Fatal Honor: Shadow Force International (27 page)

The man lunged at the same moment Miles’ swing came back around, the bat glancing harmlessly off the his back as he locked his arms around Miles waist and took him to the ground.

They both let out a grunt, the air was knocked out of them. The man landed a blow to Miles’ ribs; Miles smacked the end of the tree branch bat into the guy’s forehead.

The hit should have sent the guy into Loolooville, but the bastard was tough. They continued to scuffle in the snow, trading blows and wrestling to the death.

The storm broke open, the wind driving pellets of sleet into them as they rolled down hill. Miles lost the bat after banging into a trunk, his attacker’s body pinning his arm against the rough bark. The sleet was forming a layer of ice on the snow, creating a skating rink effect. As the two slid down the hill, Miles managed to knee the man in the groin, causing him to go fetal.

Still sliding, Miles came up onto his knees, grabbed the man’s shoulders, and used the momentum of their slide to whirl him around and slam his head into a rock outcropping.

The force of impact caused Miles to lose his grip and sent him heading straight for a huge tree, ice balls stinging his face like buckshot.

If he hit the tree going this fast, he was going to do some damage. He tucked and rolled, barely missing the trunk as he sped by, bark scraping against his backside.

He spun like a top, finally coming to a stop a few feet from the cabin’s back door. For a second, he lay there, breathing hard and looking up at the angry sky as the sleet turned to snow.

He needed to know the killer was dead. He could really use the gun, too. But hiking back up the hill would take too much time and might be somewhat impossible considering the ice.

Slowly, Miles rose to his feet. The fight hadn’t improved his headache, but at least his guts were no longer cramping.

Find Charlotte
.

Miles scanned the back door, the windows. No sounds came from inside, no activity. He made his way inside to double check, bracing himself in case her dead body was waiting for him.

Empty.

Dammit. On the one hand, Charlotte wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. On the other, she was gone.

The killer in the woods had had an accomplice and they must have driven off with Charlotte.

Miles’ backpack was on the kitchen counter, sitting next to Charlotte’s. His laptop was gone, however. Snatching up both backpacks, he headed for the door, praying the Land Rover, or whatever vehicle his attacker had been planning to use to get away, was still by the fallen tree.

Outside, the storm had officially gone into blizzard territory. With any luck, if the man in the woods was still alive, he wouldn’t be for long in the freezing temperatures.

As Miles started skating down the lane toward the Land Rover, he heard the roar of what sounded like a bear echoing down from the hillside. On the heels of that came a man’s strangled scream.

The scream ended abruptly and Miles paused for a second to look back. The forest was coated in snow, the trees standing like sentries staring down at him.

Miles turned away and continued his journey down the lane, fighting to breathe in the heavy, blinding snow.

It seemed like an eternity before he reached the fallen tree, a good, thick blanket of snow now covering the ice. He hefted himself over the massive trunk, the Land Rover still sitting in the same spot where he’d hidden it. The tire tracks from the other vehicle had all but disappeared under the new carpet of snow.

Nearly giddy with relief, he hoisted himself into the Land Rover. Tossing the backpacks into the passenger seat, he noticed a big duffel bag stuffed in the foot well.

Dragging it up to the seat, he pawed through it. Extra clothes, a couple of guns, a satellite phone.

“We are in business, kids,” he said to the quiet interior. “Let’s rock and roll.”

He got the motor running and drove as fast as he could considering he didn’t want to slide off the mountainside in the storm. The wheels on the Land Rover were heavy duty and ate up the snow covered lane without many issues.

Once he’d made the bottom of the mountain, he pulled out his cell. No service. Not that he’d expected any, but a man could hope.

Now what? He needed help and in a big way.

The sat phone.

Stopping for a moment, he jerked the thing out of the duffel bag and found the cord to hook it into the lighter. A minute later, he had Jax on the line.

“You
lost
her?” Jax said after Miles told him an abbreviated version of what had happened.

“I didn’t lose her. The jackwagon snuck up on me and knocked me out.”

“Jesus, man. Is she still wearing her Rock Star bracelet?”

“Yeah, I think so.” The bracelet had a GPS tracking device in it. “Can you trace it?”

“I’m on it.”

Jaxon called him back on the sat phone three minutes later. Which was good since Miles couldn’t sit still and had come to the end of the mountain lane. He needed to know whether to go left or right.

“Southeast,” Jaxon said. “She’s headed for Bucharest.”

Bourean’s mansion. “How soon can you meet me there?”

“Actually, we’re already here. In Bucharest, I mean.”

“We?”

“I’ve got a team, sort of. They just flew in from the States and we’re at the airport. Apparently Beatrice thought we might need backup.”

Beatrice was always right. God Jr. ate logic for breakfast, but she had a keen sense of intuition as well. He owed her big when he got back.

If he got back.

He was probably a hundred miles from Bucharest. Maybe he’d overtake whoever had Charlotte before they got to Bourean’s. If not… “We’re going to need blueprints for Bourean’s compound and a plan to get Charlotte out without staring World War III.”

“On it.”

The line went dead.

Chapter Eighteen

_____________________

______________________________________________________

C
HARLOTTE
C
AME
A
WAKE
slowly, her senses coming online one at a time. First she heard a loud whirring, like a giant bee buzzing under her. Next she smelled tires and damp carpeting. Mud, too. Her eyelids were heavy, but she forced them open, only to find herself in darkness.

She was lying on her stomach, her cheek resting on the damp carpeting. Her side ached, as did her head. Everything in her body felt sluggish, as if sludge was in her veins. Her tongue felt thick, her mouth dry.

I’ve been drugged.

She tried to reboot her brain along with her senses, but the neurons that were successfully firing were slow to come online and wake their counterparts.

For a few minutes, she just laid there and forced herself to breathe steadily and evenly. Her body bounced around and jarred a couple of times. She tried to bring her hands to her face, but found them handcuffed behind her back. That woke up more brain cells, a steady flood of memories coming to her.

The cabin. Norris.

Orlo.

Miles
.

Lifting her head, she took a deep breath and looked around. The droning bee was a truck of some kind—a Jeep—and she had been tossed into the back. The second row seats had been put down to hold cargo—her. The windows in the back were blacked out, but up front, she could see CB driving, his knit cap still on. Driving snow rammed the windshield, the wipers working furiously.

How far were they from the cabin? She had to figure out a way to stop Norris and get back there.

Was Miles even still alive? Her stomach roiled at the thought of him dead in the woods, wild animals shredding his body.

Dammit, she knew something like this could happen.

Well, not
this
specifically. She’d never dreamed her mentor would turn on her and deliver her into the hands of a monster.

But then, her own flesh and blood father had put her in a mental institute to shut her up. Why was it such a far cry for her handler to betray her?

Stupid. I’ve been so stupid.

No wonder MI6 believed she was a traitor. CB Norris had made that happen, covering his own traitorous activities.

At the cabin, she’d fought Orlo with all her might, trying to save Miles. After she’d landed a solid kick to Orlo’s shin, the assassin had hit her in the head with the butt of his gun. She’d gone down like a pile of bricks. Two hits to her head in one night was probably the reason her brain was having trouble rebooting. The drugs in her system, courtesy of CB no doubt, were making her body sluggish and out of sync with her head.

How long had she been out? How far down the road to Nico’s were they?

And how in the hell was she going to get rid of Norris and turn this Jeep around?

He was so focused on driving in the crappy weather, he wasn’t paying attention to her. The front seat was a bench, so the high back made a divider between them and gave her some cover.

Keeping an eye on him in the rearview, Charlotte slowly shifted to her side, working her zip-tied hands down and around her butt and legs. Her boots were an impediment, but she loosened her shoulders as much as she could. Stretching her arms for all she was worth in a fetal position, her arms finally had enough length to get her hands under her feet. She let out a silent breath and brought them forward.

Norris glanced up into the rearview, and Charlotte froze, closing her eyes. He didn’t seem to notice her change in position, probably because she was in the shadowy back.

After the truck didn’t slow and he made no comment, she peeked her eyes open and saw he was once more hunched forward and focused on the road.

Carefully, she turned her head in an arc, searching the backend for a weapon.

There was a spare tire near her feet, wheel chains for climbing mountain roads in the snow. Those chains would be an excellent weapon if they wouldn’t make so much noise when she grabbed them.

Where was a tire iron when you needed one? Hell, where was a gun when you needed one?

She felt the zip tie around her wrists, the Rock Star bracelet clanging against the hard plastic ties. If she could sneak up behind CB, she could throw her cuffed hands over his head and use them as a noose to strangle him.

But he’d be armed, and while strangling him would give her great satisfaction at the moment, his hands would be free and he could grab his gun, shoot her, and call it a day.

Of course, he needed her alive for his bargain with Nico.

Even if he didn’t go for his weapon, strangling him would send the Jeep skidding off the road. Jeeps were notorious for rolling and if they were on any type of mountain, she could end up dead along with him. That would not help Miles…if he was still alive.

He’s alive. I know he’s alive.

The rest of the inventory in the back of the Jeep consisted of a bag that probably held extra winter clothes, but maybe there was a weapon or something in it as well. If she could at least threaten the son of a bitch, he might pull the Jeep over and get out peacefully.

Who was she kidding? Her handler wasn’t the type of operative to go peacefully into the night.

It was going to be a fight. One where she might die.

So be it
. Better to go down fighting than end up in Nico’s hands again.

Charlotte shifted slightly, hooking the duffel bag’s handles with a boot toe and scooting it up toward her hands. All the while she kept an eye on CB.

In the distance, she saw lights on the horizon, shining through the blinding snow. They were getting close to a town, a village. Already going slowly because of the weather, CB would have to slow down even more.

That’s my chance.
Flat ground, slow-moving vehicle. Even if they did roll, she’d survive.

And then she’d do whatever it took to get back to Miles.

And kill Orlo.

Suddenly, clearing her name with MI6 didn’t mean as much. Stopping Norris, his assassin, and Nicolae Bourean meant more. Between the three of them, they’d taken her mother from her, caused her dad to turn against her, and tried to carve the very soul out of her. If Miles
was
dead…

She gulped. Then they had succeeded in taking everything.

She felt around the duffel but found nothing more than clothes and a blanket. Norris didn’t slow down as they winged through the village. No one else was out, not even snow plows, so his drive was free of everything but the snow.

With no gun to hold to his head, she couldn’t force him to pull over. There was only one way to stop the Jeep and that meant attacking him. She really needed her hands free.

Charlotte ran the scenario through her mind. How she would scoot so she was directly behind him. How she could pop up on her knees, swing her arms over his head, and yank backwards, effectively pinning him around the throat.

She worried the bracelet’s charm with her fingers.

Shinedown had said it held a GPS tracker, which was why Miles had insisted she wear it, but who would find her out here in time?