Retribution (SSU Trilogy Book 3) (The Surgical Strike Unit) (38 page)

The man’s hood had slipped off his head, leaving the back of his neck exposed. Mark raised his pistol and fired just as the cabinet broke free of the wall. Kaufmann’s man staggered back under its weight. Mark fired repeatedly until the man landed on his back under the weight of the cabinet.

Satisfied that the man was dead, Mark turned in time to see Kaufmann’s man kick Toby in the stomach. Toby landed on his back with a grunt.

Kaufmann’s man ignored Toby and rushed over to Dr. Montague. Dropping to his knees, he raised his knife and plunged it into her chest.

“No!” Toby struggled to sit up, reaching out as if he would choke the man. Tears streamed down his cheeks as his mouth twisted in horror. “No hurt Faith!”

Shit. Dr. Montague was roughly the same size as Faith, and with her straight blonde hair hidden under a protective cap, Toby wouldn’t realize this wasn’t his curly-haired sister. He must have thought Faith was close by because of the voice recording Mark had played for him.

The man yanked the knife out of Dr. Montague.

A second later, Rafe Andros dove through the window and tackled the man.

Mark sensed another man heading toward Toby and he threw himself at Faith’s brother, pushing Toby to the floor and shielding him with his own body. “Jurassic Park,” Mark said, giving the code word to indicate he was friendly. “Don’t hurt this one. This is Toby. I—” A gasp of pain bit off the rest of his sentence.

Kaufmann’s man yanked his knife free of Mark’s lower back as he and Andros rolled away.

Mark screamed and lost consciousness.

R
afe had lost his grip on Kaufmann’s soldier for one second and the bastard had managed to stab Tonelli. Snaking his arm around the soldier’s middle, Rafe yanked him away from the wounded man.

The knife arched toward Rafe’s face. He blocked it with his forearm, trying to hit hard enough to shatter the man’s bones, but the man changed his angle and Rafe didn’t get the impact he needed. All he managed to do was halt the knife inches from his face.

Rafe let his fury give him strength. This man had stabbed Gabby. Bad enough that he’d hurt her. But if he’d killed her…

Rafe felt the beast he’d been under Kaufmann raise its head and roar. He drove his knuckles hard into the man’s kidney.

The man didn’t so much as grunt in annoyance. The knife pressed closer to Rafe and his forearm started shaking. Shit. He couldn’t hold the man back any longer.

He dropped his forearm and rolled away with millimeters to spare as the knife went plunging toward the spot where his head had been. Rafe barely managed to avoid a quick series of follow-up jabs.

Screw this. He was never going to equal this man’s strength or speed. And he didn’t have time to waste. He had to get to Gabby.

Rafe pulled his tranquilizer gun out of its holster, then dodged a kick that nearly turned him into a soprano. He quickly ejected one of the tranquilizer darts into his hand. In the few seconds it took to accomplish that, Rafe lost his focus on his opponent.

The burn of a knife slicing shallowly along his biceps jerked Rafe’s attention back to the fight. He didn’t waste time on the pain. He brought his fist up and around, jabbing the tranquilizer dart into the man’s exposed carotid artery. He pushed, making certain all the drug was expelled. The assassin bellowed in rage and swatted at the dart.

Rafe spun out of the way as the man’s eyes rolled up and he collapsed.

Rafe scrambled over the man’s body, raced across the lab, and slid to a stop on his knees next to Gabby.

Blood trickled from her mouth and soaked the front of her lab coat where the knife had stabbed her. “Gabby?” he whispered. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. She was so battered, he was terrifie
d to touch her. Afraid he’d only add to her pain. And there were so many shattered beakers around he
r, Rafe didn’t know what lethal chemicals she’d been exposed to.

Panic beat frantically inside him. He didn’t…he couldn’t…

If he lost Gabby, he wouldn’t be able to go on. But staring down at her damaged body, he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do. All his training in emergency field medicine was trapped in some inaccessible place within his head, held prisoner by his fear. His shaking hands hovered over her body. “Gabby!”

“Hey, man, let me see.” Owens, his team’s medic, gently shoved Rafe out of the way.

Rafe grabbed the man’s wrist. “Don’t hurt her,” he snarled.

Owens looked back, his eyes softening. “I won’t,” he promised. “But I need to touch her to see how badly she’s hurt. What we need to do to save her.”

Save her. The words penetrated the fog of anger and fear. Rafe felt himself nod, and saw his fingers release Owen’s wrist. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Save her.” He swallowed hard. Gabby’s face seemed paler than a minute ago and her lips were turning blue.

He barely registered the curt commands Owens gave to other members of the team. All Rafe could think about was Gabby’s smile. How she’d never given up on him. How the memory of her laughter and her sometimes sharp tongue had anchored him during his captivity.

“Breathe, dammit,” Owens cursed. “C’mon Dr. Montague, don’t leave the boss like this. Be a good girl and breathe.”

Rafe swore he felt his own breath freeze in his lung. “Don’t die,” he ordered Gabby. A tear slid off his chin and fell onto the bruised back of her limp hand. He wiped the teardrop gently away with the tip of his finger. “Don’t you dare die, Gabby. I love you. How will I live without you?”

“What’s the ETA on that chopper?” Owens shouted. “We need her out of here!”

“Two minutes,” a familiar voice said. Niko. “Come on, bro,” Niko added in Greek. “Let’s get you out of their way so they can prepare Gabby for evacuation.”

Rafe shook his head. “I need—”

Niko reached down and pulled Rafe to his feet. “No. You need to let Owens do his job.”

Rafe looked helplessly from where Owens was working frantically to save Gabby, back to Niko. The pained sympathy he saw in his brother’s eyes was too much like a confirmation of Rafe’s worst fears.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “No.” His soul was breaking apart at the thought of losing her. With every curse from Owens’s lips Rafe’s control threatened to snap. All the progress he’d made since his captivity started to erode. His carefully rebuilt sense of self wouldn’t survive without Gabby.

Niko put his arm around Rafe and led him to the far corner of the destroyed lab. “Don’t watch, Rafe. It won’t help.”

“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?” To his horror, Rafe’s voice cracked and he felt another tear slide down his face.

“Just pray, bro,” Niko said softly. “There’s nothing you can do but hope and pray.”

“I still don’t have a pulse,” Owens snarled. He raised his head and Rafe flinched at what he saw in the man’s eyes. Grief. Anger. Resignation.

“No,” Rafe protested. He took a step toward Gabby. “No!”

Owens glance down at Gabby and shook his head. Then he squared his shoulders. “Bouchet, get your ass over here and help. We need a fucking miracle.”

Niko blocked Rafe’s path with his arm. “Let Owens work,” he said. “If anyone can bring her back, he can.”

Rafe stared at Owens and Bouchet working feverishly to save Gabby. “I never even told her she’s my world,” he whispered on a ragged breath.

“She knows, Rafe. Trust me, she knows.”

Rafe barely breathed for the next several minutes. But then Owens’s head lowered in defeat. His hands fell to his sides. Bouchet reached out and closed Gabby’s eyes, then laid his jacket over her face.

“NO!” Rafe yelled. “Gabby!” His knees buckled. He would have gone down except for Niko’s support. “I’ve got you,” Niko said. “Hang on to me.”

Niko’s voice was thick with grief and the sound of it, the acknowledgement that Gabby was gone, felt like a vise screwing tightly into Rafe’s heart. Unbearable, unending pain flowed through him, hurting worse than all of Kaufmann’s torture.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Gabby was gone. His fault. He should have insisted she stayed home. Or insisted on guarding her himself. Tripled her protection.

He should have shown her in a million ways how much she meant to him.

Now it was too late. His soul had been ripped out, leaving him with such emptiness, he didn’t know how he’d keep on living.

For the first time since he was a boy waking from a nightmare, Rafe turned his head into the comfort of his brother’s shoulder, and cried.

Chapter 33

A
commotion at the door to the mobile unit announced the arrival of the medevac team. Rafe lifted his head and watched the men carry the stretcher in, feeling as distanced as if he watched a football game from the nosebleed seats.

Kai followed just behind the team. As Gabby was transferred onto the stretcher, he picked up her left hand and eyeballed her palm. Then he leaned down and took a cautious sniff.

He pulled back quickly, shaking his head and wrinkling his nose as if he’d smelled something nasty. The team carried Gabby away, but Kai didn’t follow. Instead, he focused on the wreck of glass and chemicals on the floor. He picked his way carefully through the debris, then leaned down and gave another sniff.

Nodding to himself, he pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket, slipped them on, and continued searching until he’d uncovered a small vial that hadn’t been broken. Checking the label, he gave a satisfied smile and tucked the vial into his pocket.

Then he took off at a run after the stretcher.

Rafe shook his head, thoroughly confused. But at least for a few minutes he’d been distracted from his pain. The thought of leaving this room and following the stretcher terrified him. If he left, he’d have to acknowledge Gabby was dead. Have to see her treated as a corpse instead of a person.

He couldn’t stand that.

“C’mon, Rafe,” Niko prompted gently, nudging him toward the door. “Let’s get out of here. Make sure we get to say a proper good-bye to your lady.”

The White House

Washington, D.C.

“I
am the Commander In Chief,” President MacAdam stated with an arrogant sense of entitlement. “I have every right to sanction action against the enemies of this country.”

“You are not above the laws of this nation, Mr. President,” the Chief Justice countered smoothly. “And what you proposed to do today wasn’t about keeping our country safe. It was about revenge for your personal loss. While we’re all sorry about your son’s death, you have a greater duty now. A duty to the entire population of the United States. A population that is not made safer by you ordering the murder of thousands of innocent civilians.”

The President glared back. “You have no right to tell me how to conduct our national security. Get out.”

The Chief Justice only shook his head. “It’s over, Byrne. Come peacefully and let the Vice President take over.”

The President surged to his feet. “It’s my right!” he snarled. “My right to see that justice is carried out.”

“That wasn’t justice you had planned,” Brown from the CIA corrected. “It was murder.”

Several agents surrounded the President. “Byrne MacAdam, you are under arrest for the attempted genocide of the entire population of northern Salaqut.”

Ryker watched the confrontation with an ever growing weariness. And a sense that it might finally be time for him to retire. Listening to the President’s angry justification had destroyed the last shred of his idealism. He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling old, tired and disillusioned.

But there was someone else watching the proceedings with interest. Someone edging closer to the back exit.

Ryker moved to cut the man off. “Wayne Jamieson, I presume?”

The man pulled a gun. Instincts honed from martial arts had Ryker shifting to the side as Jamieson fired. Before the man could fire again, Ryker moved forward and slammed his fist against Jamieson’s throat.

The man froze and his eyes widened with horror when he realized there was a syringe stuck in his neck. “What have you done?” Ryker knew he feared the syringe contained one of Kaufmann’s drugs.

Ryker smiled coldly and stepped back. The syringe held a standard tranquilizer, but Jamieson didn’t need to know that.

“It was his idea,” Jamieson accused. His words slurred slightly as the sedative took effect. “MacAdam came to me with the idea of using Kerberos for his demonstration. It was his plan all along. I’ll tell you all the details. Just please, give me the antidote.”

Ryker motioned two Marines over. They caught Jamieson just as he collapsed. “Cuff him and escort him out of here,” Ryker said.

In the center of the room, the President shoved the Chief Justice into the man behind him, then tried to ram himself through the group and escape. Within seconds he, too, had been tranq’d and was out cold.

“Do you think he’ll deal?” Ryker asked Jordaine as the agents carried the President’s unconscious body away while the Chief Justice gave the presidential oath to the Vice President.

Ryker’s friend rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. He’s not the rational man I thought I knew. This man seems crazy enough to put us through a trial just so his opinion can be heard.”

Ryker shook his head. “The country doesn’t need that. He should take the offer.” If the President resigned, agreed to stay out of the public eye and agreed to be monitored for five years, then no charges would be brought against him. Otherwise, he’d be charged with attempted genocide.

Ryker’s cell phone vibrated. Looking down, he read the text message from Niko.

Plot stopped. Gabby and six others, dead. Tonelli stabbed and critical.

Ryker closed his eyes on a sharp wave of grief. Giving the President the option to get off scot-free no longer seemed the best choice.

Salaqut

K
ai was arguing with Owens and Bouchet when Rafe followed Niko onto the helicopter. Rafe’s gaze darted away from the body underneath the sheet in the middle of the floor. That couldn’t be Gabby. There had to be some mistake. Maybe this was a nightmare and he’d wake up soon.

With a swirl of dust, the other helicopter lifted into the sky, carrying Tonelli and the living wounded to the hospital. Several unhurried minutes later, Rafe’s helicopter followed with its cargo of dead.