Fatal Honor: Shadow Force International (35 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

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A
N
E
XPLOSION
E
RUPTED
behind them, the van rocking as its wheels skidded in the snow. Miles grabbed onto Charlotte, lying on the floor, and held on tight.

The blizzard had let up but the roads were shit. Zeb had put Hunter in charge of getting them out of the compound and away from the grounds. With Hunter’s enhanced skills and reaction times, he was the best man for the job. They’d barely made it out when the one bomb they couldn’t disarm went off.

A fireball rose behind them. The van righted and everyone took a deep breath. The vehicle was equipped for surveillance, not triage, but tackling Charlotte and Madeena’s injuries by degree of severity had to be done.

Miles felt like his world was being torn in two. The woman he loved was near death. She’d killed Norris to protect him, to protect Madeena, and here he was helpless to save her.

“She needs blood,” Jax yelled, checking Charlotte’s pulse. “Where’s that report from Beatrice?”

Parker had Charlotte’s head in her lap. Moe sat in the corner, laptop in hand. “Coming in right now,” he said. “Looks like Charlie’s AB neg.”

“Anyone AB neg?” Zeb said, handing Miles his coat as he checked on Madeena’s wrists. The girl was half awake, her head rolling as the van skidded back and forth again. “We’ll be at the clinic in minutes. Dr. Lascar will be waiting for us, but I doubt he’s got any AB neg on hand.”

AB-. Of course, Charlotte would carry one of the rarest blood types in the world.

“Doesn’t have to be AB negative,” Parker said. Closest to Zeb, she took Miles’ coat and pillowed it under Charlotte’s head. Charlotte’s skin was white as the fur on the coat’s hood. Her lips were blue. “A neg or B neg will also work.”

Miles looked up. “Seriously? I’m B negative.”

“That’ll do,” Jax said. He pulled tubing and a field-issued blood transfusion pack from his backpack. Ripping the top off a package of alcohol wipes, he handed one to Miles. “Find a vein.”

As Jax rigged his system to collect Miles’ blood, Zeb grabbed Charlotte’s hand. “Hang in there, Agent Carstons. No one’s clocking out today.”

The backwoods clinic had seen better days, but the nurse and doctor that met them at the door seemed battlefield tested when they arrived a few minutes later. There was no time to get to a major hospital in Bucharest, not with the roads as bad as they were. Beatrice had sent directions to this clinic, told them they could trust Lascar.

They had no choice. If they didn’t, Charlotte would die.

She might die anyway.

Before Miles knew it, Charlotte was on a gurney heading for a backroom draped in plastic. Miles, holding a bandage over the vein Jax had abused to draw blood, started to follow.

The doctor, a short man with gray hair and bushy gray eyebrows stopped him. His voice was heavily accented, but not with Romanian. “We have to find the bullet and stop the blood loss. That’s our job, son.” If Miles had to guess, he’d say the good doctor was from Louisiana. New Orleans, possibly. “Your job is to stay here and pray.”

Zeb grabbed Miles’ arm. Hunter took his other. “Come on, man.” Hunter urged him back to the front room. “Let the doctor work.”

“I can assist,” Jax told Lascar, handing him the bag of blood he’d taken from Miles. “Never finished my residency, but handled plenty in the field.”

Lascar motioned with his head for Jax to follow him.

Over his shoulder, Miles watched the nurse prepping Charlotte for the surgery. The woman’s dark eyes came up to meet his over the edge of her face mask. She nodded at him, offering the only reassurance she could. Jax donned a gown and face mask and closed the door to the surgical room.

Miles paced the small waiting room. Parker found a kitchen down a long hallway and brought back juice for Madeena. A lost and found box near the entrance provided snow pants, a sweatshirt with Madonna’s face plastered on the front, and a hat. Parker removed her boots and socks, pulling the woolen socks over Madeena’s feet. Soon the girl was looking warmer and had perked up enough to ask for food. Parker and Moe walked her back to the kitchen and emerged a few minutes later with candy bars for all of them.

Miles shook his head when Madeena offered him one. He tossed the bandage from his inner elbow into the garbage and rubbed his forehead. Norris had died instantly from Charlotte’s shot, and was probably buried under a ton of ancient stones and rocks. But a part of him wanted to go dig the bastard up and kill him all over again.

Minutes dragged into an hour, then another. He wandered the clinic, making laps through each of the sad, little rooms. The place looked like an ordinary backwoods family clinic. But as Miles started randomly looking through drawers and cabinets, he came across high tech equipment. An extensive drug supply cabinet hidden behind a wall in the doctor’s office. Weapons beneath a loose floorboard in a storage closet.

The doctor wasn’t just a doctor. Who he worked for was up for grabs. CIA? NSA? DIA? The Queen?

Beatrice had a lot of contacts from her time in the NSA. Lascar had to be one of them. Taped under the doctor’s pencil drawer, Miles found a loaded Sig Sauer. Behind the office door sat a loaded rifle with a military-issue night scope.

Hopefully Lascar knew his way around surgery the way he knew his guns.

No longer able to contain his anxiety, Miles left the clinic and walked out into the night. Sunrise was only minutes away, he realized, seeing the horizon had gone from deepest black to a muddy blue. Would Charlotte live to see another day?

Cold seeped into his bones. Bone-chilling cold. Exhaustion made him woozy, white spots specked his vision. He leaned back against the clinic’s bricks and watched his breath fog the air. Every cell in his body demanded he go back in there and save her, but there was nothing else he could do. His blood was all he could give her.

Fuck this
.

He was helpless once more.

All his time in the SEALs and he’d never met anyone like Charlotte or had the adventures he’d had with her. Riding out a winter storm in the mountains, dancing with Gypsies, hustling pool tricks. She’d given him more in the past year—the past few
days
—than he’d experienced in his entire lifetime.

He wanted more. Much, much more.

The back door of the clinic squeaked open sometime later. Dr. Lascar stuck his head out. His surgical cap was still on his head, the mask hanging around his neck. His gown was covered with blood. “God Almighty, what the hell are you doing out here?”

Miles jacked himself off the bricks. “Is she all right?”

“She could use another round of blood. That first bag only held half a pint.” He looked Miles over. “You look like a healthy young man. Think you could give us a bit more?”

“She’s alive?”

Lascar looked at him like he was stupid. “No sense in giving blood to a corpse that I know of.”

“No, sir.” Miles smiled and held out his other arm. “Take all the blood you need.”

Chapter Twenty-four

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Washington, D.C.

B
EEP…
B
EEP…
B
EEP.
The noise woke Charlotte, cutting through a foggy dream about Miles and Maddy. She was happy. They were happy too.

Beep…beep…beep.

Annoying, that beep. Why wouldn’t it stop and let her go back to sleep?

She couldn’t feel most of her body, like it weighed nothing more than a feather. Like she wasn’t anchored to anything.

I’m floating.

She tried to block the beeping noise and recall her dream. She wanted to stay inside that dream forever. Miles smiling at her. Madeena running in a field and laughing.

And then, there was the little boy. He was playing with hand carved wooden animals.

No matter how hard she tried, the dream edged away, dissolving, refusing to offer her comfort. In its place, horrible memories whizzed by. Snow and cold and blood. The sounds of bullets. Norris raising a gun…

Beep, beep, beep.

Charlotte sucked in a deep breath and blinked open her eyes. The noise was coming from a heart monitor next to her bed. The lights over the bed were off, but sunlight filtered through a large window off to her left. She blinked and shaded her eyes.

Bouquets of flowers and balloons lined the shelf under the window, and a TV hovered in one corner with the BBC news running on it.

Hospital. London. Her heart rate ratcheted up another notch.

“Hello, Agent Carstons,” a woman’s voice said off to her right. “We finally meet in person.”

Charlotte craned her neck and saw a lovely blonde with a tablet propped on her large, pregnant belly. The woman wore her hair up in a bun, purple framed reading glasses sitting low on her nose.

The floating feeling finished disappearing as Charlotte shifted in the bed. An explosion of pain went off in her leg, claws tearing into her muscles. She bit the inside of her bottom lip to keep from crying out. But she was alive.

The thought shocked her.

Where is Miles?

No doubt he’d brought her home and dropped her off to face the music. She’d lost the USB and killed Norris. Dead might be better than facing life in prison.

“You have me…at…a disadvantage.” Charlotte forced herself to breathe steadily around the pain, but her voice came out croaky. Her dry throat didn’t want to cooperate. “I assume Vauxhall sent you?”

The woman tilted her head slightly. “Vauxhall has tried recruiting me on several occasions, but I declined their offers. The Queen and I don’t get along.”

A grin tugged at Charlotte’s mouth as she realized who she was speaking to. “You’re Beatrice, aren’t you? From Shadow Force International. I recognize your voice.”

“I am, indeed.” Beatrice wrestled her awkward body out of the chair. “I’m relieved you made it back to the States in one piece. We haven’t lost a client yet, and I certainly don’t plan to start.”

“States? Aren’t we in London?”

The woman sauntered over to the bed. Waddled was more like it. “Washington, D.C. Vauxhall wishes to speak to you, but you’re under my jurisdiction as a client for now. When you’re up for it, I’ll notify them of your whereabouts and that you’re available for deposing.”

Charlotte liked this woman. A lot. “Thank you. I can’t say I’m in a hurry to go to prison.”

“The treason charges have been dropped. Henley set up the comms and cameras to stream live to me at SFI headquarters during the rescue of the girl. Agent Norris’ conversation with you was enough to show MI6 you were being used as a tool for his own purposes. They have questions, and I can’t protect you from all the red tape you’ll to go through while they investigate, but until then, your mission is to recover.”

The pain meds were definitely wearing off. The clawing sensation in her leg matched the beating of her heart. “How long will that take?”

“Norris’ bullet lodged in the femur and had to be removed surgically. It did some damage, hence the temporary cast. Once the doctor releases you, and you receive a couple weeks of physical therapy, you should be able to walk normally again.”

“Is Miles okay?”

Beatrice touched the screen of her tablet. “Yes, although he refused treatment for his injuries. You wouldn’t be alive without him, Agent Carstons. You might have bled out if not for the fact his blood type was compatible with yours.”

Miles had donated blood to save her. She would at least have something of him to take with her after her recovery, even though he was obviously not interested in continuing their relationship.

Not that she could blame him. “Norris said Miles and his SEAL team were hunting me. Back when this all started with Blackwater.”

He’d known all along who she was while she cared for his wounds and seduced him at the cabin. Or maybe he’d skillfully seduced
her
, planning to arrest her once the snow melted and he could put out an SOS to his senior chief. She hated to ask, but she needed to know. “Is that true?”

“From all accounts of the mission I’ve been privy to, their primary target was extracting Dr. Alexander from Romania. There were MI6 agents at the joint training session. Their mission I can’t attest to, but most likely it involved finding you. It is possible Miles knew who you were.”

Possible
. She’d have to pin him down some day and find out for sure.

Her skin itched where an IV needle was taped to it. “How long have I been out?”

Beatrice checked her watch. “Going on thirty-one hours. You suffered a head concussion, and with all the blood loss and the stress of the surgery, your body simply needed a lot of sleep.”

“Madeena? Is she okay?”

“The girl is doing well. She’s been begging to see you. Because of her parentage and the fact she has no legal guardian available to care for her, I’ve taken steps to ensure her temporary safety and well-being, but it
is
temporary. She is in this country illegally. If I turn her over to the authorities, they will deport her. Or she may chose to return on her own. I can’t hold her here either.”