Darkest Before Dawn (KGI series) (15 page)

“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Cope said, impatiently cutting his leader off, again something Hancock’s men never dared to do. “The good of the many takes priority over the good of the one. Team motto. Whatever. But it gets pretty damn old and it’s why, after Maksimov, I’m done.”

“You know we have to go after A New Era,” Hancock said quietly, still holding Honor firmly against his chest.

Looks were exchanged between his team members. Some of acknowledgment. Some of resignation and acceptance. Some indecisive.

“Bad mojo,” Mojo said in a disgruntled voice that clearly reflected his stand. And it wasn’t with the mission or the “greater good.”

“And what then?” Conrad asked, speaking up for the first time. “I’m in. I’m with you. You know that. But when will it be time to stop fighting the good fight and allow others to fight in our stead? There’s always another asshole who needs taking out. After Maksimov, after A New Era, there will be another. There’s
always
another. When does it end?”

Frustration licked up Hancock’s spine. And the source of the conflict that had arisen amid his men was curled protectively in his arms. One small woman. A very small part of him wished she’d died with the others. Because then he wouldn’t be here, having chased over half the country after her. He wouldn’t be having this ridiculous conversation with his men, whose priorities had never wavered in all the time they’d worked under him. And yet one small woman had done considerable damage to their unity, and that pissed him off.

If she hadn’t survived, things would be a hell of a lot less complicated.

“That has to be your choice,” Hancock said honestly. “You can walk away at any time. No one’s making you stay. Do we need you? Hell, yeah. There’s no one I’d rather have at my back than the five of you. But everyone here would understand if you walked away at any time. After Maksimov, if you—any of you—are ready to hang it up, no one is going to have a single word to say other than good journey. And you’ll always have my gratitude for your service. If you ever have need of me, all it takes is a call. We will
always
have your back. Once one of us, always one of us. Your retiring doesn’t change a goddamn thing.”

When his men remained silent, Hancock gave them an impatient look they couldn’t misunderstand. Get the vehicle to cover and bed down for the night. They’d wasted enough time already. Time they didn’t have to spare.

Then he simply descended the makeshift steps into the shelter and traveled across the small enclosure to the far corner, where he placed Honor on one of the cots so he and his men would be between her and the entrance. It was the safest place in the small compound.

They were well protected here, surrounded by reinforced walls and ceilings that prevented their heat signatures from penetrating and being detected by someone on the outside
using heat-seeking instruments. And unless someone dropped a nuclear bomb on them, it was safe from blasts. Unless they sustained a continuous and heavy attack.

It was a leftover facility from the days when Titan worked under the U.S. government with full permission to carry out their missions using whatever means necessary. They’d been equipped with the best that money could buy. It was risky to come back here, but Titan had long ago been disbanded and only KGI and one lone CIA operative and his black ops team, who reported only to Resnick, the CIA agent, knew with absolute certainty that Hancock and his men were still alive and a definite threat to anyone who crossed their path. There was suspicion, especially among the upper echelons, those who’d had a part in Titan’s creation, that Titan was still operating. Or rather had gone rogue. But only very few knew that they were very much alive—and more dangerous than ever.

He had no worries over KGI, even though they weren’t exactly allies. Were they enemies? Only KGI could answer that, but they owed Hancock. He’d done much to safeguard Grace—and Elizabeth, an innocent child whose only sin was being born to a father who was wholly evil. Even if KGI hadn’t known that at the time. They still might not know.

And he’d sacrificed his mission for Maren Scofield—now Maren Steele—the closest he’d gotten to taking Maksimov down. Until now.

So he doubted KGI would ever sell him or his existence out, even if he had been responsible for injuries to two of their men. They were too damn . . . honorable. Veritable Captain Americas. Everything Hancock wasn’t and had no desire to be.

The CIA operative was another matter, but his government had turned on him, just as they’d turned on Titan. And even though Titan had damn near killed Adam Resnick and accessed his classified files, Resnick no longer had the allies within his own ranks to ever retaliate. He’d be a fool to go after Hancock on his own, and the man was no fool. He was cagey and smart and had dirt on everyone from the highest-ranking military personnel to the White House itself and everywhere in between. He was feared and hated by many. His days were very likely numbered. He had enough on his hands staying alive and away
from those who would celebrate his death without adding Hancock to the ranks wanting him dead.

Those who now hunted Titan were nothing more than mercenaries. Not organized black ops groups. Few in the government knew of Titan’s existence to begin with. So it was highly improbable that anyone would search for them here. And certainly not when A New Era controlled so much of the area. Collecting a generous bounty for bringing Titan down wasn’t worth the risk of getting themselves killed in the process, and mercenaries had no concept of selfless sacrifice. Their mission wasn’t one of honor or for the greater good. Their only goal was to line their pockets and elevate their reputation.

“Everything’s locked down and secure,” Viper said as he stepped into the small room. “Conrad and Mojo have set up watch so they’ll know if an ant farts within a mile of our location.”

“Then you and the others bed down and catch some sleep until it’s time for your watch,” Hancock directed. “It may be the last night we get any sleep until we deliver the woman to Bristow.”

He purposely didn’t invoke Honor’s name. His men were already looking at her not as a means to an end, simply a pawn, but as a heroic human being. An innocent female who didn’t deserve to be given false hope such as they were indeed giving her, even if they didn’t lie to her in so many words. Theirs was a sin of omission, but it paled in comparison to their many other sins. There was no salvation for men such as them. They were resigned to eternal damnation, their souls so stained that they’d never see the light again. As the old but apt saying went, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Viper doused the lights, shrouding the interior in darkness as the men took to the few cots and bedrolls they carried with them. They were trained to fall asleep on command, their bodies well accustomed to taking sleep when they got the chance and to rousing, awake and alert, ready for action.

And yet Hancock found himself unable to do just that. Long after his men were already asleep, Hancock lay there, his bedroll just inches from Honor’s cot, his thoughts consumed by the sacrifice he was preparing to lay at Bristow’s—and ultimately Maksimov’s—feet.

He had no idea of the passage of time when he picked up on a sound that would go undetected by most others. But his ears were attuned to the slightest change. Turning toward the sound, he realized it came from where Honor lay sleeping. Or he assumed she was sleeping.

The sound was so faint that at first he thought he imagined it or that it had simply been a noise she’d made in sleep, but no, there it was again. It sounded like . . .

Weeping.

Soft, nearly soundless weeping.

Fuck.

His heart clenched despite his having already hardened it toward this woman. She didn’t sob noisily or wail her distress. In fact he wasn’t entirely certain she was cognizant of the fact that she was crying.

Before he could think better of it, he pushed himself upward so he was on eye level with her and peered even closer, trying to discern her level of consciousness in the dark. Softly he reached out to touch her cheek to see if his supposition was correct, and his chest tightened further when his fingers came away wet with her tears.

She was crying in her sleep. God only knew what nightmares tortured her sleep. She’d seen and been through hell over the last week. Grudging admiration for her resiliency rose within him. She was perhaps the strongest woman he’d ever encountered. No, she wasn’t a woman warrior like those who worked for KGI who could easily kick a man’s ass twice their size.

She was strong
despite
her lack of fighting skills, her lack of knowledge in defending herself. She was resourceful and determined in the face of impossible odds and she didn’t know the meaning of
quit
. When many would have already given up and resigned themselves to their fate or even taken their own life to spare themselves certain torture and degradation, she’d stubbornly clung to and fought for her life.

Carefully, so as not to awaken her, he slid his arms beneath her slight body, hoping she was still out from the pain medication he’d given her. He’d purposely given her a large dose so she’d sleep like the dead and gain much-needed rest and strength.

He lowered her to the bedroll beside him, telling himself that he merely didn’t want her to awaken his men. When he was certain she was still sleeping, he settled back down beside her and drew her into the warmth of his body, wrapping his arms around her to offer her the simple gift of being held and comforted. It was the least he could do when he planned to betray her in the worst possible way.

With tenderness he didn’t think he possessed, he pushed away the tendrils of hair obscuring her face and smoothed away the lines marring her face from the dream she was having. Fear radiated from her in tangible waves, and something deep inside him twisted and turned uncomfortably as he took in the fact that her entire body shook with those silent sobs.

In a whisper, so his men couldn’t hear, he brushed his lips over the shell of her ear.

“You’re safe, Honor. I’ve got you. Nothing will hurt you tonight.”

Tonight was all he could give her. He had no idea what tomorrow would bring, though if he was successful in his mission, he knew what the immediate future would bring. He closed his eyes to ward off the images of Honor hurting. Damaged.

Dead.

It was doubtful that she would escape Maksimov unscathed, but even if that unlikely event occurred, she would then be turned over to the very group Hancock was fighting so hard to protect her from now. The irony burned. And she’d certainly not be escaping them unscathed—or at all. Whatever Maksimov dished out to her, it would be a mere fraction of what A New Era would give her.

He risked his life, the lives of his men. All to wrest Honor from the grasp of A New Era simply so Maksimov could use her as a bargaining tool. And hand her over to . . . A New Era.

Her fate was inevitable. Because the
right
thing to do was to turn her over to Maksimov, giving Hancock unfettered access to the man he’d made his sole mission to take down. But doing the right thing didn’t always feel right.

Sometimes, doing the right thing was ten different kinds of fucked up.

CHAPTER 10

HONOR woke and stretched, her body immediately protesting her forcing her muscles into action. She blinked, bringing her surroundings into focus, and then glanced over the room to see some of Hancock’s men still sleeping. There were four present, minus Hancock and one other, but she imagined they’d taken turns on watch through the night.

For that matter, she had no idea where they were or where they’d sought refuge. It felt like a cave. Stifling and claustrophobic. No windows or light, the air stale without the renewal of a breeze.

She took the few stolen moments of quiet and solitude to ascertain her condition without Hancock’s close scrutiny through eyes that saw too much. She flexed her knee, relieved to find that it wasn’t
as
stiff or swollen, though it was still painful and resistant to movement. Her head didn’t ache as vilely as it had the day before, but that could be due to the remnants of the pain medication that had made her oblivious to all else.

She took several long seconds to do a self-evaluation, time she hadn’t had the luxury of before in her desperate need to keep moving. There was no doubt she was bruised and had suffered cuts and lacerations in dozens of places on her ravaged body, but the only two injuries that stood to hinder them in any way were her head injury and the injury
to her knee. Everything else was manageable, and for that matter, she wasn’t about to allow herself to be an obstacle to the thing she wanted most.

Her ultimate escape. Freedom.

For that she could endure anything. She
had
endured everything over the last several days, pushing her body beyond its limits in her desperate effort to survive.

But now she had help and despite Hancock’s taunt about looking a gift horse in the mouth, she wasn’t about to make things harder by not cooperating fully. She might not like the man, and he might make her teeth grind in irritation, but if he got her out of this mess she’d bite her tongue and not do anything to make him regret rescuing her. Liking him was purely optional, though if he did manage to get her out in one piece, it made her nothing more than a petty, sulky child for holding a grudge over his less-than-congenial personality.

She decided then to stop acting like a petulant twit and keep her mouth shut from here on out. He wouldn’t hear a single argument or complaint from her if it killed her.

She started when she heard a noise and glanced rapidly in the direction of the sound to see Hancock and one of the other men descend the steps into the tiny room that housed the rest of the sleeping men.

For a moment their gazes locked and even in the dim lighting, there was something . . . She shook her head as a fleeting memory chased through her mind, continuing before she could grab on. She frowned because there was something she was missing. Something nagging at her.