Authors: Vicki Hinze
“Won’t matter,” Shank said. “By then it’ll all be over.”
Koloski looked worried. “Will this hurt him?”
“No,” Shank said. “He’ll have a good sleep and a helluva hangover, but that’s about it.” She turned to Jarrod. “Sara’s keying in the orders for the medication at the nurses’ station.” Shank glanced up at the camera. “You got the timing down? Every four hours?”
The door alarm buzzed as verification.
“Good.” Shank turned to Jarrod. “Reaston’s waiting at the elevator on the first floor. He’ll get you past Security. Keep an eye out for Fontaine. Martha told Beth he left the office for parts unknown about ten minutes ago.”
Jarrod reached into the hole where the cave had been, pulled out the gun Reaston had provided him with after his return from IWPT, and then tucked it into his waistband. He wouldn’t be caught unarmed again.
Sara waited for him, keeping a watch on the halls. “I jammed the elevator.” Sara fell into step beside Jarrod, her heart pumping hard. “It’s waiting.”
They entered the elevator and rode down. Uneasy, she glanced up at Jarrod.
“It’s not the box, honey. You’re all right.” His eyes were clear, cold, filled with purpose.
Reassured by that, she clasped his hand.
The bell chimed, and the door slid open.
Reaston stood waiting. “We’ve got a problem.”
“Fontaine?” Sara asked.
“No. He’s in his quarters having a reunion with his wife. She returned a little while ago. I had to bring the car into the compound. Heavy rain last night. It would have bogged in.”
Jarrod passed the gun to Reaston. “Who’s on duty at the gate?”
“Mick Bush.” Reaston grimaced. “He’s the problem.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Jarrod said. “Just get us out of the building.”
Reaston walked them through the security checkpoints. It’d taken him hours, but he had members of the Braxton underground on duty. The only variable was Bush. Otherwise, Jarrod and Sara’s leaving Braxton would be a clean exit.
The three of them walked out through the main entrance. Reaston gave the Glock back to Jarrod. “The car is parked next to Shank’s plane. Keys are in it.”
Jarrod nodded. “Give us twenty minutes, then get down to the gate.”
“Yes, sir.” Reaston didn’t so much as blink. “Will I need a clean-up crew?”
“Hopefully not. I’d rather not cancel him. He’s just doing his job. If he survives, sequester him for forty-eight hours. If not, notify O’Shea. Tell him to put a forty-eight-hour hold on disclosure.”
“Yes, sir.” Reaston saluted Jarrod. “Good luck, sir. Ma’am.”
Sara nodded, saw Jarrod salute back. He was a hundred percent. No doubt about it. And he had a plan. But at a hundred percent, Jarrod Brandt kept everything close to the chest. She understood the value in that, respected it, even if she didn’t like it. How
would
he get them past Mick Bush?
“You drive.” Jarrod rounded the hood and got into the passenger’s seat, and then closed the door.
Sara slid in behind the wheel. “Jarrod, I’m scared. I’ll do what I have to do, but I think when you’re afraid, if you admit it outright, then you drain the strength from the fear, so I just wanted you to know that I’m scared.”
He brushed a kiss to her lips. “I’d be worried about you if you weren’t.” He looked at the seat belt and shoved it aside. “Reasonable fear is healthy, Sara. It keeps you sharp and attuned. You lose it, you lose your edge. You lose your edge, and you end up dead.”
“Then I should live a long time.” She stared at the seat belt. Visions of the straps, the chair, flashed through her mind. She swallowed hard, forced herself to face it, and grabbed the safety belt. Jarrod couldn’t do it yet, but then, he had suffered more. Because he’d blazed the trail, the impact on her had been far less traumatic. Still, pulling that strap across her chest and lap proved difficult. Dread dragged at her. She clenched her jaw, determined that Owlsley and Fontaine would not win. Not against her. Not on this. Too many had suffered too much to let it be for nothing. She grabbed the seat belt, inserted the metal, and shoved it into the clasp.
It clicked into place.
Though her hands still shook, a sense of victory urged her on, and she cranked the engine. Gripping the gearshift, she shifted into Drive and hit the gas. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“Stop at the last curve before the gate. I’ll meet you on the other side.”
So she would face Mick Bush alone. “Jarrod, I’m not on the man’s list of favorite people. He caught me coming back into Braxton one night. I lied to him and he knows it. He’s been out for blood and watching me like a hawk ever since. No way is he going to just let me drive through that gate.”
“I know.” He patted her hand. “Just trust me, okay?”
Her emotions churned and mixed. She wanted to trust him. Needed to trust him. Would love to trust him. But her survival instincts had kicked in, and they weren’t so accommodating.
She braked to a stop at the last curve.
A hand on the door handle, Jarrod paused and looked over at her. “I don’t want to kill him, Sara. But if I have to, I will. If we don’t, that technology could end up in the wrong hands. Thousands, if not millions, could die.” A frown creased Jarrod’s brow. “You understand that, don’t you?”
He was seeking absolution, and Sara gave it to him. More than ever before, she understood the dilemmas that military members, working high-risk missions on a daily basis, faced. And more than ever before, she grasped the full weight of what those dilemmas cost them personally. “I understand.”
He got out of the car, leaned down, and then looked back in. “Give me five minutes, then go.”
Sara nodded, gripped the wheel so hard her knuckles turned white, praying she wasn’t seeing him for the last time. Jarrod was not the only person involved in this who had a gun. And she’d bet her name badge Mick Bush was a crack shot.
She checked her watch. The second hand seemed to move in slow motion. Aside from when she’d nearly drowned, five minutes never had seemed so long. She thought of David, Brenda, and Lisa. Of her mother and her hard-line attitude, which Sara had cursed most of her life. Maybe she’d been wrong about that. If her mother had been different, then wouldn’t Sara and Brenda? Would either of them have had the fortitude to endure what life had forced them to endure?
Probably not. And that flash of insight startled Sara. Years and years of anger and resentment peeled away like layers from an onion, and what was left was fortitude, a willingness to go to the wall for something she believed in. She owed her mother a debt of gratitude for that, and if Sara survived this, she would get it.
She again checked her watch. Three minutes down. Two to go. Where was Jarrod now? He had left the road at the side of the car, moved into the woods and underbrush, and disappeared. God, but she hoped Mick Bush was like Koloski and buried his head in a book at every opportunity. But even as she thought it, she knew Mick wasn’t. He would never read while on watch. He’d never do anything
except
keep watch. Mick Bush was a good man. He played straight and by the book, and he took his job seriously. She admired that about him, even if he opposed her and made her life miserable. The problem was, he didn’t see the big picture. But then, how could he? He’d been kept in the dark as much as if he had been physically blindfolded.
God, but she hoped he didn’t kill Jarrod.
And she hoped Jarrod didn’t kill him. Mick was doing his job for her. For everyone.
Finally, the time was up. Sara shifted into Drive and drove toward the guard
shack, doing her damnedest to calm down and breathe normally. She had to work at it. What would she find at the gate?
No one was in sight. The gate was closed.
She braked to a stop.
Mick Bush came out of the guard shack, saw her behind the wheel, and frowned. “Patients are not allowed to leave the premises, Dr. West.”
“I’m no longer a patient.” She lifted her arm. “See? No wristband.” Jarrod approached behind Mick. She had to do something to cover any sounds. She coughed and flicked at her name badge, rustling it. “They’ve given me back my badge.”
“I’m sorry, Major. You’re still listed as a patient. I can’t let—”
Jarrod delivered a powerful chopping cut to Mick’s neck and followed with a clutch to the soft hollow near his collarbone. Sara couldn’t see what else Jarrod did, but Mick slumped to the ground.
Jarrod checked Mick’s pulse, took the keys from him, and opened the gate. His feet soundless on the pavement, he ran back, locked the guard shack, and pocketed the keys. He dragged Mick around to the side of the shack. The building blocked Sara’s view. She stared at the white clapboard, wondering if she really wanted to ask Jarrod what he had done to Mick, and knowing she couldn’t not ask.
He rushed back to the car, swung open the door. “Go. Go!”
Sara stomped on the gas pedal. The dirt road was slick and still wet from the heavy rain. Potholes were now the size of small ditches, and muddy water splashed up on the windshield. She hit the wipers, her tires spinning and slinging mud.
When she passed the store and saw the old Coke machine, her heart stopped threatening to burst and settled down to a gallop. “Is he alive?” She didn’t have to explain. Jarrod would know she meant Mick Bush.
“Yes.” Jarrod forked a hand through his hair. “He’ll be all right, Sara. Reaston will take him to Shank and Koloski. They’ll keep him in an Isolation room for a few days, and he’ll be fine.”
“Good.” She made the turn onto the concrete road, grateful not to be slipping and sliding in the dirt anymore. The ditches lining the road were filled to the brim. Water rushed through them. “Where exactly is AID?”
Jarrod hesitated before answering. “We’re not going to AID.”
Sara glanced over at him, perplexed. “Why not?”
“Because they’ll consider Foster guilty until he proves himself innocent. They’ll arrest him first and then ask questions. I can’t do that to him, Sara. Not without knowing for a fact he’s guilty of a crime and it won’t screw up his operation.”
“Why would they do that?” She glanced down at the speedometer. Forty-five in a thirty-five. Chiding herself, she eased off the gas.
“It’s the military way. You’re dealing with national security. You can’t afford the risks of being wrong, so you plug potential holes and then find out if they were leaking.”
Okay. Okay, so it didn’t sit right—and it was the direct opposite of how things worked in the private sector—but she did see why the military had to function this way. This wasn’t about one crime that affected one person, or one small group of people. This was about a crime that could impact a nation, perhaps the world. “So where to, then?”
“Eglin.” Jarrod reached for his safety belt, clasped it. “O’Shea recommended a guy at Eglin to help us. He’s local and in the Operation Red Haze loop. Captain Grant.”
Jarrod had worked past the straps. Silently thrilled, Sara bit a smile from her lips. “Does a captain have the kind of clout we need on this?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
She frowned. “Then, why go to him?”
“Because he has the ear of General Scott, who does have the clout we need on this. But there is a small problem.”
Sara glanced over at Jarrod and waited for an explanation.
“The general is pissed off at Foster.”
Great. Just great. “Will he be fair?”
Jarrod shrugged. “It’s political. Foster snubbed the general when he came through to recruit you. Scott took it personally. But O’Shea faxed me a dossier on Scott and, from everything in it, he’s no slouch. I’m betting he’ll do the right thing.”
“I could pulverize Foster for getting me into this. He did it because he hates me. I know you don’t agree, but that has to be why, out of all the PTSD psychiatrists on the planet, he chose me.”
“He didn’t choose you because you’re a PTSD expert, Sara.” Jarrod eyed her levelly. “He chose you for the same reason he chose me. He trusted us not to let go of this until it was resolved.”
“Foster trusted me?” Sara guffawed and took the ramp onto I-10, heading east. “Sorry, darling, but you’re dead wrong on this. The man hates my guts.”
“The man respects you and your tenacity. And you respect him.”
“I sure do,” she agreed, merging into light traffic. “About like you respect a rattlesnake.”
“He admires the hell out of you. I told you this, out by the pond, remember? You never stopped pushing him about David. No matter how much he stonewalled, you kept pushing.” Jarrod laced her fingers with his, gently squeezed. “You know, I think I half fell in love with you, hearing about you from him.”
“Did you?” Her heart raced.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Foster talked about me a lot to you?” She checked the rearview mirror. All clear. So far, so good.
“Yes, he did. And once—when you went to the Pentagon and pulled a check on him—he told me if he ever got his ass in a jam he hoped you’d he on his side, pulling him out.”