Читать книгу Edge Of Truth - Brynn Kelly, Brynn Kelly - Страница 12

CHAPTER 6

Screw it. Tess had an automatic rifle—no need to pinpoint the bull’s-eye. She squeezed the trigger, fighting the kickback as she peppered the trees. The recoil shook her skull, strobing her vision. Her hearing muffled. Far away a man was talking. She couldn’t release her finger—the trees were becoming men, one by one, then a dozen at a time, closing in from all sides.

Something gripped her forearm. “Stop.”

She let go of the rifle with a start. The voice—it had been Flynn’s. Her hands reverberated—hell, her whole body shook. The hordes of enemy morphed back into trees. Crap. Had there been any real soldiers?

“You got them,” Flynn said, his voice soaring down from the stratosphere, his hand tight on her arm. From the gully the screams continued—or was that in her ears? Gunfire rattled, like a million balloons bursting in her head, the shouts of a dozen men laid on top. “We need to move.”

He swept the backpack on and pulled her up. She’d shot the two goons? Were they dead? She grabbed her rifle and stumbled after Flynn, clutching his hand like a lifeline. So much for keeping her distance. Hell, they were deep in this together; they might as well get blown up together.

The screaming rose in pitch, and broke into a shout. “La. La! Laaaaa!”

No, in Arabic? A single shot rang out above the rest. The screaming stopped. Flynn’s hand tightened. A faint buzzing circled, like a toy helicopter. She clicked her jaw but her ears wouldn’t equalize. She couldn’t hear her feet hitting the ground, though she could feel them, all right.

Something moved through the trees. She yanked Flynn’s hand. Too late. A guy ran toward them, raising his rifle. Flynn released her, spun, lifted his weapon. Kaboom. Everything exploded into light—the ground, the air, the trees. A force rammed her back and shoved her down, slamming her nose and mouth into the earth. She couldn’t breathe—she was buried under something huge and heavy. A boulder? A tree?

Someone had hit a land mine. Her? Flynn? Hail pelted the dirt—not ice but shrapnel, sticks, stones. The hulk on top of her shifted and groaned. Oh God—Flynn? His breath rasped like his throat was crammed with gravel. Then he went still and silent. No, no, no. She was panting so hard she couldn’t tell if his chest was moving against her back. She forced her face to the side, scraping her cheek on stones.

A flame flickered, lighting up a swirling fog of dust, flaring just long enough for her to identify the shape in front of her face. An arm. Only an arm. Too skinny to be Flynn’s. Oh crap—hers? She clenched both hands, scraping her fingernails through the dirt. All fingers accounted for. Her feet were evidently still attached—nothing phantom about the pain shooting from her toes to her thighs.

She gagged on the smell of dirt, smoke and she didn’t want to think what else. Footsteps approached. Flynn remained dead still. She swallowed a mist of hot dust. Beyond the bloody arm she made out two figures, slinking closer. Quiet, urgent voices carried. One of them kicked something, with a fleshy thud. Any second, they’d spot her and Flynn. Her rifle poked into her ribs but she couldn’t budge, let alone grab it.

The voices trailed off. The goons didn’t seem to be coming closer. They were...retreating? No way. Flynn was in head-to-toe desert camo gear, no doubt coated with dust and debris—maybe they looked like a rock? We might get lucky if our camouflage works.

Dark silence dropped like a blanket. A gulp stuck in her throat. Too scared to whisper, she forced herself to stop panting, ignoring the need in her lungs. Was Flynn’s chest rising? Was he breathing? Be okay, be okay.

A guttural curse scraped out of him. She relaxed into the ground. A swearword had never sounded so beautiful. He lifted off her with a groan, like it was a huge effort. She lay still a second, the sudden absence of his weight giving her the sensation she was levitating.

“Too close,” he moaned. “You okay?”

“You die or you don’t,” she rasped, rolling onto her back. He leaned over her, a shadow against the stars. She patted down his chest, his ribs. Intact. “I thought you’d...” She swallowed.

“I’ll live. You good to walk?”

She lurched to a sitting position. “I think so. You sure caused chaos.”

He pushed up into a crouch, grabbed her upper arms and lifted them both to their feet. “It wasn’t all me, sunshine,” he whispered. “That was some crazy shooting of yours. Not bad for a—”

“I hope you’re not going to say, ‘Not bad for a woman.’”

He groaned, dropping contact. “Not bad for a woman who couldn’t bring herself to kill a mouse a few hours ago. Jeez, Germaine.”

She wiped her dusty hands on her dusty trousers. “Honestly? I have no idea what just happened. What was going on down below?” She nodded to the gully. “Before we moved, before those guys...” Before I became a killer. “Someone else stepped on a mine?”

“I exploded the one you found.”

“How...? Wait—the reflective strip. You shot it.”

He winced. “It was meant to be a diversion. They were closer than I’d thought.”

“The screaming—it stopped. Abruptly.”

In the shadows, something crunched. A walkie-talkie crackled with static. Flynn pulled her behind a tree, his arm tight around her waist. Her rifle bumped a branch. She caught it. Beyond the spindly foliage the outline of a man passed, his movements jerky, too fixated on scanning the ground to spot her and Flynn. Chaos was right. These guys were spooked. Hell, so was she.

Another guy appeared—no, a woman—farther away, creeping in the same direction. Flynn tightened his grip, his fingers digging into her hips, his muscles tensed against her, all the way across his arm and shoulder and down his thigh. Last night—was it only last night?—she’d run her hands down those long, powerful legs. Yes, focus on that, not the goons with guns passing a few feet away. Then, Flynn had been a very fit body. Now he was every other kind of sexy, too—smart, brave, witty, protective. An all-round menace.

Words buzzed from the walkie-talkie. Nothing discernible. The woman looked directly at their tree, frowning. Trying to make out the message, or trying to identify the suspiciously thick shape? Tess held her breath. She’s staring into space. She hissed something to her friend and they skulked off.

Tess stood rigid. The soldiers melted into the darkness, their silhouettes no longer distinguishable from the trees. As silence returned, her scalp tingled. She stretched and fisted her fingers to stop the trembling. It didn’t work.

“We’re clear,” Flynn said, releasing her. “Let’s move, fast and quiet.”

At the next boulder he pulled out a fresh water bottle and offered it. She bent double, resting her hands on her thighs. She could barely inhale, let alone drink.

“Can you hyperventilate a little quieter?” he whispered. He laid a hand on the middle of her back. She suppressed the instinct to flinch. “Like I say, it’s a numbers game. We’re the needles, this is the haystack. We’ll stay here a minute, let them sweep on ahead. Enough enemy have been through that they’ll mark off this sector as checked.”

She took a deep, settling breath, resisting the urge to let it out in a hiss as she would to calm her nerves before a live report from the field. Straightening, she took the water. As she gulped, he slid her rifle off her back.

“If luck’s on our side, they’ll assume we’re pressing on toward that hill,” he said, ejecting the clip. “You have one more burst left.”

“Thought you didn’t believe in luck.”

“I didn’t say that. I said we create our own luck—and we have.” He checked his own clip.

Luck. There was a relative term. Was she unlucky to be stuck in a minefield, stalked by an army of goons, or lucky to be out of the dungeon with a kick-ass soldier on her side? Probably on her side.

Definitely on her side. Sheesh.

And the fact she was growing more attracted to him by the minute—would that prove lucky or unlucky?

Huh. Luck? Plain stupidity, more like. About time she cured her weakness for alpha military crap.

After today. Today, alpha military crap was keeping her alive, in body and hope. Next week, when all this was a memory of the did-that-really-happen kind, she’d make a psychiatric appointment. A lobotomy should take care of it.

He silently took the water bottle and slipped it into the pack, and handed back her rifle. “We keep going west, toward the village. You okay to lead? If you can concentrate on the ground, I can look out for enemy.”

“Oui, Lieutenant.”

She stared downward until her eyes adjusted enough to make out—or perhaps imagine—individual stones among the shades of black, then crept out from behind the rock. It felt like a boa constrictor was wrapping around her chest. Flynn grabbed her arm and pulled her into him. Oh God, what now?

“Not on the ridge,” he growled. “We stay under it. No silhouettes.”

She scooted downhill. They made steady progress, skirting suspect shapes on the ground—too round, too square, too regular, too pointy. She was probably seeing things, but at least it gave her something to focus on. Every foot they traveled eased the tightness in her stomach. Maybe this would be a lucky day.

Don’t say that.

Thank God for Flynn dropping into that hole—he might not believe in luck, but for her that’d been a blessing from above. Even if she’d managed to get out by herself, she’d have been caught in minutes. Her mind didn’t work nearly as quickly as his—but then, this kind of thing was his job. In her work she didn’t do anything—she dug into other people’s experiences and put them into words and pictures. All talk, no action.

Was that why she liked military guys? They were all action, from boots to buzz cut. Flynn must have some interesting stories—starting with his own history. Drawing that out would be a challenge, for sure.

After twenty minutes, the terrain began to level and they passed another triangular sign, facing away from them. She pinched her eyes shut for a second. Out of the minefield. Thank God. Flynn nodded as she pointed at the sign, but his focus was fixed ahead. Down a slight slope, light filtered through the thinning trees. Male voices trickled up. She squinted as Flynn inched ahead, the weak beam drilling into her brain, right behind her eyes. Two lights—headlights? Yes, a hefty vehicle parked at an angle. One of al-Thawra’s white Ford Ranger trucks. Crap.

Flynn made the get-down signal and dropped noiselessly. She crunched into a stack of dry leaves, silently cursing. He crawled over.

“They have NVGs—night vision goggles. Only one of them has them on his eyes right now. They’re probably part of a perimeter block.”

As her sight adjusted, she made out one of the guy’s faces, partially obscured by a cap but uplit by a mobile phone screen under his nose. Her jaw tightened. No mistaking the scar twisting his lip or his outsize military jacket. It probably still had her blood on it. The other guy looked familiar, too.

“Definitely Hamid’s guys,” she whispered. “So what now?”

He looked over his shoulder. “We can’t risk gunfire. Our advantage is that Hamid doesn’t know where we are and I’d rather not give it up. And we’re low on ammo.” He fell silent, frowning. Take all the time you need. She sure didn’t have any ideas.

“There are two of them,” he said eventually. “We’ll have more chance if I can split them up.”

He shrugged the pack off his back. In the silence, the zip roared like a fighter jet. Neither goon moved.

Flynn slipped a bottle out, unscrewed the lid and started shoveling dirt and small stones inside. It was the bottle she’d emptied down her top. When it was full, he tested its weight, scanned the terrain and crawled backward—into the minefield. He motioned for her to follow.

Goddammit. She followed him behind a prickly bush, her shoulders tensing. When would this night be over? How long since they’d busted out—thirty minutes? Several hours?

“There are more headlights to the north and the south,” he whispered. “Stationary, like these ones.”

“We’re surrounded.” The words caught in her throat.

“We only have to get past these two guys. Wait here and cover me—but only shoot if you’re about to die. If this doesn’t work, you can...” He glanced left and right, as if expecting to spot a TARDIS. “It’ll work.”

“What are you going to do?”

Silence.

“Right—you’ll tell me if it works. Wouldn’t want to blow your karma.” She raised a palm. “Not that you believe in it.”

“I’ll signal for you to come out when it’s safe.” He gripped the neck of the bottle and experimented with flicking movements.

“Be careful—the guy with the phone...” She inhaled. “He’s a psycho. Well, they’re all psychos, but that guy...”

“What did he do to you?”

She trailed her gaze to her feet, which pulsed in pain on cue.

His jaw went rigid. “I’ll treat him with extra care. Stay put.”

Flynn left the backpack and retreated into the minefield. She screwed up her face. Watching him creep through it was somehow more stressful than going in herself. He reached a clearing and hefted the bottle. It arced high into the air and landed with a cracking thud in bushes a couple of hundred feet away, on the edge of the scrub. Ah. Another diversion.

The psycho looked up from his phone. He waved the other guy away in the direction of the noise and leaned into the cab through the open passenger door. A radio crackled, silenced as he spoke into it, and crackled again. At what point would he call in reinforcements? Surely they’d first check that it wasn’t an animal?

So Flynn planned to pounce on the goon who was checking out the noise, then draw in Psycho and grab him, too? But wouldn’t Psycho call for support rather than go in alone? She chewed her lip. And wouldn’t the first goon see Flynn coming anyway, through his goggles?

Overthinking. Any plan was better than none. Trust him. Focus on covering him, not second-guessing him. She eased her rifle into position.

Minutes passed. Not even a twig snapped. Her heart felt like it was leaving bruises on her rib cage. The second guy had disappeared from her sight line. Psycho leaned back on the hood of the truck between the headlights and pulled on his goggles. Surely he’d see two figures, not one? From there he could open fire—she wouldn’t put it past him to take out his own guy, just to get Flynn. He yelled. His friend replied from out of sight. Oh God, Flynn. Stay alive.

She caught a flicker of movement behind the bed of the truck. Crap, a third man—bigger than the others. Flynn wouldn’t have factored him in. She fixed him in the scope, finger light on the trigger. Don’t shoot unless you have to—but don’t hesitate, either.

He disappeared from view behind the truck. Still no movement at the tree line. The beam of the farthest headlight flickered as a dark shape shot past. The new guy. She swung the barrel, searching for him. Psycho jerked backward. A column of light pinned two grappling figures, one wearing desert camos. Whoa. She eased her finger off the trigger. The new guy was Flynn.

He had Psycho in a headlock, his other hand clamped on his wrist, trying to wrestle away a handgun. Psycho shouted. They lurched out of the light and disappeared behind the truck. Scuffling, a meaty crack, a thud. Oh God. Dust puffed across the headlight beams.

The other goon ran out of the scrub, rifle leveled, shouting into a comms device on his shoulder. Hell, even if Flynn were winning, this guy would take him out. And then reinforcements would come...

She couldn’t just watch. Screw Flynn’s orders.

She jumped up and yelped, as if she’d hurt herself. The guy turned. She let out another screech and flattened onto the dirt, panting, directing her shaky fingers onto the trigger.

The goon’s face snapped up, scanning the bushes. Behind him, a figure staggered out from behind the truck, wearing NVGs and an oversize military jacket, tugging down his cap. Psycho. She swallowed a squeak. That crack she’d heard... Psycho wouldn’t have walked away if Flynn were alive. Tears stung. Shit, shit, shit. He was dead, and she was screwed.

No. She still had a chance, if she took out both goons before they started shooting.

One burst.

Don’t hesitate.