Page 32 of I Dream of Danger (Ghost Ops #2)

They were covered in LocTite, head to toe. Nick’s stunner couldn’t stun through the suit designed to dissipate beams and his Glock, powerful as it was, would break a bone or two but wouldn’t penetrate. Nick wanted these fuckers dead .

It would have to be done the old-fashioned way. By hand.

Nick was good at combat strategy. In an instant, the whole thing was planned to the second, he didn’t have to think at all. It was like a geometric equation, moves calculated and precise.

He ran full tilt into the corridor, a swarming mass of muscle and deadly intent.

Planting his right hand on the wall next to the last guy, he pivoted, lifting his body, putting his entire weight behind the kick to the head.

The man fell like a bull in the slaughterhouse, but Nick was already at Fuckhead number two, dropping to the ground, scissoring his legs between the man’s legs, throwing his entire weight into his elbow which he drove straight into the middle of the man’s face.

Bone crunched and blood sprayed. The leader had turned around, aiming his stunner at the ground but Nick wasn’t there any more, Nick was aiming a kick at the solar plexus, something the LocTite couldn’t protect against.

The man fell, temporarily paralyzed, without breath, and that was fine, because it allowed Nick to finish all three of them off properly with three hard head twists.

He lifted each head slightly to make sure that the spinal column had been severed from the brainstem because he wanted these fuckers to stay dead.

The instant he finished off the third, he ran into the room and his head nearly exploded with panic when he saw it was empty.

She wasn’t there! Elle wasn’t there!

Where the hell could she be?

The dead guys thought she was here, so he’d assumed…

Had she escaped? There was one window that gave out into a courtyard, but it had been painted over a billion times, and if it had once been designed to be opened, that day had long since passed.

He pulled with all his strength then desisted. If he couldn’t open it, Elle couldn’t either.

Oh God oh God. If she’d escaped, how could he find her, how could he protect her if he didn’t know where she was?

Think!

Not on the bed, not out the window, maybe the closet? Nick yanked open the plywood door and stared inside at the tiny space full of empty misshapen wire hangers.

Not there…

And that was when he saw her. Lying face up on the floor, one arm outstretched, pale as ice. Unmoving, unbreathing.

His heart stopped. Simply stopped for a long, horrible second.

He was too late.

Somehow they’d killed her.

He hadn’t been able to save her.

All his life, all he’d ever wanted was to keep Elle safe. And now he’d found her after all these years and she was dead.

He took a shaky step forward, then sank to his knees. To be near her and because his legs simply wouldn’t hold him up. He felt hollowed out, totally, completely empty. Incapable of thought or action. Merely a bag of skin holding in guts and bones.

He wanted to gather her in his arms but his body wouldn’t obey him. He gave the order but nothing happened. His entire body was lax, as if it had simply given up. As if it had died but hadn’t told him yet.

But he wanted to be closer to Elle so he did the only thing he could think of—he toppled forward onto her, hoping that his limbs would recover and that he could gather her in his arms and weep over her.

She was cold, so very cold, and still, rocking gently when his full weight fell on her, but not gasping or jolting.

His face was cold. That was the way he understood that tears were tracking down his cheeks. He didn’t wipe his face—he couldn’t. All he could do was watch the tears as they plopped on her chest.

One large teardrop had fallen on the pale skin just below the collarbone. It quivered, stilled, quivered, stilled.

Her heart was…it was beating! He shifted his head so his ear was right over her heart and… there it was! The faintest of heartbeats, thready and faint, but regular. His head moved up and down gently on her chest. Her chest was moving, she was breathing—she was alive!

She wasn’t conscious, her eyes were unmoving behind her lids and her breathing was shallow, but by God she was breathing and she was alive.

A bolt of energy shot through him. Now that he knew Elle was alive, he could do anything. Strength returned to him in a hot rush. Nick gathered Elle’s limp body up in his arms and stood up. He studied her face hungrily, wanting to understand what the past ten years had been for her.

She’d been just as he’d described to Catherine. Older, beautiful.

She’d been a beautiful girl and she was now a stunning woman. That glorious pale blonde hair was cut short, waving around her face like a halo. He hefted her in his arms. She was easy to carry, but she’d put on some weight. The last time he’d seen her she’d been frighteningly thin.

Why was she here? Where had she been? Who was she now? And above all, who were those men gunning for her?

Only one way to find out.

Nick laid Elle gently on the bed, two fingers to the wrist pulse and waited. Sixty beats per minute. Okay. Now to frisk the fuckers who’d wanted to kill her. Or kidnap her. Either way they weren’t going to do anything now.

Nick went out into the corridor and took snapshots of the three faces.

They were slack in death but Haven’s facial recognition software would identify them soon enough.

He kneeled by each body and frisked them, but wasn’t surprised to find nothing at all.

Their LocTite suits were top of the range, but nothing that couldn’t be bought if you had the money.

Weaponry, ditto. No pockets, only holsters and a knife sheath.

The knives were Gerber Mark IV, black oxide, brand new.

Everything was brand new. The LocTite suits didn’t have a scuff on them and looked like they’d never been cleaned.

Nick gathered their night-vision goggles, stunners, guns, knives, wristwatches in a small nylon bag folded in his backpack. The cells he put into another bag that emitted a strong masking signal so the cells couldn’t be traced, and then went back into Elle’s room.

She was still out. That worried him, but there was nothing he could do for her except get her back to Haven as fast as possible and have Catherine examine her.

The bud behind his ear buzzed. Jon. He’d forgotten all about Jon trying to contact him as he was getting out of the hovercar. He tapped a point on his wrist, opening the connection.

“Sitrep!” Mac barked. “We saw the four bad guys on our monitor. Status?”

“Dead,” Nick replied, walking out of the motel with Elle in his arms. “Put me on speaker.” Now he could communicate with Jon, and Catherine too. All three had been waiting in the war room for him. No way would they be able to go back to bed.

“What’s wrong with her, Nick?” Catherine’s voice was gentle. She was the only person on earth who understood what Elle meant to him.

“I don’t know.” Striding toward the hovercraft with a limp Elle in his arms, Nick’s voice came out hoarse and strained. “She’s alive, that’s all I know. I’ll get back as fast as I can so you can examine her.”

“About that, Nick…”

Jon cut in. “I’m in the helo, coming down. Meet me at Cache 4D. We’ll put away the hovercar and I’ll fly you back. Tomorrow night I’ll come down with Eric and get it back.”

“Thanks, Jon,” Nick choked. His knees nearly gave out with relief.

Haven kept caches all over the state. He wouldn’t dare abandon the hovercar in case it was stolen, but 4D was a large storage unit nearby.

Haven owned the entire unit via seven shell companies, and it had a helipad disguised as a loading apron.

With any luck, he’d have Elle back in Haven in under an hour.

He opened the passenger door and gently laid Elle in the seat, clicking the biomorph scan and getting out of the way.

Once scanned, in case of an accident, a jet of instantly hardening foam would envelop her, set to the exact specifications of her body.

Once the scan was complete, he reached into the compartment under the dashboard and brought out a paper-thin thermal blanket.

He’d heat the seat too. He laid his hand against her cheek.

She was still so cold. Whatever was wrong with her, surely heat wouldn’t hurt?

To his astonishment, a soft hand cupped his, and he was looking into Elle’s beautiful light-blue eyes.

“Nick,” she whispered, eyes wide, looking shocked. “You came. I called you…and you came.”

He turned his hand to clutch hers, loosening his hold when she winced. He kept staring into her eyes, completely unable to talk. He opened his mouth to speak and nothing came out.

He thought he’d never see her again. He thought he’d live his life to the bitter end full of regret and fear for her.

He’d joined Ghost Ops because without Elle, the fact that the old Nick Ross had to disappear off the face of the earth meant nothing to him.

Ghost Ops soldiers could have no loves, no attachments, and that suited him right down to the ground. Elle had taken all of that away.

And now he’d found her, against all the odds. She was here, right now, watching him out of those beautiful, expressive eyes. Nick, who always knew what to do, who always had that next step mapped out, and the one after that and the one after that…he couldn’t think. Couldn’t talk.

Elle slid her hand from his and touched his face. “I can hardly believe you’re real.” She looked around, blinking. He knew she could only see a dark street and the inside of a strange-looking car. “Is this a dream?”

Nick leaned forward and kissed her. Very quickly, because she was weak and they had to go now. But it served an important purpose. Those lips were very real. Elle was real.

“No dream. But we have to get out of here fast, honey. Some bad guys were after you, and we have to go right now.”