License to Love (An Agent Ex Novel) (35 page)

If it wasn’t, she, Tate, and Tal were in deep space doo-doo. Emmett would be furious at them for ignoring orders.

The Vegas plane coasted to a stop. Tate and Tal were in position, hiding and ready to make their surprise move. Both men were excellent shots and had nerves of steel. But Lani couldn’t help wishing the Agency’s top assassin, Jack Pierce, could be in two places at once—saving her baby and here. Even after coming back from a near-fatal accident and having to retrain, Jack never missed. He was so calm and calculated, sometimes she swore he didn’t have a heartbeat.

Jack had taught her an assassin’s trick or two and helped her improve her shooting. But now she was stuck in the observation booth. What, exactly, was she supposed to do if Tate and Tal got into trouble? Run to their aid? A lone gun against everyone, friend and/or foe? There was no way she’d be able to get backup.

And what happened if Ty and Rock and the young guns ran afoul? What did she do then?

The door to the plane opened. A uniformed Dreamland employee pushed a set of mobile stairs to the door. Lani held her breath as a man emerged from the jet.

*   *   *

Jake and Zach leapfrogged and appeared and disappeared at will. With Will’s laser and smoke cover, everything was going according to plan. The crowd chased after them, eager, yelling greetings in Klingon and gibberish that must have been other alien tongues as they hung out of their cars and waved. Why Klingon? Who knew? Sounded alien, Rock imagined. They signaled the aliens with flashing lights that mimicked Morse code and waved banners with crazy-looking characters.

Rock had to hand it to the NUFOs. They came prepared for every kind of alien sighting.

Less than a mile to the gates. Rock wasn’t exactly superstitious except about opening nights like this one. Rehearsals had gone too well. There was always a bug, and opening night usually found it. If he was very lucky, it was something small that the audience wouldn’t notice. Tonight, though, he couldn’t afford anything to go wrong at all.

He went over everything in his mind. He’d planned the illusion so the audience would be so diverted by the alien craft and the aliens themselves that they’d overlook the mechanics of what was really going on. No one would notice the hovercrafts.

Now that part of the performance was nearly over and the most dangerous part, his part, stopping the crowd, was almost upon them. And there was still no word from the rescue team.

The hovercraft cooked along, skimming above the earth, and providing the smoothest ride Rock had ever had. He was going to be spoiled for life now. And from the look on his face, so was Ty.

The ride was so smooth and bump-free that Rock had stopped holding on and stood watching the crowd without bracing himself as he might have in a regular land vehicle.

The mind is an amazing thing. When it’s fully concentrated, it can be so single-minded of purpose that it blocks out all other stimuli. A person deeply engaged in reading a novel won’t hear their spouse call their name. Deep in the heart and world of his illusion, concentrating on details, Rock didn’t hear Ty speaking to him until Ty shook his arm.

“Do you hear that?” Ty’s voice was urgent. A second later, he began cursing and shoved the hovercraft into full throttle.

Rock was still coming out of the fog of concentration. The sudden movement of the hovercraft sent him sprawling backward on his ass. “What the hell?”

A second too late, he heard the distinctive whistle of a missile coming at them. Ty dodged and weaved as Rock tried to get his bearings.

Ty swerved to the right, throwing Rock against the hovercraft wall. “Hold tight. It’s locked onto us.”

“That can’t be good.” Rock’s right arm throbbed from banging against the side of the hovercraft. “Can we outrun it? Force the missile to blow something else up?”

Ty shook his head as he concentrated on steering the craft. “Hell, no.”

Ty pulled a lever and the hovercraft suddenly lost altitude. “I’m taking us down. When I get near enough to the ground, I’m going to throttle way back. We’ll have a short window to abandon the craft before the missile hits it. Tuck and roll when you hit the ground. On my signal, bail. And run like hell when you get your feet beneath you.”

Rock pushed to a stand. Here was his bug. And it was worse than he’d ever imagined—a bomb. The last thing he wanted was a bomb in
any
sense of the word.

“Ready.” Ty veered the craft sideways.

Rock climbed the wall of the craft, balancing on it as if he was on a high-wire. Good thing he’d seen so many Cirque du Soleil shows.

“On three,” Ty said. “One … two … now!”

Rock threw himself over the edge of the craft.

*   *   *

The pilot emerged from the plane with his hands raised, strapped to a bomb.

Lani leaned back in her chair and held a hand up to the security section chief next to her in the security booth. Tate emerged from his cover and approached the pilot. A squad of armed military guards appeared from nowhere to back Tate up.

“Don’t come any closer! Any movement could set the bomb off.” The pilot sounded calm enough, but the look in his eyes said he was terrified.

Tate’s voice came over the TV in Lani’s security room. “Send the bomb squad.”

“I’m on it.” Lani hardly needed to contact them. They were already on their way.

“What about the plane?” Tate asked the pilot.

“Clean, as far as I know.”

“Who’s on board?” Tate had his gun aimed at the pilot.

Trust no one.
For all they knew this could be a double-cross. A plot to lure more soldiers onto the plane to meet their deaths.

“No one. My passengers bailed over the desert.”

What?
Lani’s heart stopped. How had they missed that? She had to contact Ty and Rock immediately.

As she reached for her cell phone to contact Ty, a movement on the screen monitoring the illusion caught her attention. Lani frowned and paused with the phone in her hand.

“What in the world is Ty doing?” Lani whispered to herself, heart pounding as she watched the hovercraft carrying Rock and Ty fly erratically, as if Ty was drunk at the helm. It bounced around so much she lost visual contact with Rock and Ty.

She hit a switch in front of her and called engineering. “Something’s wrong with craft one. Take control—”

An explosion rocked the screen where just a second before the plane from Vegas had arrived. The plane was completely engulfed in flames and sirens were going off. She couldn’t see Tate in the mayhem.

As Lani pulled up Tate’s number to call him, Ty’s hovercraft exploded before her on the other screen, turning into a great fireball.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

An aerial acrobat, Rock was not. He jumped, tucked, and rolled right onto the hardest patch of ground in the entire desert. Or so it felt. He knocked his head pretty good against a boulder, too, as he came to a full and complete stop with a mouthful of dust. Damn, rocky landscape. He had to work on sticking his landing next time. He spat the dirt out and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Ty, however, had made a perfect stuntman landing next to him, and rolled to his feet while Rock was still struggling to catch his breath.

An explosion nearby nearly blinded Rock and sent his ears back to ringing mode. Next to him, Ty shielded his eyes with his arm.

Rock’s first thought was that the bomb had blown up the hovercraft. But as his eyes adjusted to the dark again and his night-vision goggles kicked in, bits of shrapnel rained down on him, and Rock realized the bomb had exploded in midair.

“Damn, they missed it. Great job, man.” Rock punched the air and bounced to his feet.

Ten feet from them the hovercraft wobbled and floated unmanned, looking precariously close to crashing.

“Damn is right. RIOT doesn’t miss. They exploded that bomb on purpose. Don’t you see? They want the hovercraft. It’s experimental and top secret. I’m sure we’re guinea pigs for the boys at Dreamland who are probably testing it out in a real-time environment—our mission.

“Unless I miss my guess, which I don’t, it’s what RIOT’s been after all along. Or part of what they want, anyway. A bonus, maybe.” Ty shook his head and stared at the craft. “Shit! If we wreck that vehicle, we’re toast. Come on, we’re gonna take our ship back, dude.

“Get your weapons ready, set your wand gun to kill, and watch your back. RIOT will be coming after us with everything they’ve got.” Ty took off at a run for the hovercraft.

Rock pulled his wand gun from his pocket, and took the safety off. He took out his thumb gun and his spy ring and pounded after him.

Ty, with his washboard surfing-dude abs, was in shape and faster than Rock. The surfing spy dude pulled away from Rock and in no time was hanging on the edge of the hovercraft, trying to pull himself aboard.

Unfortunately, two intruders in night camo beat Ty to the hovercraft by seconds. They tossed themselves over the edge with athletic ease and into the craft just ahead of Ty. One of them was a big, burly brute holding an automatic pistol that he aimed at Ty’s head.

“Shit!” Rock had to do something. As he ran, he took aim with his thumb gun, praying for a little accuracy. The closer he was to the target, the better his chances of hitting him.

Ever tried to aim your thumb while running, and shoot for accuracy without using a site when there was absolutely no time for hesitation?

As Rock took aim, a red laser beam spotted the kill zone on the intruder. Yes! Will was on the job, backing them up.

Seeing himself marked for death, the intruder froze. Rock ran, pointed, and shot just as the intruder ducked.

The shot went wide and missed his intended target. Back to the thumb gun practice range for him. Next time he was going to ask for a bomb-piercing bullet. Fortunately, his shot pinged off something in the hovercraft, startling the other RIOT thug, giving Ty time to let go of the craft and roll for cover. The CIA would just have to forgive Rock for the hole he may have put in their vehicle.

Ty came up shooting, but the hovercraft, which could move in any direction—front or back or sideways—leaped into warp speed, as Ty had jokingly called it, and feinted sideways. Warp speed wasn’t really the speed of light. But it was a hell of a lot faster than Rock could run.

Behind them in the desert, the NUFO crowd had temporarily paused when the bomb went off. Good plan on RIOT’s part to create a real panic. The crowd recovered and raced full bore toward them.

“Cows! Where are the damn cows we requested?” Ty was on his feet yelling into his mouthpiece.

On cue, a herd of cattle, which had been penned nearby waiting for their stage call, suddenly stampeded out of a cattle shoot, cutting the crowd of vehicles off from the spies and the hovercrafts, creating mayhem worthy of a Western movie. In seconds, Ty and Rock were surrounded by worked-up bovine.

Cows, dust, aliens, lasers, hovercrafts. It was like a scene out of
Cowboys & Aliens
.

Rock pulled off his spent one-shot thumb gun and stuffed it into his pocket. Now, armed only with flash powder, a poison spy ring that required close range to kill, and his six-shooter wand gun, Rock felt decidedly outgunned. Next time he was going to demand a rocket-launching magic hat.

Rock was not a rancher, not a cattle person at all. He had no idea how to handle a confused mass of Daisy the cows. Were these milk cows or meat on the hoof?

He just stood there a second in the midst of the mooing madness, trying not to further upset the cattle or turn them against him, too.

The confiscated hovercraft had halted and was hovering on the edge of the cow crowd.
Damn, it’s looking for us.

In all the madness, Rock had temporarily lost visual contact with Ty as the herd swallowed him up.

“We need hovercrafts,” Ty said into his mouthpiece, nearly being drowned out by mooing.

Good. Ty hasn’t been trampled to death.

A movement a few cows away caught Rock’s eye. Ty was commandeering a cow and climbing aboard with surprising confidence. Ty threw his leg over the cow and seated himself, somehow managing, while riding bareback, to hang on as it bucked and kicked like it thought it was a rodeo star. As Rock watched, Ty actually managed to point his bovine steed toward Area 51.

Impressive. Ride ’em, cowboy!

“You’re never going to catch a hovercraft on a cow,” Rock replied.

“Cattle can travel faster than horses in the short run. Until we get some wheels, do you have a better idea?” Ty’s words were nearly drowned out by the earsplitting mooing and the sounds of pounding hooves. Not to mention the new round of alien signals and music emanating from the NUFO crowd.

“What the hell has the crowd so worked up again?” Rock asked.

“You mean besides the bomb exploding?” Ty said.

Rock glanced up to see an alien warrior rising out of the hovercraft.

Ty saw it at the same time. “Shit!” they said into their mouthpieces in unison as it became clearer what the game was. RIOT had taken control of Rock’s illusion and it was obvious they were intent on further panicking the crowd. “Where the hell did that thing come from?”

RIOT’s alien was a scarier, less sexy version of Rock’s. It had Sol’s nasty, copycatting stamp all over it. Worse, it carried an ugly, impressive, highly lethal-looking weapon, holding it threateningly. Which explained the NUFOs’ sudden urge to communicate with the aliens. They were trying to convince it they were friendly.
We come in peace.

Good luck with that,
Rock thought.

Unfortunately, the NUFO music was not calming the savage, or even domesticated, beast. The NUFO calls intended to make contact with aliens only upset the cattle more. Rock didn’t think the music was
that
bad.

Ty cursed some more, a jolted, choppy sort of cursing made so by his bucking bovine steed. “Like dogs, cattle can hear higher frequencies than we can. The NUFOs must be broadcasting high-frequency sound waves. We have to get out of this herd before the cattle go crazy and trample us to death.”