Page 19 of Burning Justice (Chasing Fire: Alaska #6)

Ten

“He’s the one who broke your fingers? This Chinese guy?”

Maria wanted to squirm under the intensity of Hammer’s stare. The bearded Delta Force team leader sat in a chair beside the hospital bed, his hands clasped in front of him and his elbows on his knees.

“Sanchez.”

She nodded. “Yes. Which means I’m out of the hotshots for the rest of the season, and Tucker is going to have to get others in to fill in for us.” Her. Logan. “I don’t like it.”

“Is that what you’re most worried about?”

Of course not. “I’m just…listing it among my grievances.”

She’d woken up half an hour ago, no one else in here but Hammer. Because Kane knew—he knew she didn’t want to wake up in the hospital alone. They all knew she didn’t want a crowd either. She didn’t want a doctor she didn’t know.

So many things. Concessions they made for her.

Maybe she shouldn’t lean on them so much, but they were her guys. She needed them.

“Thank you.”

Hammer shook his head. “As if you have to say that.” He sat back in his chair.

“He’s in the hall, you know. Probably wants to come in here and throw me out so he can sit with you and ask all the questions I’m asking.

But we need to move on this intel.” He reached down under the chair and lifted a laptop, which he set on the bed by her legs.

“This has a database on it. Key players, people we know. Intel we’ve gathered and what we’ve been given access to by friends and associates. I want this Chinese guy ID’d.”

Hot tears gathered in her eyes. She was not going to cry.

Kane had found her. He and Saxon, Crew and Tristan, had followed the GPS for her ring and found her in the woods. They’d made it so she wasn’t alone when she woke up.

“Elias thinks he’s going to get the code,” she said. “He thinks his plan will come to pass because he isn’t going to give up.”

Hammer said, “We’re all fighting this one. Even your father, from what you said. He’s doing what he has to do. It might not be what he wants to do, but he knows it’s best for everyone.”

She’d told him that her father was out there, and about the note. Even if she didn’t consider that him “contacting” her. Regardless of if it was his handwriting, it wasn’t anything close to closure.

She’d told Hammer everything, because that’s how it was between them.

He, Saxon, and Kane, and by extension Mack as well, were the best kind of men.

She’d struck gold when they’d rescued her.

Careening into her life with war paint on their faces, carrying guns and packs and all kinds of gear.

Talking about exfils and rendezvous and eating MREs.

She’d discovered all of a sudden that she wasn’t alone.

And they hadn’t stopped there. They’d jumped on board with her life after they’d been declared dead.

Not even one single thought of going back home and digging up proof they hadn’t gone to the dark side.

No, they’d decided together that going with her and finding her dad and, by extension, Elias Redding, was what would set everything to rights.

Just like that.

As if it was that easy to change your whole life. Or put it on hold. All to do the right thing, save the world. Clear their names. Save her and her father.

In one swoop, they’d set everything back the way it should be.

“I knew you guys would come to find me.”

Hammer said, “I did what I could to help, but I was deployed. Not sure I’m gonna jump again with the team soon though. You took years off my life.”

“Is Mack okay?”

Hammer’s expression shuttered. “The kid knows how to take a beating and bounce back. Even if it’s a bus doing the hitting.”

“You got him out. That’s what you do.” She needed him to know. “You’re a rescuer.”

“Turns out I’m not.” He gave her a small smile. “I just do what God put it in me to do.”

“God?” He’d never talked about faith before. Did he believe now?

“Go figure. Being around all these Christians the last two years? It’s rubbing off. Logan told me that God made me who I am.”

“The guy who rescues people.”

Hammer said, “I wanted to be there to rescue your father.”

“Me too.”

“Maybe he’ll show up.”

Whatever that meant. “Let’s worry more about Elias and this canister.”

“He thinks you have the code. That means he could come back,” Hammer said. “He could try to snatch you again and get you to talk.” He motioned to her hand.

The doctor had done an X-ray and immobilized her hand. Maria didn’t like it, but considering the million ways this could have gone worse, she didn’t have much to complain about. She could write and shoot with her off hand.

Though, right now, maybe that was just the pain killers talking.

“If he does come back,” she said, “maybe we could be ready for him.” She liked the sound of that. Turning the tables. Getting revenge.

“You want to trap him, take him down?”

“After what he did to you guys, I want to do a lot more than that.” She cleared her throat. Maybe just after being captured and tortured herself. Not like what some people had to go through. But enough she wanted to kill Elias more than ever now.

He studied her expression. “What’s this now?”

She pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about. Who wanted to admit they had vengeance on their mind? “What are you talking about?”

“You aren’t telling me something.”

Her stomach clenched. “It doesn’t matter.”

He stood, moving to the side of the bed. “I think it does.”

Of course he would see it.

She gritted her teeth. Shook her head.

“I get that you don’t feel good right now. You might need a minute. But you’d only be hiding.” He leaned down. “Talk.”

“He was my…asset.”

Hammer didn’t move. “You knew him before he captured you?”

She nodded. “I’d learned he was part of the group holding my father, so I figured that he’d know where to find my dad.” She had to take a breath before she could continue. “So I worked him like an asset. Got him to trust me, and he started to show me intel about the group.”

“You didn’t know who he was?”

She shook her head. “I had no idea he wasn’t a contractor. That he was Delta Force and part of your team. I never saw you guys with him. When I met him, he was usually alone.”

“What happened?”

“We only met a couple of times. Then someone turned me over to some Russians in Syria. They had a deal going with the locals. While I was there, thinking somehow I’d made a misstep and been found out, he showed up. That’s when I knew it was him who’d betrayed me.”

Hammer said, “But Langley knew you’d been snatched and sent us to find you.”

“Elias would’ve known he couldn’t show up there with your team.

When I realized later that he was part of it, I figured he probably betrayed you because he’d have been found out.

Or it was a convenient time to put the plan into place.

I don’t know.” Her breath hitched. “Maybe he double-crossed the three of you because of me. After all, his people and the ones holding me would’ve realized he was playing both sides.

They probably would’ve thought he was a US double agent, and they’d have killed him. ”

Hammer said, “He probably plans to claim that if he’s caught, even now. Probably plans to drag my team through the mud and make us look like the traitors so he goes free and we get life in a military prison.”

“I’m not going to let that happen. I was there.

I know the truth.” She wanted to grab his hand but had to remember to do that with her left.

The one with the IV. She held on like she was holding on for dear life.

And maybe that’s what she’d been doing with them for two years.

“He can’t win. He’ll destroy too many lives. ”

“So then ID the guy who hurt you.” Hammer held her gaze with a steady one. “And let me finish this. Before anyone else is destroyed.”

Maria sniffed back tears. She couldn’t even voice what she’d been thinking about her father and the fact he hadn’t come to find her. She might be able to tell Kane though. In fact, she needed him in here so she could see for herself that he was all right.

She couldn’t believe that after those guys had crashed the bus and taken her, he’d bounced back from the hospital to come all the way up to that homestead and find her.

Wading in to save her yet again.

Kane.

“Do me a favor?” Hammer said. “Think about what they all say about Jesus and God’s grace. It’s worth listening to.”

She stared at him, unsure this was even the same man who’d led a team into Syria to rescue her. “Really?”

He nodded. “Really.”

“Okay. I’ll listen.”

“You know, he did us a favor that day.”

Maria frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Elias. He cost us a teammate—him. But he gave us you.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I’ll take that trade any day.”

“This was really your highest priority for today?”

Kane gripped the wheel of Saxon’s 4Runner, which he’d borrowed specifically to take Sanchez from the hospital back to the base so she could rest in her own bed and they’d all be nearby to take care of her. “Can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.”

“Baloney sandwiches.”

He laughed. “I’m not lying.”

“Spill.”

At least she was in good spirits. That counted for something, right? She might have some bouts of grief or sadness when she was alone, or frustration when she had a hard time getting changed or one of the girls had to help her shower for a while.

Right now, she was smiling in the passenger seat, the splinted, bandaged hand on her lap.

“Talk, Kane.”

“Okay.” He reached over and squeezed her knee. She didn’t need to beg, and neither of them needed to joke about fun ways to torture information out of each other.

If that happened never, it would be too soon.

“Tucker ordered me and Saxon to take the smokejumpers’ qualifier test.”

“Ordered?”

Kane pulled onto the highway out of Copper Mountain and headed toward the base camp. A crack of lightning splintered the sky, lighting up the heavy clouds.

“Whoa.” She shifted in her seat.

Rain started to patter against the windshield. “It’s coming down.”