Special Ops Exclusive

chapter 6



Nick came to a screeching stop at the curb in front of the hospital entrance, ignoring the no-parking signs and the frowns from the scrubs-wearing, cigarette-holding hospital workers loitering at the nearby smoking area. He’d tuned into the radio on the drive over, and although there had been no further updates about Rebecca or her cameraman, that feeling of urgency refused to leave him.

Rebecca had nearly died—the morning after she’d met with him. It was too big a coincidence to ignore, and when you factored in the hit squad that had ambushed Nick at the hotel earlier, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that his location had been compromised.

Shutting off the engine, he threw open the driver’s door and jumped out of the tan-colored sedan, but he’d barely taken three steps when his gaze collided with a startling scene.

Rebecca had just walked through the automatic doors at the entrance. She was flanked by two men in dark suits—one of whom happened to be the mercenary that had popped out of Nick’s hotel room less than an hour ago.

Rebecca’s green eyes widened in recognition when she spotted Nick across the narrow roadway. “Nick!” she shouted, the fear and panic on her face unmistakable.

The mercenaries on either side of her immediately swiveled their heads in Nick’s direction, and a second later, two guns were aimed at him.

Yet again, the sheer boldness of these bastards amazed him. They had no qualms about opening fire—in public—and Nick found himself diving behind the sedan for cover as the mercenaries started shooting.

Screams erupted from the smoking section near the curb. Nick ignored the din and drew his weapon. Sitting on the asphalt, he flattened his back against the passenger-side door, took a deep breath, then risked a glance at the shooters.

Metallic pings echoed in the air as a spray of bullets embedded into the side of the sedan. The men were using silencers. So was Nick, and his next shot came out as a sharp hiss. He hit one of the mercenaries square in the chest, and satisfaction ignited in his gut as he watched the man go down.

More horrified shouts cut the air. It was ten o’clock in the morning, too bright and sunny for a goddamn shoot-out outside a hospital. A swift peek around the front bumper revealed the remaining mercenary dragging Rebecca toward the police cruiser parked near the E.R. entrance. Nick didn’t know how the mercs had managed to get their hands on a cop car, but these men sure as hell weren’t police officers.

“Rebecca!” Nick yelled from his position behind the car. “Get down!”

Rather than obey, the stubborn woman did the exact opposite—she suddenly lunged at the man who was glued to her side, disarming him with a nifty little kickboxing move that would’ve made Nick grin if he wasn’t so frickin’ furious.

Both Rebecca and the merc dived after the falling weapon, but the redhead reached it first. She pointed the gun at her almost-abductor and bounced to her feet, tossing Nick a frantic glance over her shoulder.

The questioning look in her eyes told him she was debating whether to shoot the mercenary, but Nick quickly vetoed that idea by shouting, “Get in the car! I’ll cover you.”

After a beat of hesitation, Rebecca spun on her heels and raced toward the sedan while Nick kept his gun trained on the mercenary. The stocky man was staggering to his feet, his eyes alight with rage as he watched his prey escape.

Nick would’ve liked to put a bullet in the son of a bitch’s head, but the wail of sirens and the shocked faces of the crowd beginning to form stopped him from being stupid. This was a disaster. One merc dead, the other now fleeing the scene, his heavy footsteps thudding on the pavement.

Rebecca slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door, prompting Nick to move. Keeping his head down, he dashed to the driver’s side and jumped into the car. Seconds later, he’d started the engine and was hightailing it out of there.

No media. He clung to the thought as he sped away in a squeal of tires. There had been no cameras or reporters outside the hospital, so at least he didn’t have to worry about his pretty mug appearing on any television screens. But those people on the curb had seen his face—what if one of them had recognized him as Nick Barrett?

His gaze moved to the silent, ashen-faced redhead beside him. No, Rebecca was the more recognizable of the two of them. If anyone had been recognized, it was her.

“Are you okay?” he asked tersely, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

She didn’t answer.

From the corner of his eye, Nick saw that her hands were still wrapped around the mercenary’s .45 HK. Steady hands. Jeez, the woman had nerves of steel. She wasn’t trembling, her breathing was steady, her eyes alert.

Only that white-as-snow complexion revealed her fear.

“Rebecca.” He sharpened his tone. “Are you all right?”

She blinked. Shook her head a couple of times. Then she turned to meet his concerned gaze. “What the heck is going on?” she blurted out. “Who were those men? What did they want from me?”

“They were mercenaries. A private hit squad.”

Her face went another shade paler. “Hit squad? They were sent here to kill me?”

“Most likely.”

Those green eyes blazed at his nonchalant response. “Why? Why would they want to kill me?”

“Because you talked to me,” he said simply.

Her breath hitched.

Nick drove through an intersection and executed a hard left, speeding through the narrow streets of Mala.

“I told you this would happen,” he went on, his tone harsher than he intended. “You spoke to someone about me, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” There was no guilt in her voice, no remorse on her face, but she looked shaken as hell.

“Who?”

“My producer, Harry Drexler.” She let out a wobbly breath. “I asked him to dig around, find out why the sec def’s son would be in Cortega.”

Nick cursed under his breath. “He probably triggered a hundred alarms when he started asking questions.”

Not to mention broadcasted Nick’s location to the people who were hunting him.

Wonderful. Now it was even more imperative that he meet with Salazar and get the hell out of Cortega.

“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said quietly. “You told me to forget I ever saw you, and I didn’t listen, but you’ve got to understand, this is my job—”

“This is your life,” he cut in. “I told you that getting involved in this would put you in danger, but you just couldn’t let it go, could you?”

“Involved in what?” she said angrily. “Maybe if you’d offered a few more details last night, I would have been able to drop it the way you asked—no, the way you demanded. But what the heck did you expect would happen when you dangled that gee-dee carrot under my nose? I’m a journalist! I don’t stop asking questions, I don’t stop digging, not until I have the whole story, and I refuse to apologize for being dedicated to my job!”

He sped through another intersection before turning to glare at her. “How clearer could I have been? I told you your life would be at risk if you told anyone about me.”

“My life is always at risk,” she retorted, her jaw tighter than a drum. “It was at risk when I got shot at by those rebels in Johannesburg. It was at risk when I covered the civil war in Congo and when I visited a warlord’s prison in Nigeria and when—”

“I get the point.”

“Do you? Because I don’t think you understand what I do for a living.” Her tone grew surly. “I don’t walk away from a story. Period.”

“Well, how’s that working out for you right now?” he said sarcastically.

Rebecca fell silent, but he could feel the anger vibrating from that petite body of hers. Angry. She was frickin’ angry at him. After he’d just saved her life.

She saved herself, buddy boy.

Fine, so she’d displayed some impressive skills when she’d kicked that gun out of her captor’s hands, but if Nick hadn’t taken down the merc’s colleague, Rebecca wouldn’t have had the opportunity to act. The woman ought to be showing him some gratitude instead of stewing there as if he’d wronged her.

Nick turned into the parking lot of a small plaza and drove to the alley in the back where he parked next to a black SUV.

“What are we doing?” Rebecca asked warily.

“Ditching the car.”

“You’re just going to abandon your car in this alley?” She sounded bewildered.

“This isn’t my car.”

“Then whose is it? Did you steal it?”

“Do you always ask so many questions?” he said irritably.

“I’m a journalist. Why do you keep forgetting that?”

Nick reached for the door handle. “Get out of the car, Rebecca.”

They hopped out, and he quickly ushered her to the SUV and opened the passenger door for her. A suspicious cloud floated across her face. “Did you steal this one, too?”

He sighed. “No, this one is mine. I stashed it here before I went to the hospital. Now get in before I push you in.”

To his dismay, amusement danced in her green eyes. “You’re so bossy. I kinda like it. Sometimes.”

He decided not to touch that remark. In fact, he was having a difficult time making sense of anything this woman said and did. Rebecca Parker was fearless. Terrifyingly fearless. She should’ve been far more shaken up over everything that had happened, yet she seemed unfazed by it all.

Or so he thought; it wasn’t until they were in the SUV and on the move again that Rebecca’s composed front finally began showing signs of cracking.

“I need to know what’s going on.” Her voice wavered. “Jesse...my cameraman...he’s dead.”

The chord of sorrow in her voice made his chest ache. “Ah, Rebecca, I’m sorry.”

“Fourth-degree burns.” Now she sounded angry again. “He’s dead, Nick. Jesse’s dead and Dave is dead, and I almost died, and I don’t think it was part of the riot. I don’t think it was an accident.”

“Neither do I.”

His hands slid over the steering wheel as he pulled onto the on-ramp of Mala’s sole freeway. The road was littered with potholes, the pavement uneven, but it sure beat the narrow maze of streets that made up the city’s core.

“Where are we going?” Rebecca asked as the SUV picked up speed.

“North. I’ve got a place where we can lie low until we figure out our next move. It’s about an hour’s drive.”

“An hour, huh?”

He felt her sharp gaze burning a hole into the side of his face. Stifling a tired sigh, he gave her a sidelong gaze and said, “What?”

“Are you kidding me?” She shook her head in disbelief. “We’ve got an hour’s drive ahead of us. So start talking, Nick! Tell me what the fu—fudge is going on, darn it!”

Rebecca couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this frustrated. It didn’t help that the man beside her was more tight-lipped than a mob boss. Would it kill Nick to offer some insight on this messed-up situation? Two men had nearly abducted her in broad daylight. With the intent of killing her, if they truly were members of a hit squad like Nick claimed.

Leftover adrenaline traveled in her veins, making her feel light-headed. She suddenly became aware that she was still holding that hit man’s gun, and she quickly opened the glove compartment and shoved the weapon inside.

Next to her, Nick still hadn’t uttered a word.

“Start. Talking,” she ordered through gritted teeth.

He let out a heavy breath. “It’s a long story.”

“And gee, we have an hour for you to tell it. So, for the love of God, tell me what’s going on. Why do people want to kill you?”

Nick went quiet for a beat. “What do you know about the Meridian virus?”

The question succeeded in startling her. “Wait, this is about the Meridian virus?” When he nodded, she furrowed her brow in confusion. “Okay. Well, I know a lot about it. A terrorist group—some splinter faction of the ULF—released it in the water supply of Dixie, New York, two weeks ago, killing a thousand people. The group threatened to release the virus in a major city if America didn’t remove its influence from San Marquez.”

“Right,” Nick said with a nod. “What else?”

Because she’d reported on the virus crisis directly outside the small town of Dixie, Rebecca had no shortage of details. “The ULF cell claimed that the virus was engineered in the United States, and that our government authorized the testing of it in San Marquez. They said we killed hundreds of their villagers.”

“We did.”

Nick’s matter-of-fact response sent her eyebrows soaring. “Are you serious?” she demanded.

He turned his head to meet her surprised gaze, nodded, then focused on the stretch of highway up ahead. “The first test site was Corazón. It’s a remote village in the western region of San Marquez. My unit and I were sent there to extract an American doctor who was supposedly being held hostage by the ULF rebels, but when we got there, the doctor was already dead. So were all the villagers.”

“They were killed by the virus?”

“Yes, but we didn’t know it at the time. My unit showed up to find Hector Cruz and his fellow rebels burning all the bodies.”

Rebecca blanched. Before she could stop it, the image of Jesse on fire flashed into her head, and her mind cruelly conjured up the acrid stench of smoke and flesh. It was so real she could swear she was smelling it in the SUV, and she had to take a deep calming breath before she fell apart again.

“What happened afterward?” she asked, trying to focus on Nick’s story.

“Cruz got away, and we were recalled back to the States for debriefing. We were all operating under the assumption that Cruz and his men had killed the Corazón villagers.” Nick’s profile hardened. “But then my teammates starting dying. One accidental death after the other. It became obvious that someone was trying to eliminate us, but we didn’t know why. When there were only three of us left, we decided to skip town and hide out until we could figure out why we were being hunted.”

She wrinkled her brow. “And you tied it to the Meridian virus?”

He nodded again. “The Corazón villagers died from the virus. We think someone in the government wanted to shut us up, get us out of the way in case we gave too much thought to what we saw in that village.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me. My unit’s captain, Tate. And Sebastian, another soldier. We’ve been moving around this past year, trying to make sense of it all. A couple of months ago, the virus was released in a new test site, another San Marquez village called Valero, and soon after that, one of the scientists responsible for creating the virus sold a vial of it to the ULF cell. Sebastian was actually part of the assault team that raided the terrorists’ hideaway.” Nick chuckled, but he didn’t sound the slightest bit amused. “Someone in the Department of Defense decided to thank Seb by infecting him with the virus.”

Her eyes widened. “Your teammate died from the virus?”

“No, he’s still alive.” Nick’s jaw tensed. “Sebastian’s girlfriend accidentally ingested the water instead, but luckily she was administered the antidote in time. But the attempt on Seb’s life told us that whoever authorized the creation of the virus still wants us dead.”

“But why? The virus is common knowledge now,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but the identity of the person who green-lighted the project? That’s still up for grabs, and that bastard knows my men and I won’t rest until we track him down.”

The lethal tone of his voice sent a shiver up Rebecca’s spine. She studied his rigid profile, intrigued by the contrast between his handsome good looks and volatile expression. This man was a warrior. It was easy to forget that when you looked into those warm eyes, when you admired those classically chiseled features.

That cold shiver dissolved into a rush of warmth the longer she scrutinized Nick Barrett. His white T-shirt outlined every delicious ridge of his tight six-pack, and her fingers itched to stroke that hard, broad chest. To run through his messy brown hair, which looked so soft to the touch. She couldn’t believe she was capable of getting aroused at a time like this, but apparently she was. So painfully aroused that her thighs clenched together involuntarily.

Nick seemed oblivious to her current state of agitation. “So that’s it,” he finished. “Someone in the government, most likely a big player in the White House, wants me dead.”

She bit her lip. “And when I called Harry, I pretty much advertised your location to...let’s just call him Mr. X.”

Nick sounded annoyed again. “I told you to drop it.”

“Well, I didn’t, and now I’m a target,” she said matter-of-factly. “So let’s move past it and come up with a plan.”

Shaking his head, he let out an amazed laugh. “Nothing fazes you, does it, Rebecca?”

“Not usually.”

She swallowed hard as Jesse’s agonizing screams rang inside her head. She swiftly banished the memories, forcing herself to focus. Grief would come later. Right now, her priority was staying alive.

A thought suddenly occurred to her. “You still haven’t told me why you’re in Cortega,” she accused.

“Remember how I mentioned someone in the DoD tried to kill Sebastian? It was an aide named Paul Waverly, and he fled D.C. right after the attempt on Sebastian’s life. We tracked him to Cortega,” Nick explained. “Apparently he paid a visit to a man who rules the criminal underworld here, El—”

“Nuevo Diablo,” she finished. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Mr. New Devil reportedly runs guns and drugs, dabbles in prostitution and deals with fake IDs. Is that what Waverly was doing? Getting papers?”

“I think so. But I can’t be sure until I meet with Mr. New Devil for confirmation, and I haven’t been able to arrange a meeting yet. My source has been distracted with the riot.”

Rebecca pursed her lips. “All right. So we sit tight until your source is ready to meet us, then—”

“There is no us,” Nick interrupted. “You’re not a part of this.”

Her jaw fell open. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You’re not getting involved,” he said in a tone that invited no argument. “I can handle this on my own.”

“Oh, yeah? And pray tell, what am I supposed to do while you ‘handle’ this all by your lonesome?”

“I’ll stash you somewhere safe and—”

“Stash me somewhere safe?” Disbelief hung from each word, and her pulse sped up in anger. “Are you effing kidding me?”

“Two men dragged you out of the hospital at gunpoint,” he snapped. “Your cameraman and driver just burned to death!”

She flinched at the reminder.

“You’re in danger, Rebecca. Whoever is after me probably thinks that I confided in you about this whole mess. You’re a threat to him now.”

“We don’t even know who Mr. X is,” she protested.

“But Mr. X doesn’t know that. For all he knows, my men and I are fully aware of his true identity, and I came to Cortega to tell my story to world-renowned correspondent Rebecca Parker.”

Nick flicked the turn signal and changed lanes, quickly speeding past a slow-moving truck that was chugging clouds of exhaust into the morning air.

Morning. Jeez, how was it only morning? Rebecca felt like collapsing and she’d only been up for four hours. God, so much had happened in those four hours—she’d lost two of her closest friends, she’d nearly been kidnapped and killed by a pair of mercenaries, and now she was fleeing the city with a gorgeous soldier who seemed intent on relegating her to the sidelines.

Well, too bad for him, because Rebecca had never spent a single second on the sidelines her entire life.

From this point on, she and Nick were in this together.

Whether he liked it or not.