Roswelllostcause: Chances are good things can always be worse no matter what the situation is.
Eva: Nope, we’re not at good yet. There time is limited and the enemy is still there so they’re gonna have to work fast.
sarammlover: Lol, they are getting closer. That recap will be coming up.
Thanks!
Part 64
Brody clenched the radio in his hand. They had two options and now he had to pick between bad and worse. Pressing the button again, he brought it up to his mouth. “Soon as we reach the rock formation, there’ll be a narrow path and it narrows even further as we climb. Stop there and take care of him. We’ll be right behind you and keep the motherfuckers off your ass.”
The line crackled with static and a moment later Val’s voice could be heard, the sound tinny as it traveled over the radio. “Got it.”
“Two minutes,” he radioed back, “that’s all you got.” His eyes met Padre’s and the man nodded in appreciation. “I hope I don’t regret it.”
“It’s a good position. Our men on the other side cleared a path and there’ll be protection from the rocks above us so the only direction we need to protect is our back.”
As soon as they reached the location Brody had pointed out Kyle stopped the vehicle and turned to look at Bane. His face was pinched and drained of color, easily identifying the toll his pain level as well as the loss of blood was taking on him. “We need to get him horizontal before he goes into shock.”
Val nodded. They had stabilized the piece of rebar as well as they could but without any way to shorten the steel rod they couldn’t do much more in that arena. Removing the rod could easily open up a world of problems and he could bleed out before they even made it to the plane waiting for them. Jumping up to lean out the window and fire at their attackers had only aggravated the situation but they hadn’t had much choice.
“In the backseat with him,” Kyle suggested.
“Yeah.” She grabbed Bane’s shoulder and pulled him away from the door before glancing at Alex. “Hold him still.” She shoved her door open and got out, moving to the front and opening the door.
“Sure,” he did as he was told, getting a good look at the man’s face. Ungh, he was not doing good.
“Okay, big man, we’re gonna have to move you,” she said as she looked him over. She could patch the shoulder wound more but they had done everything they could do with his leg.
Bane grunted when he heard someone talking to him, but his mind was too fuzzy to form a reply.
Kyle hopped out and ran around to give her a hand. The time they had been given was ticking away. He shouldered his buddy’s weight as they moved him, grateful when Whitman dropped down on the other side and leaned back in to grab the man’s shoulders and help pull him across the seat.
“You are such a heavy ass,” Val grunted.
He couldn’t focus on what was said though he did catch the tone, but he was too weak to come back with a smart remark.
“Do we have a first aid kit?” Alex asked.
“Yeah, drop the panel in your door.” He frowned when the damaged panel was dropped and he saw the hole through the center of the kit. His gaze lowered to the floorboard and he saw the exit path. “Great.” He nodded at the back. “Check the back, there’s a backup kit under the floor panel.”
Alex nodded and found it. “Well, it’s old but it’ll do for now.”
Val took it and opened it up, sorting through the items inside. “Is the antiseptic in the other kit usable?”
Kyle went through it. “I guess so.”
“Soak the wound,” she said as she peeled the blood-soaked material away from it. She shook her head when the liquid hit the wound and it didn’t draw much of a reaction from Bane. The radio crackled to life and without looking up from what she was doing she spoke. “Alex, tell him we’ll be ready to move in under a minute.”
“Sure,” he agreed and did as he was told, not caring to look at the amount of blood that seemed to be all over the man anyway.
She packed the wound and then applied a dressing as she listened to Brody’s caustic response at being informed that they weren’t on the move yet. She understood the necessity of moving right away, but she wasn’t willing to just let Bane bleed to death without doing her best to prevent it.
“That’s the best we can do,” Kyle looked at Bane after they were done. “Hang on, man.”
She shifted him around a little so they could close the door and then looked at Kyle. “I know we couldn’t have breached the compound without their help but I’ll be glad when we go our separate ways.”
“The cooperation might not be over yet though.”
“No, but I’d just like to put some distance between us for a while.”
“Well, they’re not coming back with us, are they?”
“Hell no! Can you imagine the fit Bane would throw if he regained consciousness and found out they were there?” She shook her head.
“Yeah, he doesn’t like too much company.” Kyle snorted and they started to roll again slowly.
She rolled her eyes. “He sure as hell doesn’t.” Although he seemed to be tolerating Deluca’s company without any problem.
“Unless your name’s Maria.”
“Yeah, as much of a loner as he is, that was a little unexpected.”
“Well, they say every Jack has his Jill.” Alex shrugged.
“They do say that, don’t they?” Kyle said and shot an amused look at Val.
She kept her eyes on the road. “It’s just a saying romantic people came up with.”
He chuckled and looked around as they left the safety of the rock formations. “Yeah, I’m sure it is.”
The radio crackled again. “Stay to the left.”
Val nodded when Kyle moved to comply and she keyed the radio. “We got company?”
“No, our men secured the road, so stay left unless you wanna hit a mine.”
“That’s good advice,” Kyle muttered. “Nice of him to warn us now.”
“That’s Brody,” she muttered.
“Hate to have him against us.”
“No kidding,” she snorted and glanced at Bane again. It was hard to admit to herself, but losing him would be bad and not only for the operation.
“Is it safe for him to fly in his condition?” Alex asked. It wasn’t like they had many options and he knew flying would put more distance between them and any members of the Circle who might be following them.
“Nothing is safe at the moment.”
He nodded. He’d pretty much expected that answer. “If he needs a blood transfusion can your wife handle that?”
“If someone has the same type.”
At the rate the man was bleeding he’d be surprised if he didn’t need a transfusion. He wondered if someone else would have a matching blood type. He knew he had the universal type so if no one else was a match he’d be called upon to help out.
They drove, staying far to the left and moving as fast as possible, Brody following right behind. When an explosion rattled the car they all looked back and Val grinned when she saw just smoke instead of the enemy.
“Won’t take ‘em long to figure it out,” Kyle muttered.
“No, but they’re running out of vehicles.”
“If nothin’ else, it’ll buy us time to get the hell outta here. I’ll feel a lot better once we’re in the air and we can put some real distance between us and them.”
“Ditto.”
“I had hoped we’d be able to take out some of the organization’s more powerful figures.” She rubbed her temple, trying to keep the headache threatening to emerge at bay. “Granted, taking the network down works in our favor and I know someone has to remain standing to take responsibility for this mess, but I wanted to see Janus dead even if we didn’t get any of the others.”
“Maybe there’ll be another chance,” he said with a shrug.
“Might be a while before we can launch another assault on them.” Well, only if they waited for Bane to be back on his feet.
“Patience was never one of your strengths,” Kyle chuckled.
“You can say that again,” Alex muttered from the backseat.
“You have no room to talk.”
“Me?”
She turned to look at him. “Would you call yourself patient?”
“Generally speaking, yes.”
She snorted and shook her head. “You aren’t an’ you can just admit it, Whitman.”
He shook his head. “You have no idea just how patient I can be.”
The radio crackled again and got their attention. “We’ll hit a road in a mile, let’s follow it. We’re gonna get rid of the last of our followers now.”
Val turned to look at them just in time to see two of Brody’s men lean out the windows of their vehicle one on each side, grenades in their hands.
The ground shook with the force of the dual explosions and Kyle held tight to the steering wheel, fighting to keep the tires away from the right side of the road. They were closing in on the road Brody had indicated and he turned onto it less than a minute later.
“Thank God,” Alex muttered. A few more minutes with those bumps and he sure as hell would have puked.
“I really don’t like not knowin’ our route.” Kyle checked the mirrors before locking his gaze on the road before them.
“Yeah, me neither,” Val admitted.
They hadn’t had a lot to go on regarding the compound until meeting up with Brody and the team he’d assembled and that made him uneasy. So far the guy hadn’t done anything to make him question where his loyalties were, but he still didn’t trust him. This road wasn’t on any of the plans they had been given and he could only hope they weren’t driving straight into an ambush.
Brody watched as the last of the enemy following them was left behind in a burst of fire and smoke before he finally turned his head forward and dared to rest back in the seat. He had the feeling he was breathing for the first time in hours and it finally took some pressure off his chest. “Well done, everyone,” he told his men with an appreciative nod and also squeezed Padre’s shoulder. “We need to stay on the move. They’ll send more to take us down but they shouldn’t know our departure plan.”
“Our best bet is getting them to the airstrip,” he said with a nod at the vehicle ahead of them, “while we hang back, make sure no one follows.”
“Agreed.”
They had a better chance if they split up. The airstrip they had landed at was abandoned and hadn’t been used in more than a decade. It had been a privately operated airfield and thanks to its remote location it was off the grid. He shot a quick glance at Brody when he picked up the radio to relay the plan.
*****
The cabin was silent. So silent that the sound of a spoon striking the sides of a cup as Tess stirred her coffee was extremely loud and grating. Maria sat at the center island, fingertips massaging small circles against her temple. Her nerves were stretched taut and she felt like she was going to snap in two at any moment. The minutes had crept by, slowly turning into hours, and still there was no word. Neither of them had been able to sleep and they’d passed each other numerous times as they paced from room to room, unable to remain still for very long.
The sun had come up, shining brightly and glaring off of the snow, but in spite of the many furtive glances outside they were oblivious to the view. As the sun climbed higher and the shadows became longer there was still no word, no sign that the others were returning. Maria had finally decided to make them something to eat but after picking at the light meal it had been tossed out and they had cleaned up in silence.
She nodded when a cup of coffee was placed in front of her but she made no move to pick it up. There was little point in drinking it. She was cold but it wasn’t the kind of cold that could be chased away with a warm drink. Was Michael alright? Had they found Max and Liz? Was Alex okay? Had he been able to get them into the compound? She wished she knew; wished the sound of a vehicle approaching could be heard to announce their arrival.
“It’s been so long,” she muttered as she turned the mug in her hands.
“Sometimes these things take longer than planned,” Tess said carefully. She was worried too, but dwelling on it wasn’t going to help the situation.
“I know, but at this point...” Maria sighed, shaking her head.
“There are a million things that can go wrong and hold a mission up. They don’t always amount to casualties.”
She nodded dumbly. Technically she knew that and had repeated it to herself over and over but with every passing minute, her impatience and worry increased and there was just nothing she could do about it.
“Their intended exit could’ve been compromised and they had to reroute, they could’ve run into mechanical difficulties...” They could be dead or at the mercy of their captors. She forced that thought back, refusing to voice it.
“This waiting is insane though!”
“Yeah, it’s a helluva lot easier being on the other side of the clock,” she admitted quietly. She wasn’t used to being the one left behind, the one waiting and worrying. It had happened on the rare occasion, but as a rule she was in the thick of things, not sitting at home hoping and praying Kyle came home. Yeah, she always worried when he was out there, but when you were out there too you couldn’t risk letting that fear outweigh the mission objective. That fear could be paralyzing and she hated it.
“Not sure about the easier part, but at least you have an occupied mind for sure.”
“Well,” she smiled faintly, “that right there makes it a little more tolerable. So, how can we occupy ours?”
She snorted quietly and shook her head. “I wish I knew. Unfortunately in this situation it seems like everything leads right back to what’s going on with them.”
“Yeah,” Maria sighed, sipping at her coffee.
“So, what was he like when you knew him years ago?”
“I didn’t really know him.” She stared out the window as she tried to remember. “He came across like a rebel though.”
“That sounds like him.” She chuckled and shook her head. “Guess some things can’t be changed.”
“Yeah,” Maria smiled faintly. “I had a crush on him but I don’t think he really paid any attention to me.”
“No, I’m sure he was too busy being who he is. Plus, he’s older so it’s a good thing he didn’t really pay much attention to you.” She smirked. “He’s sure paying attention to you now though.”
The other woman snorted. “And it started with being on his hit-list.”
“There’s probably no way to ever forget that,” she said with a laugh.
“No.” Maria snorted. “Jeez, he was gonna kill me. Unbelievable!”
“He never saw you comin’. I know the way he thinks and sometimes it’s a bit warped, but he’s completely off balance where you’re concerned.”
“I guess so,” she chuckled and looked at the other woman. “It’s not only him. I’ve never had anyone in my life either.”
Tess nodded. They were perfectly matched and she hoped Michael didn’t fuck it up. “I suppose he’ll disappear once this part’s over. It’d be too big a risk for him to be in the spotlight when those left standing are taken to trial.”
Maria nodded and swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“Can you see something developing between the two of you beyond what you’ve had here?”
“He doesn’t want that.”
“But you do.”
She shrugged. “It would be nice to have him around longer. See what it’s like without the stress and all.”
She sighed. “Getting out from under that kind of pressure makes a big difference. Things are... not necessarily easier, but not as difficult.”
“I don’t think he believes that.” Maria ran her hands over her face tiredly. “Michael believes that he’s only good at being an assassin. He’s never given a more normal life a second thought so he’s convinced he wouldn’t be any good at it.”
“Do you think he’d be good at it?” Tess asked.
“I dunno,” she admitted. “All he remembers is violence, murder and betrayal.”
“True, but no one’s ever too old to learn new stuff.” The curly blonde shrugged and placed her mug on the counter. “Kyle was a lot like Michael when we met, ya know?”
“Yeah?” Maria turned her head to her curiously. “And how’d you convince him to change?”
“I didn’t. It just came naturally with time.”
She wondered if that would even be possible with Michael. She sighed quietly. He’d been pretty adamant that their time together was over, that once this mission was completed it wouldn’t be long before they went their separate ways. She couldn’t help hoping that he’d change his mind and give them a chance. There was no way of knowing if it would work out between them. He wouldn’t be an easy man to live with and she didn’t need any past experience with men to know that.
Kyle might have been a lot like Michael, but there were also some pretty big differences. Tess’ husband had embraced his life with his wife. He was obviously happy and he didn’t have any problem expressing his feelings for her. She tried to picture Michael being that open and she just couldn’t bring it in clearly. Maybe it was fear. The fear of hoping for something that wasn’t likely to work out.
“How did you and Kyle meet?” she asked to distract herself from her thoughts. “He wasn’t an assassin, right?”
“No,” Tess laughed, “he was a Navy SEAL.”
Maria nodded, remembering Michael mentioning that he and Kyle had served together in the Navy. “Did you like, meet on a mission or something?”
“We met in a camp in Afghanistan,” she nodded. “He was coming in after a mission and I had just been ordered there as a pilot.”
“An’ did you guys like see each other and knew you would work out or...”
“No,” Tess chuckled. “I was giving them a hand in the medical camp there because they’d had massive attacks recently and the doc there had already worked way too many hours for weeks on end. Kyle came in after spending almost a whole month out in the desert. He was stinky, he was unshaven, and had no interest in anyone helping with his minor injuries.”
“Sounds like Michael.”
“I know, right? He was there too and just as much of a pain in the ass.” Tess snorted. “I had put up with grumpy military men most of my life though, so I knew how to handle them and I think they started to respect me when they realized I wasn’t there to be messed around with.”
Maria nodded, not surprised that the other woman had managed to set them straight, whether by word or deed.
“Kyle’s a man of action but he’s also an observer. Once he got it through his thick head that I had no intention of amusing him for a night or two the other brain kicked in.” Not that it had stopped him from pursuing her. No, he’d continued with his mission to get into her panties, refusing to acknowledge that there was more to it than getting laid and blowing off some steam. But somewhere along the way his method of pursuit had changed and it had eventually become more than just the thrill of the chase.
“There’s really no way to know if it’ll work, is there?”
“Not without putting everything you have into it.” She laughed quietly. “And even then there are no guarantees other than the promise of a lot of hard work because if you want it to work you’ve gotta be willing to give it everything you’ve got. And that’s especially true with guys like them.”
“Sounds exhausting,” Maria admitted with a little smirk.
“Oh, it is,” Tess chuckled, “but it can also give you a lot. Kyle and I are different in some ways and the same in others. We work together as a team in more than one way but it was all a way of building our relationship. No couple’s perfect from the start. You have to learn to accept each other’s faults and you have to make compromises without giving up who you are.”
“Seems like you worked out the perfect recipe for a relationship. Ever thought about writing a book about it?”
She snorted. “Never.”
“Could make you rich, although I think…” Maria trailed of when she heard a sound and she didn’t waste a second before running to look out the window.
“Hey, be careful, we don’t know who it is,” Tess warned and pulled her away.
“But it could be them, they could be back.”
“It could also be someone here to kill you. We don’t take a chance like that and just run to the window.”
“There was no alarm,” she protested, doing her best to get a look outside.
“No, but the one thing you have to know and understand is that there’s always someone better out there. If they take you out there’s no one left to stand against them.” Not to mention she would NOT want to be the one to share that news with Michael if someone managed to get past their security and kill the other woman. She reached for the weapon holstered at the small of her back, holding a hand up to keep Maria back, and approached the window from the side. She used the barrel of the gun to move the curtain aside, her breathing slow and controlled as she scanned the road leading to the cabin.
The vehicle that approached wasn’t the one they had left in and she couldn’t see through the tinted windows to identify its occupants. As soon as it rolled to a stop the doors began to open and her hand flexed around the grip. In spite of the dusky light left by the sunset she recognized her husband’s outline before she could make out his features. She frowned at the pronounced limp that hadn’t been there when she’d watched him leave less than 24 hours earlier.
“It’s them.” She shook her head when she saw Maria’s intention to run for the door. “Go pull the chairs away from the dining room table. We’ve got injured people coming in.”
“But-”, Maria started to protest but stopped when she realized her own needs weren’t important at the moment. She turned on her heel and went to the dining room as instructed.
Tess hurried to the front door, disarming the alarm and pulling the door open as the group made its way to the porch, three of them huddled around one person. As they climbed the five steps and stepped into the light she was finally able to get a good look at them and to assess the situation. Kyle and Alex were carrying Michael between them and Val was doing her best to keep his leg immobile.
“Dining room table,” she said and ushered them inside, her mind already going over the possible complications. She’d had the foresight to pull her equipment out and had everything set up in the dining room. A plastic cloth covered the table and she glanced around, nodding when she saw that the chairs had been moved as she instructed.