she yanked her elbow out of Li Chen’s grasp and rammed it as hard as
she could into his stomach. His hand flew upwards, causing him to fire
involuntarily into the ceiling, shooting out the overhead light bulb. Without
the light, the corridor where they were standing went instantly dark.

Hanna whirled out of his reach, and
Nick pivoted his big body, striking Chen in the chest with a powerful sidekick
that knocked the smaller man to the ground.

“Get behind the boxes!” Nick yelled at
her as he went immediately after the guards.

One was helping Chen recover. The
other was shifting around, trying to get a clear shot at Nick, who was moving
so fast in the darkened corridor, it was hard to follow him.

In a whirl of motion, he struck the
guard trying to take aim, bringing his hand down in a swift, fiercely delivered
chop to the man’s forearm that sent his rifle to the floor. He followed with a
knuckle punch to the guard’s windpipe that knocked him to his knees, then to
the floor, unconscious.

Then he went after Chen and the second
guard. The drug lord pushed to his feet in a roar of rage and lunged for Nick. Hanna
watched from behind a wooden crate as Lance went after the remaining guard,
tackling him to the ground.

Nick stepped to the side, avoiding
Chen’s frontal attack, then pivoted and kicked out with the side of his boot. Chen
staggered, trying to regain his balance and equilibrium. Nick took advantage of
the drug lord’s disorientation and delivered a quick succession of punches to
Chen’s face, inflicting a probable broken nose and some deep lacerations that
bled profusely.

Hanna was hesitant to do anything but
watch. Several weapons lay on the floor, near the four still fighting. Lance
was still wrestling with the second guard. The man’s handgun appeared between
them. Hanna was terrified that it would go off as each man struggled for
control of it.

Nick saw that his brother was having
trouble with the guard he was trying to subdue. While Li Chen was distracted
for a moment trying to staunch the effusive rush of blood from his nose and a
cut above his right eye, Nick delivered a brutal axe kick to the guard’s head,
instantly knocking him out.

“Grab the guns!” he shouted at Lance.
“Get Hanna out of here!”

Chen’s head snapped up. With a fierce growl,
the drug lord came at Nick with a series of amazingly swift moves that
demonstrated he, too, was well-trained in martial arts. Nick deflected each move,
and after a few minutes, Chen began to visibly tire. Nick’s size, skill, and
stamina were greater. Averting any major damage from Chen, he retaliated with
several punishing jabs to the man’s face and abdomen, targeting areas that were
cut and still bleeding profusely. With his vision seriously impaired, Chen
couldn’t see Nick clearly enough to avoid his blows. Finally, Nick whirled his
big body in a savage roundhouse kick that slammed into Chen’s gut. In the next instant,
he reversed himself and repeated the circular attack from the opposite
direction. The moves were so incredibly fast, Hanna would have missed them had
she blinked.

Chen stood for a moment, swaying on
his feet, then crumpled to the floor like a rag doll, unconscious. Nick bent
over at the waist to brace his hands on his knees and suck air into his heaving
lungs. Blood and perspiration had all but eliminated the grease paint from his
face.

Hanna hurried over to him. “Oh my God!
Are you okay?” she inquired as she wiped at his face once again with the sleeve
of her sweater.

Nick didn’t respond at first. Hanna
rubbed his back as he remained bent over at the waist. When he began to breathe
easier, he straightened and looked at her, then at his brother. “Why the hell
didn’t you run when I told you to?”

Hanna replied before Lance could. “I
wouldn’t go without you.”

Nick cussed under his breath. “Did you
get all the weapons?” he asked his brother again.

“All of yours. The rest I dumped into that
tall empty crate.”

“Let’s get out of here then,” he urged
as he rearmed himself.

A friendly hail came from the end of
the corridor. They headed toward the sound of Kurt’s voice. It was still too
dark to see clearly. They hadn’t gotten far when a round of bullets pinged against
the cement wall.

Nick spun around and raised his
assault rifle. He could just barely make out four men running down the opposite
end of the tunnel, in the direction of the main house, toward them. They were
firing as they ran, which was why their shots weren’t accurate.

Nick pushed Hanna toward the wall,
behind a stack of discarded furniture. “Get down! Take cover!”

She hit the wall and dropped
immediately to hide behind an upholstered sofa stacked with several barrel
chairs.

“Lance!” Nick shouted over his
shoulder and threw his brother a couple of smoke grenades. “Cover me!”

Lance threw one grenade, and Kurt
fired at the oncoming assailants, while Nick ran back to Li Chen and hauled him
to his feet. A blanket of thick smoke obscured the distance between the two
groups of combatants. Nick took the few seconds he was given to retrieve the
drug lord and drag him to the stack of furniture Hanna and Lance were hiding
behind.

“Kelly! You’ve violated your bail.”

Nick immediately recognized Sheriff
Thomas’ voice. He laughed. “No shit!”

“I’m going to kill you… for resisting
arrest. The doctor and your brother, too.”

“You better think about that. I’ve got
your boss. The FBI is here, too, Thomas. This operation is finished.”

The only reply was a blind hail of bullets.
The furniture that they crouched behind felt like pathetic cover. More alert,
Chen was struggling to free himself. Nick had his hands full keeping him
secured against his chest.

Kurt finally joined them, but he had
to dive into their location as the four attackers opened fire on him. Hanna was
terrified. When the smoke cleared, the shooting would become more accurate. As
it was, a stray bullet was a distinct possibility.

Eventually, the gunshots ceased.

“Get behind me when I get up, then run
like hell!” Nick ordered Hanna. “Kurt set up cover fire for us, but do it on
the move. Lance, throw another smoke grenade as cover.” He looked over at
Hanna. “This time you go! Don’t stop for anything. Understood?” She nodded.
“Ready?” They all nodded grimly.

Nick rose to his feet and thrust Chen
in front of him, ramming his Glock into the man’s temple, his finger on the
trigger. “Lance, now!” he directed his brother in a low growl.

The diminishing smoke from the first
grenade revealed their pursuers for an instant, and then Lance tossed the
second one. The corridor was quickly blanketed in another thick grayish-white
cloud. Hanna rose to her feet and took one last look at Nick.

 “Go! Go! Go!” he shouted to her,
starting to jog backwards, with Chen in tow.

“Don’t let them get away!” Chen
shouted to his men.

Nick snarled something at him. The
firing began again, even though there was no way they could see who they were
shooting at. Hanna was surprised that Chen’s men risked killing their boss. But
the Sheriff must have been ordering them to open fire again. It occurred to her
that Thomas probably would like to see Chen dead because it would leave the
operation in his hands.

“Run, damn it, Hanna! Run!”

She was, but not so fast as to leave
Nick behind. With Chen to pull along, he was moving more slowly, and she was
not about to abandon him.

The smoke was beginning to thin. “Come
on, Nick, hurry!” She looked back over her shoulder and saw a bullet hit him in
the arm. She screamed.

A round struck Chen in the leg. He shouted
and halted to grab his thigh. His momentary paralysis brought Nick to a stop.
He was trying to grab him by his belt and drag him along anyway when Hanna
whirled around and ran back to assist him.

“Get out of here!” he yelled at her
furiously.

“I won’t leave you!” she shouted over
the automatic rifle fire. “You need help.”

Nick swore and reached out to push her
away. She turned to head toward the exit again when she felt a sudden explosion
of pain in her shoulder. She knew instantly she’d been shot. Before she had
time to react, another bullet struck her, this time just below her waist. It
was worse than the first hit. She couldn’t move.

Terror raced through her. “Nick!”
Shock gave way to fierce pain. Her legs collapsed beneath her.

“Aw Christ! Hanna!” Nick’s savage
primal roar echoed off the cinder block walls.

Bullets continued to whiz and ricochet
around her, mostly above her now. Then there was a crushing weight on top of
her as Nick threw his body over hers and returned fire at the men who were
shooting at them. Hanna could see Chen huddled on the ground next to them. They
were all going to die if the shooting didn’t stop soon.

There was a shout from somewhere. It
sounded like Kurt. Then there was a bright flash and a loud bang in the
distance. Maybe one of those flash-bang something or others, Hanna thought in a
daze, beginning to feel numb.

Kurt ran up to them and reached down
to lift Chen to his feet. From her fuzzy vantage point, she could see that his
pant leg was soaked with blood. Nick rolled off her and onto his knees beside
her. She looked into his anguished face. She tried to touch his cheek, but she
couldn’t lift her arm that high. She tried to speak to him, but her voice was
nothing more than a barely audible croak.

Nick ripped off his Kevlar vest. Hanna
heard the loud noise the separation of Velcro made. She shook her head in
horror. He shouldn’t be giving up his bulletproof vest, she thought
desperately. Next, he yanked his long-sleeved black t-shirt over his head. To her
relief, he hastily put his protective vest back on, but quickly balled up his
shirt and pressed it, hard, against her abdomen. The pain was almost more than
she could bear. She cried out in agony.

“I’m sorry, Hanna, but I’ve got to
stop the bleeding and get you out of here fast. Hang on, sweetheart.”

Oh God, it hurt!
She tried to block the pain from her
mind. What happened to the numbness, she thought wildly.

She groaned as he rose smoothly and
powerfully to his feet, lifting her, then cradling her in his arms, high
against his chest. She was still aware enough to feel the blood streaming down
his bare arm, onto her.

“Nick.... You’re hurt....”

“I’m okay. Don’t talk, honey.”

They were moving faster now. It was
bumpy, but Nick was trying hard not to jolt her too much. She could see Lance
up ahead a few feet, looking over his shoulder at her worriedly. Kurt was
running beside them, dragging Chen along with him. Sheriff Thomas and the men
with him must have been temporarily stopped by the second grenade Kurt had just
thrown. No one was firing at them at the moment.

“We need to get her out of here fast!”
Nick called over to Kurt. “Toss that son of a bitch into the elevator and set
up cover fire until everyone’s inside. Lance, make sure Chen stays with us.”

Nick hit the elevator button with the
side of his bloody clenched fist. The door opened instantly. He stepped inside
with Hanna. Kurt threw Chen in, then raised his assault rifle and prepared to
open fire on anyone coming up behind them. Lance dashed in and grabbed Chen,
hauling him once again to his feet.

“How is she?” Hanna could hear Lance
ask.

Nick looked at his brother and gave
him an expression Hanna couldn’t read. His beloved face was getting harder to
focus on, his image fading with each painful breath she took.

Damn! She didn’t want to pass out. She
was afraid that if she did, she’d never wake up again. She knew she’d been
shot, twice, once in the shoulder region and once below her waist. Nick was
trying hard to staunch her blood loss, but strength and awareness were flowing
out of her as fast as her blood.

She couldn’t die, not now! She hadn’t
even told Nick yet that she loved him. She wanted him to know that before she
died. She tried to form the words. But nothing emerged except the desperate
whisper of his name.