Touch&Geaux (40 page)

his shoulder into Zane’s body, spinning them, forcing Zane

to use him as a shield. He held Zane’s hand behind his back,

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squeezing it hard, refusing to allow Zane to let go as Gaudet

and his men opened fire on them.

Ty’s body jerked against Zane’s as the first bullet hit, then

again and again, shoving Zane back, forcing him off-balance.

The Colombians opened fire on the crooked cops,

offering Zane the covering fire they thought an informant of

theirs deserved, mowing them down like ducks in a gallery

with their high-powered weapons.

Zane’s back hit the pavement, the weight of Ty’s body

pinning him. The back of Ty’s head banged into Zane’s lip and

he tasted blood. More gunfire came from the swamp. Patches

of swamp grass were rising from the mire. Sidewinder.

Mateo Valencia strolled toward them. He was shaking his

head, reloading his gun.

“Ty, get off me, come on,” Zane grunted. He pushed

at Ty’s shoulder, but Ty merely gasped a ragged breath in

response. “Ty?”

“You think I forgive so easily?” Valencia asked Zane in

Spanish. He ran a finger along the scar on his cheek as he

loomed over Zane.

Zane freed his arm and fired before Valencia could finish

his reload. It was a blank round, but he still staggered back,

swiping at singed pieces of his suit and bleeding where the

paper plug had embedded in his neck. He shouted, aiming his

gun at Zane’s head. But he never got to fire. One flick of Zane’s

wrist, and the Vega cartel’s top enforcer fell to the ground with

a knife in his heart, his gun sliding from his hand, useless.

Zane scrambled from under his partner’s weight and

knelt beside him, finally yanking the bandana off his face

and tossing it aside. Ty was covered in blood from his chin

to his knees, though what was real and what was fake, Zane

couldn’t tell. Ty blinked up at the gray sky, gasping for breath

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that wouldn’t come. There were half a dozen bullet holes in

his chest.

“Oh Jesus, Ty,” Zane cried. He laid his gun aside and bent

over Ty, grabbing his face with both hands. “Ty!”

Ty struggled to take in air to respond. He reached up to

grab Zane’s wrist instead, gripping it hard. He closed his eyes.

“Ty, please,” Zane whispered. “Please don’t leave me.”

Ty opened his eyes again and met Zane’s, gasping and

making sounds like he was trying to form words. A bullet

had grazed his neck. Another had grazed his arm. Zane had

no idea how bad the rest of his wounds were. There was too

much blood.

Tears blurred Zane’s vision and he looked up, desperate

for help. Sidewinder was sweeping in from the swamp like

angels of death, clearing weapons from dying hands, putting

bullets in the heads of anyone who remained alive.

Three helicopters thumped in the distance, coming closer.

“Take his vest off him, Zane,” Liam said in Zane’s ear.

Zane gasped and began pawing at Ty’s shirt. He ripped

it open, then used his knife to cut the straps of the vest away.

Ty gasped in air, his body arching off the ground as Zane

freed him from the restrictive, mangled plates. He gasped

again, pul ing in air as hard as he could and beginning to

shiver all over.

Zane patted at Ty chest, wiping away the blood. “You’re

not hit!” he cried, beginning to laugh hysterically. “Oh thank

you, God.” He used his bandana to wipe away the fake blood

from Ty’s neck, pressing it to the wound oozing real blood. He

pulled Ty up to hug him and Ty groaned, but he wrapped his

arms around Zane and dug his fingers into his shirt, hugging

him fiercely. One hand came to tangle in Zane’s hair.

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“You’re breaking my ribs, Zane,” Ty managed to wheeze

before a coughing fit overtook him.

Zane released him and helped him lie back down. Ty

closed his eyes, taking in deep breaths, one hand pressing to

Zane’s against his neck, the other shaking as he rested it on his

stomach. Zane used his sleeve to wipe the blood away from his

own mouth and nose, and with his face clean of it, he could

smell the fake blood on Ty, hints of tomato and chocolate and

barbecue sauce. He col apsed beside Ty, relief overwhelming

him as he rested his head on Ty’s stomach.

“You’re an utter asshole,” Zane murmured against Ty’s abs.

“You’re welcome.”

“Is he okay?” Nick shouted as he ran toward them.

Zane didn’t move to answer. He felt Ty raise a hand,

probably giving a thumbs-up.

The sound of the helicopters grew louder, and soon Zane

could feel the wind of the rotor wash on his face. He finally

realized a dozen men in SWAT gear were clearing the scene

and trying to relieve Sidewinder of their weapons. Digger and

Owen began to argue with two men who quickly pointed

guns at their heads and made them get on their knees.

Zane sat up, confused by the appearance of another

player. But then a familiar figure stepped out of the helicopter

and began jogging toward them.

“Dick?” Ty croaked.

Richard Burns reached down to help Ty to his feet. He

patted him on the shoulder, but then gave up on propriety

and hugged him. “I got here as fast as I could.”

“What are you doing here?” Zane demanded.

“When Ty called and said there was a mole relaying your

movements, I ran a test and found a trace on your phone.

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I couldn’t tell you I was coming in or the mole would have

known.”

“I . . . I thought you left us in the wind,” Ty said, still

breathless and holding his bleeding neck.

Burns patted his cheek. “I would never do that, Beaumont.

You know that.” He took a step back and surreptitiously

wiped the disgusting blood concoction off his hand with a

handkerchief as soon as Ty’s attention was elsewhere.

Zane was still glowering at Burns when he realized Ty

had stumbled away from them. He shed the remains of the

vest and dropped to his knees at Ava’s side. Blood had pooled

under her and began to trail toward the center of the causeway.

Her eyes stared into the sky.

Ty reached a shaking hand and set it over her forehead,

closing her eyes. Zane could hear him murmuring a prayer in

French through the ear bud in his ear.

Zane ran a hand through his hair, then yanked the ear bud

out as he turned away from them. He met Burns’s eyes. “Ty

told me everything.”

Burns stiffened, then nodded.

“You thought I was a traitor?” Zane asked through gritted

teeth.

“Better safe than sorry, Zane. I knew as long as Ty trusted

you, I could too.”

Zane rushed forward and swung at him, knocking him

to the ground with a shout. “You can’t fuck with people’s

lives like that!” he barked as two men ran up to them, each

grabbed an arm, and began pul ing him back. “Can’t you see

what he would do for you? You can’t use him like that, Dick!

You can’t!”

Burns sat up, jaw lax and nose bleeding. He clambered

to his feet and waved the men off. Zane took short, quick

breaths as Burns came closer and gripped both of his arms. 313

“Be calm, Zane. It’s over. It’s over.”

Zane took deeper breaths, struggling to concentrate on

the here and now and deal with the betrayal and anger later.

Burns patted him on the cheek and then walked away. Zane

watched him go, feeling the anger drain out of him, replaced

with a wide swath of loss. Burns was the first person since Jack

Tanner in the academy who Zane had really felt cared about

him. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Nick caught Zane’s attention as he picked up the remains

of Ty’s Kevlar vest. The man looked from Ava’s body to the

vest, then peered into the distance, where the wooden rails of

a roller coaster undulated like a felled dragon in the swamp.

Zane moved closer. “What’s wrong?”

“Bullet went right through her. Ty’s talon hollow-point

would have torn her to shreds, but it wouldn’t have gone

through her.” He shuffled guiltily when he realized Ty had

trudged up to stand with them, but he held up the vest for

them to see. Among the flattened pistol rounds was a larger

one, embedded in the vest. Nick turned it over to show them

the very tip, where it had penetrated almost through, right

over Ty’s heart. It had no petals from the grooves Ty had cut

into it. It wasn’t the same bullet.

“He mixed up the bullets. Used an armor-piercing round,”

Zane said, suddenly light-headed.

“That would have killed me,” Ty said.

“She saved your life,” Nick said. “Slowed it enough for the

vest to stop it.”

Ty nodded. They all turned toward the roller coaster in

the distance, the only place the shot could have originated

from.“Why didn’t he go for a head shot?” Nick asked.

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“He knew you boys would catch him before he could get

away. But if I went down like I was supposed to, no one’s the

wiser until he’s long gone.”

“You can’t know it was on purpose,” Zane tried. “The

bullets looked alike.”

Ty nodded, eyes still on the skeletal behemoth in the

swamp. He finally lowered his head and walked away,

following Burns toward the waiting helicopters.

“What happened out there?”

“He really shouldn’t be speaking,” the nurse told them.

“Honey, you get him to shut up long enough to heal, you

let us know how you did it,” Digger grumbled as he plucked a

bit of saw grass from that morning off his face.

“We’ll keep him quiet,” Nick promised, giving her a

charming smile. It was probably ruined by the homemade

face paint he’d discovered wouldn’t wash off. She nodded and

left them, and Nick returned his attention to the man in the

hospital bed.

Kelly grinned widely at them. “I know you all cried over

me.”Nick laughed. “We did.”

“Mainly because we knew we’d be the ones nursing you

back to health,” Owen added.

Kelly held up a fist, and Owen gently pressed their

knuckles together.

“So how’d it go down?”

“Everyone died, pretty much,” Digger answered. “Liam

Bell was long gone by the time me and Irish climbed that

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death trap. Our names are being cleared by the FBI. Ty’s been

suspended until Hell freezes over.”

Nick tore his eyes away from Kelly’s face to study Ty,

sitting in the reclining chair in the corner. His ribs were tightly

wrapped, there was a bandage on his neck, and—perhaps the

biggest tragedy of al —a bullet had sliced right through his

bulldog tattoo. He had dark circles under his eyes. And he’d

been holding that damn voodoo doll since he sat down.

“They’re saying it’ll be a few weeks, at least,” Ty said. His

voice was hoarse.

“So that’s it?” Kelly asked. “We made it?”

They all laughed uncomfortably. For some reason, it

didn’t feel like they’d made it.

“What happened here?” Zane asked suddenly. He’d been

sitting in the far corner, letting the rest of them visit.

Nick snorted, but Zane was frowning.

“I’m serious? What the fuck was that?”

“Liam Bell happened here,” Ty said. His scratchy voice

and hollow eyes and the way he was caressing that voodoo

doll were eerie. Ty was starting to creep Nick out.

“What do you mean?” Zane demanded.

Ty turned the doll in his hand. “I didn’t catch on fast

enough.”

“Ty,” Nick said quietly. “None of what happened here is

your fault.”

“I know.” Ty finally looked up. “It’s his.”

Nick said nothing. He wasn’t going to touch that one.

“He outplayed me.”

“This wasn’t a game, Ty,” Zane said.

“Sure it was. Liam wasn’t freelancing here. He works for

the NIA.”

“How do you know?” Zane asked.

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“Because I didn’t miss. I don’t miss. He was here as an

NIA agent. And what is the NIA?”

“The brand new, ultra-militarized arm of the CIA,” Kelly

recited.

“With broad purpose but smal , precious resources,” Ty

added.

“You’re saying you think Liam and the NIA engineered

all of this?” Zane asked. “Why?”

“To do exactly what we did.”

“Clean out a rat’s nest?” Nick asked.

“You’re saying NIA pitted a retired Recon team against a

Colombian cartel?” Owen asked. “On purpose?”

Ty shrugged. “It was a perfect storm. We cleared out a

dozen of the cartel’s men, plus a high-ranking dirty cop who

controls a busy port city. They lose no assets. Don’t take the

heat.”“How do you figure?” Digger asked.

Ty held up his hand. He slowly extended his thumb.

“He knew Sanchez. Knew he was dead, knew his birthday,

knew we’d all gather. He knew Digger was confined to the

state. That leaves one place and time we’d all be. And to know

all that, he had to have CIA sources.” He pointed his index