Double Cross (Hard Target Book 1) Page 2

  Clouds were gathering, and the moon played tag then hide-n-seek with them. The woman appeared deathly pale under the intermittent light—and younger than he anticipated. Tears, sweat, or both left dirty streaks on her face. Her gasping breath was louder than the entire team’s pounding boots. They’d have to stop soon. With luck, Copper’s explosions would keep Cudjo’s guerrillas out of action until Wilco could call in a helo for an extraction.

  He pushed the team another mile before slowing them to a jog. A mile after that, he called for a walk. As the wind shifted, he got a whiff of the woman. Damn but she stank. Her eyes looked glassy, her movements jerky and robotic. If he didn’t call a halt soon, they’d end up carrying her.

  They topped a small rise and dropped down to a river. A copse of trees huddled about twenty feet from the raging water. There’d been heavy rain up-river, and the current rushing by could wash a person downstream in a heartbeat.

  After a series of hand signals, Dalton and Cop faded back to check for pursuers. Tank checked out the bushes for critters and flashed a thumbs up. With the all-clear, Poison halted about halfway between the trees and riverbank. He helped the woman sink to the ground, and she bent her knees to her chest, gulping great breaths of air. Digging in his kit, the corpsman set about tending to her. Water. A solar blanket. Wipes for her face. She stared at the canteen he placed in one of her hands, then the wipe he placed in the other but did nothing with either item. Duke watched Poison clean off her face before he unscrewed the canteen and lifted it to her lips. She drank, sparingly, her throat working.

  Damn if his dick didn’t get hard at the sight of her lips wrapped around the neck of the canteen. What the hell was wrong with him? The woman was filthy, exhausted, and very likely ill after her captivity. Yup, he definitely needed some R&R in Key West. Needed to find a hot, willing coed and fuck her all night long.

  Still, he watched the doctor, listened as she spoke to Poison, her voice soft, with a twinge of accent teasing her hard consonants. Her hair was gathered into a messy bun, and he thought it was probably brown, her eyes were light, maybe blue. Hard to tell in the uncertain light.

  A few minutes later, Dalton slipped up beside him. “All clear, boss.”

  “Good.” He gestured Poison over with a jerk of his head. “Get anything out of her?”

  The corpsman shook his head. “She’s borderline shocky, chief.”

  Crap. That meant they’d have to make accommodations for her. “Check that pack Tank carried out. See if there’s any ID.”

  “Copy that, chief.”

  Duke steeled himself to deal with a hysterical female. He squatted in front of her. “Ma’am?” She blinked a couple of times but didn’t raise her head. Gentling his hand, he used one finger under her chin to tilt her head up. Blue. Yeah, her eyes were undeniably blue. Dark circles and fading bruises marred her face. She definitely hadn’t been with the renegade militia of her own volition. His jaw tightened, and a muscle under his eye jumped as he wondered if the bastards had done more than beat her.

  He had to clear his throat before he could speak again. “Ma’am?”

  “Doctor.” Her voice grated like sandpaper on rusty metal. “Dr. Coreen Prince. I work for DICA.”

  “Doctors for International Children’s Aid,” Poison supplied. “They’re like Doctors without Borders only working with kids.”

  “Do you know who we are, Dr. Prince?”

  She shook her head, and a hank of filthy hair drooped next to her cheek. Duke fought the urge to tuck it behind her ear. His nostrils flared at the smells emanating from her, and he wondered how long it had been since she’d bathed. After two weeks in the field, he smelled pretty damn ripe but the doctor stank like rotten meat. He looked at her clothes. Jacket, shirt, and pants were all covered in rust-colored stains and smears far more visceral.

  “US Navy, ma’am.”

  Her dull gaze met his. “Were you sent to rescue me?”

  “No.” Being blunt was part of who he was, but he winced at the disappointment his comment painted on her face.

  She tucked her chin in a brief nod. “I surmised as much. I apologize if I’ve botched up your mission.”

  “Not like we’d leave you behind, doctor.”

  The woman watched him through eyes76 and a soul bruised beyond endurance. She looked utterly defeated. “Yes, well. I’m still sorry for slowing you down. I’ll do my best to keep up.”

  A thought Duke didn’t like at all knocked on his brain and he had to ask. “You didn’t expect to be rescued, did you?”

  Her breath hissed out in a slow huff. “No, I didn’t. I suspected there might be some question of ransom though I was told DICA doesn’t negotiate. Neither would my family.”

  When her voice cracked on the last word, Duke figured it was time to back away. He’d let Poison deal with Dr. Prince. He was shocked when he found himself asking, “Your family doesn’t have the money?”

  The bitter laugh she choked back surprised him. “Oh, the Princes have generations of money. But as the orphaned daughter with the misplaced priorities, I’m hardly worth spending it on.”

  Whoa. There was way more behind her statement than he wanted to know. In fact, he didn’t want to know anything about her. She was a package to be delivered. Nothing more. “Yeah…ah.” He tapped his ear pretending one of the team was talking through the earpiece. He needed to get away from her before her vulnerability made him do something stupid. Like kiss her. And he needed to stop those thoughts dead in the water.

  Pushing to his feet in one smooth motion, he stared down at the top of her head. She was a rich do-gooder, an American princess who got in way over her head. Not his type. No fucking way. Voices whispered for real in his ear. Perimeter was set. Pursuers weren’t pursuing. Come daylight, they’d be tracked, but until then, they were relatively safe. The sooner they got out of here and delivered the doc back to civilization, the better off he’d be.

  He spoke into the microphone hugging his jaw. “Wilco, call command for an extraction. Tell ’em we have a passenger, Dr. Coreen Prince.”

  An hour later, they’d delineated the LZ for incoming helos, wolfed down MREs, and were now settled on the open area near the river to wait. Dalton bitched about running out of hot sauce for the MREs. Full of calories, Meals Ready to Eat—the military’s version of fast food—tasted more like cardboard, but they kept the body fueled on a mission. Poison had to work to get the doctor to chew and swallow. She fell asleep between one bite and the next. Just as well. Now he could ignore her instead of worrying about her.

  Poison tucked another solar blanket around the woman then settled in for his own nap. Dalton and Tank had guard duty. Copper, Cookie, and Wilco were already snoring. Stretching out his legs, Duke leaned against his pack and tried to drop into his own version of combat sleep, knowing Cali Boy and Tank had his six. They were still two hours from extraction. Too bad his brain wouldn’t get off the hamster wheel that held Coreen Prince at its center.

  The woman wasn’t attractive. That upper-crust accent of hers grated on his nerves. She should have been back in the states tending to the next generation of silver-spooners. What the hell was she doing out here in the middle of Africa working in a run-down and dangerous clinic? As the orphan daughter with the misplaced priorities, I’m hardly worth spending it on. Her earlier words echoed in his thoughts. His fists clenched at the idea her family would just toss her away—or at least she believed they would.

  He’d grown up poor, but damn if his mother and the entire block didn’t band together to take care of all the kids. He didn’t get rich people. Didn’t want to. Ordering his brain into neutral, he crossed his arms over his chest, tucked his chin, and closed his eyes. He’d sleep for an hour.

  The sound was a soft one, barely registering on the outer limits of his hearing. A whoosh, like air escaping from a balloon. Fuck. Griffin missile. His body erupted into instinctive action even as he yelled orders. What the hell? His voice got lost in the roaring blast as the
damn thing hit. The night lit up and everything went to shit.

  Chapter 3

  DUKE SCOOPED up the doctor and sprinted for the river. Static filled his earpiece even as he issued desperate orders. Fuck-fuck-fuck. What the hell was going on? He knew that was an AGM 176 Griffin missile. He’d heard them often enough, picked up the pieces after they blew the shit out of a target.

  “Wilco, goddammit, tell those fuckers we’re friendlies.”

  Static.

  The doctor secure in his arms, he waded into the river. He wasn’t a man who prayed but at that moment? If there was a God, SEAL Team Atlantis needed all the help they could get. He saw two shadows dart between spots of fire. One bulky, one not. Nothing else moved but the leaping flames engulfing the small stand of trees. If they’d been camped there, they’d all be dead.

  Duke waded deeper, felt the current tug at his legs. Torn between keeping the civilian safe and getting back to his team, the decision was taken away when a second missile arrived. The flash seared the backs of his eyeballs in the instant before he dove beneath the water.

  Cory’s sanity went MIA with the first blast. By the second explosion, she had no hope of finding it. She couldn’t explain how she ended up in the river, sputtering and gasping for air after a dunking, and in the arms of the angry man who was the SEAL team leader. His arms banded around her as their heads bobbed just above the surface. Flames added dancing demons to the scene as unfamiliar things churned the air.

  Master Chief. Master Chief Reagan. His name came back to her. His face appeared ravaged, blood trickling down both cheeks. She needed her medical kit. She was a doctor and she had the insane need to fix him.

  “We gotta go, doc.”

  “Cory. Everyone calls me Cory.” Why did her identity matter? Because she was tired of being anonymous. If she was going to die, she wanted someone to know who she was. Cory Prince. Twenty-eight-year-old woman from Bethesda, Maryland. Who happened to be a pediatrician. Working for an international aid organization. Her brain circled back around to the present, which was scary beyond comprehension, except the man with her was injured. “I need my kit. You’re hurt.”

  “Still gotta go. We’ll submerge, ride the current underwater. You’re gonna hang onto me. Wrap your legs around my waist.” He waited while she did and damn if his fucking dick didn’t like sitting in the sweet spot. Jerking both of his heads back into the game, he added, “I’ll breathe for you.”

  “Breathe for me? How?”

  “You just want to trust me on this, princess.”

  Something whistled past her cheek like a hot, angry wasp. Bullet. She gasped and didn’t get her mouth closed as Reagan dragged her under. Her fingers clawed at his shirt and a part of her brain recognized his arm tightening around her back. Then his mouth was on hers, his tongue forcing her teeth open. She swallowed more water, but it went into her stomach, not her lungs. Air filled her lungs. Warm, miraculous oxygen.

  Time turned relative. Sense was no longer common. If this was death, his lips on hers wasn’t a bad way to go. Blackness consumed her then time stopped. Forever.

  Duke was injured. He knew his eyes were open but he couldn’t see shit. Fuck. This was bad. One of the extra treats the Atlantis genes provided was nictitating membranes that covered their eyes underwater so he should have been able to see. That second blast must have blinded him. What had happened to the rest of his guys? Did they make it out? And who the fuck blew the shit out of their camp? Those were American UVAs—drones—shooting at them, and he’d bet money those were Griffin air-to-surface missiles. As his gills provided oxygen, and wasn’t he damn glad those assholes at Area 51 had implanted them, his brain churned through the carnage that had become his reality. He was pretty sure he’d seen Dalton and Tank. But the others? Nada.

  The doctor floated, limp and unconscious. Just as well. Less to explain when they got out of this mess. He had one arm looped around her waist, and breathed into her mouth every thirty seconds or so. Continuing to take stock, he realized his instincts had grabbed both his pack, and the case containing his sniper rifle. What the hell was up with that? Oh, yeah. Training. On a mission, he slept with his pack on, using it as a backrest, and his weapons were never far from his reach. Tonight, his reflexes might just save his life, and that of Dr. Prince.

  Exhausted, but not so far gone he didn’t recognize the inherent danger of being in an African river, Duke opened up his senses. His inner sonar, while not as developed as the Cali Boy’s, worked fine, pinging off deadfalls and other hazards. A kick, an arm stroke, a change of course. He worried about the blood trail from his injuries, but even temporarily blinded, he was still an apex predator. He had to get the doc far enough away whoever those assholes blowing the shit out of his team couldn’t track them. Then he’d use the SAT phone in his pack to call Command with a May Day.

  CORY WOKE up with a mouth full of sand, an arm full of man, and no idea where she was. Other than Africa. After a bomb blast. Or something. She spit, careful to inhale through her nose. The man lying half on top of her groaned. The SEAL. Or whatever he was. Reagan. Master Chief. She couldn’t remember his first name. That suddenly seemed very important. Twisting her head, she looked around. They’d snagged up on a sandbar in the river.

  A small flock of long-legged white birds strutted at the point of the sand bar. Deciding that was sign of no imminent danger, she shoved away from the master chief. He groaned again and her Hippocratic oath kicked in. Rolling him over—how big was this man anyway—she examined him. Blood had dried on his face and crusted in the wounds. There was another red splotch on his olive drab tee shirt.

  He’d covered her with his body. She sort of remembered that. Then he’d snatched her up and run for the river. After that, her memory was a big, black hole. A faded red pack bobbed nearby. Was it possible? Not trusting her legs, she crawled over and snagged it. Her medical kit. Glancing up, she sent up a quick prayer of thanks. There were days she truly wondered if there was a supreme being, but just in case, she always showed her gratitude to the Universe when things went right.

  The pack was waterproof. She’d have antiseptic, topical antibiotics, and bandages. Injuries she could deal with. The rest of her current situation left her bewildered. Dragging the bag back to where the big man lay on the sand, she unzipped it and took stock. Yes. She had everything she needed until they could get to civilization. With luck, that wouldn’t be long. She remembered the military was supposed to send someone to pick them up. She soaked a pad with antiseptic and set to work.

  “What the hell?” Duke arched off the ground, his face burning. Reaching out blindly—and wasn’t that a pisser—he snagged an arm. A thin one covered with soft skin. Dr. Prince. His brain came slowly back on line. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Please, sir. Lay back down. I know this stings, but I need to clean out your wounds so they don’t get infected.”

  “Where are we? And I’m not a sir.”

  “I…” He heard material rustle as she looked round. “I have no clue. We must have drifted down river. We’re on a sand bar.”

  “We need to get out of sight.”

  “No. I need to tend to your wounds first.”

  “Listen, lady.” He growled in frustration. How far had they gone down river? Were those bastards with the missiles still hunting them? “That was a fucking missile attack last night. We’ve got to get under cover.”

  He brushed at his eyes, but she snagged his hand and prevented him. He sensed her leaning closer, caught her heat and a whiff of what her natural scent must be—clean, pure, like laundry hanging on a wash line on a sunny day. Where the hell had that memory come from? His childhood hadn’t been filled with such things. Except he remembered the old lady next door. The one who hung out her sheets on sunny days and sneaked home-baked cookies to him through the fence.

  “Wait. Let me look.” Her hand settled on his jaw, gentle but firm. She tilted his head—toward the sun judging by the temperature change on his skin.
“Oh…dear.”

  Fuck. That didn’t sound good. “What?”

  “Can you see? Anything at all?”

  And there it was, the punch to his gut. “No.”

  Her hand dropped away amid the rustling of more clothes. He pictured her kneeling at his side. “Tell me what you remember.”

  Aggravated, Duke snarled again. “Not here. We have to get under cover.”

  “Oh. Yes, you’re right. We should. A moment.”

  Cory scanned the area around them. They’d have to wade through shallow water to reach the bank of the river. A wadi ran down to the water, the dry channel forming a cut in the higher ground beyond. It would give them a way to climb out, back to the plains so she could see.

  “I found a way out.” She explained her plan to use the wadi. He stood, settled his pack and searched the sand bar with his foot for something else. “What? What are you looking for?”

  “Gun case. My sniper rifle.”

  “Oh.” She turned a slow circle and saw the case snagged close to shore. She could retrieve it on their way to the river bank. “Found it. Give me a moment to put my medical kit back together.” She hastily stuffed supplies in and zipped it. Slinging it over her head, strap crossing her body from left to right, she stepped back to the master chief. “Put your hand on my forearm. I’ll lead you.”

  “No. Shoulder.” And he followed through by clamping his big hand on her left shoulder.

  “Well…all right then. Fine, master chief—”

  “Duke.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Duke. My name is Duke.”

  “Duke? Is that a nickname?”

  “Nope.”