Kiss the Enemy (Slye Temp) (16 page)

In spite of suspicions clawing at his mind, he would get her out of here alive or die trying. To do that, he wanted to leave her sitting here where she’d be safe while he went inside to take care of business. But he couldn’t trust her to stay back, so he hooked his arm around her waist and lifted her easily to her feet. He was exhausted and losing what physical ground he’d regained by drinking water and sleeping, but she was fading.

This changed his original plan for getting inside the Quonset hut that had included her. He couldn’t risk it now. Not in the shape she was in.

When he had her standing, he cupped his hand to her ear. “I’m going in. You stay back and cover me.”

“No.”

His temper flared but he managed to hold onto it by a thread. “We have one chance to do this before anyone else shows up and having you with me will divide my attention.”

He expected her to snarl that she could take care of herself, but she couldn’t right now. He should put her out and forfeit traveling faster by carrying her. He could do it, render her unconscious with one quick move to the pressure points in her neck, but she’d given him her trust. That was a commodity he was starting to realize Margaux held more precious than anything else.

Her gaze sharpened and she surprised him by admitting, “You’re right. I’d slow you down.”

Cupping her chin, he kissed her gently and said, “Wait for my word, okay?”

“I will. Hand me my pistol.”

He lifted the pistol out of her holster and put it in her good hand. Her other one had blown up like a red clown hand. He had no idea how she wasn’t writhing in pain on the ground.

He eased through the undergrowth and wove his way first to the window where he peeked in to see the leader sitting down to an MRE he’d opened, which meant he’d be distracted eating.

Logan helped Margaux position herself in the ten-foot space between the window and door. Then he moved quietly to the side of the back door the men stepped through to pee outside.

Logan led with the Vektor pistol and eased the door open. The place reeked of body odor and nicotine. He slowly pulled the door wide enough to step inside without making a sound. Until the damn door squeaked.

The leader turned with his gun in hand, firing.

Logan snapped off two shots, hitting the kidnapper center-chest with both shots. He crumpled to the floor.

Margaux stepped inside. “The sat phone’s on his hip.”

Logan was already reaching for it while Margaux checked to make sure the leader was neutralized, when the base radio crackled and someone called in that his group was a mile out and would be there in two minutes. Fuck. Reinforcements coming in and had to be in a truck to get here that fast.

He clipped the sat phone on Margaux’s hip. “A truck’s on the way here with reinforcements. We need to move fast. Go straight that way.” He pointed out the back of the hut. “For fifty yards and wait for me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Find the First Aid kit and leave them a gift. Longer I talk, less time I have to get out.”

She cursed lividly, turned and headed out.

Logan did a fast visual sweep. One wood chair and a heavy table were off to the side with a lamp and fan run by a generator Logan had seen at the edge of the camp. There was little in the way of electronics or paperwork.

The kidnappers had come here for one reason and hadn’t planned on staying long. Crates of ammunition and food supplies were piled around. He grabbed grenades from an open box, stuffing what he could in his pouches and setting one on the desk.

He found a hefty, two-foot-square aluminum First Aid kit he dropped by the back door along with the full canteen that had been on the table.

A sharp male voice burst from the radio, demanding a reply from Felix.

Logan shoved the heavy table so it was in position ten feet from the door. He found a length of rope piled in the corner, a roll of duct tape, and a small propane stove that had a twenty-pound propane tank. Perfect. He took the grenade from the desk and taped it to the thick edge of the wooden table. He tied the rope to the door handle and threaded the other end through the finger hole on the grenade pin.

A truck motor groaned, coming down the dirt road.

Logan pulled the pin on the grenade, keeping his thumb on the spoon—the detonation lever. Then he threaded the straightened pin back into its hole and carefully let go, judging the weight of the rope against the pin. It held with just the right tension, and he stepped away.

Door opens, pulls the pin out of the grenade and the spoon releases.

Boom, baby.

A Jeep rolled into the yard with six men armed with AK-47s. Two men walked over to the water tank with canteens while the others climbed out and stood with their weapons ready.

The driver looked around and shouted for Felix.

He’s in here. Come and get him.

Logan cranked open the propane to give his little surprise an extra kick, then grabbed the First Aid kit and canteen on his way out the back.

He slung the straps across his body and ran through the brush, searching for Margaux everywhere.

When he’d reached fifty yards, he slowed. Had she passed out and he missed seeing her?

She pushed aside a palm leaf and hissed. “
Here!”

He grabbed her and dove behind a tree for cover. She cried out in pain in spite of his trying to protect her arm.

The explosion shook the ground and sent a burst of fire into the air. Logan had her head tucked up against him. “I’m sorry, Sugar.”

She said something he didn’t think he wanted repeated, took a couple of hard breaths and said, “I’m good. Let’s go.”

She wasn’t good, but they couldn’t stop yet. Not until he got to high ground.

He stood, pulling her up as he did. She sidestepped then got her footing as he dragged her forward.

Gunshots zinged past him.

He yanked her ahead. They were east of the hut and those shots had come from the south, probably a search party returning from the river.

She growled, “Let go, dammit. I can keep up.”

Not for long she couldn’t. He held tight to her good wrist. More shots were fired, hitting trees near them. At least two men following. When he found a tree four feet thick, he pulled her behind it with him, wrapping her up close with one arm.

“Not far enough away, Tarzan.”

“We can’t outrun those guns.” He could, but she couldn’t.

She had a thoughtful look. “Let me take this side. I can use the tree to steady my arm to shoot.”

He moved her to where she hugged the tree but out of view from the direction he figured the threat would be coming. “Do not move from that spot unless I tell you.”

She mumbled something about not mistaking her for Tarzan’s chimpanzee.

“Just wait until they’re both close enough.”

More grumbling.

Logan moved to his right, hoping he could get off both shots before she had to shoot. She’d turned bone white from all the jostling and banging her arm again when they’d hit the ground.

Every person had a limit. If she had to go through much more, her body would take over. She’d pass out.

He saw the first man sneaking through the bush, gently pushing palms out of his way. His sidekick was thirty feet to the right.

Neither one was skilled at hunting in this environment. They were nothing more than common thugs without any real training. No wonder the leader had called in more people.

Logan could get the one on the left first, but he had to wait until the one on the right passed by a tree so that Logan could catch him in the open, too.

When the guy cleared the tree, Logan nailed him at thirty yards, which was saying something for an unknown pistol. The second guy fired at Logan, but a bullet struck the guy in his chest a split second before Logan fired.

Both men were down.

Well, hell, Margaux was a decent shot with her weak hand. Logan grinned, turning around to tell her she wasn’t half bad, and found her on the ground.

CHAPTER 18

Margaux couldn’t catch her breath against the pain.

“Are you hit?”  Dragan’s hands were carefully lifting her shoulders up.

“No. He missed.”  She was panting. Her arm from her shoulder to her hand felt as if it was the size of her thigh. Hot air burned her lungs. It felt like someone was torching her insides and beating on her arm at the same time.

The First Aid kit dropped into view. Dragan was flipping the catches and rummaging through the supplies.

She still couldn’t get past Dragan’s going back to get antibiotics. If he hadn’t been set on that, he might not have handed off the sat phone. She’d fought her way to the spot where she’d waited for him and taken that opportunity to call Nick, the only person she knew who wouldn’t condemn her for going after the Banker.

Nick had used ten seconds to tell her she was an idiot, but he’d been ordering someone to track the sat phone at the same time.

Sabrina would send in a team.

Ninety-second conversation. Help was on the way.

Margaux had to convince Dragan to go along with her story that he was just another prisoner in the camp here. She couldn’t hand him over to Sabrina and the FBI. Not after what they’d been through. Once he was gone, though, he would be back on their radar because Margaux would have to come clean with Sabrina.

Then she’d find out what Sabrina had told the FBI, who weren’t supposed to know that Margaux existed, but she’d brought this on herself going after the Banker for months.

She started shivering hard. Hot, cold, hot, cold. She wished her body would make up its damned mind.

“Give me your arm, Sugar.”

“All yours. Just cut it off.”  Did he really think she could command this arm to move?

She kept breathing in gasps, just trying to stay conscious. When she didn’t make a move to offer her arm, because she couldn’t, Dragan turned her around carefully and leaned her back against the tree. Bile ran up her throat over that small motion.

She squeezed out, “We have to go.”

“We’re as far as we’re going to get until this infection is dealt with.”

You’d think he had a First Aid kit just like that one by the efficient way he pulled out everything he needed. He dumped two pills from a brown pharmaceutical bottle into his hand.

Just when she was sure the throbbing couldn’t get any worse, her arm would prove her wrong. That limb could be a heat beacon. Her sausage fingers wouldn’t close. She had the mother of all headaches and, now that she was drinking water again, sweat poured out of her.

“Take this,” Logan ordered.

She opened her mouth, wanting water more than anything. He placed two pills on her tongue then put the canteen to her mouth, pouring slowly.

She ignored the metallic taste, leaning forward for more than two swallows.

He pulled it away and she glared at him.

“Sorry, Sugar, but I’m not sure you’re going to hold it all down and it’s time to deal with that arm.”  He slit her sleeve open and started unwrapping the undershirt bandage.

“’K.”  It couldn’t hurt any worse than it did right—  “
Fuck!
”

“I hate it, Sugar,” he murmured as he pulled the cloth away from where the dried blood had glued it to her skin.

Tears welled up in her eyes. She heaved in and out more deep breaths through clenched teeth.

Dragan soaked a wad of gauze with water from the canteen. He cupped her injured arm in a gentle but firm grip and said, “This is gonna hurt but it’ll be better soon.”

He scrubbed open the wound.

She lurched away from the pain, straining her neck when she twisted, but he held on and kept cleaning it out. She could smell the nasty infection that had bottled up in her arm, but oh, fuck, that hurt.

Tears ran down her face and that just pissed her off.

She must have blacked out at some point, because the next thing she knew, Dragan was telling her to wake up. She rolled her head against the tree trunk until she faced him.

He used the extra piece of undershirt that had been turned into a washrag to wipe her face and neck with cool water. Worry rolled through his grim gaze. “How you doing?”

She had to think about that. Her arm no longer felt twice its size even though it was still swollen all the way to her fingertips. It continued to throb and burn, but the agonizing just-kill-me-now pressure had eased. “Better.”  How long had they been sitting there? “I’m ready to go.”

“Drink some more water and we’ll head out.”

She did, again with his help, because even though he’d cleaned out the infection and probably loaded it with some kind of topical antibiotic, she was lightheaded and shaking. Not hard to understand why when you’d been tortured, starved, deprived of water, and let a wound get infected. Of the many things she had on her hate list, being weak was close to the top.

When Dragan had the First Aid kit on his back and the canteen stowed, he got her to her feet. “Can you walk?”

“Do I have a choice?” she smarted back.

“I can carry you.”

“Don’t take this whole primitive living too far, Tarzan. I’m good to go.” Then she almost fell on her face when she took a step, but Dragan had her good elbow and kept her upright.

She managed to walk, but it wasn’t fast and she was losing strength.

She’d told Nick that she couldn’t stay at the GPS location he was picking up due to more unfriendlies on the way, but that she’d walk north-northeast to reach a high point. That had been the plan Logan laid out on the way to the Quonset hut.

Sabrina had contacts all over the world and she was fiercely protective of her team, even the ones who did something stupid on occasion. This time tomorrow, Margaux would be eating food, taking a real shower and sleeping in a real bed.

If she never saw another tree up close again she’d be happy.

“Careful, Sugar.”  Dragan caught her around the waist and pulled her to him.

Where was her sharp tongue when she needed it to tell him she could stand on her own? But she wasn’t standing on her own. She was leaning against his hard chest and, hell, she just wanted to rest here for a moment.