“That fucking Army Ranger’s going down,” he growled through clenched teeth.
He jumped from the car, gun in hand, and stopped. Breath held, he listened for footsteps. The plunk-plunk-plunk of running feet on wood turned Mitch toward the dock.
Fear burned a streak down the middle of his body. If Abernathy got her on a boat, Mitch would lose her. And he couldn’t lose her.
He sprinted toward the building, adrenaline making his head light. But he had the advantage. Abernathy was injured. Carrying a hundred and something pounds of deadweight. Mitch pushed himself, his strides eating up the planks.
He caught up with them just as Abernathy leaned toward a small aluminum fishing boat. Mitch couldn’t shoot the guy without risking Halina, so he did the next best thing—he nailed the metal dinghy with half a dozen shots.
“You’re not going anywhere, Abernathy,” Mitch rasped between heavy breaths. “Put her down—on the dock—and I won’t shoot you.”
“You won’t shoot me while I’m holding her. And you’re not the only one with a gun.” He moved into a pool of light from an overhead fixture to show Mitch the semiauto against Halina’s head. “Back off.”
“You won’t shoot her,” he said, praying the shake in his body didn’t transfer to his voice. The sight of that gun at Halina’s head flipped something rabid inside him. “She’s the key to everything you want.”
“I only want her research. I could get that without her; this is just the fastest way. But it’s also becoming the most trouble.”
“You don’t have any other choice,” Mitch said, slowly advancing as he spoke. “She destroyed it. She’s the only person who can re-create the information. If you kill her, you kill any chance of getting that research. You start over at square one.”
Halina moaned. Her arm made a languid arc toward Abernathy’s head, but it didn’t get anywhere near him before it fell away.
“If you believe she destroyed her research,” Abernathy said, “you’re a bigger sucker than I thought. Now, move.”
“Not going to happen. You’re going to have to let her go and take a run at her another time.”
Halina was waking up, or trying to. She wasn’t a threat to the man holding her, but if she could just move out of the way enough . . . Mitch was a damn good shot, but the first two that had missed the SUV’s tire kept him from pulling the trigger now.
Abernathy backed along the dock.
Mitch’s heart accelerated. He squinted into the dark behind the guy. There was no freaking place for him to go. Information kept rolling through his head—Army Ranger, Military Intelligence, missions with Quaid . . .
A vision of Abernathy falling into the water, holding Halina like a rescue swimmer to block his body while dragging her to another shore flashed in Mitch’s mind as just about the guy’s only alternative play. And Mitch would be screwed. He couldn’t shoot, couldn’t go after them in a boat he didn’t have. And going into the water after someone with Abernathy’s training was a suicide mission.
“Stop or I’ll shoot you,” Mitch warned.
The bastard grinned at Mitch past Halina’s legs. Then slid his hand up her thigh and beneath her robe. A spurt of fury raised Mitch’s blood pressure.
“I’m going to empty my clip into you, bastard. And I’ll enjoy every bullet. Halina,” Mitch yelled. “Halina, wake up.”
“She’s out, man. I gave her enough shit to keep her out for days.”
But Halina flopped sideways, attempting to struggle.
“Halina, Dex needs you,” Mitch called, closing fast and taking aim as far away from her body as possible. “Dex is hurt. He needs you.”
A sound gurgled up from her throat and she thrashed in Abernathy’s arms. He held on to her, but she threw him off balance just enough.
Mitch’s stomach clenched. He squeezed the trigger.
Abernathy grunted. Blood immediately drenched a splotch on his jeans. He glanced down, muttered, “Sonofabitch,” and stumbled.
Mitch sprinted for Halina. Grabbed a handful of her robe and jerked. She pulled from Abernathy’s grasp and crumpled to the dock at the same time the other man tipped backward. He hit the water flat on his back, a glassy look in his blue eyes, the weapon still in his hand.
Mitch dropped to one knee beside Halina. He kept his gun aimed at the water while searching her body for injury with the other hand, praying his bullet hadn’t grazed her. His heart was beating so hard it pushed the air from his lungs. But he found no liquid warmth, no stickiness, just lots of smooth, warm skin. Thank God. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever felt.
“Hali.” He gripped her face, darted a sweep over the dark water’s surface. Abernathy should have surfaced screaming by now. But he’d vanished. “Hali, wake up. Wake up for Dex. He needs you.”
She didn’t stir.
Mitch lifted her into his arms—definitely lighter than Dex—and cast one more suspicious glance across the water’s surface before backing off the dock and rushing to the car, just yards away and still running. He dropped Halina in the passenger’s seat and scanned the area again, sure they hadn’t seen the last of Abernathy.
The drive out of town took longer than necessary as he executed a series of turns, switchbacks, and circles just in case Abernathy had called in help. But Mitch couldn’t detect any tails. When the sirens started multiplying near the hotel, he hit the interstate.
He drove with one hand on Halina’s wrist, her pulse beneath his fingers, calculating the rate by the dashboard clock. Sixty beats per minute—normal for someone in her physical condition. Her head was tilted toward him and he could feel her breath on his bicep, which also seemed normal. Still, it took a full five minutes before he could catch his own breath.
“That was too damn close,” he whispered, his voice shaky.
He took an exit in Tumwater and parked in the dark space between two overhead lights in the lot of a Jack in the Box. Tugging out his phone, he dialed Alyssa.
“What’s wrong?” she answered, voice worried but serious, capable, ready to handle anything.
“We were ambushed again.” Shit, he still couldn’t breathe right. “He got Halina and injected her with something. Some kind of sedative. He injected her dog too. He’s a German shepherd, weighs as much as Halina and means everything to her. I have them both, but, shit, Lys . . .” He raked a hand through his hair, panic slicing along his nerves like a razor. “What do I do?”
“Are you close to an emergency room?”
“We can’t go near a hospital.” He didn’t know how many were involved yet. Didn’t know if Abernathy had called anyone else in. Didn’t even know where Abernathy was for sure. “We’d be dead in the parking lot.”
“Okay,” she said, immediately detecting his frantic state and compensating with calm. “Her heart rate—”
“Sixty.”
“Good. And she’s breathing—”
“Easy, steady.”
“Good. Okay. You can relax, Mitch. Do you know how long it took for the sedative to act?”
“Uh,” he reached over and pushed hair off her forehead, resting the backs of his fingers there to feel her temperature. He didn’t know why, he just did. “Fast. She fought for maybe thirty seconds before slowing down. Maybe another thirty before she was completely out.”
“There are very few sedatives that work that fast. The good news is that I’m pretty sure what he used is relatively safe. If she hasn’t had a reaction by now, she probably won’t. It just needs to wear off, which should happen quickly. How quickly depends on how much she was given, but she’ll be coming around in anywhere between ten and thirty minutes. If she’s not, there’s a problem and you’ll have to reevaluate an emergency room.”