Chapter 37
Daisy couldn’t believe Jordan was baiting Bocharov this way. Her heart tumbled free-fall in her chest as the Russian went to kick Jordan in the face.
A blow that could kill.
Crabtree stood in front of her. She balanced on the balls of her feet and executed a roundhouse kick that sent the FBI agent flying forward toward Bocharov.
Then she drew her weapon, everything feeling as if it were in slow motion.
She aimed at Bocharov, the man who’d burned Jordan’s family alive.
Who’d strangled the Pagets in their own bed, who’d shot Les because she was one second too late, brutally slain the people who worked here today.
The man who’d tried to shoot her, then burn her and Florence Cisco to death.
The man who wanted to blow up a nuclear reactor.
Whatever qualms she might have about killing anyone were extinguished by the knowledge he was evil. Pure evil.
She fired four shots, one after the other until the Russian fell to the ground with a shocked expression on his face. Her dad had always told her to keep firing until you were sure the other person wasn’t getting up.
She threw herself behind a concrete support pillar, yelping as something hit her left arm. Blinding pain flashed through her body, but she pushed it aside to return fire so Emilia and Crabtree didn’t have the chance to shoot at Jordan or the others.
Suddenly, more gunfire rang out, and Daisy looked over to see Alex Parker above her on the stairs that led to the viewing platform. Black-clad tactical operators poured into the building from the roof and through the open reactor doors.
Her left arm was numb. Blood dripped down her arm from a ragged hole above her left elbow.
No exit wound. She had the horrible feeling the bullet had hit and wedged in her humerus, which she didn’t think was very funny.
She placed her weapon on the ground and tried to raise her hands in the air, so she wasn’t mistaken for one of the bad guys.
She slipped from behind the column, desperately searching for Jordan.
She couldn’t see through the teeming bodies of law enforcement and couldn’t get through.
“Jordan. Jordan!” she yelled.
“Here.” He stood behind her, looking exactly as he had when she’d left the hotel earlier, with the addition of a reddened cheek where Bocharov had gotten in that first punch.
“You okay?” His alarmed gaze ran down her body spotting the blood she was trying to staunch. “Fuck.” He stepped forward and took her arm. She tried not to wince. “You’re shot.”
“It’s only my arm.” It hurt like hell. “If I can get it bound up, I can help unload the rods.”
“You need to sit down.”
She shook her head. “We have to get those rods out of that core. If the water gets in there, we have no control rods in place and no way to stop a chain reaction.” She swallowed repeatedly, knowing her voice was getting louder. “And if we’re right about the explosives…”
“Here. Sit on the chair. Nash! Get over here.”
She slumped ungracefully into a seat.
“Hey, Daisy.” Aaron Nash, the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome, came to squat beside her.
“You need to check the injured—”
“We did.” Aaron’s mouth pinched. “Double taps don’t leave many survivors, I’m afraid.”
She spotted Emilia and Crabtree laying sprawled on the ground like rag dolls.
“There was a woman too. Pretending to be an FBI agent. I don’t know where she went.”
Alex Parker came over and squeezed her uninjured shoulder. “We got her. Cisco is guarding the control room. No one will be touching any buttons in that room until the safety board clears it first.”
Tears pricked again, and she was so sick of feeling like she was about to start crying.
Aaron grimaced as he cleaned up the blood. “You know what I’m going to tell you, right?”
“The bullet’s still in there.”
He nodded, his pretty dark eyes full of sympathy. “Going to need surgery.”
Dammit.
“I’m not going anywhere until those rods are removed from the core.
Someone’s going to have to remove them and then go through the ceramic pellets one by one to figure out which are uranium dioxide and which are something else.
We could probably tell plastic explosives with texture, but I don’t know about metals, if there are metals. Maybe weight?”
“And you think that someone should be you?” Jordan stared at her like she’d lost her mind.
She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again.
Roger and Mira came to stand beside her.
“We can assist. I’ve handled the ceramic pellets before. If you tell me what else we’re dealing with, I’m willing to get started.” Roger’s tone was conciliatory.
“I’m sorry we were mean to you earlier,” Mira said quietly. “Emilia told us some stories about things you’d supposedly said about Amed.” Her face crumpled. “We believed her until we watched her shoot the Shift Supervisor in the head.”
Daisy nodded even though it was hard to forgive. Her tongue went dry, and she struggled to speak. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here fast enough to save Les.”
Roger shook his head and wrapped his arm around Mira again. “It was an impossible choice that bastard asked you to make, and we all know it. I’d have stayed where I was safe and covered my ears.”
Still…
Ryan Sullivan came by and held out his palm to give her a low five with her good hand. “Crazy Daisy strikes again.”
“What?”
“That’s what I’m gonna call you from now on.” His eyes danced with delicious merriment. “Not for gunning down the FBI’s number one Most Wanted bad guy and saving our boy here while we all watched.” He clapped Jordan on the back. Hard. “But for being crazy enough to date the guy.”
She looked up at Jordan. “I love him.”
Ryan shook his head and walked away. “Definitely Crazy Daisy.”
“Time to get you to the hospital.” Jordan bent down and gathered her into his arms. “Hey, Cowboy,” he called the other man closer. “You never answered the question in the car last night.”
The man’s eyes immediately hooded. “What question?”
“Whether or not you think Donnelly is Ryan Sullivan hot.”
Ryan’s face went as still as a lake on a windless day. “Not appropriate.”
“Yeah, I thought so,” Jordan whispered. “You call my girl crazy again, I’ll tell everyone on the team you’ve got the hots for one of our own.”
Ryan’s pretty mouth thinned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Daisy touched his arm because he looked so angry and miserable. “It gets better.”
Ryan shook his head and took a step back. “It really doesn’t.”
Jordan carried her through the throng of people. Some reactor workers had been allowed in, and Hunt Kincaid was handling the crane like a pro.
“He’s a former engineer,” Jordan told her. “He’s got this.”
Daisy felt herself sag against Jordan’s chest as her head began to swim. “I guess I don’t feel so great.”
The next thing she knew everything went black.