Running Hot (13 page)

She waited until one of the men closed in. She knew what she had to do and glanced at Ward.

He nodded. “Do it now.”

The guard came within striking distance, and she let loose. She was up on her feet, reaching across the table. The knife slid out of Ward's hand. He flinched but didn't make a sound as he used the bloody blade to cut his other binding. The only noise came from his chair slamming against the floor as he stood and stepped back.

But she was already moving. With one pivot, she stabbed the guard in the chest and ripped the gun out of his hand. A second stab and he went down, just as she fired on his friend.

When the firing and yelling cleared, both men lay crumpled at her feet. She only cared about the one standing across from her, pale as he ripped the bottom on his T-shirt with his uninjured hand and wrapped the wound.

“Ward.” She rushed over.

She expected him to at least double over. Not him.

He leaned against her for a second, then straightened again. “We have to move.”

It was the right answer. The one pertaining to the job. His voice was rough, and he was somehow ready to go. He talked about her toughness being hot. He was the one shooting off the hotness scale right now.

Except for the blood. It ran everywhere. That would give away their position and eventually weaken even a man as tough as Ward.

“Here.” She took what looked like a clean napkin off the table and carefully wrapped it around his makeshift cotton bandage.

“Can you hold a gun?” She hated to ask, but she had to know.

He looked at the bloody bandage. “Not with that one, but I have experience with the other.”

“Of course you do.” That came with the training. Still, she'd never been able to master that skill. At the very least, his shot would suffer. That had the potential to leave them one agent down. But they did have one other weapon. “Ford is alive. He's the one who set the charges.”

Ward gave a curt nod. “How many men do we still have out there?”

She loved his ability to stay on task when the pain had to be plowing him under. Another man would have fallen down or passed out. Not Ward. “We took out six on the way in. Ford has probably handled others.”

“Tigana? That fucker is mine.”

For some reason the mix of anger and determination in Ward's voice made her feel better. “Let's go.”

W
ITH EVERY BOUNCING
step, his hand throbbed and the pounding in his head doubled. Ward needed to stop and sit down, but that wasn't an option. He'd gotten out of that room—she'd gotten him out—and now he had to finish the job. If he had to carry the missiles out of the compound one by one under his arm or by dragging them behind him, he would.

They had to snake their way out of the main grouping of bures first. Armed men ran around, and smoke filled the air. Whatever Ford had blown up had an impact. Fire raged in two vehicles, and bodies littered the ground. With a loud whoosh, the thatched roof of one bure went up in flames.

Still they ran. Choking on suffocating air and fighting their way through trees and a blanket of smoke. Cutting across the lines of trucks and through the stacks of boxes. He glanced at them, but they were the wrong type. He needed five-foot-long aluminum green cases. Those would be the Stingers, and with the number he had, they were stacked somewhere.

He'd trained his weaker arm for years and now had solid aim with a blade. His gun use hadn't fared as well. He could shoot, but the aim suffered. But he could stab and he planned to do just that.

She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Are you okay?'

“Stop asking.” He tried to close his injured hand, and a shock of pain spiraled through him. He closed his eyes and forced his body to stay upright as he swallowed back the bile racing up his throat.

The only good news was she missed it all. She turned forward again with him to the side and slightly behind her.

“You make it hard to care about you,” she said.

“So I've heard.”

She shot him another glance as they reached the end of a building. A man came flying around a corner and ran straight into her. The guy bounced back with a stunned expression.

Ward slammed him in the forehead with the blade before he could reach for the trigger. The body dropped, and Tasha skidded to a halt in front of it.

“I think we're up to eight between us, plus the ones I eliminated with Ford.” Without missing a beat, she reached down and pulled out the blade. After a quick wipe on her pants, she handed it to Ward.

“There's only one man I want in all this.” And Ward vowed to get him.

Up and going again, they headed for the building where the guards still stood—a place that looked more like an oversized garage next to what Ward believed to be a hangar of sorts. Not that anyone could land a plane in this wooded area close to the ocean.

She stopped behind a truck and waited, and Ward joined her. Ford was out there somewhere. The second after Ward thought it, a new explosion went off about fifty feet behind him. Heated air blasted into his back and singed his clothes. One minute he stood, and the next he was on his knees with Tasha beside him.

Smoke rolled over them as a series of crashes and bangs had them ducking. More bodies fell to the ground. One person raced around on fire while another tried to put out the flames. It was a horrible display but necessary. Not quiet, and the entire Fijian military would soon come running, which meant they had to pick up their pace.

“What happened?” Tasha pushed off the ground and sat up.

“Ford got a little close with that one.” But Ward was focused on one thing now. Someone who filled his thoughts until Ward wanted to carve out a piece of his brain to kick him out. Tigana. It didn't matter to Ward that his hand didn't work and might never again.

With one final scan, Ward took in every inch of the compound. A circle of bures surrounded by one larger one. Outbuildings that looked like kitchens and a shed. There were buildings scattered around and people running everywhere. Structures on fire and crumbling.

But one building stood out, untouched and secured. “That has to be it.”

Trucks pulled out and took off in different directions. He strained to see if Tigana sat in any of them and didn't think so. “Where did the man go?”

“I didn't see.” She tapped on Ward's watch then ducked when another explosion went off somewhere behind her. “Can you reach Ford?”

“I wouldn't be able to hear anything he said.” Ward eyed the building one more time. A few of the guards met together by the double front doors, probably to discuss whether or not to abandon their posts. That meant some position was uncovered. Ward vowed to find it. “We need to circle around back.”

They'd just taken off when the shooting started. They zigzagged until Ward realized they were not the targets. Ford drew their fire, madman that he was.

The steady jog had Ward's hand going numb. The pain had subsided until he lost all feeling in his fingers. He knew that was a really bad sign, but it might be what he needed to survive this—what could be his last mission.

They got to a side window. After a quick check inside, he lifted Tasha as best he could and her athletic ability handled the rest. He watched her slide through. Seconds ticked by, and nothing. She didn't call out. No gunfire. A door halfway down the building opened, and she peeked out. He didn't question his luck. Not having to drag his body up the side of a building with one working hand appealed to him.

They walked through a small room where paperwork lay scattered on the top of every surface, but no missile boxes. Every step echoed through the two-story warehouse, but no one tried to stop them.

Ward took a deep inhale and said the sorry truth. “That was too easy.”

“No kidding.”

They both stayed alert as they walked. When they got to a locked door, Ward could feel it. The weapons they needed were on the other side. Maybe not all five hundred, but he sure as hell hoped so.

The knob turned in his good hand, and the feeling of dread settled over him. Any job that went as planned ended in a nightmare. He'd been doing this long enough, since straight out of college, to know.

He opened it slowly.

The thunder of noise hit him first. The roar of engines and a
thwapping
sound. Tasha's eyes narrowed, and she peeked inside. Then she went in.

He followed, keeping his body low and dodging from stack to stack of green boxes. “The weapons.”

She kept moving, heading toward the opposite end of the long building. “Some.” She pointed at the two open garage bays at the far end of the room. “They're loading them up.”

“Looks like they're taking the guns on the road.” That was the nightmare scenario.

Tigana had to be stopped today. No matter the sacrifice.

They edged behind a stack of crates. Six guys worked in unison, loading the missiles into two trucks. The engines were on, and drivers sat ready. This they could deal with. The other noise was the problem.

“He has a helicopter,” Tasha said.

Ward had already put those pieces together and he hated the conclusion. “Tigana is on and ready to go.”

“Good thing we're sitting in a room full of surface-to-air missiles.”

He liked the way she thought. “Right. We load these on our shoulders and fire.”

He was half kidding, but it might come to that. But neither one of them commented on his ability to balance a thirty-pound weapon with one hand. It didn't matter. Somehow they'd get it done.

“Put the weapons down.” The male voice came from behind them, and then another joined in.

They had company. Armed company.

Ward felt a punch of guilt. He hadn't heard them and couldn't help her now, not the way she needed backup. Without his full strength, he had to rely on his brains.

After a nod to Tasha to signal it was okay to stand up straight, Ward held up his hands. “Hold on. We're fine.”

“Don't move.”

But Tasha was already shifting. She had a gun tucked in front of her. Another appeared in her other hand. As she turned, shots rang out. A shout lodged in his throat as he waited to see her fall. Flashes of the past week ran through his brain. Tasha at the bar. Walking beside him. In bed.

He could not lose her now.

Almost in slow motion, he pivoted, ready to throw his knife, his weight. Anything. By the time he turned, he saw only one man standing there—Ford. He'd dropped the other two, and Tasha stayed on her feet.

Ward wanted to hug her, kiss her. But they had to finish this job first.

“Ready to launch a few missiles?” Ford asked.

“We have to shoot through those guys first.” Tasha gestured to the men standing outside loading the trucks. The noise must have drowned out anything because they moved fast and didn't even glance back.

Refusing to be left out, Ward held out his good hand. “I need a gun.”

Ford stared at the bandaged palm. “Really?”

“I can hit something.” Ward's left-handed shot wasn't perfect, but it was probably better than that of most normal people.

Ford snorted. “Just don't hit me.”

Guns in hand, they started the countdown. On three they took off, gliding through the warehouse with Ford down the middle and Tasha and Ward on the two sides. They hit the end and opened fire. The men around the trucks fell one after the other in boneless heaps. Ford raced to the front of the trucks and took out the drivers as the
thwapping
sound grew louder.

Tasha and Ward looked around the corner. There it was: a helicopter loaded down with people and boxes. Ward had no idea where the man planned to go, but he'd stop it if he had to jump on board and throw people off.

“We have another truck. It's riding low.” Tasha pointed in the distance.

“It's full.” It looked as though one truck had gotten off and was trying to navigate the rocky dirt road that headed to the water, which led Ward to one conclusion. “He has a boat waiting.”

Tasha shook her head. “Damn.”

Ward didn't know how he knew, but he did. “Help me with the missiles.”

“Are we really going to fire one?” she asked.

“We're going to need two.” He glanced down at his useless hand. “And I'm going to need you to help me.”

Working in silence, they uncrated the weapons. Ford came back, his eyes wide.

Tasha shook her head. “You're too excited.”

“No such thing,” Ford said as he set his up.

A few minutes later, they were up and ready to go. Ford targeted the truck. Ward had the helicopter. Normally he would throw the weapon on his shoulder and go. He'd used it before and had no trouble, but he couldn't maneuver anything and he was losing blood with each passing second.

Tasha helped shove it on his shoulder. “We're doing this.”

It was all a matter of infrared and motion sensors now. Ward widened his stance, ready to fire when the bullets started raining down. The shooter positioned on the helicopter fired as the bird rose into the sky. Other men, those left behind but still shooting, came around the building. They were out in the open and taking fire from all angles.

“Go now!” Ford yelled as he launched.

Ward pulled the trigger, but his strength failed. Between the smoke and the injury and the bullets, he couldn't get the shot off and risked letting Tigana escape. Then Tasha was beside him with her arm wrapped around his waist and her hand gripping the trigger with him.

“Now, Ward.” She shouted the order into his ear.

The truck exploded in the distance as Ford landed his hit, then turned his sights on the shooters. With his missile launched, Ward could only wait. A second later, the helicopter burst into a fireball and debris fell from the sky.

Ward tried to run to safety, but his legs gave out. He fell to his knees as Ford provided covering fire. By the time the booms and crashes stopped, half of the compound was on fire and none of the shooters remained standing.