Mac cocked an eyebrow. “You want me to take off my jeans?”
“Yes, hurry.” Griff unzipped his own jeans and pushed them down his legs.
She hastened to reposition the Browning pistol in the inside pocket of her vest and quickly wriggled out of her jeans. She felt the warm rush up her cheeks when she noticed him giving her a once-over as she stood in front of him, clad only in her underwear and a thin blouse covered by a Kevlar vest.
He grabbed her jeans and tied the end of his pants leg in a knot that he probably learned back in his scouting days. As he turned away from her and tied the other leg of his pants to the handlebar of the four-wheeler, she stole a glance at his backside—and instantly regretted it as old memories of their time together bombarded her brain.
Quickly, she looked away and waited for his instructions. If she was right about what he was planning, she knew it was a long shot, but it just might work.
After he finished, he made sure the emergency brake on the vehicle was engaged, then he spotted a large rock and wedged it against the left front tire. Next, he handed her the other end of the makeshift rope. “This isn’t long enough to reach all the way to the ledge, but it’ll put you close enough. Try to find a branch or something to grab once you let go. And for God’s sake, don’t look down.”
No chance of that happening. Although she’d never been afraid of heights, this was the mother of them all.
“I can hear them coming. Hurry,” he said.
She grabbed the end of her jeans and made eye contact with him while she positioned herself on the edge. Then she took a step backward, crying out when her feet left the mountain top. She fell about ten feet before the denim rope jerked and slammed her into the cliff wall with a thud that would definitely leave a bruise on her chin. She felt for anything to grab on to, but there was nothing. For a few seconds, she dangled helplessly, praying the makeshift rope would hold her weight. When she was able, she flattened her body against the side of the cliff and curled her hand around a protruding rock.
“Mac?”
“I’m okay,” she said, her voice cracking.
She squeezed her eyes shut before doing the one thing he’d told her not to: she looked down. Immediately, she got lightheaded. The ledge was approximately two feet below, and she knew that with one slip of her foot, she’d fall to her death. Sucking in a deep breath and holding it, she let go of the rope, convinced there was no way she’d land on her feet.
But she did.
She looked up just as Griff took his first step off the cliff. When he let go of the rope, he landed crooked and fumbled to grab something to hang on to. She caught his arm at the moment his foot slipped off the ledge. With all the strength she could muster, she held on until he was able to grab a rock and pull himself back up. She didn’t need to see his face to know he was thinking about what had almost happened.
No sooner had she breathed a sigh of relief than she heard loud voices above them.
“Dammit! They’re already up there,” Griff said.
She nodded toward her left hand at the turquois ring GG had given her and grinned. “I dare them to get on our rope and come down. One of them will be wearing a patch over an eye, if he lives to tell about it.”
“Shh.” Griff strained to hear the excited voices. “They’re trying to decide what to do next.”
Just then, several shots rang out, and both of them pressed their bodies into the wall as bullets whizzed past within inches of them.
“You were right about the angle,” he said. “This will buy us a little time.” He rolled his eyes. “Where in the hell is the team?”
“Something must’ve happened,” she said, hoping that something wasn’t as bad as she feared. “I think it’s safe to say we’re pretty much on our own here.”
“Shh,” he whispered again. “Hear that?” The sound of a helicopter moved closer. “Hope that’s not reinforcements for them,” Griff said, immediately bursting her bubble of hope.
As the chopper drew near, the voices above them grew louder and almost frantic. Griff and Mac understood why when they got their first look at the aircraft hovering over the side of the mountain. Emblazoned on the side of the Black Hawk was the USAF insignia.
The chopper sprayed the top of the mountain with firepower. Mac and Griff could only hang on and listen. It took about five minutes and a couple of explosions before the bird hovered directly over them. Mac held on to the rock with one hand and turned slightly to glance up in time to see both Ryan and Ty smiling down at her.
From out of nowhere, another helicopter appeared, and the Black Hawk banked sharply to the right and climbed, racing away with the other one hot on its tail.
“Oh God!” Mac said when she heard a loud explosion and saw a fireball light up the sky off to the left. It was too far away to tell which of the helicopters had exploded, but the surviving chopper was racing toward them. If this one held more terrorists, there was no way she and Griff could hide from them. They would be picked off like moving ducks at a carnival booth—except they couldn’t even move. She pulled the pistol out of her pocket, prepared to fight to the end.
A rope descended from the hovering aircraft while she strained to figure out if these were friends or foes. Was she being rescued or taken prisoner? A smile crossed her lips when the U.S. insignia on the side came into view. Reaching out, she grabbed the lifeline.
Holding on with a tight grip, she nodded, and the helicopter slowly lifted her up to the mountain’s edge. The bodies of the seven terrorists covered the landscape. She and Griff would not have stood a chance against such numbers. After she released the rope, she glanced up at a smiling Ryan, who saluted her from the cockpit before returning to pick up Griff.
“That’s as close as I want to come to meeting my Maker,” Griff said when he was dropped off, swiping the perspiration from his brow. “At least for now.”
The helicopter landed about a hundred feet from them. Ryan exited the bird and ran toward them, with Ty right behind him.
“Where the hell have you guys been?” Griff barked.
Ryan made no bones about staring at Mac in her undies, but finally tore his eyes away and focused on Griff. “They blew up the mountain road and were waiting to ambush us,” he explained. “We held them off until the helicopter arrived. After the pilot was able to land, we jumped aboard and got here as fast as we could.”
“And not a minute too soon, I might add.” Griff shook his head. “You guys really know how to make an entrance.”
“If we’d have known we’d get to see Mac in her skivvies, we might have gotten here sooner,” Ryan quipped.
Mac couldn’t help herself and laughed. “Get a good look, big boy, because this is as close to my panties as you’ll ever get.”
“Oh, it’s not the panties I want to be close to.”
“Shut up!” she said playfully, before she pulled up the makeshift rope and untied her jeans. After slipping them over her hips, she patted Ryan on the back. “Thanks, Boom. You did good.”
“What about me? I was the one who threw the rope out to you. And just because I didn’t say so doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying the show too,” Ty joked, pointing to his cheek, prompting Mac to walk over and kiss the spot.
“You two need to get laid,” Griff said, trying to sound gruff but not quite getting there. He slipped on his own jeans before grabbing Mac’s hand and walking toward the waiting chopper. “Come on, fellas. We’re ready to get off this fucking mountain.”
“I lost a lot of good soldiers,” Rashid complained, “all because you wanted to keep the girl alive. Why is she so important to you, anyway?”
Petrović rolled his eyes, glad his Iranian counterpart couldn’t see his face over the phone line. He hated dealing with such incompetence and longed to tell Rashid what he really thought—that it was none of his business why Petrović wanted Mac alive. It was beyond pathetic that Rashid’s “soldiers” couldn’t kill one driver and make a clean getaway with a woman.
“She’s important to my research,” Petrović said.
“She’s an infidel and responsible for my brother’s death. I’m sure of that. If I had my way, she’d be dead by now.”
Petrović struggled to hold his tongue. Mac was extremely good at what she did, and Rashid was probably right in thinking she had somehow been involved in his brother’s death. But Petrović wasn’t about to say that. He didn’t need Rashid doing anything stupid in the name of revenge and ruining everything. He had to have Mac alive, although he didn’t expect her to come without a fight. And if he were being honest, he knew that death would probably be her ultimate destiny, but he wanted it to be at his hands, not some incompetent terrorist’s.
“Have you made the wire transfer yet?” he asked, changing the subject.
“We’re in the process of transferring the money from our sources now. It should be done by this afternoon.”
“Good.” Petrović rubbed his hands together in glee. The sooner that money hit his bank, the quicker he could begin executing his own plans—and he wouldn’t fail.
“When are you arriving in the States?” Rashid asked.
“I’m already here,” Petrović responded. “Arrived in Tampa early this morning. The canisters are coming on a freighter from Taiwan sometime today, and my guy at the port will have them to me by tomorrow afternoon.”
“So we’re still a go for Saturday?”
“Yes. When I have the canisters in my possession, I’ll make the drive to Miami. With the Collins Brothers at the convention center Saturday afternoon, it will be perfect. My sources tell me the concert is sold out.”
“How better to show the world our dominance and bring the United States to its knees then by watching twenty thousand screaming teenage girls die in a matter of seconds.”
“That was a brilliant idea, Rashid. The CIA would never think you’d strike in Miami.” Petrović pretended to laugh. “They must be falling all over each other trying to figure out which big city you’ll hit.”
It was clever, but Rashid hadn’t been the one to think of it. With Miami’s proximity to the Gulf, Petrović himself had chosen it and then effectively presented it to Rashid in a way that made the terrorist believe it had been his idea all along. And if the plan to leak the information over a supposedly secure line had worked, the CIA already knew that Miami would be the target of some kind of attack at the end of the week. Once Petrović got word that his bank account in the Cayman Islands was three hundred and eighty million dollars fatter, he’d make sure the exact location of the Miami decoy was leaked.
He closed the burner cell phone he’d purchased on the trip from the airport to the hotel and pulled out the battery. After dropping it into a pitcher of water, he reached into his duffel bag for another and laid it on the nightstand by his bed. Before stripping off his clothes, he hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. Although the red-eye from Colombia had been uneventful, he hadn’t been able to sleep and now felt exhausted.
He climbed under the sheets, put on his sleep mask, and leaned back into the pillows. His last conscious thought before he drifted off to sleep was that if all went well, in a matter of days not only would he be a rich man, but he’d also have Mackenzie Conley in his grasp.
Mac stepped out of the shower and caught a glimpse of her naked body in the mirror. She knew she hadn’t been eating well since she’d moved back to the East Coast, but she hadn’t realized what a toll it had taken on her. If she wasn’t careful, people would start commenting. But lately, she hadn’t had an appetite and sometimes didn’t eat all day, only to scarf down a sandwich and a package of peanut butter crackers with a glass of Merlot at night. She didn’t need to be a nutritionist to know that ritual would have consequences sooner or later.
She dried off, then wrapped a towel around her chest before heading for the kitchen—if you could call it that. As soon as she and Griff were whisked off the mountain, they were brought to the SWEEPERS complex and stashed away in the living quarters reserved for the team when it was necessary to work around the clock. This one was made up of one big room with a bed in one corner, a couch in another, and a tiny kitchenette.
Even if she wanted to cook—which she didn’t—there was no way she could manage the small cooktop that masqueraded as a stove. Fortunately, all her meals were catered and delivered by an armed soldier. Last night’s offering had been barbecued chicken, along with a baked potato and a huge salad. It actually tasted really good, and she’d eaten more than she had in a long time. A few more meals like that, and she’d be back to her normal weight in no time.
Maybe being cooped up in the small room had its benefits after all.
The apartments were spread out over two floors in a building to the right of the main one, and she wondered which room was Griff’s. He’d balked at the idea of being in protective custody, but in the end, Dino won that argument.
She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Seven thirty. Dino had left word that there would be a meeting in the conference room at eight. The last time she was late, he’d made a verbal note of it. She didn’t want to be known as the never-on-time girl, although of late, she’d earned that title.
She threw off the towel and hurried over to the suitcase on the floor beside her bed. They hadn’t even allowed her to run by her apartment to throw a few of her things together before they brought her here. Instead, they’d sent someone to do a little light packing for her.
She lifted the suitcase off the floor and laid it on the bed. When she opened it, she giggled, thinking from the looks of it, Ryan had been the one delegated to grab her clothes. Two pairs of panties, both thongs she hadn’t worn in ages, lay on top. Why she hadn’t just tossed them when she decided that hip huggers were way more comfortable, she didn’t know. She shook her head at the sight of the black lace bra.
That boy definitely needs a couple of nights with a horny female.
She picked up a pair of the panties and slipped them on, catching another glance at herself in the mirror. She really was getting too skinny. Digging in the suitcase, she pulled out a lightweight sweater and a pair of khaki slacks. At least whoever had ransacked her closet hadn’t chosen a halter top and short shorts.
When she finished dressing, she blow-dried her hair, slapped on a little makeup, then headed for the door. It didn’t surprise her to find an officer standing guard.
“My orders are to make sure you get to the director’s office safely,” he said, overtly taking an inventory of her body before he motioned for her to follow him.
For a second, Mac wondered if he might be the one who had chosen her undies, then decided it was definitely a Ryan Fitzpatrick thing.
Outside the building, she slid into the back seat of a waiting car with the young officer climbing in beside her. The ride across the property to headquarters only took a few minutes, and she began to feel nervous about seeing Griff for the first time since their harrowing episode hanging off the side of the Allegheny Mountain. Remembering how she’d kissed him when she thought they were going to die sent a warm flush crawling up her face. What had she been thinking? The man had made it perfectly clear that night in Cleveland that he wanted no part of a do-over with her.
And who could blame him? Even if she hadn’t abandoned him two years ago after her captivity with Petrović, she could never be with any man again, especially not one she loved. The sociopath had made sure the shame he’d inflicted could never be undone.
As soon as she walked into the conference room, Griff gave her a half-smile. She nodded, hoping her face wasn’t still rosy red.
Ryan grinned like the proverbial Cheshire Cat, stood, and waved at her. “Are you wearing the red or the black ones?”
“I knew you’d packed my clothes,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to sound mad. “Did you get off when you touched all my lacy things?”
“Damn straight.”
“Sit down, Fitzpatrick,” Dino said before turning his attention to Mac. “Glad to see you finally made it.” He poked his watch several times with his finger for emphasis. “Okay, let’s get started. We have some new information that J-Lo was able to intercept this morning.” He switched on the recorder in the middle of a conversation between two men.
“That’s Petrović,” Mac shouted, jumping from her chair.
“I thought as much,” Dino said, stopping the recording. “But I knew you were the only one who could confirm it. Voice recognition identified the other guy as Rashid.” He switched the recorder back on, and for the next few minutes, they listened in on the conversation.
The room was unusually quiet before Dino finally summarized what they’d all just heard. “It looks like the target is Children’s Hospital near downtown Miami. Although they didn’t specify a time, we think it will probably happen sometime between noon and four on Saturday.”
“How did you come up with that?” Ty asked.
“It’s visiting hours, and the hospital parking lot is usually filled then. Plus on this particular Saturday, several members of the Miami Dolphins football team are stopping by to cheer up the kids. Their visit will give the terrorists the most bang for their buck.”
“We need to get down there ASAP to make sure they don’t have an opportunity to plant the gas,” Ryan said.
“Already ahead of you. The chopper leaves in an hour. We’ll stay in a downtown hotel until Saturday morning. The Florida National Guard is already on the scene. Hopefully, they’ll be able to prevent the terrorists from getting in and out, although my guess is the bad guys don’t care about getting out.”
“So we just hang around the hotel and wait?” Mac asked.
“No. You guys will be glued to monitors in a secure area at the hospital, watching for anything out of the ordinary—especially you, Mac. J-Lo and his team are already on site, setting up additional security cameras and metal detectors. Every person coming into the building will be scanned. They’re going to have to get really creative to get past us with biological weapons, and…” Dino stopped talking when he noticed Mac shaking her head.
“You have no idea how creative Petrović can be. I’m not sure we can stop him in time.”
“The world is counting on you being wrong,” Dino said, sitting down. “Any questions?” When no one responded, he turned off the recording. “Okay, let’s meet back here in forty-five minutes. Pack only the necessities.” A worried look crossed his face before he added, “We have to win this one, folks, or a lot of innocent children will pay with their lives.”