Hit Hard. Amy J. Fetzer
some altitude under them, they’d go down.
“Lower, Sam, lower.”
“Christ.”
Max gripped the edge, gave him a play-by-play. “He needs to get some footing to strap him in.”
Jesus, they weren’t going to make it, Sam thought, ears tuned to the engines, the beat of the blades like it was a part of his body. He lowered another foot, his gaze flicking to the surface he could see through the clear nose windows, the mirrors showing the flow behind them. The water just kept coming.
“Logan’s down, keep it steady.”
Sam’s muscles strained on the stick, the chopper like a living being wanting to rest. He made it land on the water, gear up, knowing that was his only choice to get close enough.
“He’s got him! They’re locked. Man, he’s bleeding!”
Sam’s stomach clenched. He couldn’t think of Riley dead. He refused to let it sink into his brain. He smacked the button and the cable rolled in. Instantly he lifted higher, fighting the hot air meeting cold water beneath the chopper in the valley. The weight of the two men made the small craft unstable. The wench groaned under the stress.
Max reached for Riley, pulling him in before Logan. The pair fell on the floor of the chopper and Sam went turbo, speeding toward land.
“Is he breathing?” Sam said.
They said nothing.
“Is he breathing!”
“I don’t know!” Logan yanked off the helmet and grabbed his medical gear strapped to the hull. Max rolled Riley over and water spurted out of his mouth. But he didn’t choke, didn’t stir.
Sam radioed Sebastian at Dragon Six. “Coonass, all aboard. We need an ambulance. We have wounded.”
Logan pressed a stethoscope to Riley’s chest. “He’s alive, barely.” Then he put a mask over Riley’s face, turned on the small oxygen tank, moving it into his lungs and brain as Max ripped open his shirt. “He’s been shot—those bastards!”
Sam almost looked, yet kept his attention on getting them beyond the broken dam and to land. The force of the water from the country’s major water source was still ripping trees out by the roots and tossing them like kindling.
Logan slapped a pad over the wound, and Max held the pressure while Logan fought to keep Riley alive. The chopper shot over the land like a bullet in the sky, sleek and black. She was state of the art and all new, since some piece of shit a year ago loaded his last chopper down with C-4 and blew his baby to hell. He hadn’t worked the kinks out yet. Now was the time.
“Hold on, we’re coming in hot and fast.” Sam banked hard to the left, and quickly set the helicopter on the flight deck near Dragon Six. The giant black cargo plane was the only craft out this far.
Sebastian was waiting with a body board, and rushed forward. Behind him, an ambulance barreled down the narrow landing strip toward the jet. Sam unhooked his helmet mics and rolled from the cockpit to the rear, helping them lift Riley onto the board.
“He looks bad,” Sam said.
“He’s unconscious,” Logan said. “Dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs, a bullet hole, but I think he’s slipped into a coma.”
For a second, they all went still. Logan checked his vitals as the ambulance halted just beyond the rotors. Sam worked off his helmet, spitting mad and helpless as they put Riley and Max in the ambulance and along with Logan, sped off.
The blades were still moving as he dropped onto the edge at the open door and cradled his head. My fault, he thought.
Thirteen hours later
Rohki breathed slowly, the pain jolting up his chest as he limped along the walkway outside the airport. People jolted him and he clenched his teeth and smothered the urge to retaliate. Attention was not what he wanted. He felt the strong fingers circle his arm an instant before the gun at his back. The jerk of his body drove a surge of pain up his spine again as he looked up, staring into strange black eyes surrounded by swarthy skin. Zidane. Around them, taxis took on fares, airport guards chatted instead of watching their posts, tourists loaded with baggage rushed to catch flights out of the flood-torn area. No one paid them any attention as the tall man ushered him away from the crowd.
He jerked his arm free, then regretted the move.
Zidane only gestured to the small jet on the runway, guarded, engines running. “Quickly.”
Together they descended the short ramp and walked toward the plane. Heat rose in waves, blistering his scalp. As he mounted the first step, he felt underdressed for such a luxurious jet. Then he was grabbed back, a curved knife suddenly near his eye.
“The stones.”
“Of course, but they aren’t cut.”
That didn’t seem to concern Zidane and he warned, “You have already tried to sell them once.”
Rohki paled. How had he known?
“There’s no turning back. Betray him and I will see your eyes in a jar.” He released him, pushed him up the steps.
Rohki gave up on fighting his bruised body. A short man with Slavic features stood at the top of the gangway.
“Search him, thoroughly,” Zidane said.
The Slav inclined his head and he stepped inside. He wasn’t underdressed. While the outside of the craft was pristine, the inside was a dark hole, with only a few seats. A heavy curtain separated the rear section. He started to sit when two more men approached him, and without speaking, yanked him off his feet and tore off his clothes. He stood naked inside the jet, humiliated by the body search. He stared straight ahead. After what he went through last night, this was inconsequential.
One man wore an amused smile as he grabbed his dick, lifted, and cut the leather sack laced under his balls, nicking him.
“So that’s your preference, eh?”
The man sneered, spilled the contents into his palm, rolling the large stones. The other threw his clothes at him. Rohki dressed as the man spoke to Zidane in an unfamiliar dialect. Congolese?
Zidane’s dark gaze flicked up, pinning him. They couldn’t know one was missing, Rohki thought, staring back. He held his hand out for the sack and stones. The guard eyed him, refilled the pouch and returned it. Rohki tucked them into his pocket, wondering when he could conceal them again before the final stop, and if the buyer was powerful enough to skirt customs there too.
The doors closed, the engines whined louder as he lowered gingerly into a seat and exhaled. The aircraft moved, shaking everything inside. He glanced around, pausing on the shifting curtain. Shock jumped through him when he saw shackles and chains anchored to the wall.
They were occupied.
Sam stood outside the ICU unit in Colombo, staring through the glass.
Logan had set Riley’s shoulder, removed the bullet, and stabilized him as best he could. Then Sebastian ordered Riley on the jet along with several locals who needed intensive care in Colombo. The team’s cargo plane, Dragon Six, lifted off as a hospital jet. Surgery had taken hours and Logan assisted the government surgeons. Riley hadn’t regained consciousness.
A coma. Logan tried to convince Sam it was the body’s way of healing itself, but seeing him hooked up to tubes, with a machine pushing air into his weak, perforated lung, it looked doubtful.
Sam wanted him to just wake the hell up.
The vigil felt weakened without the missing members. Dragon One’s leader, Killian Moore, was off on his honeymoon and, typical of his former CIA wife, they hadn’t told anyone where they were. Sam didn’t blame them, if this was the news waiting for them.
He didn’t see Max nudge Sebastian, then motion to him. The men stepped out and