Into the Fire (56 page)

Murphy was shouting something—she could not make him stay still while she searched for a first aid kit—and the truck lurched forward. He grabbed her. “Hang on!”

And then, holy God, Jenkins drove, full speed into the little lean-to bathroom that was sticking out, off the side of the cottage. He just sheared it right off, skidding to a stop just beyond it.

Decker jumped out, and Gillman was there, too—having abandoned the other truck—and together, with Izzy and Dave’s help, they loaded Tess and Eden into the back.

Hannah did a quick head count. She knew Decker and probably Dave did, too—they were all there, thank God—as Jenkins ground the gears—she could feel the truck groaning—and they barreled toward the front entrance.

Murphy grabbed her again—“Hang on!”—and she clung to him. He was alive—please God, keep him alive…

Sophia stayed out of the way, hanging on to a grab bar as the truck bounced, speeding toward the front gate, letting Gillman, Izzy, and Dave have access to the back of the truck. They laid down a field of fire that kept the Freedom Network from following too closely.

“Hold on!” Jenkins shouted and Sophia scrambled to help Decker anchor both Tess and Eden as, with a crash, the truck went through the gate.

She felt herself lift into the air, but Decker then had her, too, his leg thrown across her to hold her down.

“You okay?” he shouted, and she nodded. And for a half a second, time seemed to stop as she looked into his eyes. For a half a second, he actually let her in, and she clearly saw his heart—his regret, his grief, all of his anger and pain, and even, yes, his honest affection.

“We’re out!” Jenkins shouted from the driver’s seat.

And Decker, still holding Sophia’s gaze, gave her the funniest half-smile. “Out of the frying pan,” he said, so quietly she couldn’t even hear him, she just read his lips.

But then he turned away, giving his attention and his medical training to Tess and Eden, and the moment—that weird half-second they’d just shared—was over.

It was then that Sophia looked back, out of the truck, to watch the broken gate receding behind them. It was then that she witnessed an even more amazing miracle.

Behind them, were dozens of FBI agents, SEALs, and Troubleshooters—she saw Tom Paoletti with Sam Starrett and Alyssa Locke, Ric and Annie Alvarado, Jules Cassidy and George Faulkner and Yashi and Cosmo and Jazz Jacquette and Stan Wolchonok and so many more. They rose up from their hiding places in the woods, weapons raised and aimed at the Freedom Network gate. They moved swiftly and surely into the road, blocking anyone who might’ve even remotely been considering the escaping truck’s pursuit.

They were, indeed, out.

Murphy had pulled Hannah down, onto his lap, holding her tightly as Jenkins had plowed through the gate, but now he pulled her chin toward him and kissed her.

He
kissed
her? She jerked her head back. “You were shot!”

But he shook his head. “No.” And he opened his jacket—he was wearing one of those disgusting Freedom Network windbreakers—and he showed her the body armor he’d had on beneath it, the bullet trapped just above his heart.

“Jenkins and Gillman are good,” he told her, but beneath her, her leg felt warm and almost wet, and God, when she reached down to touch it, her hand came away bright red with blood.

“Oh, shit,” Murphy said, looking down, “Han, were you hit?”

But it wasn’t her, it was him. He
had
been shot—in the leg. The bullet must’ve hit an artery—there was a growing pool of blood beneath his seat. God, this was the kind of wound that killed. Grown men could bleed out in a matter of minutes.

“We need a medic!” Hannah shouted, taking off her shirt and tearing it so she could use it as a tourniquet.

“I’m going to be all right, Han,” Murphy tried to tell her, as she tied the fabric around his upper leg. “It’s going to be all right.”

“It better,” she all but snarled at him. “Don’t you dare die on me now!”

And then, thank God, thank God, the truck skidded to a stop, and paramedics swarmed aboard. Hannah was pushed back as Murphy and the other wounded were rushed to the medevac choppers that Lindsey and Lopez had made sure were there, waiting for them.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SIX

I
zzy was ready for a happy ending.

Instead, he was pushed aside and left behind as paramedics rushed Eden to the waiting helo.

There wasn’t room for him. They had so many wounded—Murphy, Tess, and Decker, and even the extremely not-dead Tim Ebersole, who’d been gut shot.

And maybe that was what pushed him over the edge—the knowledge that Izzy had to wait for the next helicopter because Tim fucking Ebersole had to be rushed into emergency surgery. Because one of the assholes who had nearly killed Eden had been shot by another of the assholes, Izzy couldn’t be by his wife’s side as Pinkie was born.

But more likely it was the news that he wasn’t meant to overhear as one of the medics radioed the waiting hospital from the front cab of an ambulance. Coming at them ASAP was a fifty-year-old male with a gunshot wound in his abdomen, a thirty-something male with a nicked femoral artery, and an eighteen-year-old female suffering a third trimester miscarriage with severe complications…

Wait a minute.
Miscarriage?
Izzy grabbed the radioman by the shirt and nearly took him to the ground. “She’s in labor, she’s having a baby.”

The medic looked terrified, as if it wasn’t every day he was damn near thrown up against the side of an ambulance like that, until Izzy said, “She’s my wife—in that helo. She’s having a baby.”

“I’m sorry, man,” the medic said. “The baby isn’t…” He shook his head. “We couldn’t get a heartbeat. Even with an emergency C-section…” He shook his head again.

Izzy stood there, as the world whirled around him.

And then the medic added, clearly trying to be helpful, “The hospital’s excellent—she’s got a solid chance of surviving this.”

But a
chance
of surviving meant there was also a chance Eden would die.

The spinning intensified, but Lopez was suddenly there, next to him, trying to make Izzy sit down. Except, damn it, he didn’t want to sit. “I need to get to the hospital.”

“We’ll get you there,” Lopez reassured him. “Man, you’re looking kind of pale.”

Izzy tried saying it louder. “I need to get to the hospital!”

“Whoa, Zanella, I heard you.” Lopez took a step back. “You’ve got to wait for the next helo, man. It’ll be ready to go soon.”

But Izzy had more questions for the medic. He followed the man, ignoring Lopez, brushing aside Jenkins and Gillman, who’d come to see what the shouting was about. He caught the medic’s arm. “Does she know?”

The man didn’t understand. It was possible Izzy had grabbed him a little too hard again, because he was back to looking frightened. Izzy said it again, more slowly this time. “Eden. My wife. Does she know—” the words choked him “—her baby’s dead?”

“I don’t know,” the medic answered.

Izzy was near meltdown. His eyes felt hot and his heart was pounding, and he felt fucking unsteady on his feet as he tried to understand exactly what he was being told. “You’re telling me,” he said, “that you put her on that fucking helo, without me, without anyone she knows, and she may or may not have been told that her
baby
is
dead
?” He was shouting by the end of that, the force of it actually hurting his throat, and his teammates were there, pulling him back.

“We’ll get you to the hospital,” Lopez was saying. “We’re going to get you to that hospital, man, okay?”

Even Gillman tried to be solicitous. “Maybe it’s for the best, Zanella,” he said. “You know? Maybe this is a blessing.”

And Izzy detonated.

Dave watched as Decker sat with Tess, waiting for that second medevac helicopter to lift off.

The medics had set up a triage, and had determined that both Decker and Tess’s wounds could wait the few minutes necessary for the second chopper to depart.

Tess had roused as Dave had helped Decker carry her off the truck, and of course the first words out of her mouth were, “Is Jimmy all right?”

Decker briefly met Dave’s eyes before he looked down at the injured woman and somehow managed to smile. “Yeah. We’re going to go to the hospital, get patched up, and then I’ll take you to see him, okay?”

Whatever Tess saw on Decker’s face and in his eyes seemed to satisfy her, because she closed her own eyes.

Dave stayed close, preparing to take the chopper to the hospital with her, prepared for the dreadful task of being there with the harsh truth when she woke up after being treated, but Decker pulled him aside and quietly said, “I’ll stay with her. I’ll tell her.”

Dave shook his head. “I should be with you. I should…”

Decker put his hand on Dave’s shoulder. “You never asked to be team leader. You did great, Dave, as you always do, but now it’s my turn. I’ll take care of Tess.”

It was odd, but there was something different about Decker tonight. It was as if the man Dave had admired for so many years had returned. He was there—all of him—instead of being preoccupied and distant. It was almost as if Jim Nash’s death had grounded him. Or even…brought him peace?

It didn’t make sense.

But Dave nodded and cleared his throat to say, “I thought I should be there, too, sir. To, you know. Help you.”

“I got it,” Decker reassured him.

But Dave didn’t get a chance at rebuttal, because over near the ambulances, Izzy Zanella and Danny Gillman were trying to kill each other again. Apparently, the adrenaline rush from battling an army at ten to two-hundred odds just wasn’t enough for the two Navy SEALs.

“Fuck you, asshole!” Zanella was shouting as he pounded the heck out of the smaller man. “
Fuck
you! Don’t you ever fucking say that again!”

Sophia was sitting nearby with Hannah, who was looking shell-shocked and wearing a Sacramento Fire Department T-shirt that someone had lent her, waiting for the second helicopter to take her to the hospital, where Murphy was about to be rushed into surgery. Both women stood as Dave ran toward the fracas.

Lopez, Jenkins, and even Lindsey had jumped on top of Zanella and Gillman, trying to separate them. But as they pulled Izzy off of Gillman, Dave saw that the bigger man was in tears.

“Eden lost the baby,” Sophia moved closer to quietly report to Dave.

“Oh, no.” Dave felt sick.

Lindsey joined them, only slightly out of breath. “Danny said something really stupid and…Izzy needs to get to the hospital, boss,” she told him. “We need to get him on the next chopper, stat.”

Dave nodded. “Hannah, too. Will you go see what’s the holdup?”

Lindsey nodded and dashed off.

Jenkins had somehow gotten Izzy to sit down, and Lopez had pulled Gillman aside.

“Dude,” Dave overheard Lopez say. “Use your brain before you speak. Your sister wanted this baby.”

“She’s just a baby herself,” Gillman argued.

“She’s older than your mother was when she had your older sister,” Lopez pointed out.

“Yeah, and look at how well
that
turned out,” Gillman came back. “I still think—”

“And
I
think you need to keep your opinion to yourself.” As Dave watched, Lopez actually shoved Gillman. Hard.

Which was startling. And
that
was stupid. Jay Lopez was a Navy SEAL, which meant he not only knew how to fight, he knew how to kill.

Whatever he then said to Gillman, he said it too softly for Dave to hear. But Gillman managed to look properly chagrined as his teammate walked away.

Lindsey dashed back. “They’re ready to go.”

And sure enough, Decker was helping the medics load Tess aboard the aircraft. Sophia was there, helping Hannah, then stepping back so that Izzy could board.

They had room for one more, and Dave tapped Sophia.

But she hesitated. “What about you?”

“I’ll see you over there,” he promised her.

And then they were away.

S
ACRAMENTO
, C
ALIFORNIA

Pinkie was blue.

As the alleged father, Izzy was allowed to see the baby’s body. He was tiny and perfect—except not really. Not on the inside.

When he’d arrived at the hospital, Eden was already in the recovery room. She’d had emergency surgery—a C-section. At least that’s what it would have been called if Pinkie had made it to full term.

But he hadn’t.

The doctor sat down with Izzy and gave him a speech about holes in the heart and congenital birth defects and blah blah blah. Bottom line was the cold hard fact that Eden’s baby had been doomed from the get-go.

The good news—so to speak—was that Pinkie hadn’t died because he and Eden had had sex on their wedding night. He hadn’t died because she’d been roughly handled by her stepfather or her kidnappers.

He’d died because he had a design flaw.

He’d died, and Eden’s body had known it, and had pushed the eject button.

The fact that Pinkie was blue wasn’t the only thing Izzy’d noticed about the baby.

Pinkie was also white. That is, he was Caucasian.

And Richie—whom Izzy had seen on that graphic video—had been African-American.

And the truth was? Izzy’d cried almost as much about that—about the fact that Eden had lied to him after all—as he’d cried about that deadly little hole in Pinkie’s imperfect little heart.

But he sat in the recovery room, in the chair beside Eden’s bed, thinking about that sex video and about the crazy, mixed-up, disaster-filled, soul-damaging life Eden had led, thinking about how skeptical he himself was when it came to trust and love. And he hoped with all of his already-battered heart, as he sat there holding her hand, that she’d have an explanation that would help him understand why she’d felt she had to lie.

The nurses came running for Hannah, just as she was about to get into the hospital elevator. Murphy was awake.

She ran for his room, ignoring a scolding from a doctor, skidding on a just-washed floor, and scrambling through the open door.

“I’m here,” she said. “Bwee, I’m here. I’m all right.”

They’d told her that it would probably be another two hours before he regained consciousness from his surgery.
Go get some coffee, get something to eat…
She’d made the mistake of thinking Murphy would follow the rules.

“I was wearing a vest,” he said, and he was working it, hard, to keep his diction clear so that she could understand him. The painkiller in his system was damn near making his eyes roll back in his head, but he was bound and determined to talk to her.

“A bulletproof vest,” Hannah agreed, fighting the tears that sprang to her eyes. When he’d first stepped out in front of all the Freedom Networks’ weapons, she’d thought he was resigned to, and even welcoming, his impending death. But he wasn’t. He’d actually been wearing body armor. “I know. I saw.”

“You…really okay?”

He groped for her hand, and she sat beside him, clasping his in both of hers, bringing his fingers to her lips.

“I am.” She laughed, but it was more to cover the fact that she had tears running down her face. “You scared the shit out of me, Vinh.”

“I din wanna die,” he said, losing the battle with the drugs in his system. “Wan’ live.”

“I know,” Hannah told him.

But even as Murphy faded back to sleep, he managed to arrange the fingers of his right hand into the ASL sign that they both knew so well. Pinkie, thumb and forefinger straight, ring and middle finger bent.

I love you.

“I love you, too, bwee,” Hannah told him.

She didn’t leave his side again.

Tess’s surgery had been relatively minor. But Decker had sat with her until she’d gone in, getting his own bullet wound looked at and stitched up while he waited for her to return to the recovery room. Then he’d sat with her yet again until she roused, and again until the nurses all agreed that she was, once more, sleeping soundly, and would stay that way for quite some time.

Only then did Deck leave the hospital, catching a cab over to the FBI building in downtown Sacramento. The place was far more quiet than it had been earlier in the day, only a few people passing him in the hall.

He released the guard standing at the conference room door with a nod, then let himself inside.