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“Anoushka. Get in the hoist.”

“Not without you!”

Bullets whizzed by. Declan and the guy who’d descended from the Black Hawk both spun and fired. Nick and Chay raced up and joined in.

“Get her out of here,” Dec shouted.

“No,” Annie said. “Declan, don’t—”

He shoved her into the hoist and secured it. The rescue guy grabbed onto the line, looked up and signaled.

The line began to rise. Up, up, up…

Hands reached out and pulled Annie to safety. Her rescuer vanished inside the Black Hawk with her.

The big bird pulled away and quickly gained altitude.

Dec stared after it. The sounds of the battle faded.

All he could think of was Annie.

They were separated again. But this time it wouldn’t be for long. It would take a couple of hours for the docs on the super-carrier to evaluate and stabilize her, more hours to arrange her flight home.

He’d be with her long before that.

Chay knocked him to the ground.

“Dude,” he yelled, “you want to play at being a target or you want to finish these fuckers off?”

“Amjad?” Dec asked.

Chay shook his head. “We haven’t seen him.”

Another burst of small-arms fire raked the ground ahead of them.

“Go,” Dec shouted, and crouching and weaving, he and Chay ran back to deal with the remaining terrorists.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Rescue Two settled on the deck of the Harry S. Truman.

The end of the fight had been predictable. Amjad’s pieces of crap hadn’t been able to stand up to the firepower unleashed by the guys on the Black Hawk and by those on the ground. The ones who hadn’t gone down had fled. That their leader had not been with them was a disappointment, but taking out this bunch had been a real victory. They were Amjad’s elite strike force and this had been an embarrassing defeat for him.

Only one of the Americans had been wounded. Not really wounded—something hot had lightly traced its way across Maguire’s upper thigh.

“Good thing it didn’t hit further up,” Danny Sullivan said solemnly. “I mean, dude, how much skin did you lose? Two inches? Translate that into man meat, hell, you’d be dickless.”

Everybody laughed, including Dec, though his laughter was tempered by a growing sense of anxiety.

All he could think about was Annie.

The men clambered out of the bird and headed for one of the flight deck elevators. They were going straight to a debriefing. Dec knew he was expected to join them, not just to talk about the firefight but about what had happened to him during the last few days.

And Stuart had ordered Dec to report to him immediately.

All that would have to wait until he saw Annie. He needed to be sure she was okay, that the docs had begun whatever treatment she required.

Most of all, he needed to hold her in his arms.