The Protector (41 page)

Eryn
struggled wildly, but terror in a dose she’d never experienced, sucked the strength from her, making her efforts as feeble as a child’s. With just the grip on her hair, he was able to subdue her, forcing her to sit before the webcam.
  

He hit a key, and the program began filming. As stream of Arabic issued from his mouth, she realized he was reciting scripture. Sure enough, he switched abruptly into English, translating what he’d just said.

“The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and corrupt the nation of Islam is that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter. Theirs will be an awful doom!”

Dear God, thought
Eryn
. I don’t want to die this way. Not now. Not like this. Not when I have so much to live for.
 

**

“There it is!”
Ringo
cried, pointing up at the road that wound through the trees above them.
 

Jackson had already caught sight of it. There was no mistaking the Mobile Command Center’s silver hull for anything else.

“Get as close as you can without exposing us,” the former SEAL instructed.
   

“Roger that.” Jackson slowed his approach.
 

There had been no overt discussion of who would be in charge. When the HRT had updated them minutes ago that they were still twenty minutes out, Jackson had glanced at
Ringo
, who grimaced and shook his head. They weren’t going to sit around with their thumbs up their asses. They were going to put Calhoun’s specialized skills to work. And that meant doing exactly what he told them to do.

“Right here,” the former SEAL said, and Jackson pulled them alongside a holly bush to conceal their vehicle. “Maddox follows me.
Ringo
, you hang back fifty feet in case he’s not alone and someone gets past us. Weapons check,” Calhoun added.

There was something hugely inspiring about the man’s focus.
Eryn
was up there in the clutches of a fanatic intending to behead her, and the former SEAL was making them count their rounds and back-up magazines. “Let’s go. Keep quiet.”

They leapt from the vehicle, crossed the road and moved swiftly and stealthily through the woods toward the MCC, startling a kestrel pulling entrails from a dead mouse. As it winged away, Calhoun signaled
Ringo
toward the street. He and Jackson proceeded further uphill, making their way to a boulder just a stone’s throw from the RV.

Jackson felt like he was back in Iraq, sneaking up on an insurgent stronghold. His heart pounded somewhere in the region of his Adam’s apple. He would have thought after all the military action in which he’d taken part he’d be inoculated to the stress. But nothing ever went down the same way twice.

“There’s something you should know,” he gasped, having pushed himself to keep up with the more fleet-footed Calhoun. “The MCC is supposedly bullet proof, though we’ve never tested it. All the windows are air tight. The only way in is through the front door, which requires both a key and a fingerprint scan.”

Calhoun glanced at him sharply. “Do you have a key?”

“
Caine
had it last. The terrorist must have taken it. But we can shoot the electronic key pad which might slip the magnetic lock. Or it might lock it permanently.” In which case, they’d be screwed.

The former SEAL shut his eyes briefly. “Describe the RV’s layout,” he said in a flat voice.

Jackson described the interior as quickly and concisely as possible.

“You shoot the lock,” Calhoun said, glossing over the possibility of it jamming. “I’ll go in first while you cover me. You clear right, I’ll clear left.”

“Keep in mind that any bullets fired inside might ricochet,” Jackson added. “Don’t kill the terrorist.”

“You hear that?”

Jackson could hear Winston barking stridently inside the RV.
 

“Now,” grated the SEAL, bolting from their hiding place.

Jackson scrambled after him, chasing his shadow around the back of the MCC. Calhoun waited by the door as Jackson blasted bullets in rapid succession into the biometric lock, sending the components flying, sparks spraying.
 

Inside,
Eryn
screamed, a sound that spiked Jackson’s adrenaline. Dropping his empty magazine, he slammed a new one into his pistol as Calhoun tried to wrench the door open. To their mutual dismay, it didn’t budge.

“Fuck!” Calhoun threw his shoulder into it, and the lock released with a clunk. He practically ripped the door off its hinges as he flung it open, ducked into a crouch, and stormed inside. The only way to cover him was to fire up at the sky.

Ike honed in on
Eryn
like a heat-seeking missile tracking its target. But training dictated that he clear his left corner first, as Maddox cleared the right. Only then did he let himself absorb the horrifying vision that awaited them.

His revulsion made him want to fly headlong at the enemy without any thought to the consequences. He reined himself in, shifting over to give Maddox room to join him in the living nightmare.

The terrorist held
Eryn
captive, one bloodied arm locked around her neck, a knife pressed to her chin. Ike assumed the blood was hers, but then he saw puncture wounds on the man’s forearm and realized Winston must have bitten him.
Hooyah
!

On one side of the terrorist stood a laptop and webcam; on the other, an open briefcase containing a copy of the
Qu’ran
and a nine millimeter pistol. Looking back at
Eryn
, Ike was dismayed to see a thin line of blood sliding over the blade toward the terrorist’s hand.

Her face was ashen, her pupils dilated. She appeared to be in shock, but—thank you, Jesus—she was still alive and that was exactly how Ike intended for her to stay.
 

“FBI!”
Maddox announced. “Release the woman and back away.”

With his left hand, Ike withdrew the Python holstered under his arm. He aimed it at the terrorist’s forehead, while lowering his rifle. Firing at this range, even with the Python, would splatter gray matter all over the RV. What a shame he’d been told not to kill the fucker.

Maddox tried again. “Surrender now or be shot.”

The terrorist pressed his cheek closer to
Eryn’s
while shrinking behind her frame. “We will die together,” he predicted with preternatural calm.
 

“Like hell,” Ike growled. He thumbed off the safety.

“Don’t,” Jackson warned under his breath. “I’ll take him down.”

He did have a better angle, but if the terrorist moved at all,
Eryn
might take the bullet that was meant for him. “Wait,” Ike pleaded.
“
Eryn
.”
He addressed her directly, desperately. “Change the dynamics.”
 
If she ended up shot, he’d never forgive himself.
 

Recognition flickered in her eyes. Her fingers flexed on the terrorist’s arms. “Remember?” he prompted.
 

“Yes,” she whispered.

Hope hit
Eryn’s
nervous system like a mainlined drug, beating back the fear that had kept her docile. She knew what Ike was asking her to do.

Ignoring the blade tip embedded in her chin, she ordered the sequence of motions in her head.
Now!

Time seemed to slow as she executed each step with all the precision and power she could muster: tug, breathe, bend, sweep, twist,
yank
.

Yes!

She had no sooner wrenched free than a loud
Pop!
left
her ears ringing. The terrorist screamed in agony. A deep red stain blossomed on his thigh as he crumpled to his knees beside her. She stumbled against the kitchen cabinets, adrenaline storming her system.

The terrorist’s gun gleamed in the open briefcase right beside her.
Eryn
snatched it up, whirled, and aimed it at him. Over the residual buzzing in her ears from the gunshot, she heard Ike’s voice telling her distinctly to put the gun down.
  

“You!” she raged, her focus entirely on the terrorist.
“You pathetic excuse for a man.
You killed
Itzak
and Agent
Caine
. Don’t you think their fathers loved them, too? Don’t you?”
 

Clutching his wounded leg with one hand, his knife with the other, the terrorist gaped at her uncomprehendingly. “Shoot me,” he pleaded, clearly terrified of being captured.

“Don’t listen to him,
Eryn
.” It was Jackson’s voice this time, sounding like it came from a great distance.

She would never have to fear him escaping from jail if she shot him, would she? She wouldn’t miss, either, not at this range.

“Do it,” the terrorist pleaded, his eyes brimming with desperation.
 

The desire for vengeance burned in her, making her grip tighten. But then she realized killing him would make her just like him. “No.” She shook her head in horror. “I’m not like you,” she insisted, lowering the gun.
 

With a roar of frustration, the terrorist turned the blade in his hand and plunged it unexpectedly into his own chest.

Eryn’s
legs folded with shock. She fell to her knees at the same time that he keeled over, landing on the floor right next to her. A grunt tore from his throat as he pulled the knife out again. Blood spurted out like a fountain. With a cry of alarm,
Eryn
scuttled away, running into Ike’s legs.

He hauled her up swiftly. Scooping her into his arms, he carried her past Jackson, who’d dropped down beside the convulsing terrorist to staunch the wound with a towel.

Without a backward glance, Ike transported
Eryn
out of the RV into the sunshine.

Chapter Nineteen

Gripping Ike’s neck in a hold that might have strangled a smaller man,
Eryn
took in her pristine surroundings in amazement. How could such a God-awful experience have happened here, in this untainted landscape?
 

The soaring trees formed a canopy of every shade of green; the sky beyond it was a deep, cerulean blue. Not even the stench of gasoline could overcome the fresh purity of mountain air or the familiar scent of the man she loved. He carried her wordlessly past
Ringo
, who charged into the RV, and crossed the road, lowering her on a bench-sized boulder on the other side.

“Let me see,” he said, inspecting the slit that oozed blood down her neck. In the next instant he was ripping the material off the bottom of his T-shirt.

“I can’t even feel it,” she reassured him, surprised by the unfamiliar tremor in his fingers.

Ike was obviously shaken, his glazed eyes reflecting all the things that might have gone wrong.

“It’s okay,” she reassured him. “You saved me, Ike.”

Her words had him blinking furiously. “You saved yourself,” he insisted, smoothing her hair from her face. “I promise you’ll never have to again,” he added.

The words were uttered with such solemnity that she sensed some special significance to them, but, just then, Winston bounded toward them, giving her no time to decipher what he’d meant. The dog flung himself onto
Eryn
, licking her face and barking with unbridled joy.