Double Vision (17 page)

K
ate drifted in nothingness.

She no longer struggled or tried to focus. There was no pain, the burning had left her chest and her lungs had stopped aching. It was too late…

Something snagged her arm. She lacked the strength to look to see what it was. The something pulled at her, dragging then pushing, shoving her upward. No one shoved her! Angry, she opened her eyes—and looked into terror. Nathan’s eyes. Nathan’s face. Twisted in terror.
No. No, not Nathan. Not Nathan. He couldn’t lose Emily and then be forced to watch me die, too. He couldn’t!

The urgency in his touch, the fear in his eyes penetrated her malaise. He didn’t want her to die. She didn’t want to die. She especially didn’t want him to see it happen.

Fight, Kate. Fight. You know how to fight. You’ve al
ways had to fight for everything. If you want to live, then fight!

Yes, she knew how to fight. She could do it. She could. She shook the cobwebs from her mind. Failed. Tried again. Failed again. And kept trying until something inside her broke through and a spurt of energy miraculously appeared. She kicked hard, a feeble move, but to her, one that required Herculean strength.

Nathan cupped her bottom and shoved her hard.

She shot up, breaking through the surface, and sucked in a sharp gasp. Kate struggled to catch her breath while coughing up the water she’d swallowed, not at all sure she could keep herself above water.

Nathan popped up beside her, spewing water and gulping air. His chest heaving, he stared at her, clutched her arm and patted her on the back to help her stop coughing.

“Kate. Kate?” Nathan rubbed a hand over her head, smoothing back her hair. “Are you all right? Kate?”

He had saved her life. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, trickled down her face. She looked over at him and their gazes met. They shared a look acknowledging what had happened, a look of gratitude that puzzled Kate. She knew why she was grateful, but why was Nathan? “I’m okay,” she said, her voice husky.

Pulling her into his arms, Nathan hugged her to him. He shook from head to toe and his heart beat hard and fast against her chest. “My, God, Kate.” His ragged voice broke against her ear. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Awed by the force of his emotions, she circled his waist with her arms, pressed her face against his hard chest and clung to him. “Thank you, Nathan.”

His eyes red and overbright, he sniffed, and Katherine
Kane saw the tenderness in his eyes she had so envied with Emily.

Amazed by it, she lifted a hand to his face, tears washing down her face. “Oh, Nathan.”

Perplexed, he wiped a tear from her cheek. “What is it, sweetheart?” The skin under the bandages on his face crinkled and worry lines deepened at the corners of his mouth.

She heard the others, spared them a glance. “Everyone made it? Andrews?”

He nodded, and relief joined the other tumultuous emotions coursing through her. “I’m okay, Nathan,” she assured him. “I’ve just never felt this depth of caring from a man before—and I’ve never felt it for a man, either.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “And never in my whole life has anyone looked at me the way you’re looking at me right now. It’s…it’s humbling, Nathan. It’s just…so humbling.”

“A moment of grace,” he whispered softly, almost breathlessly.

“Yes.” That was it exactly. How had he…“Emily, right?”

He nodded.

Oddly comforted by that, Kate smiled. “I think I would have liked your Emily very much, Nathan.”

“She’d have loved you.”

She just might, Kate thought, recalling asking for her help in the cave.

An engine whined, stealing everyone’s attention.

A boat rounded the finger of land extending into the gulf, heading their way. Nervous chatter erupted.

“It’s GRID. It’s GRID!”

“No, Andrews, it’s okay,” Douglas cut in. “It’s my team.”

“Thank God.” Kate let her forehead fall against and rest on Nathan’s shoulder. She just didn’t have the steam to slay one more dragon. Not one more today.

“Kate?” Nathan whispered so only she could hear, his breath warm on her face.

She looked up at him, a ghost of a smile curving her lips.

“You said one time that you knew better than to expect love.”

Odd, that he would choose now to bring this up. “It’s the way I was raised, Nathan. I’m all I’ve ever had.”

“Not anymore.” He clenched his jaw, clearly half expecting her to rebuff him.

Kate wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry. She adored this man, admired and respected him, and she damn well thought she loved him. Though she couldn’t be sure, she knew that this man had changed forever the way Katherine Kane saw men.

More so, he had changed forever the way she saw herself. Kate was good enough and worth loving.

The question had changed to: was she capable of loving?

As she climbed into the boat, she was perplexed about the lack of GRID operatives pursuing them. Kate was certain Kunz would blow up the compound as he’d done others before, certain he would sacrifice his mother, but not at all certain he would sacrifice his new second-in-command, Marcus Sandross. And what about Gaston? That question, too, remained unanswered.

T
he outpost hummed.

Nathan’s men rushed in and out of the command center, from desk to desk, phone to phone, conversing with multiple people simultaneously on a host of pertinent topics.

Everyone understood the urgency of moving fast: to prevent GRID from making a successful land-based escape from the compound—with, or without, the weapons. Those in the need-to-know loop wanted to investigate the damage and to retrieve any and all surviving evidence.

Kate sat in Nathan’s clear cubicle in the center of the command tent, using a secure-line telephone to report to S.A.S.S. Waiting for authorization approval, she looked up at Nathan and Douglas, who had just walked in.

“Did you get them to the medic?”

Nathan nodded.

Douglas stuffed a hand into his fatigue pants’ pocket. “They’re having to medevac Mathis to Germany for his leg and his nose.”

Medical evacuations were a way of life when you were this deep in the field, so the news didn’t surprise Kate, but she felt bad for Mathis because he had to wait for treatment. The poor guy had been through a hell of a lot. “But he’ll be okay, right?”

“He’ll be fine, Kate,” Nathan said, dropping onto the edge of her desk. “And Andrews told me what you did for him.”

Having no idea what to say, she kept quiet.

“He said he had given up, but you wouldn’t let him. You breathed for him.”

Nathan had an odd catch in his voice. She didn’t know what to do with it. “Andrews and the JAGs are okay, too?”

“They’re fine. They’re all a little bruised and battle-worn, but they’ll recover.”

Glad to hear it, Kate took the cup of steaming hot coffee Nathan passed to her. It was black. He remembered that she liked her coffee black.

That warm sense of being cared for spread through her chest again. It settled in her stomach, soothing her, and while she had no basis to conclude it was love, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that feeling cared for like this was addictive.

She also knew she’d shoot anyone who considered offering her a detox.

Maggie’s voice cut through her thoughts. “May I help you?”

Damn it. Why couldn’t Amanda have answered the phone? Hell, the one she really needed to talk to was Darcy. “Home Base, it’s Bluefish.”

“What the hell is going on over there? The phones have been lighting up like Christmas trees around here for the past two hours.”

“We found another compound.” Kate wiped her hair back from her eyes. “Listen, I need to talk to Intel. Pull her in, okay?”

“Sure. Stand by one.”

Nathan sat behind his desk and signaled Douglas to pull up a chair.

Riley came in, carrying a tray of food. “Captain Douglas?”

“Is that for me?” He looked at the food on the tray and his mouth watered. He swallowed hard.

“Yes, sir,” Riley said. “The doc said liquids would be best for twenty-four hours, but the cook said you’d starve to death before then, and he wasn’t having it.” Riley passed the tray. “He said to put this into your hands myself. And I’m also supposed to tell you that he knew you were too mean to die.”

“Thanks, Riley.” Douglas smiled. “And thank Max for me, too, will you?”

“Yes, sir.” Riley shoved his glasses up on his nose and looked across the desk at Nathan and then over at Kate. “Can I get either of you anything?”

Kate’s stomach was too full of knots to consider putting anything in it. “No, thanks, Riley.”

“Sir?”

Nathan refused, then thought better of it. “Maybe a sandwich. I don’t care what kind.”

“Yes, sir.” Riley left the cubicle and then the tent.

Douglas dug into a bowl of beef stew that smelled pretty darn good. And the bread sounded crunchy. It was probably more stale than crunchy, though if Douglas’s expression was a decent gauge, he was dining on a feast fit for a king.

Smiling, Kate sipped at her coffee. She’d been that hungry. More than once.

“Bluefish?” Darcy’s voice sounded through the phone.

“Hi.”

“What’s up?”

“Everything.” Kate turned her attention to the report. “We located the compound, four detainees and Captain Douglas. Everyone’s out alive. The detainees had been tortured, though I’m not sure the extent, so you need to have special investigators on hand ASAP to check that out. Three are ambulatory and suffered minor injuries. One is en route to Germany for treatment.”

“How bad is he?”

“Banged-up leg and a nose that needs a new one jacked up under it.” Kate glanced over at Nathan, and asked. “Do you have names and serial numbers on Mathis, Andrews and the JAGs?”

“Riley?” Nathan shouted.

He popped in his head. “Yes, sir?”

“Name, rank and serial numbers on the hostages we rescued.”

He flipped through his clipboard and passed a sheet of paper to Nathan, who then passed it to Kate. She read them off to Darcy and then passed the paper back to Riley.

“Oh, boy.”

“What?”

“Do you realize the first woman you mentioned is a major contract negotiator? She acquires weapons systems for the DOD at Pentagon level.”

The Department of Defense. Military. All branches. Oh, joy. Wasn’t that just great news? “Well, you’d better have her damn double arrested pronto.”

“Did you get that?” Darcy asked Maggie.

“I’m on it,” Maggie answered.

Kate then relayed information on the weapons observed in the compound. From the looks on Nathan’s and Douglas’s faces, they were either impressed by her memory or awed by the sheer volume of weapons in the GRID arsenal.

Likely the volume of weapons. Even Kate, who had been exposed to far too much to impress easily, had been struck by it.

“So,” Darcy said. “You’ve connected the active weapons with his initials engraved in the casings.”

“No,” Kate corrected her. “I can’t verify any of the weapons were bio or chemical, just capable of carrying bio and/or chemical. I also saw rocket launchers capable of delivering them and they were marked with our guy’s initials.”

Kate paused, giving Darcy time to key in everything she was telling her, and then told her about the files. “There were hundreds of them. Maybe even more.”

“That’s chilling.”

“It was—is.” Kate licked at her lips. They were parched from all the salt water. “Did you get the transmission?”

“I got twenty-three names and records. The OSI and FBI are working jointly. They formed a task force and are rounding them all up.”

“Only twenty-three?” Disappointment washed through Kate and she sipped at her coffee to give herself a second to get a grip on her emotions. “There were hundreds of files on the computer.”

“Things were coming in fine,” Darcy said. “I fed back so it appeared a virus checker was on the screen there, and we were swimming along great.”

“Well, what happened?”

“All of a sudden I got a skull and crossbones on the
screen, and it locked up my system. Fortunately, I had safeguards in place—extra firewalls—or I’d have fried the entire unit.”

“Big Fish.”

“Him or his second-in-command, I figure.”

“Could have been him. He was at the computer when I last ran into him.”

“You ran into him? Did you take him out then?”

“No opportunity.”

“Too bad.” Darcy’s sigh crackled through the phone. “I ran a trace. It’s still zigzagging around the world, country to country. I figure it’s on a terminal loop and will never stop, but you don’t know, if you don’t try.”

Douglas swallowed a steaming bite of stew and lifted a finger in Kate’s direction.

“Just a second.” Kate hiked her chin for Douglas to go ahead.

Riley returned with Nathan’s sandwich. It looked like turkey, smelled like chicken. Bits of lettuce were falling out from between the slices of bread.

Kate leaned around Riley to see Douglas. “What?”

“Tell Darcy I saw two new boats with the same MO. Both flew French flags. They were riding low at sea and high on reaching port.” He spooned up a carrot. “I know they’re dumping weapons, I just can’t prove it.”

“Intel, Douglas says—”

“I heard. Any idea what’s happening?”

Nathan passed Kate half his sandwich. She shook her head, but he pushed it over, insisting, so she took it. “I know exactly what’s happening,” she said, shoving bits of lettuce back between the slices. “In fact, when I have a minute where I’m not in the middle of a crisis, I’m going to give myself hell for not figuring it out immediately.”

Nathan perked up. “You know how they’re moving the weapons?”

She nodded.

“How?” he, Douglas and Darcy asked simultaneously.

Kate set the sandwich down and sipped at her coffee before responding. “GRID used a method popular during the war between England and France, back when champagne was banned from England.”

“Come on,” Douglas snorted.

“Stow it.” Nathan frowned at Douglas and then looked at Kate, his curiosity clearly piqued. “That’s been a while.”

“Indeed it has, which is precisely why I didn’t think of it.” She snagged a bite of lettuce and chewed it up. “GRID puts the weapons in an oak barrel. Then they set the barrel into a larger barrel and fill the empty space between the two with rock salt.”

“Rock salt?” Douglas rolled his eyes.

“Hey, genius,” Nathan said. “If GRID dumped barrels packaged like that, they’d sink.”

“Exactly,” Kate agreed. “The Navy searches the vessel and finds no contraband, nothing illegal. The ship goes on.”

“So who retrieves the damn barrels?” Douglas emptied his bowl and hand-signaled Reilly that he’d like more.

Riley shot back a thumbs-up and headed out of the tent.

“No one retrieves them.” Kate paused to take a bite of her sandwich, chewed slowly just to drive Douglas nuts.

Darcy was chuckling in her ear, enjoying this. That alone made it worth it to Kate to drag it out. Darcy spent most of her life isolated and didn’t often have a chance to laugh with anyone else.

Douglas mulled over the information, then slapped at his knee. “Son of a bitch.” He flipped his hands up. “The rock salt melts.”

Kate nodded, a smile curling her lips. “It melts, and the barrels float. The tide takes them in, they crash into the rocks—”

Nathan chimed in. “Leaving the gouges.”

“And someone steers them into the cave,” Douglas said.

“Yes,” Kate said. “Then they float through the cave to the steps, where they’re removed from the barrels and the weapons are stored in the warehouse rooms until Big Fish sells them. Then he moves them out over land.”

“Damn it.” Douglas grunted. “Damn it.”

“We never considered he might use methodology so obsolete.” Nathan frowned. “We should have.”

“Obsolete but effective,” Kate said. “But don’t worry about it. The second you develop an opinion about the way Big Fish thinks or works, he takes a one-eighty and does something like this to prove you’re wrong. The man reinvents himself every time he turns around.”

The skin between Nathan’s eyebrows creased. “The two operatives who disappeared off the ship—divers were waiting for them in the water, and they took the men into the cave. That’s how they seemingly disappeared.”

“It fits, Commander,” Douglas said.

Stew in hand, Riley appeared at the door to the cubicle. “Sir, Search and Rescue needs for all of you to come down to the dock. They’ve found a floater they want you to take a look at.”

“Who do they think he is, Riley?”

“They’re not sure, sir. But they believe he’s Thomas Kunz. They know he’s in Leavenworth, but the guys there insist the floater looks just like him.”

“Let’s move.” Nathan slid out of his seat.

Douglas grabbed the bowl of stew and bottle of water, then headed to the tent door.

Kate dragged her weary body outside and slid into the jeep, beside Nathan. “You realize this is an exercise in futility.”

“Yes. At best we’ll be looking at a double, and I’m thinking it signals Sandross skipped out of the compound, too, and they left Kunz’s double to blow things up. Whether or not he knew it, that’s another matter.” Nathan cranked the engine and gunned the gas. “But we can’t very well refuse to take a look.”

They couldn’t. It’d be like sending out an ad that Kunz wasn’t Kunz. And believing Nathan was right about Sandross, as well, had Kate in a totally foul mood.

When they parked at the shore and Douglas hopped out, Kate put a hand on Nathan’s, silently telling him to wait.

“We’ll be right there, Douglas.” He shouted to him over the hood of the jeep.

“Yes, sir.” He walked on toward the dock.

Nathan looked over at Kate and fear flickered through his eyes, but he just waited for her to say what was on her mind.

He sensed it was personal, she realized. And it was. How did he do that? Tune into her that way?

Her mouth suddenly dry, she moistened her lips. “When this is over, I want to spend some time with you.” Her face felt as hot as an oven. What was wrong with her? “Alone, I mean. Well, not alone. Together. With you. Just you and me, I mean.”

The fear left him and a teasing twinkle she might just love replaced it. “Why?”

So much for his reading her. She frowned. “Are you going to rub my nose in it?”

“No, of course not.” He raked a thumb on the steering
wheel. “I just want to make sure we don’t have crossed wires here.”

“I am…I think…” She couldn’t talk because she couldn’t think. Nothing sounded right inside her head. It certainly wouldn’t, if she said it. This was insane.

Actually she supposed it wasn’t. He mattered. That was the problem. If a man didn’t matter, you had nothing at stake. But Nathan mattered. A lot. Enough to take the risks. So she plunged in. “I’m crazy about you, Forester. I want to be alone with you. I want us to do something normal, like normal people do. That’s the picture.”

He gave her a slow smile that rivaled the twinkle. “Oh.”

“Oh?” What did he mean by that?

“I thought maybe you wanted to jump my bones.” He sighed. “Well, we can do the normal thing, too.”

He was teasing her! “Jumping your bones is normal.”

“Good.” He nodded, looking totally pleased with himself. “Okay, Kate. We’ll spend some time alone together and do the normal thing, which includes you jumping my bones.”