Briar closed her eyes against the wind for a moment and braced herself for more pain. She could hear DeLuca moving around close by as the medic began searching her for injuries. She involuntarily hissed through her teeth when Schroder’s hand swept over the wound.
“Anywhere else besides this?” he asked, continuing his assessment.
Gritting her teeth, she gave a terse shake of her head. She’d been lucky. The wound hurt like a bitch but it wasn’t life-threatening or anything. Just enough to slow her down, piss her off and make her miserable. It felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to her skin as Schroder cut through her clothing and exposed the wound.
The low beam of a pen light lit up the darkness as he took a closer look. “That’s a pretty good gash.” He turned to DeLuca, who’d put his phone away. Likely because he couldn’t get reception in this storm, let alone with all the trees around to block the signal. “She’ll need stitches.”
“Put a dressing on it for now. You can do the honors when we get her down to the command center.”
And there it was. They were taking her in.
“Let me go,” she said, surprised at how rough her voice was.
DeLuca looked down at her sharply and shook his head. “Not a chance.”
Briar fought back her impatience at the clipped answer, not about to argue her case or try and explain who she was. No one could know that. They were going to take her down the mountain where all kinds of other agents and officers would see her. There’d be more questioning. Phone calls.
If she could convince him to let her call Janaia or someone higher up the chain of command first, before this situation was leaked to anyone else aside from DeLuca and his team, she could still maintain her cover. Maybe even keep her career and reputation intact.
As for any possible repercussions about her being tied to Ramadi’s death, it depended on whether anyone leaked her presence here before she could get away. Not that she’d be with DeLuca and his crew long.
She’d escape the first chance she got, go to ground and contact Janaia. Worst case scenario, she always had the option of changing her identity, leaving the country and starting over elsewhere. But only as a last resort. She’d spent most of her adult life learning to be invisible and planned to get her life back to the way it had been half an hour ago, before that goddamn bullet had jeopardized everything she’d worked for.
As Schroder continued working on her, her mind backtracked to the op, reviewing every move and wondering what she could have done differently. Who had leaked Ramadi’s location to the Feds, when she was supposed to be out here alone? And who the hell had shot her if it hadn’t been one of these guys?
With a practiced touch Schroder put on a dressing and helped her to her knees, then her feet. The onset of shock and sudden change in hydrostatic pressure made her woozy. She swayed momentarily on her feet, fighting the urge to rip her arm from Schroder’s supporting grasp.
DeLuca spoke to someone in a low voice, and she realized he was talking via an earpiece. “Prisoner in custody. Single gunshot wound to her side.” He paused a moment. “Yes, her. Have an ambulance brought in.”
“I don’t need an ambulance,” Briar called out.
His head turned toward her. It was still too dark to make out his features but she remembered them and not because of her almost photographic memory. Matt DeLuca wasn’t the sort of man a woman ever forgot. “Can you walk?”
“Yes,” she muttered, yanking against Schroder’s hold but he didn’t release her.
The wind picked up, howling through the tops of the trees with a mournful sound. Briar mentally listed possible escape options. Escaping here on the mountain would be best, but with her hands bound and eight armed, highly trained men surrounding her, that wasn’t going to happen. Her best bet would be once they reached wherever they were taking her. She could slip away there. Even escape from an ambulance if they tried to transport her to a hospital, or from another vehicle if they planned to take her somewhere else.
Another two men approached out of the darkness, carrying the supplies she’d ditched on her crawl from the snowmobile. “M40 and her ruck,” one of them said. “Nothing else up here but the snowmobile, single round through the engine. We ID’d a few possible sniper hides to the west but didn’t see tracks leading to or from any of them.”
DeLuca looked away from her and spoke to his men. “Let’s go.”
Without the aid of her snowshoes and her hands bound behind her, walking in the snow was difficult. Her boots plunged deep into the drifts, making her body exert far more energy than on the climb up here. The team moved along with her, each member’s rifle up and ready in case they met with any threats. That telltale tingle at the back of her neck was gone, however, so she knew the sniper who’d shot her was long gone.