“No kidding. Clean enough I can’t hold my weapon. I’ve been tracking him for miles. He parked out on the main road and hiked in. I’d circled around but he must have heard me.”
“Relax for me, hon. Let me have your arm. There you go.” She poked around a bit more, ignoring his grimace. “It needs to be set temporarily, but we have to get you to a medic. You’re going to need some surgical help getting it back together permanently.” Sam ripped off the sleeve of his good arm and fashioned a sling, then found a sturdy flat piece of tree branch. They heard Fletcher and Jordan screaming at each other, then the rotors of a helicopter coming closer.
“Hang on, okay? Quit fidgeting. I need to reduce this, and I don’t have an X-ray to work with. Talk to me. Where was Adrian headed?”
“There’s a tunnel up ahead about a hundred yards. It’s the ingress to the compound. I saw where he was going, thought I’d cross over quickly and tell the Feebs. My cell is worthless. I have no signal. I was almost to the opening in the woods when he clocked me.”
She lengthened his arm, getting the bones in proper alignment. “Ready?” she said, and before he could tense up, she pulled, hard. He inhaled sharply but didn’t cry out. She ran her fingers along the break. Perfect. The bones were back in the right spot.
“Okay, tough guy, that will do it for now.” She braced his arm with the wood, tied a couple of strips of his shirtsleeve around his forearm, then slid it in the sling. “Okay?”
He was pale but kissed her, quickly on the mouth. “I’ll be fine. But you need to take this.”
He handed her the M-4.
She hefted it into her arms. It was heavy, lethal. She didn’t like guns, but living with Xander, she knew how to handle them. He’d insisted she be fully competent with every weapon he owned, and they’d spent many an afternoon on the mountain doing target practice.
She cleared it, as he’d taught her, then flicked the selector to Safe. Xander reached over and set it to a three-round burst. “Just in case,” he said. She hated it but nodded. She had no intention of pulling the trigger, but as he always told her, if she had the gun in her hands, she needed to be prepared to use it. This wasn’t for fun, or target practice. This was very real.
Fletcher and Jordan were shooting again, but the huge man and Kaylie had disappeared. Xander whistled hard and long and Thor stopped barking. Sam heard him running back to them.
Xander reached cross-handed for his pistol, pulled it out of its nylon webbing.
“What are you doing? You can’t get in that fight. You’re hurt.”
“Wanna bet?”
Thor came skidding toward them.
“Thor, blieb!” Xander said.
Thor sat at her feet, looking confused.
“Don’t you dare,” she started, but he was gone, slipping through the trees. Bloody fool. Leaving her with a hot weapon and an even hotter dog? Maybe she would use the gun. On him.
She smelled something odd and realized the HRT were tossing tear gas canisters. They must be very close to the compound. She wasn’t going to stand here in the trees, out of harm’s way, while everyone she loved was throwing themselves into the fight.
“Thor, voraus! Let’s go.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. He wanted to follow his master into battle, as he’d been trained to do. Together they traced Xander’s path. They found him five minutes later, standing with Jordan and Fletcher.
“What’s happening?” Sam asked.
If Xander was Medusa, Sam would be solid stone beneath his furious gaze. “I told you to stay there, damn it.”
Jordan tapped her headset. “Shut up!” She listened for a moment. “HRT stormed the breach. No one responded to the call for negotiations, but someone set fire to one of the outbuildings. We had no recourse, we had to go in. There are casualties. They’re looking for Rachel now. It’s not looking good. How the hell did that huge guy disappear?”
“There’s a tunnel, ingress into the property. We need to get there now,” Xander said.
“Give me coordinates, I’ll radio the team—”
“No time. Follow me.”
“Stand down,” Jordan yelled. But Xander was already moving away quickly.
“Damn it,” she said.
Fletcher shook his head. “Yeah, he does that. Come on.”
Sam started to follow. Fletcher took one look at her, holding Xander’s M-4 at the ready, and fought not to smile. “You all set there, G.I. Jane?”
“Don’t even think about it, Fletch. Let’s go.”
*