Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (39 page)

“Shhh... Honey, it’s okay. I’ll get
you to a hospital as soon as possible.” She was still aware enough to see the
pain and desperate anguish etched on his blood and paint smeared face. “Hang in
there! Do you hear me, Hanna? Hang in there. I’ll take care of you.” But she
barely heard his words this time as she slipped from consciousness, clutching
his forearm.

CHAPTER
27

NICK FELT HANNA GO LIMP IN HIS ARMS
and instantly checked for a pulse, placing two fingers at the base of her
throat. Relief washed over him when he found that she still had one, faint
though it was. “We need to get her to a hospital fast!” he growled in savage
frustration.

Kurt had just backed into the
elevator. He hit the button that closed the doors and took them down to the
docks. Nick was still pressing his shirt tight against Hanna’s lower wound, but
she had lost a lot of blood. The bullet that had struck her below the waist might
have ruptured something internal. He couldn’t tell exactly where it was. He had
to get all of them out of here first. The other bullet had struck her in the
shoulder region, and while it was leaking blood, it wasn’t bleeding as heavily
as the lower wound. Thank God, the entry point was above her lungs and heart!
It couldn’t be dismissed, but it didn’t appear as dangerous as the lower one.
Christ, the bullets had gone in just above and below the damn Kevlar vest he’d
put on her! He had to get her some replacement blood as fast as possible. Shit,
she needed the best doctors available and a trained trauma unit! Shaken to the
core of his being, he curled her tighter in his arms and bent to kiss the top
of head. Her lack of response tortured him.

He looked to Kurt. “Get the Coast
Guard on your SAT phone and have them meet us at Stormy Harbour with their
fastest medical evac helo. I want to be in the air to Port George within a half
hour. Then call Trisha and have her round up a top-notch trauma team from
Harbor View. Tell them to get to George Vancouver County General as fast as
they can.”

“How serious are her wounds?” Lance
asked from the rear of the elevator.

“Serious,” Nick answered grimly.

“Let’s fly her to Harbor View then,”
Kurt responded. “They have the best trauma unit in the region.”

“It’s too far to Seattle.”

“Victoria?”

“Port George is just as close,” Nick
snapped back in reply.

“You’ll never get her and yourselves
out of here alive,” Li Chen interrupted with a sneering chuckle. “Give
yourselves up to the Sheriff and let my doctor here take care of her. At least
she’ll live.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Nick snarled. “If
she dies, so will you, even if I have to break into a jail cell to do it.”

“I won’t go to jail. I’m a Chinese
citizen.”

“You’ve just been extradited,” Kurt
advised him with a short humorless laugh. “By now half the FBI, DEA, and the
Canadian authorities in the region have gone into your compound to shut your
operation down.”

Chen paled and said nothing more.

The elevator door opened. “Did you
take out all the guards?” Nick checked, looking at Kurt.

“Every one of them,” the FBI agent
confirmed. “The boat is fueled and ready to take us to Stormy Harbour.”

“You gonna blow the elevator?” Kurt
asked as they rushed out and headed to the waiting speed boat.

“Not yet.”

Nick stepped into the speed boat as
carefully as he could, with Hanna still in his arms. The craft rocked beneath
his feet, but he braced them wide so she wouldn’t feel it, although he knew she
was beyond feeling anything now. While Kurt started the engine and Lance found
some rope to tie Li Chen up with, Nick watched the elevator doors close as the
lift was recalled to the top of the bluff.

“Any chance those men of yours are in
that elevator?” he asked Kurt.

“No, they’re coming in from the landing
strip.” The FBI agent checked his wrist watch. “It’s too soon for them to have
found the tunnel yet.”

“You sure?”

Kurt gave him a funny look and nodded
affirmatively.

“Did you set those charges on the
elevator?”

Kurt nodded again.

Nick reached into his vest pocket for
his remote detonator, withdrew it, waited a moment, then pushed a button. There
was a huge explosion half way up the cliff. Rocks, metal debris, and fire flew
outward from the center. Thomas and Chen’s guards had been in the elevator,
following them to the dock, Nick was certain. A grim smile curled his mouth.
The bastards who shot Hanna were definitely on their way to meet the devil.

Stormy Harbour was only fifteen
minutes away by water. A fog-shrouded sun was rising in the east, bleaching out
the darkness. Gradually, the fog began to dissipate, promising a clearer day
than the two they’d just lived through.

As they pulled up to the government
wharf in the village, fishermen were just getting ready to set out for the day.
Most of the residents appeared to be surprised by all the Coast Guard and
police activity on the docks.

As soon the speedboat pulled up
alongside the wharf, Nick stepped over the side and onto the wooden platform
with Hanna still unconscious in his arms. She was wrapped snugly in a blanket
to keep her warm and prevent her from going into shock. Lance had found a
second one onboard the boat and made Nick drape it over his bare arms, also.

His injuries had stopped bleeding for
the most part, and though the t-shirt pressed to Hanna’s waist was soaked, she
was not bleeding as heavily as she had been. There was probably some of his own
blood mixed with hers. But his wound was only superficial. The bullet had just
grazed his shoulder. And Hanna had nearly died trying to rescue him! God, what
a lousy job he’d done of protecting her!

On the upper deck of the double-tiered
dock, not far above their anchored floatplane, the Coast Guard medevac
helicopter sat silently waiting for them. Nick was relieved to see that it was
their faster jet copter, the Mh-65D model. Two Coast Guard EMTs stood next to
it with a stretcher.

Nick took the stairs to the top level
quickly and gently. His arms ached from holding Hanna so long and so close, but
he was reluctant to hand her over to the EMTs. When he did so, he assisted them
in placing her limp unconscious form gently on the stretcher. Then he helped
lift her inside the big bullet-nosed helo. A couple of IV’s were immediately
started, one with blood to replace some of what she’d lost.

One of the men saw the open wound on
Nick’s shoulder. “Looks like you need medical attention, Colonel. Anyone else?”

“My brother. He needs to be looked
at.”

“Is he shot?”

“No, but he’s probably got a few
broken ribs.”

“Nasty bastards, these Triad gangs,”
the military EMT snarled.

“Tell me about it,” Nick concurred.
“We’ve got their boss and he’s got a leg wound.”

“There are some DEA guys and local
police at the Maritime Center. They can handle it.” The uniformed man pointed
to the cedar house that sat at the far end of the dock. Several uniformed and
flak-jacketed law enforcement officers stood just outside the doorway. Nick
didn’t have the time to personally put Chen into their custody.

Kurt and Lance had followed him up the
stairs to the main part of the wharf. Kurt read his impatience and took custody
of Chen. “I’ll take care of him, Nick. You take care of Hanna and your brother.
I’ll see you at the hospital as soon as I wrap things up here.”

Two British Columbian policemen walked
down the dock to the Coast Guard helicopter, then moved to either side of Li
Chen. One snapped a set of handcuffs on him.

“This isn’t the end of it, Kelly!” Li
Chen shouted into the helo. “You’ll pay for my brother’s death yet!”

Nick stared at the drug lord through
the open door of the helo. “Worry about your own life, especially if she
doesn’t make it!” he snarled back, then hailed Lance, who stood beside Kurt.
“Come on, bro! We need to be off!” As soon as Lance boarded, Nick shouted at
the pilot. “Good to go, lieutenant!”

As they were lifting off, he went over
to where Hanna was lying on the chopper’s medical bed, hooked up to all manner
of portable interventions, and sat down on the bench seat next to her. He’d
flown out of dozens of hot zones with critically injured team members, but none
of them had ever meant as much to him as this woman. His life wouldn’t be worth
a damn without her! As he was strapping himself in, his brother came to sit
beside him.

“Think she’s gonna be okay?”

Nick couldn’t answer. Fear and anguish
had put him somewhere no one could reach. The medic answered instead.

“She’s young, healthy, and getting the
blood she needs. It looks like the bullet opened a femoral vein, not an artery,
which would have been more life-threatening. She’s got a fighting chance, I’d
say.”

“Yeah, she always has been a fighter,”
Lance replied grimly, reaching out to stroke Hanna’s limp hand.

Within a short time, they were in the
air, headed out of Quatsino Sound, over the Pacific Ocean, down to Port George
at maximum speed. Because of the jet engine, the Coast Guard chopper would make
it home in a fraction of the time it took for them to get to Stormy Harbour.

Lance sat next to his older brother
and stared at the woman on the bed beside them, trying to remember every prayer
he had ever learned. If Hanna died trying to rescue him, he’d never forgive
himself!

BY NOON, NICK was sitting in the
waiting room, outside the emergency operating room at George Vancouver County
General, staring morosely at the double doors ahead of him. The trauma team
from Seattle had arrived at the hospital an hour ago, not long after the Coast
Guard helo had landed on the rooftop. Hanna had been unconscious, but
stabilized. She had gone into surgery a half hour ago.

Kurt’s wife, Trisha, had rounded up
the best medical team she could put together on such short notice. The
operating surgeon was a friend and mentor of Hanna’s from the University. He
had brought a former student of Hanna’s to assist. Ashley Davis was on the
team, as well as Dr. Penman, the resident ER doctor Hanna worked with.

It wasn’t an impersonal team. They
were her friends, co-workers, and colleagues, people who admired and liked her,
people who would do their best to help her survive her life-threatening
injuries. Nick kept reminding himself of that as he sat waiting for news.

Lance had gone to x-ray, where they
had determined he had several cracked ribs, compliments of the beatings Chen’s
guards had given him during his captivity. Now he was in with another doctor,
getting his ribs treated and wrapped. Hopefully, he was getting a shot for the
pain, too.

Nick had already had his shoulder
wound treated. A round had torn a piece off of him, nothing he hadn’t suffered
before. Under the blood-stained combat vest he wore, a thick bandage covered
the wound. The blood and paint had been washed from his face, and the
lacerations there butterfly-bandaged. After finger combing his hair, he hoped
he wouldn’t scare the daylights out of the family when they arrived.

Exhausted, consumed with guilt and
worry, he waited on the hospital sofa, his forearms braced on his knees, his
head dropped nearly to his chest. Though his eyes were focused on it, he
couldn’t have told anyone what color the carpet was beneath his boots. He
didn’t know how he was going to look Colleen McHenry in the eyes. He’d promised
to keep her baby safe, and he’d failed— miserably. Hanna wouldn’t be in the
operating room now, fighting for her life, if he hadn’t taken her with him to
rescue Lance. He’d been a fool to think he could keep her out of harm’s way in
such a dangerous environment— a goddamned, addle-headed, love-blinded fool! And
what was worse, he knew better, trained as he was.

Knowing that his brother was in the last
guesthouse, he’d sent her with Kurt, figuring she’d be safe headed in that
direction. He knew Kurt would protect her; that he’d stash her in the closed
elevator car until it was clear to get on board one of the speedboats. What he
hadn’t figured on was the damn security monitors, or that she’d see him getting
the shit beat out of him!

He’d been able to take down the guard
posted at the cottage door, silently and swiftly, without any problem. The
right pressure spot earned the man a long sleep. The cottage had been strangely
accessible, though. Once inside, he had known instantly that something wasn’t
right. It had been too easy. It had felt like a trap waiting for him. He’d felt
that gut warning before, in the Pakistan, right before his team had been
ambushed.

Retreat hadn’t been an option, though.
He had promised himself and his mother, he would bring his younger brother
home. It didn’t matter that Chen knew he was coming. He was going to get his
brother out. He’d been in tough situations before. He’d always found a way to
complete the mission and get out alive. Hell, in the world of Special Forces’
operations, there was no such thing as an easy mission!

In spite of whatever awaited him, he’d
been confident of eventual success. What he hadn’t expected, was Hanna showing
up to rescue him. He’d never been so goddamned scared in his whole dangerous
life. Seeing her holding that M-4 assault rifle that he knew she’d never fired
in her safe and sheltered life, had damn near given him a heart attack.

But part of him had been incredibly
proud of her, too. The courage it took to do what she had done was no small
thing. Few civilians would have been that brave. She’d really had those guards
believing she’d shoot them, too, if they didn’t do as she’d said. Frankly, it
probably had just been a matter of time before Chen would have had both he and
Lance shot. Hanna had been a timely intervention, probably a life-saving one.