Page 14

Chapter 14

Dax nearly tripped over his own feet as he and Fearghas pushed through the door simultaneously, aiming their submachine guns toward the alcove in front of the doors to a suite.

As Fearghas had assumed, two guards stood there with rifles at the ready. When the stairwell door swung open, they aimed at the men charging through it.

Dax dove right. Fearghas dove left.

Dax landed on his side. His weapon pointed toward the guard on the right, his finger squeezing the trigger before the guard could fire off another round.

Fearghas did the same.

When Dax rolled to his feet, he expected Fearghas to rise up beside him.

He didn’t. The Scotsman pressed a hand to his side. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

Dax shook his head. “Stay. We’ve got this.”

“Generator guard neutralized,” Chase reported as footsteps pounded toward them.

Gunfire sounded from within the suite.

“Get down!” Dax yelled.

Everyone dropped to the floor as bullets peppered the suite’s double doors.

Dax stayed down until the rain of bullets slowed to a stop.

Then he was on his feet, charging for the door, head bent, leading with his shoulder. When he hit it with all the force he could muster, it exploded inward, weakened by the many bullet holes blasted through the metal.

Dax rolled to the side, firing up at the guard, turning his weapon back at him.

Giva flew into the room, screaming a war cry like a banshee rising hot from the gates of hell. She leveled her handgun on the guard and unloaded several rounds, shredding the man’s midsection. He dropped to the ground, his weapon flying across the floor.

Rabinovich bent to retrieve it. As he raised it to aim at Giva, Dax nailed him with a burst from his submachine gun.

The Italian pulled a pistol from beneath his jacket. Before he could aim at anyone, a single shot from the open door dropped him. Fearghas leaned against the doorframe, his hand pressed to his wound.

Strüngmann and Kagalovsky raised their hands.

Another movement caught Dax’s eye. Before he could warn anyone, Yamaguchi stepped out from behind the damaged door and pressed a handgun to the back of Giva’s head.

“Move, and I will shoot the pretty imposter,” she said.

Giva’s eyes narrowed to slits, and her cheeks flushed a ruddy red as she tensed.

Don’t do it, Giva , Dax thought.

There was no stopping the Israeli Sayeret Matkal as she ducked and spun simultaneously. She brought the butt of her gun up and around, knocking the handgun from the woman’s grasp and slamming into the side of Yamaguchi’s head.

The Japanese female crumpled to the floor and lay still. Giva bent to feel for a pulse.

None.

The Japanese woman was dead.

Even so, Giva kicked the handgun away from the woman and toward Chase and Gavin as they entered the room.

Dax’s gaze swept through what he could see of the suite. Folding tables had been erected against one wall with several computer monitors lined up in a row, with no computers or laptops attached. And no technical genius to run them. His heartbeat ratcheted up. “Where’s Maas?”

Kagalovsky pointed toward a closed door leading into another room.

Dax hurried toward the door and stood to one side. He reached for the doorknob and twisted.

It was locked.

Giva crossed the room, aimed her pistol at the doorknob and pulled the trigger, splintering the door and the doorframe and destroying the knob.

Atkins called out from behind her. “I’ve got this.” He ran toward the door, leaped into the air and kicked with both feet before dropping to the ground.

The door flew open. Bullets blasted through one at a time as if from a handgun, not a submachine gun.

Atkins rolled out of range.

Dax dove through the opening and rolled across the floor.

Maas stood behind a table, holding a handgun pointed at Dax. “You’re too late. The program has begun.”

Dax fired, aiming high, afraid that, at his angle, he’d hit the laptop on the table in front of Maas. One of the bullets clipped Maas’s shoulder. Maas grimaced but leveled his handgun at Dax again. “You’re nothing like me.”

Giva entered the room, aimed and fired, hitting Maas in the face.

He dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Giva snorted and lifted her chin. “He’s better than you’ll ever be.” She hurried toward the laptop, fired another round into Maas’s inert body and faced the computer.

Dax hurried to join her.

The screen displayed what appeared to be a clock counting down with thirty seconds remaining.

“How do we stop it?” Giva tapped the keyboard. An entry box appeared, asking for a password or a fingerprint.

Dax grabbed the laptop and dropped to his haunches beside Maas’s body

Giva lifted Maas’s right hand and touched the index finger to the biometric reader on the keyboard. Nothing happened. Fifteen seconds sped by.

She tried another finger and then it came to her. “He’s left-handed.” Giva grabbed his left hand and pressed the index finger to the reader.

The screen blinked and displayed the same countdown with five seconds to spare. Beside the countdown was a red button labeled cancel. Giva pressed her finger against the red button on the screen.

The countdown froze with one second remaining. A message popped up.

Are you sure?

“Hell, yes!” She touched the YES button.

A message scrolled across the screen.

Program discontinued.

Giva held her breath. “Did it stop?” she whispered.

“It says the program is discontinued.” Dax glanced up at Fearghas, who leaned against the doorframe, his face pale.

Fearghas spoke into his radio, “Dmytro, do you have eyes on Shanghai? Anything?” Silence stretched tightly through the room as everyone waited.

“Bloody hell.” Fearghas closed his eyes and slumped. When he opened his eyes again, he said. “Nothing changed. Shanghai is still lit up like a beautiful fucking circus.”

Giva cheered with the rest of the team and flung her arms around Dax’s neck.

A grin spread across Fearghas’s face as he slid down the wall. “Oh, and Hank’s inbound in a helicopter with Interpol. Could one of you see if they’ll give me a ride to the nearest medical center?”

The team from Yellowstone secured the Russian and the German. Gavin helped make Fearghas comfortable and applied pressure to his wound.

The thumping sound of rotor blades echoed through the building as a helicopter lowered to the resort’s helipad.

Atkins left the building to meet with the landing party and help them find their way back to the alternate command center.

Dax held onto the laptop. Before the screen shut down again, he found the system settings and added his fingerprint to allow him to access the device without needing to use the dead man’s finger.

He didn’t want to hand it over to Interpol until Dmytro could access the programs, locate the satellites and find a way to disable or destroy their EMP capabilities. Dax trusted the Brotherhood Protectors above all others to ensure the world's safety by ensuring the programs and the devices weren’t passed into the wrong hands.

With one arm around Giva and the computer tucked under the other, he whispered, “Feel like going for a bike ride?”

She stared up into his eyes, then down at the laptop under his arm. Her gaze returned to his, and she nodded. “I’ll drive.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Dax responded.

As they left the room, Dax turned toward the stairwell.

Giva touched his arm and shook her head. She turned in the opposite direction and led him to the spiral staircase. They descended to the bottom on the ghostly risers and exited through the once-grand entrance of a former five-star hotel.

As they climbed the hillside to where they’d parked the motorcycles, Dax glanced back to see the group disembarking from the helicopter.

The sooner they got the laptop to Dmytro, the better. Interpol would want it to conduct their own investigation into the activities of the Nexus Collective, now down to two members, who would tell all to avoid spending the rest of their lives in jail.

Giva mounted one of the motorcycles and started the engine.

Dax slid onto the back, wrapped one arm around her middle and held on tightly to the laptop as they climbed the twisting, overgrown drive up to the main highway.

Giva turned toward the bright lights of Dubrovnik and drove back to the hotel at a reasonable pace.

Dmytro met them in the lobby and rode up the elevator with them to the floor where he’d set up their own operations center.

Dax and Giva followed him inside.

Dmytro opened the laptop.

Dax touched the fingerprint scanner. The screen blinked to life, displaying the frozen countdown clock with one second remaining.

Dmytro raised an eyebrow. “Cut it close, did you?”

“Too close,” Giva said.

“Do you think you can disable the EMP satellites?” Dax asked.

Dmytro drew in a deep breath and let it out. “We’re going to do our best. I have the other two Brotherhood Protectors’ highly skilled tech support personnel on standby. We hope that, between the three of us, we can make certain no one tries to take control of those devices.”

Dax and Giva stayed until the rest of the team arrived.

Atkins was first through the door.

“Interpol wasn’t happy the laptop went missing. What have you got?”

Dmytro frowned. “It’ll take time to get through the code and understand the links to the satellites. Interpol will have to wait. Where’s Hank?”

“The helicopter with Hank and Interpol is taking Fearghas to the trauma center at Dubrovnik’s General Hospital,” Atkins said. “They’ll stabilize him there and arrange for medical transport to a hospital in Zurich, where he can be with his wife and baby.”

Dax hadn’t known Fearghas had a wife and baby. The Scotsman had disappeared each night while they’d been in Zurich. Dax had been so caught up in learning his role as Evan Maas that he hadn’t asked his teammate about his family situation. He vowed to fix that now that he was a member of the team.

“Is he going to be all right?” Giva asked.

Atkins nodded. “He lost a lot of blood, but they build the Scottish tough. He’ll pull through.” He nodded toward Dax. “We can take over here if you want to clean up and get some rest.”

Dax ran a hand through his hair, stirring up a cloud of dust. “You sure you don’t need me for anything else tonight? No cities full of millions to save? No crazy oligarchs to wrangle?”

Atkins gave him a crooked grin. “Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Rest up. Hammer will have another assignment for you before you know it.” He held out his hand. “You did good. Welcome to Brotherhood Protectors International.”

Dax shook the man’s hand, feeling pretty damned good, despite the pain in his leg and the knot on his head. Those would heal.

“I’m going to get a shower, then,” he said, turning for the door. He made it out into the hall before Giva caught up with him.

“You know you don’t have to pretend to be my fiancée anymore,” he said as she fell in step with him. “You could’ve stayed with the others to make sure they fix the mess Maas made.”

She held up a key card. “You’ll need this to go to our room.” Giva entered the elevator first, waved the card over the reader and punched the button for the penthouse floor.

As soon as the doors closed, Dax pulled her into his arms. “I know I’m covered in dust and probably smell like a dungeon, but I have to know something.”

She gazed up at him, her nose wrinkling. “You are both of those things.”

“Back there, before we stormed into the suite, I heard you say something, or maybe I misheard you, but I need a little clarification.” He cupped her cheek and tipped her face up so that he could stare into her beautiful brown eyes.

“What did you hear?” she asked, turning her face to press a kiss into his palm.

“I heard you say I love you .” His eyebrows dipped low. “Was it wishful thinking? Could a woman as beautiful, brave and kickass as Giva Haviv love a former Marine, covered in the dust of a thousand years and smelling like the dankest of dungeons?”

She stared up into his face. “And if she did?”

His face split in a grin. “That would be great, considering that smelly Marine, who vowed never to fall in love again, fell hard for a woman who’s his equal in combat skills and superior in her knife-throwing abilities.”

Her eyes widened. “He did?”

The elevator doors opened at that moment.

Dax grabbed her hand, dragged her out into the hallway and crushed her to his chest. “Yes. He did.” He shook his head. “I did. As crazy as it seems, I’m in love with you, and I’m not afraid to say it. I want to spend my life with you. If that’s forty years or forty minutes, I’ll take whatever I can have and love you like there’s no tomorrow.”

Giva smiled up into his eyes, her own filling with tears. “It is crazy, but I’ve never felt more alive than when I faced death with you.” Her brow puckered. “But it would be nice not to face death on a daily basis. Can we postpone that part for a day or two? I have a rain check to collect.” She took his hand and led him down the hallway. “I intend to collect it in full.”

He chuckled. “Can I get a shower first?”

She nodded. “ We can get a shower first.” She passed the key card over the reader and pushed the door open.

Dax followed her into the room and kicked the door shut behind them. “I love a woman who knows what she wants.”

“And I love a man who knows how to please me.” She cast him a challenging glance. “Do you know how to please me?”

“If I don’t, I’ll spend the rest of my life learning how.”