Anything, Anywhere, Anytime (31 page)

Almost there. The next barrack-style building. Blood thundered in his ears.

Six would go inside to secure hostages. Ten would guard outside the building through seizing the compound.

One company of Rangers had been specifically tasked to sweep past this particular building first. Fast.

He scanned the UWB along the wall. One heat source. Two. And... Nothing.

There were only two people inside the cell.

Intensity upped the adrenaline. Rekinked his muscles. He prayed to a God he wasn't even sure existed anymore that Sydney would be inside that building.

Time to go in. No alert from the compound, so no need to set explosives and mousehole through for speed.

Only seconds more and he would have her safe.

He made eye contact with the other five team buddies heading in with him.
Go.

Adrenaline surged. Two shots, he double-tapped the guard outside the door.

By mutual consent, he was first in. No one questioned his right. Unhooking the key off the dead guard, Blake stepped over the lifeless body, opened the door...

A man. A woman. Both familiar faces from hostage profiles. Neither one Sydney. The hostages Kayla and Phillip stared up with shell-shocked surprise from a cot and card game.

Blake's brain sparked with miniexplosions. Embers flecked his vision.

Carlos spoke first. "U.S. Navy, we've secured the building. We'll be holding position until the rest of the compound is in our control."

Blake charged in. "Where's the other hostage? Where's Sydney?"

Kayla cowered closer to Phillip. "They took her for questioning during our walk this afternoon. She never came back."

No. His mind refused to accept it. He'd seen her walk earlier, could have sworn she looked right at him, but then she'd left, returning to her cell, he'd assumed. "Where?"

"Barracks next door."

He'd walked right past her.

Blake spun, charged around. Carlos clamped a hand on his arm. "Hold on."

"Get your goddamned hands off me. I'm going in."

Carlos's grip stayed firm. "I know. I'm going with you."

Blake nodded, the thanks understood between them. Leaving the two hostages with the other four team buddies, Blake swept past without a word. He retraced his steps. His feet hammered sand in time with his heart. He resisted the urge to blast in. Re-conned the perimeter instead. Found a window.

And there she was. Pale, but alive. Relief surged so strong he almost vomited.

He swallowed down bile, reined in emotions, scanned the UWB across. Found one other person in the room.

Blake held up his pointer finger to signify his find to Carlos.
The bastard's mine.
Carlos nodded.

It was almost too easy. The door was even cracked open. He could see Sydney just beyond the man even though she was still oblivious that help was on the way. She stood, unwavering, seemingly unharmed, wearing the dirty brown jumpsuit given to prisoners. Still alive and being questioned.

Blake shifted his attention to the target. Medium height. Dusty khakis and a stained linen shirt. Am-mar al-Khayr?

He hoped so. Burned for it to be true because in seconds this man would die.

How? A shot would be risky, could go through and hit Sydney. He never even considered missing.

He eased the door open farther. A garrote would be too messy and horrific for Sydney to see.

His fingers closed around his knife. There was no other way. And no way to shield her completely from watching the man die.

He allowed himself one second to look at her before he would have to spring into her line of sight to attack.

He absorbed the image of her...just in case this went to shit and he died. And damn but she was something.

Small signs showed her fear, the twitch of her pinky at her side. Her lips pressed slightly too tight. But overall she was standing as tall and brave as any warrior he'd ever seen. A warrior.

How many times had she told him she had battles to fight just as he did? She understood the risks but insisted she couldn't simply sit back and hope someone else would take care of problems.

Her work put her in the line of danger in hopes of erasing the danger for others. Just like his job, except he wasn't called in until all other options failed. Sydney tried to fix things before they went to shit. Before the military was left with no choice but to pull their knives and take out the enemy with force.

Why the hell hadn't he seen that before? His need for vengeance faded by a few degrees as blending Sydney's perspective with his own blew away enough of the cobwebs for him to see clearly again. He only needed an end to this camp and Sydney back in his arms. Not vengeance.

His haven wasn't a house and white picket fence. It was this woman. Yet he'd tried to make her deny the very things about herself that made him love her.

And in seconds he would kill a man in front of her. Blake accepted the inevitable. Once she saw the total darkness of where he existed, she would never come back to him. A price he had to pay to keep her alive.

He moved in. Fast. Silent.

Sydney's eyes widened for a flash. Long enough for the man to stiffen, but not long enough for him to turn before—

Blake clapped a hand over the man's mouth and slid a knife between his ribs. The man jerked. Blake shoved deeper. Twisted. Hot blood surged over his hands.

The body went limp.

Sydney's tear-filled eyes held Blake's over the dying man's shoulder while blood puddled on the floor.

Blake flung aside the corpse. Stepped forward and caught Sydney already flying into his arms. He pressed her face against his neck, shielding her from death at their feet.

Shielding himself from seeing death in her eyes.

Behind him, Carlos called in, "Hostages secure. Ready for the Rangers."

"Five minutes," called the jumpmaster at the aft door.

"Five minutes," Drew repeated, passing the call to the next Ranger in line seated beside him in the cargo hold.

The echo telegraphed down. "Five minutes, five minutes..." Waking, rousing, readying. Soon this would be over, mission complete, Rubistan in his past.

Calls mixed with the roar of engines and tension filling the metal cavern along with the sound of shuffling bodies, some praying, others snoring. Yet his mind was blank. Training, right? Hell, yeah. Not because thoughts of Yasmine Halibiz pissed him off. Made him fighting mad. Spitting fire instead of...

Shit.

Yeah, he believed her. She wanted asylum. She'd probably even convinced herself she felt something for him to justify her actions. But how the hell could he trust her, forgive her? He'd lived in a world of clear-cut routines, precision, right and wrong for too long.

He was better off doing what he did best.

Drew focused on the two aft hatches. One directly beside him. As the colonel, the commander, he would be first out. In charge.

At least here, anyway.

"Stand up," the jumpmaster shouted, his order rippling back.

Focus. Routine. Clear-cut. Drew stood.

"Hook up."

Reaching up, he hooked his lanyard to the static line, which would trigger his chute to deploy on time. He checked the static line. Clean. Straight. Not looped around to rip off an arm when he jumped. He inspected for the man next to him, a routine that mirrored down the row just like the calls. By rote, his hands checked his Kevlar helmet, both buckles.

Focus settling. Hoo-uh.

"One minute."

Shifting, he made his way toward the open hatch, suited and geared up as he had a hundred times before.

Eighty pounds of rucksack. Chute weighing thirty-five pounds. Reserve chute adding fifteen more. And he wasn't even carrying near as much as the medic behind him.

Sweat poured down him from the weight and adrenaline. Welcome familiarity. Nothing throwing his world off balance like...

Nope. Not going to go there in his mind.

He stepped into the open hatchway, assumed the position. Pitch-black void waited.

Clear-cut. Absolutes. His dependable life. He could already feel the exact timing of what would happen next, a precise replica of times before—

"Go!" The jumpmaster signaled with the traditional slap on the ass.

Jump out the door and count to four...three... two... one.

Whoomp.

The chute deployed. Streaked. Filled. Jerked.

Drew pumped his feet in the air to spin himself and untangle the cords. Even though visibility was next to nil, he watched for others in the air, checked the chute for a line streamed over, creating a Dolly Parton or a Mae West as they used to call it. Hell, the new recruits were probably calling it a Pamela Anderson.

He'd been around a helluva long time.

And in the middle of all the familiarity he was always stunned anew by the silence, the peace after the roar of the airplane. With a sneak attack, it wasn't like being dropped into a hot zone rife with gunfire below.

Just opaque, silent sky. The calm before the storm to come. He could lose himself in that sensation.

Just like he'd lost himself in Yasmine the night before.

Hell. He wanted the sky back. He owned it. And now she was even here. He could almost see her damned daisy scarf calling to him on the horizon.

Thank God, his body worked on instinct. She hadn't stolen everything.

Fifty feet to go. He pulled release straps on his rucksack and grabbed his risers, pulled toward his chest, changed the drift of his parachute. Listened for the reassuring
thump
of his rucksack hitting the ground, his eyes on the horizon. Pulled in harder. Harder. Arms straining. Drawing risers in until by landing his fists met.

Feet and knees together. Fall to the right, M-16 strapped to his left leg.

He hit the release straps on his chest, cutting the top half free to deflate the chute. Lightning-fast, he outrigged from the harness. He whipped out his 9 mm, ran a function check. Unstrapped the M-16 from his leg. Repeated function check.

Troops ditched chutes and converged in preplanned groupings, spreading. And even as he hooked up with his RTO for radio transmissions, threw himself into full battle mode, Yasmine trickled into his thoughts. As much as he told himself she was nothing more than a mistake in his past, he couldn't stop the soul-deep relief over knowing she was safe at the airbase.

Plaster raining from the ceiling, Sydney slid farther under the desk, hugging her knees to her chest and praying the roof wouldn't collapse in on her. Gunfire stuttered outside. An explosion. Light splashed through the window. Brighter.

Closer this time.

Blake's arm slid over her shoulders to tuck her against him, a tight wedge for them both under the desk, but the safest place in the room until the battle passed. Carlos guarded outside the door as the first line of defense, Blake keeping her secured inside while the fight for the compound unfolded.

She tried not to tense in his arms. This was Blake touching her. Breathe. In. Out. Relax.

Plaster and dust from the dank interrogation room clogged her throat. Great. Ugh. She coughed. At least she didn't have to look at the dead man. Ammar's henchman.

She shuddered.

Blake's embrace tightened. "Hang in there. This will be over fast. I swear."

She wanted to believe him but couldn't imagine how a compound that held at least a couple hundred trained terrorists could fall so soon.

Although the U.S. military had certainly started the operation quickly and silently enough. With Ammar and his men already preparing to move the camp, she'd been terrified Blake would be too late.

And then there he'd stood. Taking down her interrogator—Ammar's right-hand man who'd continued the questioning after Ammar had been called away to prepare the camp for moving. If Blake had been just an hour earlier...

But there would have been two men with her then, both Ammar and his second in command. Somehow she knew that wouldn't have stopped Blake. "How long do you think it will take?"

"Twenty minutes at the most, and they'll have the compound under our control. There may be some stragglers to gather up, some outbuildings or escape routes to secure, but we'll be on the watch for them.

It'll be over."

God, she wanted to believe this horror would soon be past, but knew an end to the nightmare would probably take a little longer for her. "I still can't believe you're here."

"I should have come sooner," he said, words punctuated with gunfire, another explosion.

"You shouldn't have had to come at all. I'm sorry." For so many things.

"You don't have anything to apologize for." His chin rested on the top of her head to fit under the desk, his hands firm on her back but unmoving. "Your sister's here, too. Well, not right here, but close by. She'll be landing in a medivac C-17 once the initial hostilities have passed."

Tears prickled, joy a welcome emotion after months without it. "Monica? Oh, my God, is it totally selfish of me to be glad she's in the middle of all this?"

"Once she found out the mission was in the works, nothing could stop her."

Memories of neatly sealed lunches came back to slug her hard. "Sounds like my take-charge big sister."

"She thought it was important to be here for you, that maybe all of this would be easier if she was the one to check you over rather than a doctor you've never met."

"She's right. I can't imagine telling someone else..." She swallowed down acid. Monica would be devastated when the medical exam revealed the full impact of what had happened in this place.

Rat, tat, tat.
Gunfire. Shouts. Running feet and a scream. Mayhem reverberated outside while inside she heard the anger in Blake's heartbeat, his labored breaths. Would he blame her after all? Be disgusted by her? She waited, wondered what he would say.

"Do you want to talk about it, being taken and...after? he asked with a calm contradicted by his tensed muscles.

"Not yet, if that's okay."

His arms relaxed a notch, if not totally. "Probably better we hold off on that until we're both leveled out."

"I think so, too." Details would trigger his tightly leashed rage. She knew this as well as she knew him.