Hunted (29 page)

Fire. He was torching the cabin with her in it.

Zoe whirled around and raced for the makeshift living room, the smoke following behind her like a lethal fog.

Still in the water, Clay watched as Carlos raced across the grassy slope toward the dock, his body and Leticia’s silhouetted against the orange and yellow flames engulfing the front of the cabin. As was the automatic rifle slung over his shoulder.

“Fire crews are en route,” one of the spotters reported through his earpiece, “and another team is moving in to search for more hostages inside.”

Shit, they’d never get here in time to save Zoe—if she was even in there.

Everything in him wanted to get in there and search for Zoe before the fire grew too large for them to enter, but he couldn’t move from his position and race for the cabin without revealing him and the others, which would endanger everyone’s lives. He had his teammates lives to protect. He couldn’t break formation now, no matter who was inside the cabin. But goddammit, he’d never been this conflicted about an op before.

Behind him, Tuck reached out and tapped him firmly on the shoulder. Clay nodded and set his jaw, fighting like hell to stay in operational mode.

He was good at compartmentalizing, he’d been trained by the best, but his brain kept focusing on Zoe. It took everything he had to lock that down, focus on what needed to be done. The quicker they took care of this, the faster he could search for Zoe.

Carlos was almost at the dock now. Just twenty yards away. He still hadn’t seen them.

With another hand signal, Clay ordered them forward. Fuck, he wanted this over. They’d already gone over a contingency plan to cover the possibility of Carlos trying to escape during the assault. The plan called for them to split into two mini-platoons, Clay leading the group in the water and Tuck taking his group onto land.

Silently they split up and headed to their designated positions, cutting off both land and water escape routes. Clay dipped back beneath the surface, knew Schroder and Cruz were right behind him. Under the water the sounds from above were muted but he could see the eerie orange glow of the fire reflected against the top of the water and he clearly heard Ruiz’s running footsteps as they thudded over the wooden dock ahead.

Close now. Just another few seconds and Tuck and the others should be in position…

He heard Tuck’s warning shout to Ruiz. Instantly Clay shot to his feet, his upper body erupting out of the water like some lethal swamp creature, rifle aimed at Ruiz, the red laser dot resting in the middle of the bastard’s chest. Cruz and Schroder popped up just behind him, flanking either side, their remaining teammates stacked in position between the cabin and the dock. Six more laser dots lit up Ruiz’s chest.

“Put your hands up, now!” Tuck bellowed, taking a gliding step forward, weapon trained on Ruiz.

Ruiz had frozen in place, Leticia still draped across his shoulder. He whirled her around in front of him, using her for a shield, and raised his weapon at them with one arm.

Fuck.

“Freeze and get on the ground!” Tuck warned again, just as Ruiz wheeled toward Clay’s position and pulled the trigger, unleashing a spray of bullets.

Clay ducked down, submerging, as rounds peppered the water to his right, missing him by only a few feet.
You stupid son of a bitch
, he thought, surging upward the moment the bullets stopped. He emerged from the water to see that Tuck had already taken a shot. Ruiz was on one knee, trying to gather Leticia back up in front of him.

Clay caught sight of the cabin in his peripheral vision. The entire front was on fire, and in a split second Ruiz would have his human shield back in place.
Fuck this.
He took aim at Ruiz’s chest and fired. Simultaneous bursts of double shots rang out from both him and Tuck. Ruiz staggered back as the rounds hit him center mass, and fell to his knees on the dock. But he wasn’t down.

Body armor.

Everything went into slow motion. Ruiz raised his weapon again, his face a mask of rage and panic, lit by the flickering fire up the slope. They couldn’t take a head shot. The powers that be wanted this asshole brought in alive, so they could offer him fucking immunity if he agreed to testify on his drug cartel and jihadist buddies later on.

But there were always exceptions, and if it came down to taking Ruiz out to save his teammates, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Clay aimed at Ruiz’s right shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

****

Carlos screamed in agony as two bullets slammed into his right shoulder.

The force of it knocked him sideways, the pain making the world swim before his eyes. Leticia fell at his feet on the dock. But he didn’t let go of his weapon.

He raised it with his left hand and squeezed the trigger, sending out a desperate spray of bullets, hoping to hit at least a few of the men shooting at him. He couldn’t even fucking see the ones in the water.

All he needed was a minute. Just one goddamn minute to get him and Leticia into the boat and speed away from the dock. The aluminum wouldn’t provide much protection but it was better than nothing and he doubted they’d keep firing at him without a clear visual for fear of hitting Leticia.

He spun around, ready to make a dive for the boat. Two more rounds hit his left shoulder, jerking him off his feet. He fell to his back, pain engulfing him. He couldn’t move his ruined arms, couldn’t get the muscles to cooperate when he tried to reach for his weapon once more.

The men were shouting at him to stay down, get on the ground. He knew they were here to take him alive, otherwise they’d have killed him the moment he raised his rifle at them.

He wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t let them take him in, offer him some deal to get him to testify against his friends. Then he’d wind up in fucking WITSEC and lose Leticia forever.

“On the ground, hands where I can see them!” a man shouted at him from the foot of the dock. There were four of them, Carlos saw now, backlit by the burning cabin.

He turned his head, his gaze swinging to Leticia. She was huddled on her belly on the dock, her eyes huge with fear as she stared back at him.

A pang of sorrow hit him in the heart. She was worried about him. She
did
still care.

But he wasn’t going to let them take him.

Ignoring the shouts of the men closing in on him, knowing he had only seconds, he held her gaze for a heartbeat, grief filling his lungs like concrete. “I love you,” he rasped out. “I’m sorry.”

He looked down into the black water. Gathering the last of his waning courage, Carlos got to his knees and pitched forward.

“Stop!” the same man yelled from up the dock.

A bullet thudded into his thigh an instant before he hit the water. His mouth opened in a howl of pain. Water flooded in, foul and dirty. He choked on it, couldn’t fight his body’s reaction, making him thrash around in an attempt to surface, drag in air.

His ruined shoulders refused to move. The ballistic vest weighed him down. Pain engulfed him along with the panic. He started to sink, falling down, down.

Rough hands caught him. A hard arm clamped around his chest and suddenly he was rocketing upward. He broke the surface and let out a horrible gasp, struggled to get free but he was already too weak.

The man towing him reached the edge of the dock and shoved him upward. Someone else grabbed him, dragged him up and over the edge, ignoring his scream of pain. They secured his hands behind him and flipped him over onto his back.

Shaking, coughing, Carlos struggled to open his eyes. Someone was lifting Leticia into their arms. Seeing another man caring for her was ten times more painful than the bullet wounds slowly bleeding him dry. Other men were already racing up the dock, back toward the cabin.

Strong fingers grasped his chin and his head was jerked around. Carlos blinked, stared up into a pair of enraged blue eyes. The man was soaking wet, water dripping from his camouflage-painted face and dark uniform. It took him a moment to recognize him.

Zoe’s lover.

Zoe’s lover had pulled him from the water.

The man bared his teeth at him in a feral snarl. “Where’s Zoe?”

You can’t have her now.
Carlos had lost his woman and now this man had too.

Zoe’s lover leaned down until their noses almost touched, his expression deadly. “Where
is
she?” he bellowed, fingers tightening around Carlos’s jaw with crushing force.

An ironic laugh bubbled up from inside him, but it came out a wheeze. “Gone,” he muttered.

The man’s eyebrows crashed together. “What?” But Carlos saw the naked fear his answer put in the man’s eyes.

He turned his gaze to the cabin, now almost entirely engulfed in flame, and felt a surge of triumph. “She’s burning.”

The back of his skull thunked against the dock as the man shoved him and raced toward the cabin.

****

The smoke was so thick she was choking on it.

Zoe coughed and squinted through the thick, dark veil hugging the ceiling. She was crouched on the floor to take advantage of the clearer air down below but she knew she didn’t have much time left. The fire was already in the kitchen and the smoke would kill her long before the flames reached her.

Crawling to the end table by an armchair she yanked the cord of the ceramic lamp out of the outlet and hurled it at the window. It shattered, raining bits of ceramic down on her, littering the floor. Another lamp, a paperweight and the TV were lying broken on the floor beneath the window.

She’d already thrown the smaller pieces of furniture she could lift and she was running out of ammo. The glass pane was broken but the frame was reinforced with bars on the outside and so far she hadn’t been able to bust through it with anything.

Gunshots sounded from out front. Zoe’s heart leaped. It was either the neighbor or the police. They’d get Carlos and help her. She didn’t know how much longer she could withstand the smoke though.

Out of desperation she grabbed pieces of firewood and started throwing them at the window. They bounced off the metal bars without making so much as a dent. She ducked back down, coughing in ragged bursts as her lungs tried to clear themselves. Her eyes were streaming, the heat of the fire licking at her back. Crawling forward she grabbed a thick log and rose to her knees, reaching up to smash it repeatedly against the metal. The bars wouldn’t give.

Zoe fought back sobs of fear. This was her only exit and she couldn’t fucking use it.

More shots from outside.

A few minutes more. Someone would get to her. They had to.

She cast a frantic glance around the hellishly glowing room. She’d thrown everything possible at the window. There was nothing left to try and she couldn’t stand up to yank on the bars without risking succumbing to smoke inhalation.

Zoe scrambled for the farthest corner of the room and laid flat on her stomach, yanking the front of her dress over her mouth and nose to act as a filter, feeble though it was. Her heart was lodged in her throat, every second a separate agony of suspense.

Then she heard it. Someone shouting her name.

She got to her knees and shuffled toward the window. Drew a smoke-filled breath and screamed as loud as she could. “I’m in here! Help me!” Smoke clogged her lungs. She doubled over, hacking and gasping, her eyes streaming.

“Zoe?”

“Here!” she shouted back, because that voice had been nearby. This was her only chance to get their attention. Dragging in a shallow breath, fighting not to cough, she held her breath and shot to her feet with a log in her hands, banging it as hard as she could against the metal bars.

Clang, clang, clang
.

The sound echoed around the room, reverberating above the crackle of the flames, licking steadily nearer.

She smashed the wood against the bars again.

Clang, clang.

Her fatigued muscles gave out, her lungs screaming for oxygen. Out of air, she dropped the log and fell to her knees, dragging in a desperate breath. There was no clear air. She was choking now. Suffocating.

She cast a panicked glance up at the window.

“Zoe.”

She couldn’t answer. But through the smoke she saw hands grip the bars. They rattled the grate. “Help me get this off!” the man shouted to someone.

Another set of hands appeared. Together they yanked and yanked while Zoe locked her watering eyes on them and prayed with every heartbeat.

Then the metal creaked and gave way. The bars popped free and a man’s head and shoulders emerged through the frame. The smoke thinned for an instant. A pair of hazel eyes zeroed in on her from a camouflaged face.

Zoe reached blindly for him. He shot his hands out, grasped hers and hauled her up with brute strength. The rough edge of the window ledge scraped against her belly, hipbones and thighs as he dragged her through it into the cool night air.

Zoe coughed and gagged for what seemed like minutes as he put her over his shoulder and ran away from the burning cabin, the other man right behind him. Her starved lungs sucked in breath after desperate breath of clean air, and soon she was able to breathe again.

The man ran toward the road where emergency vehicles crowded the turn to the property, their strobing lights lighting up the darkness.

“
Zoe
!”

She whipped her head up at the sound of Clay’s voice behind her. Tried to answer but couldn’t catch her breath.

“I’ve got her! This way!” the man carrying her yelled at him.

When they reached an ambulance the man eased her off his shoulder and set her onto the stretcher the paramedics had brought out. Zoe lay on her back and wiped her stinging eyes, still wracked by bouts of coughing, and blinked up at the stranger.

Before she could say anything the man behind him came up, and beneath all the camo paint she was startled to recognize Schroder.

“Hey,” he said as he took up position next to her. He pulled off his gloves and put an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, bending close. “Good to see you.”