Warrior Mine (4 page)

T
he earth must have shifted
a few million miles toward the sun during the night. Beams of light blazed through the tiny slits Vail managed to pry between his eyelids. They pierced through his cornea and lodged in his brain, calling forth tears. Moisture welled and overflowed hot on his cheek. The harder he tried to blink them away the more clouds gathered. He lifted a hand to wipe the bleariness away, but lost the will to move them somewhere between one and two inches from the scratchy cotton beneath his fingers.

For a while he closed his heavy lids, content with the easy rock of the sea, though he inherently knew he wasn’t in water. He’d be at home in the water. Here, wherever here was, was far away from home and far too close to a memory. Sorrow, tight and unyielding, gripped his chest, weighting him, sinking him below the nonexistent surface.

Ellie.

I’m sorry.

Ellie.

Forgive me.

All at once the pain ripped at his middle, a hungry wolf making a meal of him. His eyes shot wide. A wash of white assaulted along with the multiplying pack. White walls. White curtain. A four-strip rectangular fixture with blinding white florescent bulbs.

“Welcome to the land of the living,” a voice came from across the gigantic room.

Vail gave gravity his head, letting it loll to the left, away from a large window white with the fury of day. Not such a big room and not so far away. His lieutenant commander, Khani Slaughter, sat two feet away, long limbs knotted in the confines of a ridged recliner. The high-backed monstrosity looked more like a plastic box. Its footrest, wedged only a few inches from the frame, provided rest for nothing at all.

“Is that what this is?”

“Yep. As good as it gets.” Her mouth kicked into a half smile.

He blinked, struggling to pull color into focus. Khani’s lips were always the craziest hue of orangish-red he’d ever seen, her eyes usually an electric shade of green or blue to really set her face alight. But his abused lenses refused to see color on her porcelain skin.

“Well damn,” he muttered.

She unfolded her legs and arms and he found color—albeit a hideous one—in the mint green of the scrubs she wore. His eyes worked okay. She just didn’t wear any make-up. He blinked again, locking his gaze on the tiny, ultra-white scars that tarnished her otherwise impeccable complexion.

“What happened?” he begged.

“Doc Williamson called it a class III hemorrhage.”

Quite the evasion. He smiled and his skin seemed too tight for his face.

“And you smile about almost bleeding to death. Men, I’ll never understand you. Not ever.”

“I meant, what happened to you? Not me,” he swallowed against the raw dryness of his throat. “And men are easy. Eat. Sex. Sleep. How simple is that? Women…” His mind conjured Carmen Ruez. Her big, sad eyes. The small, round barrel of her gun. “Y’all are complicated. To put it mildly.”

Khani crossed her arms and narrowed her gray gaze. “You happened to me.” Her head kicked to the side. “So, was it your eating, screwing, or sleeping that got you into this predicament? Or are you willing to admit that men are slightly more complicated than you thought?”

“Maybe, slightly, but nowhere near as complicated as women.”

The scratch worsened with every syllable he spoke, but too prideful for his own good, he didn’t say anything about it. He tried to ignore the rhythmic, stabbing throb in his side as well.

“You stubborn man.” She poked the red call button on his hospital bed. In the seconds it took for someone to respond, she glared.

A speaker behind his head crackled. “Yes?” a woman’s voice asked.

“This is LTC Slaughter. The commander is awake and could use something for pain and some water, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the nurse said.

“You never tire of that, do you?”

“What?” she asked Tucker.

“Having people ma’am you.”

“Not a bit. Is it that obvious?”

“The side of your mouth twitches, like you’re holding back a smile.”

“I suppose I am. It took a hell of a lot of work to earn that ma’am.” She folded her arms and settled back against the plastic. “You came from a military family. Probably heard and said, ‘yes ma’am, no ma’am, yes sir, no sir’ a thousand times a day. Where I came from…the words were nowhere near as civilized.”

Khani’s clothes crinkled as she turned toward him. Instinctively he knew that was all she’d say about her past. It was more than she’d said over the last year she’d been working for him.

“I’m wearing these obnoxious clothes and have not an ounce of make-up on my face because I found you face down with a bullet in your gut, hauled you over my shoulders, and lugged you here.”

“Thank you,” he croaked.

“Stuff it.” She waved a hand to shoo his words off. “Just don’t ever bleed on me again and we’ll call it good.”

“Deal.” He nodded. “How bad was it?”

“The shot? Not bad. Struck mostly muscle. Did nick your large intestine. Williamson performed surgery practically in the hallway. You were pretty out of it by the time we arrived. The blood loss was the biggest concern. He gave you a transfusion. Do you remember the shooting?”

Again his mind called Carmen into the forefront. Her long tousled hair blanketed her shoulders, corkscrews weaving this way and that. The rage in her eyes directed full-force onto the chained bastard. Then they turned on him, the hatred shifting to pity. For him. For her. And finally, the shot. The air it stole from his lungs. The strength it zapped from his legs. The cold.

“Yeah,” he squawked.

“Where the hell is that nurse?” Khani slapped the fringe of her dark bangs from her forehead and shot to her feet. “Good, hold that thought. I’ll be right back.”

He tried to call her back, but he’d completely run out of everything. Saliva. Energy. Brain power.

H
is eyes opened without melodrama
. The same white room, ugly chair, and knotted Khani greeted him. But this time a half-melted cup of ice sat on a tray hovering over the edge of the bed. He stared with a wiggle of fingers. When they obeyed he moved to the wrists, rolling them and stretching his forearms. The things burned as though he’d walked a mile on his hand. And boy, hadn’t it seemed that way. It had taken extreme effort to gain only inches in his attempt to reach the door.

All or nothing. Vail reached for the cup, levered the thing over his lap and then to his lips like it were a ninety-pound dumb bell. Sweet relief washed over his stale tongue, down his abused throat. He reached the end too soon. The ice sloshed forward.

He cursed softly, but still Khani jumped, her right hand automatically going for her sidearm. “Go home,” he ordered. “You’ve done enough.”

“Answer me one question, and then I’ll go,” she yawned.

“Ask.”

“Last night, you didn’t say much, but you said, ‘Don’t kill her.’ So, I’m assuming your shooter was a woman. A highly skilled woman breaks into the Base Branch’s US headquarters, places a bullet so the shot won’t kill you, escapes undetected, only to turn around and leave a note on my car, telling me to save you, but not let Carlos Ruez know you’re alive…why?”

In the minutes leading up to the bullet in his belly and during the trudge across the never-ending floor, he’d thought a lot about the who’s, how’s, and why’s of that night.

“Because Carlos has leverage over her. She attempted to get it back.”

“But failed?”

“Yes. He has the one thing she can’t live without.”

“What?”

“You said one question, Slaughter, and you’ve surpassed that limit.”

“Fair enough. You need some rest almost as much as I do.” She stood and grabbed a red plastic bag.

Vail hauled the cup back to the table and set it at the edge. “Do me a favor. Don’t let anyone interrogate Carlos until they release me, and have a courier drop his file and all related this afternoon. Also—”

“Not to be insubordinate, but you’re in no position to give orders, Commander.”

He hitched a brow, or he tried to. “See, that title says I give the orders.”

“I see your sense of humor has returned.” She walked to the bed and placed a hand on his forearm. She felt a thousand degrees hotter than him. “You need to stay out of sight and recover. You’re looking at four to six weeks here.”

“Those words hurt worse than the bullet hole.”

“Trust me, I know.”

He sighed as much as the burn in his side would allow. “One order then. Have dogs run the building. She had a detonator and said the building was rigged to blow. I don’t know if the threat is real, but check anyway.”

“I’ll get it done before I go home.”

“Well, looks like you have a Base Branch to run, LTC. Just keep me in the loop on this.”

“You know I will.” She patted his arm, slipped behind the curtain, and then he heard the latch catch on the door.

Six goddamned weeks. They’d be lucky if he relaxed at all. His brain certainly wouldn’t comply. Not even to his own directives. He appreciated Khani’s help. Was only alive because of it. But now he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Like newbies fresh out of the recruiting office, they wouldn’t fall into an orderly line. One second he whirled about memories best left covered in dust. The next he envisioned beating Carlos Ruez to death with his fists. More than anything though, Carmen consumed his thoughts like no other woman had. Not since Ellie.

Two women had never been created more opposite. Ellie had been light in every way. Soft, slight curves topped with short, straight hair that appeared nearly white in its blondness. She was the party life threw in celebration of all things pure and lovely, always quick with a smile and those brilliant blue eyes. Ready with a song or dance to brighten even the dreariest times.

Carmen was the funeral of life’s let-downs, the embodiment of all things that could have been, but never would be. Her long black spirals and eyes a deep, swirling torrent of darkness sucked him in, whirled him about, and refused to let him catch a breath. The ever-present sneers and scowls warded off the barest inclination of a red-blooded man, but her ample contours raised even the most unlikely flags. And the proof tented his hospital issue gown.

“
I
don’t know
how the hell I let you talk me into this in the first place. I bloody well hate the cold and we both get plenty enough adventure with our jobs.”

“This isn’t about adventure, Zeke. It’s about slowing down, living off the land, becoming a part of nature,” Khani cajoled, craning her neck toward the hands-free microphone, as if those few inches would help her case. An express delivery truck wedged between her Mercedes and the cab she’d been tailing for four miserable miles like it were no bigger than a Vespa. “Fuck you too, bastard.”

“Well, hell, sister. You’re abandoning me on a vacation I didn’t want in the first place. You don’t have to cuss me too.”

“Oh, shut up. You know I wasn’t talking about you.”

“Ah, hoped not, but you never know.”

“I haven't cursed you since the day you took that stupid job of yours and left me in your dust halfway across the world,” she reminded.

“Did it ever occur to you that I moved to get away from you?”

“No.”

“Figures.”

“I still don’t know why you wouldn't take the job I offered. It pays well, you’d love the work, but it’s more than that. You’d be doing good. For the good guys.”

“I’m doing good, Khani.”

The growl in his voice should have warned her off this beaten path, but she plowed ahead anyway. “For private sector asshats who only worry about lining their pockets, not for honor or duty.”

“Before you’re left talking to a vacant line, why don’t you explain to me again the reason you’re abandoning me, your only flesh and blood worth a damn, to traipse around a barren wasteland, get frostbitten, and die at the mouths of hungry wolves
all by myself
.”

“Even as a child you were dramatic. Not much has changed, has it?” But neither of them commented on her ill-chosen words. Their lives were night and day to what they’d been. Though they each saw unimaginable things and did unimaginable things in their work, these days were the light, the good.

“My superior was gunned down in our secure facility. It’s my duty to take over his post until his return, but it’s my desire to catch whoever did it and bury them under the slab.”

“So, he will return?”

“Yeah. It’ll take a while, but he won’t even let a gut shot slow him down for long.”

“Bet that hurt.”

“You should know.” She sang the words.

“
L
ower obliques aren’t considered
the gut, thank you.”

Damn she missed him and all his smart-ass ways. She weaved around the truck, sped in front of a mini-van, and made the exit to the private hospital. “I am very sorry to have to cancel. I know he’ll want to take over in two weeks. Hell’s bells, he wants to take over now, but he won’t be ready by the time our flight leaves.”

“Let’s reschedule,” Zeke suggested.

“And when exactly are you going to have leave again? Next year?”

“So? What good will it do to stare at my toes as they fall off? It’d be much more fun to watch yours fall off instead.”

“You’re sick.”

“Your fault.”

“Not.”

“You raised me. You’ve only yourself to blame.”

“Don’t I know it. I love you wider than the river and taller than the trees.”

“I love you more, you sappy sucker.” His rumbling laugh filled the line.

“What?”

“If only your underlings could hear their fearless leader.”

“Goodbye, Zeke. Call me when you get back. I want to hear all about it.”

“Only if I can move my blue lips.”

“Zeke,” she admonished.

“I will. I will. Later, sis.”

The line clicked and quiet filled the car. They’d planned the trip while he’d been recovering from the bullet wound he’d sustained only three weeks after moving across the world and taking a job as a glorified gun for hire. She hated more than anything to miss the trip. She hated it more than she hated the number of times in a day her mind drifted to thoughts and images of the other major reason she’d left England.

Khani parked on the third level of the garage and made her way to the bank of elevators. Through the thick wedges of concrete pillars and walls, the sun shifted toward the horizon, calling all the orange and red hues to the sky. She slung the large purse over her shoulder and pressed the button for the sixth floor. Only five o’clock and she’d already put in thirteen hours at headquarters.

She’d spent the first five on the phone answering questions from the higher ups, the next two answering questions from the agents and setting them to task collecting evidence. The next had been spent on paperwork. Day one in the full-on role of commander and she already saw one of the other reasons she’d transferred from commander of the Base Branch’s London headquarters. She despised paper work, pandering to men who had no idea the types of things they accomplished on a daily basis. That, and she loved the thrill of down and dirty missions.

After reaching the sixth floor, just to be sure no one followed her, she took the stairs up two more flights to Commander Tucker’s room. She knocked on the heavy wooden door and waited. And waited. With a hand on the door, she gave him to the count of ten to call out before she barreled in, fanny out or not.

“One moment,” a male voice not belonging to Tucker hollered.

Two minutes later a burly man in scrubs opened the door, nodded, and turned down the hallway. Tentatively, she eased the door open. Tucker’s feet tented a thick layer of covers. Instead of lying flat on his back as he had yesterday and the night before, he sat upright with pillows wedged on either side of his torso.

“Your lover? I mean, I could have given you two a few more minutes for wrap up.”

His head shook, the stubble from the previous day gone and in its place a sharp, smooth jaw. “I wish. That’s much less embarrassing than the real reason Damien and I have gotten close today. Can’t even take a piss by myself.”

She breathed to speak, but he continued on his little tirade.

“You know, I was held captive for two weeks by Cambodian rebels. I tolerated that better.”

“It was them holding you down. Not your own body.”

He just blew a breath between his lips.

“On the bright side, you don’t look like you’re knocking on the pearly gates begging for entrance anymore.”

“There’s that.” He gestured to the most uncomfortable chair in the world. “Take a seat in the ugliest chair in the world?”

“Most uncomfortable, if you ask me. I’ve seen more horrid than this.”

“I’m amazed you still have your sight.”

She sat on the edge of the chair and folded her legs toward him. Her pant leg stuck on the back of her Tamara Mellon spiked heel. With a wiggle of her foot the suit’s material smoothed. “Are you scared of death?” She didn’t know where the question had come from. It was just there and out before she could think it through.

“No.”

“What are you scared of?”

He sat quietly for a long time. The minutes ticked by on the large digital clock across the room. Intent wedged the center of his brow. “Life.”

She gave a pitiful attempt at a smile. “Me too. It seems a common theme among us covert types.” Her crooked lips fell into a flat line and his followed suit. “Why do you think that is, Commander?”

His wide shoulders shrugged and a gritted groan slipped through his teeth. His breathing came harshly for a four count. “Why so many questions?”

“Figured you might know the answers.”

“Older and wiser, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” His watchful eyes shifted from her face to her oversized purse. “Are you going to give me that file or just torment me with it?”

“You’ve suffered enough.” Khani reached into the bag, extracted the hefty file on Carlos Ruez, and handed it to Tucker.

“Thank you.”

“Do you have anyone you want me to call? They’ll release you in a few days and it might be a good idea to have someone around.”

“I think I’d rather bleed out on my bathroom floor than let my mother hover over me for a few weeks and my dad carry on about how I should’ve taken charge of the situation and not gotten shot in the first place.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her with a hand.

“And don’t think for a second you’re going to come waste your time watching me toddle around. I have a cleaning lady and a grocer. So, I won’t starve or sit in squalor. And if I happen to rip my stitches open, I’ll call the doc. And if I can’t make it to the phone, the cleaning lady will find me before the stench gets too bad.”

“How often does she come?”

“Twice a week.”

“Seriously? It’s just you in the place, right?”

“My parents are both military. What can I say? They messed me up.”

“Whose parents didn’t?”

“Yet another question I can’t answer.”

“I’ll give you one you can…probably. Why not take her out between your office and interrogation room?”

“She held a pressure release detonator and kept me far enough away I couldn’t close the distance without risking the lives of the people in the building.” He paused as though to add more, but didn’t.

“You said you didn’t think the bomb threat was real. At what point did you know there wasn’t a charge in that entire building?”

“The dogs didn’t find anything?”

“Nope.”

He pursed his lips. “I knew when she pulled the trigger. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She said it, but her actions said it more clearly.”

“But she shot you.”

“Not because she wanted to.”

“Ruez’s leverage?”

“Yep.”

“And then she left the note.”

He nodded.

She stood. “Look, know that if you need anything, I’m here. And try not to obsess over this.” Purse slung over her shoulder, she tapped the file laid out on his knees. She headed for the door.

Vail cleared his throat and she paused with a hand on the crisp knob. “It’s because we can’t unsee the things we’ve seen, unknow the things we know. We’re scared of what life could give us to lose.”