Hot Ice (50 page)

Hunt picked her up, which was a big relief, because she itched all over just thinking about all those snakes.

"Nothing to worry about, love," Hunt told her calmly as he walked. "Just keep everything closed until Navarro checks you out. I don't think it's hers."

She guessed he meant the blood. "Sava—"

"Shut up," he said, sounding annoyed.

She shut up.

"Navarro? Talk to me."

She frowned, trying to concentrate on Hunt's voice. She could feel it resonate against her chest.

She liked it…

She loved him…

She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach. Hot. Cold. One minute she'd been fine—She shuddered. My God… Had Savage shot her? Frowning hurt, she discovered. The thought slipped away in a whirling mist. She'd never been sick a day in her life. Never.

She didn't like it.

She blinked her eyes open. They stung a little, as though she'd been crying—had Hunt made her cry? She didn't remember.

If not now, then later, she thought as a man swam into her vision.

Devil eyes came toward her, his hair mussed up. He had lovely hair. She tried to smile. Tried to tell him…
something
. "Hi, Daklin."

He scowled at her, but his voice was soft, "Hi, honey, howzit going?"

Her vision dimmed. "Not so hot."

"Put her down over here. I want that washed off ASAP."

ASAP was a great word. "A sap."

Hunt laid her down on something hard. She whimpered, and he pulled her back against his chest, then sat down with her in his arms. Much better.

"Think I want
two
fucking patients," Daklin demanded, spritzing something cool on her face. It felt good. "What happened?"

Good question. Her lips felt thick. Unresponsive. And it was getting harder to breathe. She had to get help. "H-Hunt…" She needed Hunt now. Right now. Something was horribly wrong.

She whimpered. Horrified at how pathetic she sounded. She tried to shake him off. He held her tighter.

Someone held her face still. Cold water poured over her head and chest. "Hang on, honey, let me get this crap off you, okay?"

She tried to frown. Why was it that none of her muscles worked? "Not—" She couldn't remember what she was going to say.

Her head flopped against Hunt's chest and she heard the rapid
pat-thud-thud
of his heart under her ear.

"Was she hit? Keep spraying her with that," Daklin instructed someone.

"The blood's not hers," Hunt said, sounding grim. "She does have cuts and abrasions…" He faded out.

"… have to tell you the severity… cutaneous
and
inhalation—anything up to… anthrax… sake!"

Her tongue felt fuzzy, her brain muddled. Suddenly Hunt was moving at superhuman speed and everything blurred and blended sickeningly.

She blinked to clear her vision, frowning as she attempted to wrap her mind around the fact that she must be underwater, as everything undulated in a wavy back-and-forth motion that made her sick to her stomach.

"Tell me where you hurt, darling."

She gritted her teeth. She'd tell him if she knew, but then maybe not. The task of speech was so overwhelming, and the pain so vast…

"I hate to point out the obvious, pal. But you're bleeding like a stuffed pig yourself."

"A scratch. Stay with me. Damn it… hell. Stay… chopper… ASAP…" His voice sounded terrified. "Bloody hell, open your eyes!"

Hunt. Hunt. Hunt
. She wanted to comfort him, opened her mouth. Nothing came out but a whimper. Oh, God, that couldn't be good, could it? She tried again, forgot what she'd been trying to do as her brain went cottony. But she felt so far away. Spinning into a huge echoing void. Falling through the earth at a million miles an hour. She felt so small. So lost.

Seven levels of hell. Hot.

Violent tremors coursed through her body, shaking her muscles and hurting her bones. The three-headed dog blew fire on her, singeing her skin with the heat of its breath.

Other hands on her. Helping Hunt turn her over. A laughing voice. Not Hunt's, for sure. "She's very well accessorized, I see… out of the LockOut?"

Every touch hurt her skin.

"Jesus, don't cry," Hunt said raggedly, and Taylor felt the warmth of his fingers brush the acidic tears off her cheek. "Hell, yes. Let's strip her. That shit's all over her. See what we're dealing with here. Navarro, find something to keep her warm, she's going into shock."

Rough hands yanked down the zipper on the front of her cool spy suit.
Don't
, she wanted to say, but nothing came out except deep, bone-jarring shudders that shook her body and made her teeth chatter. She tried again. Important. "Brief… case. Don't leave—"

"Christ! She's going into convulsions!"

Chapter Fifty-five

It was an operation of monumental proportions. The rail-cars being loaded were hastily uncoupled, leaving just the engine.

Hunt was carrying an unconscious Taylor. There were a dozen men being triaged before going topside. Savage was one of them. She'd been shot in the shoulder and was unconscious.

Hunt barely spared her a glance as she too was loaded into the railcar. He fixed his gaze on Taylor's colorless face, her blue-tinged lips…Jesus bloody Christ. It could be anything.
Anything
!

Double click on his headset. "Give me some fucking
good
news," Hunt snapped.

"Thanks to Taylor, we're clear," Daklin told him jubilantly. "The missile has been neutralized and formally put out of business."

Hunt closed his eyes for a second as relief swamped him. "Daklin did it," he told the others.

A cheer went up. A brief show of relief before everyone got back to work.

Navarro started up the electric engine. "Good news indeed. And thank God Morales at least had the foresight to make his own access and egress swift. It's a hell of a lot faster getting out than it was getting in."

While they traveled through the tunnels in the railcar, Hunt kept her on his lap, her head against his chest, her breathing shallow. Daklin messed with Hunt's bleeding side until he told him, in no uncertain terms, to leave him the fuck alone. The only person he wanted to be receiving medical attention was Taylor.

Her confused state, the heat of her skin, and the convulsions scared the hell out of him. Scared Daklin too. And, if anyone, Daklin would know just how scared to be. There were so many biotoxins. So many
lethal
biotoxins in that hellhole.

The possibilities were infinite, for Christ's sake! Hunt went over every single possibility. None of them were good.

Twenty minutes later they were at the surface level.

It was dark, cold, and clear. The first chopper, which delivered Morales, had landed close to the entrance of the mine. The
whop-whop-whop
of the chopper blades thundered through the air, its lights a bubble in the darkness.

Hunt, Taylor in his arms, ran. He ignored the fire in his side and bolted like a sprinter trying to break the three-minute mile.

Navarro yanked open the door, climbed in, and reached for her. Hunt didn't want to hand her up, but he had no choice. Navarro took Taylor in his arms while Hunt climbed in. Daklin handed Savage up, then followed her in, yanking the door shut behind him.

"Go, go, go," Hunt yelled at the pilot, and the chopper took off in a smooth, vertical lift.

The medic clambered around the others. He looked from the blanket-wrapped but clearly naked Taylor, to Savage sprawled on the floor, to Hunt's side. "Which patient should I take first?" he asked.

"Navarro, see what you can do to contain Savage's bleeding," Hunt replied. "Here's your priority, Doc," he said, nodding at Taylor. He felt irrational. Insane. Out of his mind with worry.

"Let's have a look then, all right?" The doctor's Afrikaans accent was thick and hard to understand. Hunt needed every nuance to be crystal clear. The doctor peeled off the blanket, leaving Taylor pale and bare against the gray wool blanket. The Blue Star diamonds winked like white fire around her slender neck.

She looked vulnerable, defenseless, lying there. Hunt wanted to punch something. Someone. "What can I do?" he demanded, feeling helpless as he kneeled on the other side of her.

"Take the necklace off, okay? I'll check her out."

Hunt fumbled with the clasp, then drew off the heavy jeweled collar and stuffed it into his pocket. He kept his attention on the man's hands as they traveled competently over Taylor's still body. Her pale skin looked translucent. Fragile. Her eyes sunken and shadowed, her lips white. She appeared as if every vestige of her life force had been sucked out of her.
Ah, Jesus
!

"Tell me her symptoms from the very beginning, will you?" the doctor said, then continued examining every inch of Taylor's skin as Hunt rattled off everything he'd observed.

The symptoms
sounded
almost as bad as watching her experience them. The doctor merely made a sound in response and continued checking her. Hunt's heart was firmly in his throat as he watched the man's every move.

Panic, an unknown emotion, swamped him. He reached over and took Taylor's limp hand, then noticed that his own hand shook. Bloody hell. His hands
never
shook. "Navarro, find out our ETA… Well?" he demanded, as the doctor took his sweet time.

"No lesions—not yet, at any rate. Can somebody hold a light?
Ja
, like that.
Danke
," he told Daklin as Daklin trained his searchlight near his hands. "Let's turn her over."

Hunt's jaw clenched as he eased Taylor over onto her stomach, turning her head gently to face him as the doctor ran his fingers over her back and down her hips and legs all the way to her slender feet.

"There are a couple of good hospitals closer," the doctor told him. "But I want to take her to Jo'burg General. They have an excellent poison control unit. Without knowing what the substance is, I can't risk giving her anything until the lab identifies it."

"You can't just do
nothing
," Hunt insisted, feeling his own heartbeat escalate as his fear grew.

The doctor raised his eyebrows. "The wrong antidote could kill her faster than the poison. Without proper lab work, I can't even risk giving her fluids. They might speed the absorption rate of whatever is in her system. Do you understand?"

Yes. Hunt understood. He understood that his heart was being ripped out, as every second Taylor slipped further and further away from him.

"ETA, thirty-eight minutes," Daklin yelled over the sound of the blades.

Too long. Too goddamned long.

"Taylor will make it," Hunt said as he met the doctor's eyes. "She
will
make it."

But the expression on the doctor's face told him that was highly unlikely.

Chapter Fifty-six