Seal of Honor(44)

Bang, bang, bangbangbang. Boom!

Audrey shrank back. This was it. They were both dead. She’d never see her nephews again, never know if her brother made it home safe or if her paintings sold at the art show. She’d never find out if sex with Gabe was as good as she imagined it might be. Never know if their chemistry was purely an adrenaline-fueled consequence of the circumstances or something more.

God, she didn’t want to die.

To her complete horror, Gabe grabbed her arm in a hard grip and flung her out the door. “Go!”

Go? Go where? Bullets flew, people fell to the ground moaning in pain or ominously silent, and she couldn’t get her bearings. A young guerilla charged at her, caught her in the left side, and knocked her off balance.

Without hesitation, Gabe stepped up behind the kid and sliced through his jugular with the Swiss army knife. Blood spurted, splattering across her face and chest. She wanted to scream. Opened her mouth and nothing came out.

“Audrey!” Gabe’s voice was all drill sergeant again. He easily spun and deflected a blow aimed at his kidneys from a knife-wielding man-in-black. “Move! Go, go, go!”

Audrey scuttled backward on her butt, watching Gabe in full hand-to-hand combat. He moved like an assassin. Quick. Silent. Mesmerizing.

And deadly. Can’t forget deadly.

“Audrey, goddammit, go!” In the millisecond he took his eyes off his attacker to glance worriedly her way, the knife slashed deep across his bicep. He staggered back, stumbling as his bad foot went out from under him.

“No!” Audrey surged forward—but caught herself. What was she going to do to help, paint an unflattering portrait of his attacker? Right. He knew what he was doing. She didn’t, so she had to gather her wits and follow his orders. She was doing nothing but distracting him, dividing his attention and putting him in further danger.

He’d told her to run through the poppy field, hide in the jungle, and wait. Scrambling to her feet in the slick dew-covered grass, she sent one last look over her shoulder. Gabe had straightened himself and sprung back into the battle with a dark, determined expression on his face.

She hated to leave him.

Sending up a prayer for his protection, she ran toward the poppy field.





Chapter Twelve

Gabe saw her go out of the corner of his eye. About damn time—except now that she was out of sight, his heart decided to imitate a heart attack, causing him to hesitate and nearly end up with a knife in his gut. Unacceptable. He had to screw his head on straight. Getting himself killed would do Audrey no good.

He deflected another blow. His opponent liked going for the kidneys and the stomach, never varied attacks. Gabe waited until the knife came toward his bellybutton again, spun out of the way, grabbed the guy’s knife hand and twisted, all in one quick, fluid motion. Felt the satisfying snap of bone in his opponent’s wrist, but kept twisting until the whole arm was chicken-winged behind his opponent’s back, shoulder straining not to pop free of its socket. The man dropped hard to his knees.

The gunfire had slowed, so instead of finishing him off and moving on to the next tango, Gabe decided they’d have a nice heart-to-heart instead.

“Who are you?” Gabe leaned on his arm. He cried out, tears spilling from his eyes as fast as the Spanish prayer from his lips. “Who are you? ¿Quién eres?”

Tough man with the knife wasn’t so tough without it. He babbled incoherently, or at least Gabe thought he was babbling. For all he knew of Spanish, the guy could be spilling classified information pertaining to every terrorist organization in the country of Colombia. He doubted it, though, considering the asshole just wet himself.

Movement in the poppy field caught his attention. He turned, saw Cocodrilo sneak away from the camp, not exactly following Audrey, but there was no way he’d miss her—she was only minutes ahead.

Time to put an end to this knife fight.

With the blade of his hand, Gabe knocked the still-babbling asshole out cold. Killing such a pathetic excuse for a threat wasn’t worth the effort.

He grabbed his AK-47, which he’d dropped during the fight, then snagged the unconscious man’s knife. A Bowie about fifteen inches long with a scuffed steel blade and rubber handle, it made a much better weapon than his little Swiss army knife. He sheathed it in his belt.

Now to get to Cocodrilo before he got to Audrey.

…

“I’ll drop you two klicks to the west,” HumInt, Inc.’s local pilot called over the beat of the helo’s blades. Luckily, it only took a call to Tucker Quentin to find one ready and willing to fly without asking too many questions.

Christ, they needed a pilot of their own. Quinn sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. One more thing to add to the to-do list.