Dying to Score (2 page)

Crystal popped off several quick rounds then back-crawled the two yards down the ridge to his side.
 
Keeping low, she quickly exchanged her empty magazine for a full one then helped him sit up.
 
"Come on.
 
We're getting out of here."

"Tink—"

"I'm not leaving you." She cut him off with a sharp look.
 
"And the longer you lay there and argue with me, the more time we waste."

He was going with her if she had to drag him out.
 
Considering he outweighed her by over a hundred pounds, she really did not want to do that.

He muffled a groan at the pain and the effort but with her help, managed to get to his feet.
 
Digging deep for strength, she slung his good arm over her shoulder then reached down for his M-4 and shoved it in his good hand.
 
He
couldn't fire it but
she
might need it before this was over.

Then feeling like she was carrying roughly a half ton of dead weight, she wrapped her free arm around his waist and headed south.
 
The extraction point was a good quarter of a mile away through pulsing heat, dense undergrowth and rough, uneven terrain.

They didn't make it ten yards before his knees buckled.

They both started to go down.

"Stay with me," she pleaded and calling on reserves she hadn't known she possessed, somehow muscled him upright again.

"Damn, Tink.
 
You're … the
woman
," he gritted out as he fought his rubber legs but managed to stay vertical.
 
Sweat poured down his face.
 
"Your first life … I'm thinkin' … pack mule.
 
Pretty
pack mule," he amended with what little breath he had.

"Shut up," she grumbled again, fighting tears because she knew from the heavy way he leaned on her that she was losing him.
 
"How many times do I have to tell you to save your brea—"

She stopped short when she saw movement up ahead.

"Company," she whispered and quickly eased him down behind a clump of ferns.

Heart hammering, she knelt in a defensive position in front of him and raised her rifle.

"Tinkerbelle, Tinkerbelle, this is Doc, do you read me, over?"

Still shouldering her rifle, she reached for the radio in the vest pocket near her throat.
 
"I read you, Doc.
 
What's your twenty, over?"

"About fifteen yards from the end of your rifle barrel.
 
Got eyes on, Tink, darlin'.
 
Hold fire.
 
We're comin' in, over."

"Oh, sweet Jesus, Roger that."
 
She almost wept with relief.
 
"Come on in. Johnny's hit, over."

She glanced at Johnny.
 
Eyes closed.
 
Breath shallow.
 
Face pale.
 
Her heart sank even lower.
 
"Hang on, baby.
 
Damn it, you hang on, do you hear me?"

Just when she thought he'd passed out, he cracked one eye open.
 
"Nag, nag, nag."

And just when she thought she had reason to smile, a barrage of AK fire opened up behind them again.

"How bad?" Doc – the tall, lanky former SEAL and team medic – appeared out of the thick foliage.
 
He dropped to his knees and hunkered over Johnny as Gabe emptied a full magazine toward the shooters.

"No vital organs but he's lost a lot of blood," Crystal said over her shoulder as she continued to lay down cover fire with Gabe.

"Damn show boat." Doc urgently assessed Johnny's injury.
 
"Do anything to impress your lady, right, pretty boy?"

"You know me well," Johnny agreed with a pained grimace.
 
"I'm just dyin' to score with that woman."

Doc turned quickly to Gabe, a former Delta Force lieutenant, who was on his belly beside Crystal, his M-4 hammering away.
 
"He's getting shocky.
 
We've gotta get him out of here."

"Cover me." Gabe back-crawled to Johnny then hauled him to his feet.

Crystal stayed on her knees and laid down more return fire as Doc joined her, making sure that Gabe – who was an even bigger man than Johnny – had a running start.

"You my … free ride?" Johnny managed weakly as Gabe hefted him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and double-timed it away from the enemy fire.

"Always said that you former Force Recon Marines were nothin' but a bunch of slackers," Gabe grumbled over the concern in his voice.
 
"Just hang on, bud.
 
God knows you're not worth the effort, but we're gettin' your sorry ass outta here."

"Countin' on it, Angel Boy," Johnny mumbled then passed out cold.

"Let's boogie." Doc covered Crystal as she backed away, then quickly turned and followed her.

∙ ∙ ∙

Johnny hung like a lifeless lump over Gabe's shoulder as the big man pushed his way through the trees, vines and undergrowth.
 
Crystal was hardly aware of the thick, dense foliage slicing tiny cuts in her arms and across her face as they hauled ass through the jungle.
 
All she could think about was her husband as she alternately stopped and took a knee, returned the fire that kept dogging them, then jumped up and pressed on toward the beach.

The terrain was rough; the plants and vines grabbed at her feet.
 
She tripped over a tree root and went down hard.
 
She was just pushing to her knees when Doc grasped her backpack from behind and lifted her to her feet like she didn't weigh any more than a gnat.
 

"That boat going to be there when we arrive?" she asked breathlessly as she raced alongside him.

"Ever known the Choirboy to let us down?"

Raphael – the Choirboy – Mendoza, a native Colombian and charter member of Black Ops, Inc. like Doc, Gabe and Johnny, was their wheel man – in this case their outboard motor man.

"What?
 
What are you doing?" she asked Doc frantically when he stopped beside her.
 

"Go," he insisted as he pulled the pin on a frag grenade then winged it as hard as he could behind them.

The grenade had no sooner exploded with a deafening blast than Doc shrugged out of his pack, tore open a pocket and whipped out a Claymore.
 
"Go," he repeated.

"I'm not leaving you."
 
She took a knee again and covered him as he set the mine with a tripwire trigger while AK-47 fire lit up with a vengeance behind them.

"That'll keep 'em guessing," he said, after setting a second mine.
 
"Now scoot."

They both took off at a run.

She'd lost sight of Gabe and Johnny and was frantic to catch up with them when the first Claymore exploded.
 
At least one bad guy had bought the farm on that one.
 
The others were either hurt or very wary about running blindly after them.

"They're still on our ass." Doc grabbed her arm as he ran alongside her.
 
"Let's double time it."

They'd just leapt over a huge, downed tree trunk and, thank God, caught up with Gabe when Crystal heard the roar of an outboard motor.

"Halleluiah!" Doc crowed and peeled ahead of Crystal to help Gabe maneuver Johnny down a steep, dirt embankment that dropped over twenty feet toward the river at a ninety degree angle.

Crystal scrambled down behind them, digging in her heels as she half-skidded, half-ran down the vertical drop that ended in the mud of the river bank where a flat bottom boat with a pair of 200 horse outboards plowed up onto the shore.

Their CO, Nate Black, himself was on his knees in the bow of the boat, rockin' an M-60 machine gun mounted on a tri-pod.
 

"Sight for sore eyes, gentlemen," Gabe yelled above the
chuck-chuck-chuck
of the big gun as Nate peppered the bank with shells to the tune 550 rounds per minute.

Gabe clambered into the boat and laid Johnny as carefully as he could on the floor. Doc was next aboard.
 
He held out a hand for Crystal and she jumped in.
 
Doc was already on his knees beside Johnny, digging into his medic's kit when Rafe shifted the twin motors into reverse, backed away from the shore, then fast-shifted into forward again and shot down the river.

The M-60 had fallen silent and the threat from the AK's was in the far distance before Doc sat back on his heels.
 
He'd done what he could for Johnny.
 
He'd staunched the blood flow, wrapped his arm close to his ribs to immobilize it and hung an IV that dumped antibiotics and fluid into his body.

Crystal could tell by the look on Doc's face that the risk to her husband's life was far from over.

She sat on the floor of the boat, Johnny's head cradled in her lap.
 
He was too pale.
 
His skin was too cool.
 
And she was scared to death because he had not yet regained consciousness.

"How bad?" She had to yell to be heard above the roar of the twin outboards.

Doc shot Gabe a grim look over the top of her head before he met Crystal's eyes.
 
"Bad," he said, knowing he had to level with her.
 
"He needs blood."

"Then he's going to get it." She quickly rolled up her sleeve as the wind whipped her hair around her face and the roar of the outboards tried to drown out her words.

Doc shook his head.
 
"Crystal—"

"He's going to get it!" she shouted, cutting Doc off mid-protest.
 
"I'm O negative.
 
Universal donor."

"Darlin', a direct donor to recipient doesn't always-"

"I'm not going to let him die!" Tears welled up as she frantically reached for Doc's kit then shoved it into his hands. "
You
are not going to let him die," she said, pleading, demanding, bargaining for the life of the man she loved.

After a long, hard look, Doc assembled what he needed to attempt the transfusion.

"No promises." He inserted the needle into her vein and started the process.

"No promises," she agreed on a whisper that was swept down river by the wind.

She refused, though, absolutely refused to let her hope be swept away as well.

∙ ∙ ∙

Reed awoke to silence.
 
The kind of silence that magnified every little sound and
told him he wasn't alone.
 
The minute scrape of a chair leg on a tile floor.
 
The rustle of
cloth.
 
A soft breath close by.
 
The scent of the woman he loved.

Very slowly, he opened his eyes.
 
Closed them against the sharp glare of a white on white ceiling, walls and window shades.
 
A monitor blipped softly away beside his bed.

No.
 
Not
his
bed.
 
A hospital bed, he decided picking up the scent of antiseptic and flowers as he sifted through his memory banks.
 
Oh, right.
 
He remembered.
 
Just to make certain, he tried to move his shoulder.

Very.
 
Bad. Idea.

Lots of pain.
 
Lots of muzzled, distant pain ached and burned and dug into his flesh like a rusty knife.
 
Hurt like hell … but not as bad as when Gabe had hauled him through the jungle then dumped him into the bottom of the boat.

Safe.
 

Hot damn.
 

A small, warm hand covered his, squeezed.
 
He let out a deep, contented breath.

He'd know her touch anywhere.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to see his wife's beautiful face.
 
Her soft green eyes were misted with tears.

"Hey, Tink," he croaked and smiled for her because she looked so fragile he was afraid she might break.

"Hey," she whispered back, her own smile tremulous.
 
"You had me worried, cowboy," she confessed.

"I need your mouth," he said, suddenly consumed by a deep, demanding need to touch and taste and assure them both that he was alive.

He watched her eyes warm as she stood up on tiptoe then leaned in and kissed him.

Better.
 
So much better.

He lifted a hand to brush a tear from her cheek. "You remember what you said to me the first time we met?"

"Get lost?" Her grin held as much relief as it did amusement.

"Okay, I think that was the
second
time.
 
The
first
time, you said, 'I'm getting a little tired of you dogging my tail, cowboy.'"

She smiled, lowered the side rail then climbed carefully into the bed beside him.
 
"And you said something to the tune of, 'You're not one of those girl-on-girl types, are you?'"

He lifted his good arm and made room for her to snuggle up close – right where she belonged.
 
"Well, you
did
find me awfully easy to resist.
 
What else was I supposed to think?"

"The fact that I said I didn't like you?
That
didn't do it for you?
 
Or that I told you, you were too vain, too pretty and too annoying?"

"And yet," contented, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head, "I got you where I wanted you, didn't I?"

She slid her leg across his thighs and careful of his IV, wrapped her arm around his waist.
 
"Yeah.
 
In bed."

He breathed deep, loving the scent of her and the lush softness of her body pressed against his.
 
"You saved my bacon, Tink." He swallowed a knot of emotion that suddenly clogged his throat.
 
"Thought I was done for back there."