Kill Shot (11 page)

“Grace, look at me.” When she did her green
eyes were defiant and angry. “Don’t bullshit me. I need to know if
you can hang. I’ll think of another way out if you don’t think you
can.”

Grace didn’t immediately tell him she was
okay as he thought she would. She was starting to scare the hell
out of him, and he knew better than anyone that the middle of a
mission was the last place for emotions. She visibly gathered her
resolve and didn’t break eye contact. Her strength was something
he’d always admired most about her.

“I can hang. You won’t need to carry me out
of here.”

She popped the latches on the trunk and
opened the lid. The M40A5 lay in pieces and was separated by
different compartments, the dull black well polished and oiled. She
put it together quickly, her hands intimately knowledgeable as they
caressed each part.

Gabe reached inside the bottom of the case
for the small cylinders Logan had made for him. He placed them
carefully in his bag, and Grace was just closing the trunk lid when
the slam of car doors sounded from outside.

“Down, down!” Gabe yelled, pulling Grace
with him to the ground and rolling with her across the floor as the
windows seemed to implode around them all at once. Shards of glass
reigned down on them, and the staccato burst of machine-gun fire
deafened his ears. Dust and debris floated heavy in the air, and
sight was almost impossible.

“We’ve got to get upstairs.” He rolled them
both in that direction until he hit the base of the stairs with his
back. “You go first. Stay low.”

She scuttled up the steps, and Gabe followed
just behind her, hovering over her back with his body. He turned
back in time to see a canister thrown through the window and burst
into flames. Another came through a side window, and the fire
breathed life into the arid room with a whoosh.

“Shit. Faster!”

They ran into the room they’d been assigned
earlier, and Gabe closed the door behind them. He tore down the
curtains and pushed up the window, so only the iron bars kept them
from freedom. It was attached to the stone with rusted screws.

Grace was already stripping the beds while
he dug through his bag until he found a small screwdriver. He heard
the sink running, and Grace came back into the room with a soaking
wet comforter that she shoved in the crack of the bedroom door.

Gabe jiggled the bars and then started the
laborious task of detaching them from the rock. The screws had been
in place a long time and didn’t want to budge, and he had to use
all his strength to force them to move. Sweat poured from his
temples, and he looked at the door, gauging how much time they had.
Smoke was already seeping past the wet bedspread and creeping into
the room.

Grace had ripped the white bed sheets into
thirds and held them in her teeth as she braided them together
tightly. The smoke thickened and made her almost impossible to
see.

“Got it,” Gabe said, and immediately went
into a coughing fit. Even with the screws out, the bars didn’t let
go of the wall. He pushed them with his feet until they released
and crashed to the ground. Grace tossed the braided sheets over the
windowsill and anchored it around the heavy bedpost.

“Will it hold us?” Gabe asked.

“Long enough. You go first. I’ll fire cover
shots.”

Gabe propelled himself over the ledge and
scaled down the wall while Grace shot rounds from her Sig into the
smoke-filled night. The only good thing about the smoke was that it
was just as hard for the enemy to see as it was for them.

He moved quickly and ignored the chinks of
plaster that exploded close enough to his face to slash at his
cheeks. He dropped to the ground and laid down a quick
pop, pop,
pop
of fire so Grace could climb down after him.

The smoke covered them as they piled into
the Jeep and hunkered down low in the seats while Gabe started the
engine. He floored the gas pedal and they jerked forward, gravel
and sand spitting under the tires.

Grace grabbed a water bottle from under the
seat and poured it over her face to clear the grit and grime from
her eyes before passing it to Gabe so he could do the same. He put
his gun in his lap and had just taken hold of the bottle when the
wheel jerked under his hands and the right side of the Jeep seemed
to explode underneath them.

Grace grabbed onto the seat with one hand
and her rifle with the other as her teeth knocked together. The
back tire exploded in a puff of smoke and rubber, and Grace was
afraid for a moment that the Jeep was going to flip over.

“Be my eyes. What do you see?” Gabe yelled
over the noise. She tried not to notice how hard he was having to
fight the wheel to keep them right side up.

She looked through the night-vision and
infrared scope on her rifle and pinpointed the targets. “A white
van. I can’t tell how many passengers, but at least three, probably
more. The guy in the passenger seat has a machine gun. I can’t see
any other weapons. They’re too busy scrambling to catch up with us.
The second vehicle is an old military jeep, and it’s flanking the
van’s left side with two more men. Looks like both are carrying
subs.”

“We won’t be able to make it to the mountain
pass with this much damage to the car. Can you take them?”

“Yeah, I can take them. Just try to keep it
steady.”

“Make sure you leave one of the cars
drivable.”

Grace pressed her back against the dashboard
and her feet against the back of her seat to brace herself. The
Jeep rolled unevenly, and she made allowances in the give of her
body to counteract the missing tire. She put everything out of her
mind but the job and sighted through her scope. God, she loved the
feel of a rifle in her hands.

The targets glowed red and would be slightly
blurry to the average eye, but she saw each man clearly. She pulled
the trigger gently and felt the familiar kick of her weapon as the
bullet left the barrel. The windshield of the white van crumpled as
the glass fell like a waterfall, and the driver slumped over the
wheel. It swerved back and forth uncontrollably until the driver’s
side door opened and a body rolled out. A new driver took his
place, and Grace put the scope back to her face.

Bursts of machine gun fire came from her
right, and she saw the other jeep gaining momentum on them out of
her peripheral. Her shots stayed steady as she kept firing into the
white van, and she trusted Gabe to take care of the other vehicle.
She fired five more shots, and the van slowed down, finally rolling
to a stop, all its occupants dead.

She turned her attention toward the jeep.
Time moved in slow motion as she set her sights on the man in the
passenger side just as he did the same to her. They stared at each
other through their scopes. Cold fear rushed through her, but she
knew the risks. All that mattered was the shot, and that hers hit
the target first. She pulled the trigger just as Gabe swerved hard
to the left, jerking her across the seat and into his lap. Their
windshield exploded, and the sharp sting of glass cut her face and
neck.

“Stay down!” Gabe yelled.

She couldn’t see what he was doing, so she
turned her head and looked up. He steered the wheel with his knee
while he grappled with one of the tiny cylinders he had stashed
away. It was a plastic tube filled with clear liquid, but when he
snapped the cylinder in the middle, the chemicals mixed and began
glowing an eerie yellow. Gabe tossed it over his shoulder, and it
landed just in front of the other jeep before it exploded. The
front of the jeep flipped end over end before landing in a fiery
heap.

Grace sat up quickly and looked through her
scope at the wreckage as Gabe circled around.

“We’re clear,” she said. “They’re both
dead.”

Gabe stopped their badly damaged vehicle,
and they both jumped out, grabbing everything they’d need. They
worked in tandem, pulling the bodies out of the van so they fell to
the sand. If no one came for the bodies soon, the desert would
claim them. The wind had picked up, and it was impossible to avoid
the invasion of grit as it burned eyes and buried itself inside
clothing.

Grace felt a smile on her face, and she
looked over at Gabe. His black hair hung down in his eyes, and
there was a slice on his cheekbone dripping blood. But he had the
same exhilarated grin on his own face.

They were alive, and they’d kicked ass.

***

The lights of Kuwait were a welcome sight to
see. Gabe spoke briefly to his pilot once they were safely boarded,
and then the doors closed behind them, and he and Grace were left
alone—energy running like an electrical current over their bodies
and their adrenaline pumping hot.

Gabe knew the look in her eyes. If he didn’t
do something to piss her off in the next two seconds, they were
both going to be naked and writhing on the floor. And as much as he
wanted her naked, he wanted more to know what had happened to her
back at Tussad’s house. And more importantly, he wanted to know if
it happened often.

“Grace, I…” He didn’t get the chance to
finish. She plastered herself to the front of his body, and he went
rock hard in an instant. He’d always had that reaction to her. She
grabbed his head and brought her mouth to his, hitching her legs
around his waist so he had no choice but to catch her or topple
both of them to the ground.

Her mouth was hot and wet, and her tongue
teased him, stroking in and out of his mouth in a parody of what
she wanted. Gabe rocked against her and swallowed her moan as he
hit her most sensitive spot. Dizzy with lust, he stumbled against
the table, knocking something to the floor with a crash.

“Inside me,” Grace panted. “I want you
inside me.”

The desperation in her voice pulled him back
from the haze, and he choked on a curse as her nimble fingers found
their way below his belt.

“Wait, Grace.”

“No. I can’t. I need you now.”

Despite the storm raging inside of him and
the whispers that told him to take and conquer what was rightfully
his, he gentled his hold on her. He stroked his fingers tenderly
across her cheek and nuzzled against her neck. And then he did the
hardest thing he’d ever done before. He unwrapped her legs from
around his waist and took a step back. And then another.

“We need to talk,” he finally said.

Irritation and hurt briefly flitted across
her face before she hid it behind a coy smile. “There’s plenty of
time to talk later.” She pulled the ragged T-shirt she wore up so
just a hint of her stomach showed. The shirt rose higher and
higher, exposing flesh with torturous slowness, until she finally
pulled it over her head, leaving her in nothing but the black bra
she wore.

“You can’t tell me you don’t want me,” she
said. “Your body never has been able to lie as well as the rest of
you.”

“I’ll always want you. There’s never been
any question of that. But I’m not going to be a substitute for
whatever the hell is going on with you. I want to know what
happened back there. I thought you were dead.”

The color drained from her face. “My health
isn’t any of your damned business.” She pulled the shirt back on,
inside out.

“Has it happened before? Have you seen a
doctor?”

Grace laughed bitterly and moved past him,
with short, agitated strides. She grabbed a bottle of water out of
the fridge and drank deep. “A doctor can’t fix me, Gabe. I’m fucked
up. Broken. And there’s nothing that can put me back together
again.”

“Cut yourself a break, Grace. We lost a
child. It’s going to take some time.” He tried to go to her. To
comfort her. And himself. But she jerked out of his arms.

“Really, Gabe?
We
lost a child. There
was barely a
we
before she died, much less after. Did you
even care?” she yelled. “I needed you. But your job was always more
fucking important than your family. You didn’t even come to her
funeral.”

“I couldn’t, goddammit, and you know it.
Bennett put me in isolation so fast after my cover was blown that I
didn’t even get a chance to see her. Do you think I didn’t want to
hold her again? To touch her face one last time?” He rubbed his
burning eyes and then ran his fingers through his hair roughly. “Do
you think I didn’t try to fight my way through the agents who had
me under lock and key?”

“How the hell should I know, Gabe? All I
know is that you weren’t there, and if you’d paid more attention to
what was going on in your other life, then she’d still be alive.
You’ve always been good at keeping your thoughts to yourself. This
is the most emotion I’ve seen from you in all the years I’ve known
you.”

Her words cut fast and deep, and his heart
was bleeding. Gabe punched his fist through the door leading into
the bedroom. “Is that enough emotion for you?” He walked toward
her, a predator stalking his prey, but she didn’t back away.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish that Tussad had
killed me instead. I know she’s dead because of me. And I know
you’ll never forgive me, but I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t
there, Grace. I needed you, too.”

She turned her head so she wouldn’t have to
maintain eye contact, but he took her chin and forced her to look
at him—to see the pain that raged deep inside of him and know that
it wasn’t hers alone to bear.

“I needed you too,” he repeated. “But when
things died down and they released me, you were already gone. The
first thing I did was visit her grave. The second was to come find
you. But you’d already left the country and sold yourself to the
highest bidder like a…”

He welcomed the sting from her hand as she
slapped him hard across the cheek, and he grabbed her wrist as she
tried to follow through with a punch to the stomach.