Naked Edge (52 page)

FUCKING HELL, NOT again.

STORM operator Alex Zane struggled to take a breath. Frantically, he fought against the menacing desert mirage as Afghanistan closed in all around him, binding him in a breathless straightjacket of horror. Desperately, he tried to block the piercing screams.

"No!" he cried. "Get the fuck away!"

Too late. No way out of the nightmare now.

He hugged his rifle to his body and burrowed his back into the rocky hillside above the Afghan village where he'd been sitting for hours, waiting for the signal to attack. Screams of pain echoed through the heat-shimmering air like sirens of death.

His comm crackled and his team leader's urgent voice broke over the headset. "Zero Alpha Zulu, this is Zero Alpha Six, do you read me?" Kick Jackson sounded urgent. But competent. In control.
Unlike Alex.

He grasped at Kick's voice, clinging to it like a shipwrecked sailor. "What's going on out there, Alpha Six?" Alex asked, fighting the panic.
Fucking breathe, soldier!

Kick's voice barked out, "Do not move in! It's a trap. Repeat, do not--Goddamn it! Drew! Get back here!" Kick swore again, and Alex could hear his sharp breaths, like he'd taken off at a dead run. In the background, the terrible screams grew louder. "Abort and withdraw!" Kick yelled, cursing. Then the comm went dead.

Suddenly, an explosion ricocheted off the mud walls of the village below. Alex flung his rifle onto his back and scrabbled up the rocky hillside to take a look. No way was he retreating, leaving Kick and the others to--

A dozen village men surged over the ridge just above him, pointing their weapons at his head and shouting. His pulse rocketed out of control.
Fucking
hell! He spun in the dirt and launched himself down the slope. He hit the comm. "Zulu under attack!"

His assailants swarmed after him. He had to lead them away from the rest of the team.

No!
Don't
do it! his mind cried out.
Don't--

Gunfire erupted all around. More screams.

Fire scorched across his temple and pain burst through his shoulder. He jerked and stumbled. The world tilted, then went black. But miraculously, he was still conscious. Terror crushed his chest. He scrambled up again and ran. Blind. My
God, he was blind!

He ran straight into a human hornet's nest. Vicious hands grabbed his arms, fingers yanked painfully at his hair, gun butts slammed into the soft organs of his body. He cried out in agony, striking back, kicking with all his blind fury.

His captors just laughed. And beat him until his flesh turned to red oatmeal.

Then they bound a rope around his ankles and threw him to the ground.

A raw sob escaped his throat.
Fuck, no! No. No. Fuck no!

"Alex?" Kick's reassuring voice floated in on a cool breeze.

Alex tried to yell an answer. But his throat had strangled closed on a mute cry. He knew all too well what came next. And there was nothing to do but endure it. Again.

Or go completely insane.

Which he might do anyway. Again.

"Alex?" Kick called from far away. Too far. He'd never reach him in time.

The motor of a Jeep roared and gears ground. He thrashed against his bonds.
Fucking damn it to hell!

The rope around his ankles yanked taut.
Oh, God, this was really happening.
He tensed his body. Prepared himself for the hideous pain.

"Alex!"

The Jeep jerked forward. So did he. A bloody layer of skin stayed behind on the ground.

He screamed.

"Alex!Wake up!"
The order was firm and clear, like the voice of God. It would not be disobeyed.

Alex surged out of his nightmare, wrenched upright with a lurch, and hit his head on the solid roof liner of an SUV.

Jesus!

He looked around frantically as he shook off the dregs of an illusion so real it made him doubt his own sanity. Tall buildings crowded around the vehicle. Horns blared on the busy street. Men in suits chatted on their Bluetooths.

He was back in Manhattan.

"Shit!" he cried, gulping down a painful gasp of much-needed air.
"Shit."
He grabbed the steering wheel and gripped it to steady his throbbing, reeling head. Harsh breaths stung his lungs as he forced himself to calm his raging insides.

Just another damn flashback...

On his first op for STORM Corps, he'd spent the day sitting in an SUV on a stakeout--not on some godforsaken mountaintop fighting insurgents. Thank God.

All too slowly, the debilitating panic and adrenaline subsided. Until, finally, he was able to haltingly unclench his fingers and stomach. Fuck. He'd never been claustrophobic before. But then again, he had never been a lot of things before... until the events of the past two years had taken their heavy toll. He shouldn't have been particularly surprised when the insidious panic swept over him, stealing the air from his lungs and thrusting him into a living nightmare of hallucination. But he always was.

"You okay?" Kick asked at length.

Alex exhaled heavily. Looked up into the worried face of his best friend, who was white-knuckling the edge of the open SUV window, leaning in. Not touching or reaching for him. Just observing, at the ready. He'd been through this before, the debilitating flashbacks. They both had.

"Fuck," Alex said aloud, shaking like a goddamn leaf. "Fucking hell."

"Yup," Kick said. Perfect understanding weighted his intense gaze. That day in A-stan when Alex was captured, Kick had been half blown up by a land mine and left for dead. It had been a long, long road back for both of them.

And it wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot.

But hell. Alex had really thought he was ready to go back to work. After all, the injury-induced blindness was gone, his body weight was back up to where it had been before the tender loving care of his al Sayika terrorist captors had starved it in half, his muscles were again firm and rippling... if under a web of angry red scars. He no longer flinched at sudden sounds or movements.

Much.

It was just the fucking claustrophobia that still got to him. Who'd have thought simply sitting in a closed vehicle would trigger it? He sighed. More damn fodder for his damn shrink.

He steadied his fingers and slashed them through his hair. "I don't know how long I've been out. Did I screw up? Is she home? Did I miss her?"

Her being Dr. Gina Cappozi, the object of the surveillance he may just have goatfucked all to hell. Gina Cappozi had also been a captive of al Sayika for three months, but here in the States, and for entirely different reasons than Alex. They'd brazenly captured her, beaten her, and compelled her to produce a horrific biological weapon to use against her own country, hoping to kill millions in an attack on U.S. soil. But she'd outsmarted them and foiled their plans.

After her rescue, the decimated terrorist organization was out for vengeance and had put a price on her head. A big one. Double the price they'd put on his and Kick's after his own rescue. Everyone, including Alex--hell, especially Alex--was expecting some fanatic jihadi to show up and collect on it any minute.

Thus Gina's protective detail, of which he and Kick were part. The operation was being run by STORM Corps--Strategic Technical Operations and Rescue Missions Corporation--Alex's and Kick's relatively new employer. STORM had been contracted for the mission by the Department of Homeland Security.

Initially, Alex had been on Gina's tag team, but he'd kept jumping at shadows, absolutely certain she was being followed by someone other than STORM. But no one else on the team had spotted any kind of tail, or danger, or anything suspicious at all. It was just him being paranoid.

Big fucking shock.

So he'd been reassigned to watch her brownstone--a throwaway job no one had thought he could possibly fuck up ... though no one had actually said it aloud.

How wrong they all had been.

"No worries," Kick told him now. "Dr. Cappozi's fine. She just got on the subway to come home."

It suddenly dawned on Alex that Kick was supposed to be on tag duty today with Kowalski. "Then what are you doing here?" he asked. "Are you sure nothing's happened?"

"Gina's safe," Kick reassured him. "But there's been a development. NSA picked up some interesting chatter overnight."

Alex was instantly alert. "What kind of chatter? About al Sayika?"

Kick nodded.

Alex narrowed his eyes. For many years both he and Kick had worked as operators for an outfit called Zero Unit, which was an ultra-covert black ops unit run from the deepest bowels of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. But after the deadly disaster in A-stan, and another near-debacle six months ago in Sudan, Kick was convinced al Sayika must have a mole working for them--either within Zero Unit itself, or for someone higher up, maybe in another government agency with close ties to ZU. How else could the terrorists have obtained such accurate details of both ill-fated operations? Details solid enough to sabotage the missions and leave most of the teams dead. When Gina had been taken right from under their noses at Zero Unit headquarters, there had been an investigation. Everyone had been cleared. But Kick still had his doubts. Someone had betrayed them.

Alex agreed. They were dealing with an inside traitor of the worst ilk.

So they'd both quit Zero Unit and joined STORM, a similar but non-governmental spec ops outfit. They were fairly certain that STORM had not been infiltrated by the terrorists. Last year, the organization had staged Dr. Cappozi's rescue in Louisiana, as well as Kick's retrieval of Alex over in Sudan--all without leaks from their side.

Dr. Cappozi's current protection detail was just part of a bigger mission: to find and eliminate the scumfuck traitor working as a mole in the U.S. government for the al Sayika terrorists. Dr. Cappozi was convinced the man they were looking for was her former lover, Captain Gregg van Halen, a Zero Unit operator who'd gone rogue shortly after her capture. The evidence supported her belief.

If she was right, this van Halen person was directly responsible for Alex's imprisonment and torture, Kick's terrible injuries, and the hideous deaths of their teammates.

For Alex and Kick, the mission was one of pure revenge. God help van Halen when the two of them got hold of him.

And they would. That was a fucking promise.

Kick finally opened the SUV's door and got in. "Quinn called a meeting," he said. "He wants us back at HQ, asap."

"What about the Cappozi place?" Alex asked, glancing uneasily at the three-story brownstone before hesitantly reaching for the vehicle's ignition. "What if I'm not being paranoid and--"

"Johnson and Kowalski have her six on the subway. And they're bringing in Miles to finish your shift here," Kick told him. "She'll be in good hands until Marc and Tara take over their regular watch at nine tonight."

Alex pushed out a breath. "All right." He checked the dashboard clock. It was just after five. "I guess that works."

Kick raised a brow as he put the SUV in gear. "You good to drive, bro?"

Alex gave a humorless chuckle. "Worried about my mental health?"

"Hell, yeah. I need to stay alive. Newlywed and all, remember?"

"Like I could forget," he muttered with a wry curl of his lip. Kick had been relentlessly happy since tying the knot. Not that Alex begrudged his friend. He was glad one of them was happy, at least.

He gunned the engine to life. "And damn, Kick. In case you hadn't noticed, everyone behind the wheel in this town is a fucking lunatic. Trust me, I'll blend right in."

GREGG VAN HALEN followed Gina Cappozi onto the subway car at the last possible second, making sure she didn't dart out again just before the doors closed.

She didn't. Didn't even try.

Not that it surprised him. For the past week, since returning home to Manhattan after her lengthy convalescence upstate, his former lover had done nothing to avoid being found. Nothing to escape the menace that lurked in the corners of the darkness, seeking to hunt her down.

Almost like she was taunting him. Or fate. Except for the occasional furtive, hollow-eyed glances she gave her surroundings, you'd never know she was in a constant state of terror.