The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (73 page)

Water rushed into the tears of her dry suit, plummeting her temperature. If she didn’t find a way to get some weight off of her…forget five minutes, she’d be crushed within seconds.

Fear fueled her muscles. She found the strap to the weights, but it was tucked in tightly to her belt. Really? Seriously? That predive checklist was killing her. Literally. Then a figure engulfed her. They were still sinking, but they were together.

Brandt’s hands coursed over her body, finding the weight belt. A blade cut the strap. Still they sank though. No matter how hard they both kicked, they made no headway. And she honestly didn’t know how much longer she could continue to swim. Her legs felt like two huge thunder thighs popsicles. Brandt must have realized the same thing.

Holding her with one hand, he used the other hand to take the knife and cut off his oxygen tank.

“No!” she cried, but it was already done.

The action did cut their drag though. They actually started swimming in the right direction. The direction of light. Of life.

Then she felt something under her flipper. What in the heck could be under her flipper?

She risked a glance down to find a wide, black vessel passing beneath them. The Chinese submarine. Her flipper touched the cold metal, dragging along the hull. Brandt put his hand on her thigh, quieting her kicking as he too stopped swimming. They settled onto the surface of the sub, sliding along its length.

Following Brandt’s lead, Rebecca crouched down. He held up his fingers. Three. Two. One. Together they launched off the submarine. The action propelling them upward. Finally.

And a good thing too. Brandt’s cheeks blotched as his body ran out of oxygen.

They were going to make it to the surface quickly. They had to.

Wait. Were they moving sideways? In the water it was so damned hard to tell. As Brandt’s eyes got larger, Rebecca realized she wasn’t imagining things. The Chinese sub must have passed under them, catching them in its propeller’s cavitation. With more and more force they were drawn to the spinning propeller that slashed through the water.

And she could feel Brandt getting weaker and weaker. Realizing that she was never going to get them out of this mess, she used the last of her strength to release her face mask.

Splotches of light danced in front of her as the cold shocked her eyes. Her faceplate floated between her and Brandt. As darkness edged into her vision, bringing her vision down to a near pinpoint, she locked eyes with the man she had thought she was going to marry.

At least her last sight would be a handsome one.

* * *

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Brandt snatched Rebecca’s face mask, switching it out with his own. Taking in five quick breaths, he reoxygenated his lungs, kicking, swimming, fighting the drag of the cavitation. But those damn blades just kept whirling, pulling them into their deadly range.

Rebecca hung limp in his arms, her face an ashen white.

No. It wasn’t ending like this, damn it.

Gulping precious oxygen, he redoubled his efforts. Fuck the cold. Fuck the fact he couldn’t feel his feet anymore. Fuck the Chinese submarine.

No matter the strain he put on his ligaments, nearly tearing them, the cavitation was winning. He only slowed the inevitable. Still he couldn’t give up. Brandt twisted in the water so that he faced the submarine. He’d still be kicking when the propellers chewed into him. Which looked like it was only two seconds off.

Then a hand was at the back of his dry suit. Then another.

Rapidly they backed out of the cavitation until it felt like a switch cut off and the propeller’s twirl no longer ruled his life. He looked over his shoulder to find Lopez towing them upward at faster and faster speeds.

He removed the face mask, fitting it back onto Rebecca’s face and then clearing the water out. Brandt shook her, trying to get her to take a breath. Taking his knuckles, he rubbed her chest as Lopez dragged them closer and closer to the surface.

Still she didn’t breathe. He put his ear against her chest. A heartbeat then no other. That was okay, Brandt tried to reassure himself. Hypothermia sometimes was your best friend. It preserved brain tissue. It held the body in a type of suspended animation. It actually saved lives.

Right?

Damn right
.

* * *

Davidson searched the surface of the rolling ocean as his hand stanched the bleeding from his arm. One of the fishhooks dug in deep enough to taste flesh. The pain was the last thing on his mind though. Brandt and Rebecca definitely should have been up by now. Lopez, on the other hand, he wasn’t worried about. The corporal had probably hitched a ride on the Chinese sub all the way back to Beijing.

“There!” Talli yelled, pointing starboard. Three figures bobbed to the surface.

The captain of the boat must have heard as he turned the boat, gunning the engines toward the swimmers. No, not all of them were swimming. One’s head lolled to the side.

Davidson scrambled down the deck to the stairs that led to the water. Harvish and Talli weren’t far behind as the boat pulled up to the figures.

Brandt half lifted Rebecca out of the water. “She’s not breathing,” he chattered. Not sounding too well himself.

“We’ve got to get her below deck,” Davidson urged as the wind whipped from an approaching storm. He took Rebecca’s shoulders. Talli grabbed her feet, and they were off. Backing down the steps toward the crew’s quarters, Davidson watched her still features through her faceplate. Her face so white that it seemed someone had applied pancake makeup. And her lips? A grayish blue.

He noticed the multiple tears to the membrane dry suit. The hooks must have compromised her suit. Which accounted for the hypothermia, but the severe shock? That had to have come from somewhere else.

When they got to the cot, Davidson laid her down on her side so he could unhook her equipment. He tossed the buoyancy jacket to the side but kept the oxygen tank nearby and the face mask on.

“Rebecca,” he urged, rubbing her sternum. “You’ve got to breathe.”

“She’s not even shivering,” Talli commented.

The Arab was right. Not a good sign. Despite the fact Davidson knew her to be an extremely modest person—Rebecca considered a V-necked T-shirt a bit too revealing—he began pulling the remnants of the dry suit and undersuit off.

“Get some more blankets,” he instructed Talli. Then he turned to Harvish. “See if they don’t have some heat packs.”

Both men hurried off to perform their tasks, which were vital, however Davidson had an ulterior motive. They should not see Rebecca like this. He tried to look away as much as possible as he stripped her down to her brassiere and panties. Thank goodness she was not a thong kind of girl.

Rapidly he covered her with the thin blanket he had available. Davidson rubbed up and down her arms and legs, trying to get her circulation restarted. He felt for a pulse. Each heartbeat spaced over the course of ten seconds. Still she wasn’t breathing. He removed the mask, pinched her nose, and gave her a breath. Her chest rose and fell.

Talli returned, handing him a short stack of just two other blankets. “This is all they had.”

For a CIA-run conveyance out in the North Sea, they certainly were not ready for deep-sea injuries.

Brandt burst in the room, already stripped down to his boxers, his whole body shuddering as shivering overlaying shivering. His features were etched with worry.

“How is she?”

Davidson answered by giving Rebecca another breath.

* * *

Brandt lowered himself beside the cot. This could not be happening. Harvish brought some heat packs, all two-by-two inches of them. They were meant to heat chilled hands, not a hypothermic body.

Davidson alternated between breathing for Rebecca and placing the face mask to fast-flow some oxygen to her. Next to him Harvish ripped open the tiny packs, shaking them to activate their heat. The point man went to reach for the covers, but Brandt blocked him.

“We’ve got to get them to her sink points.”

“I’ve got it.”

Given the sink points were the armpits and groin, he thought he should be the one to do it. Lifting the covers, he was struck by how very white her skin was. Normally Rebecca was all peaches and cream, but now? Bone white. The white you saw on the battlefield. A white normally accomplished only by death.

Damn it, he couldn’t think like that. She was just cold. That was all.
Cold.

Hands shaking, Brandt tucked the heat packs against her skin, then tucked the covers over her. “Don’t they have a space heater of some sort?”

“Already on it,” Lopez said as he entered, setting down a small heater.

The corporal torqued the dial to maximum. Hot air pounded from the machine. It felt like the summer sun beating against his skin.

“Bring it closer to her,” Brandt urged as his own shivering subsided.

Lopez obeyed, then frowned. “She’s still not breathing?”

Damn it, no, Brandt wanted to shout, but it wasn’t Lopez’s fault. It was his own. He never should have let Rebecca turn over her mask. Never.

Still in his intact dry suit, Lopez broke off one of the gauge wires. “May I?”

Not knowing what else to do, Brandt moved out of the corporal’s way. He didn’t like the way Lopez removed Rebecca’s faceplate, but again, what else could they do. Lopez took the wire. Then embedded the sharp end right into the tip of her nose.

“What the—”

But Rebecca took a huge breath. A breath that lifted her off the cot. Lopez pulled the wire out, and Rebecca’s breathing returned to normal. He then replaced the face mask.

Off of everyone’s stare Lopez explained. “It’s acupuncture. That point stimulates the lung meridian.”

“Lung meridian?” Brandt asked.

“What? You only thought I knew how to make things go fast?”

“Well, yeah, kinda,” Harvish answered, for which he got slugged in the arm by Lopez.

Brandt smoothed Rebecca’s wet hair away from her neck. Yes, she had a heartbeat. Yes, she was breathing again, but no, she wasn’t shivering yet. She wasn’t self-heating.

“Move out of the way,” Brandt prompted, lifting the covers again. The cot creaked its complaint as he sat beside Rebecca. She needed his heat. His muscles had been working overtime. Heat radiated from him. Might as well share the wealth.

Covering them with the layers of blankets, he pulled Rebecca up against him.

“You do realize any of us could have done that?” Lopez teased.

Of course they could. But he wanted to be right here when she awoke. Because she was going to wake, damn it.

“Alright, enough gawking,” Brandt stated. “Lopez, get this tub making best speed to the coast.” Off of the corporal’s raised eyebrow Brandt specified. “And I do mean best speed.”

Lopez darted out of the room. The pounding of his footsteps echoed off the hallway.

“Harvish.” Brandt turned his attention to the point man. “Get some grub. We all need to bump our sugar levels up.”

The redhead nodded before rushing out of the room. Harvish didn’t quite seem to understand you couldn’t just copy Lopez’s action and get into Brandt’s good stead. At the least though he was doing actually doing something useful.

“Talli,” Brandt continued. “Gather what’s left of our equipment. Once we make land, we’ll have to haul ass to make our rendezvous.”

The dark-haired man nodded crisply. Then moved on with a sense of urgency without the frenetic energy of Harvish.

“And myself?” Davidson asked.

Brandt studied the scarred man. Before Rome he’d loved Davidson like a younger brother. Perhaps too much. He had relied on his youthful sense of optimism to counter Brandt’s own darker view of the world. Which of course Davidson’s betrayal only reinforced. Yet the face before him wasn’t the same. Those eyes no longer held a sense of puppy dog exuberance. But what had replaced it?

“Stay within my eye line.”

“Of course, but may I make a suggestion?”

Brandt stiffened. Here we go.

“I would recommend you keep Rebecca’s face mask on for at least twenty minutes. It takes that long for full body oxygen stores to be replenished. It will help with her recovery time.”

As Davidson placed the mask on Rebecca, Brandt didn’t argue, even though he really wanted to. He liked the feeling of her cheek against his chest. That was the man though not the sergeant, so the mask went back on.

He would just have to be content to hold her. Which after his and Maria’s wedding, Brandt never thought he’d see Rebecca again. So he would take moment. And fucking treasure it.

CHAPTER 6

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Off the Coast of the Netherlands

10:44 a.m. GMT

Rebecca snuggled down. She’d been dreaming of strange things. Like Brandt married to someone else and even more odd, submarines. Weird, right? How the mind could play tricks on you. Because under her cheek she could feel Brandt’s heartbeat. Everything was fine.

Except she was cold. Really cold. Brandt must have gotten some time off and they headed to the mountains. Just one more thing she’d never done that Brandt wanted to show her. Skiing.

Clearly they weren’t on the slopes though as her hand snaked up his chest. Time for a little different type of recreation. She slid her leg over his, tugging it tightly to her.

“Whoa there, filly.”

But she didn’t want to whoa at all. How long had it been since they’d been together? It felt like months, but how could that be? She kissed his chest, ignoring the hands trying to push her away. How unlike Brandt to act hard to get.

“Boss? Yo! Brandt,” the voice called out.

Wait. That wasn’t Brandt’s voice.

Rebecca’s eyes snapped open. The skin under her hand was far too dark for Brandt. And there was a large port-wine stain over his sternum. Definitely not Brandt.

She jerked upright, shaking her head and trying to fling the dream from her mind.

“Take it easy,” the man said. No, not man.
Lopez.
“You’ve had a rough time.”

Gathering the blanket to her nearly naked body she hissed, “What are you doing?”

Lopez held his hands up to either side of him. “Just keeping you warm, I swear to God.” He then glanced about. “It was Brandt’s idea, I swear.” He then shouted. “Boss!”