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Thank God. She was alive.
Gently, he picked her up and cradled her in his arms. “I’m taking you home,” he said, and carried her out of the building.
Hannah flungher hands out and touched something smooth and leathery.
Where am I?
She felt like she was floating. There was a loud screech.
I’m in a car.
She tried to move, but everything hurt.
A voice said, “Keep still, Hannah. You’re going to be fine. I’ve got you now. We’re getting you out of here.”
It was Tom’s voice.
Her Tom.
He’d come for her.
Or perhaps he’d come to kill her? She didn’t want to die.
“I didn’t tell them anything,” she tried to say, but she couldn’t get the words out. How had Tom found her? Her ribs ached, and it hurt to breathe.
Then she remembered.
Tom had shot Abdul Anwar. Hannah had a vision of him falling at her feet. She wanted to applaud, to tell Tom how grateful she was that he’d come for her, but she couldn’t speak. There was a dull throbbing in her cheek, and she couldn’t see out of one eye.
Then he was next to her. A reassuring arm around her shoulders. He smelled so good. She let her head drop against his shoulder.
I like it when you beg.
She could still hear Anwar’s voice in her head. But he’d been shot. He wasn’t a threat to her anymore.
“You got him,” she whispered, and a warm hand smoothed her hair. Tom’s hand.
“Yes, we got him. You’re safe now,” he murmured.
She relaxed. If she just had a little nap, things would be clearer when she woke up. She reached for Tom’s hand and clung to it. The gentle rocking motion was making her drowsy.
She swayed to the left as the car turned a corner, and then everything faded to black.
CHAPTER 36
The amphibious assault ship, USS Liberty Spear motored toward Port Zayed in Abu Dhabi at a steady eleven knots. The Gulf of Oman stretched impossibly blue ahead of them.
Tom stood beside the captain on the bridge. He’d just got off the phone with Commander Larson, who was uncharacteristically complimentary about the retrieval of the safe house locations.
Thanks to Tom’s hard work, the NATO strikes had been averted, and a U.S. Special Forces unit had been deployed to bring in Prince Hakeem. An international incident had been narrowly avoided, and his special ops team had emerged smelling like roses.
Phoenix, Viper and their unit had been deployed elsewhere as part of the joint task force, but he hadn’t been told where.
Tom was the hero of the hour.
His place in the Marine Corps was securely cemented for the foreseeable future. In fact, he had just been promoted to Squadron Staff Sergeant, but all he felt was relief. Relief that the crisis had been averted, and that he was once again back on active duty–or would be after a short rest.
His biggest relief, however, was that Hannah was all right.