Chapter 41
41
Charles Whitman and his henchmen, John’s former security detail, rushed Dylan, Jo, and Remi out of her office and into the inclement weather without their coats. The wind terrified her. She couldn’t remember it ever blowing so hard.
“Should we really be out in this?” She wouldn’t stop arguing or confronting them. Using delay tactics where possible. She’d keep trying to reason with them until the end. “Should you be making these people get out in this?”
“Shut up,” one of the jerks said.
Whitman remained under the awning. Planning to come out once they were all tucked forcibly inside the vehicle? Or maybe he had his own, because Remi didn’t recognize the red sports car next to a utility van. Sure enough, the three of them were ushered to the van. One of the men pushed the side door open and gestured for Dylan to get into the back seat. The gunman waved his gun at Jo to follow. “Get in and I won’t shoot you.”
“Have you met Little Jo?” she asked.
“Who?” He scowled.
Oh no. Say hello to Jo’s little friend.
Jo whipped her wrench out of her back pocket and slammed it against the man’s temple. Remi grabbed his gun and dove behind the red sports car. She opened fire on the remaining security guard. Whitman disappeared inside the lodge.
Oh, great. That’s all they needed was for him to take a hostage. Dylan climbed out of the vehicle.
“Call the sheriff,” Remi said. “Tell him we’re under attack at the lodge.”
“On it,” Dylan said.
“We make a good team,” Jo said. “But now what? How do we get this Whitman guy before he hurts anyone else?”
A figure emerged from the woods. Hawk.
I don’t believe it.
Her heart jumped to her throat. Relief blew through her harder than the violent gusts. But he looked beaten and barely hanging on. She wanted to rush to him, but she was still dealing with a volatile situation.
“As for Whitman,” Remi said to Jo, “wait for the sheriff. Don’t go in there and try to face him.”
“He’ll probably try to take a hostage,” Jo said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have used Little Jo.”
“You did the right thing. If we got in that van, we were riding to our death.” And Remi would have likely faced torture until she gave up the location of the Tempest device. Someone wanted it badly, and it scared her to think of what would happen if it were delivered to the terrorist group.
An armed man suddenly stepped from the woods and started for Remi, aiming a gun at her.
Hawk grabbed him from behind and disarmed him, kicked him in the groin so hard the man fell over. Hawk grabbed a zip tie—one of several hanging out of the man’s pockets—and tied him up, then stood over him and waited for Remi and Jo to join him.
“Hawk ... I thought ... Whitman ordered his men to kill you.”
“Whitman?”
“Yeah. He’s here inside the lodge. From what I gather John was working with him to begin with, but now John is competing with him ... planning to sell the device to terrorists too.” Had she made a mistake believing Whitman’s words? He was a criminal, after all.
She knew how Hawk felt about his friend and that her statement would hurt him.
“I know,” he said.
Wow. Okay. What happened? How did he find out? “And ... Cole? Is he...?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word. He could be incapacitated or tied up. She had to tell Hawk the truth about his brother, though she wasn’t entirely sure herself what that was.
“Cole is going to die if I don’t get down on the beach and get him out.”
“What? How did he end up on the beach?”
“It’s a long story. I need you to get somewhere safe, though, or this is all for nothing. Then I can go help Cole. He’s been shot, and he won’t be able to make it off the beach without help, especially with the rising tide.”
“I’ll get him. You stay and help Remi.” Jo didn’t wait for Hawk’s agreement and ran toward the stairs down to the shore.
“Be careful,” Hawk shouted after her. “I can’t be positive other gunmen aren’t out there or those in the bunker didn’t escape.”
Jo slowed and turned to walk backward.
“Haven’t you heard? I’m a survivor.” She whirled around and took off.
“Whitman’s in the lodge,” Remi said. “Dylan’s watching to make sure he doesn’t escape. We’re waiting on the sheriff. Hawk, Erika was behind the attacks. Jo’s abduction. She was probably the driver that took out the sheriff’s vehicle. Cole wasn’t behind any of that.”
“I know it wasn’t Cole.”
The air whooshed from her lungs. “What? How?”
“Cole and I came to terms. John”—Hawk gasped in pain—of the heart or physical?—“lied to me. Told me Cole was an assassin. Had gone rogue. He wanted to come between us so he could stop Cole. And Cole thought I was someone to protect you from. That I was working with John to get the information. John pitted us against each other.”
“If you were, then I’m an idiot. I gave the information to you willingly.”
Hawk pressed closer and hugged her to him. She drew in his masculine scent mixed with salt, mud, rain, and sweat.
“I’m just glad Whitman didn’t get you or take you,” he whispered against her cheek, then released her. “I left Cole behind to come and find you. Now I need you to stay safe while I go face Whitman and end this.”
The red sports car raced away.
“He’s getting away!” Remi started toward the parking lot.
They’d been distracted for only a few moments, during which he’d made his move. The sports car headed north past the cabins.
“He’s going for the choppers,” Hawk said. “I need a ride.” He looked around the parking lot.
“Here, take my truck.” Dylan jogged from the lodge over to them and tossed Hawk keys. “Mine’s the old junker there. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop Whitman. He slipped by me and was in the car, speeding away before I knew it.”
“Thanks, Dylan. We’re not going to let him get away to try to kill us on another day,” she said.
Hawk hiked toward the truck. “You’re right. We’re not. You’re not coming.”
“You’re not stopping me.”
She climbed in on the passenger side while Hawk got into the driver’s seat of the old beat-up truck. The engine rumbled to life, then he raced down the road, steering toward one of two helicopters.
“Jo said Cole didn’t abduct her. That it was all Erika. Anytime someone had that mask, that was her. And Hawk, get this, Erika was there in Zarovia. I put all the puzzle pieces together, and the image was one I took of the church, Sergei, and Erika. I hadn’t remembered that. I think Cole sent that to me to help me remember. To help me to realize that I was working with someone who was watching me every moment.”
“Because he knew that danger was closing in. He said he didn’t shoot John, so I’m not sure who did. I’m sorry he abducted you and took you away on the boat. It’s hard to swallow all of it.”
“He thought I was in danger,” Remi said. “He was trying to protect me, to get me away from you, knowing I would fight him because I didn’t understand the danger I was in trusting you. That’s why it seemed so weird that he was concerned that I was cold. He seemed caring and it didn’t fit with his actions. But I get it now.”
Hawk filled her in on what happened to the special ops extraction team and that someone had shot the helicopter down with a rocket launcher. The covert operation had been doomed from the start.
What was happening to John? Was he secretly escaping the hospital and getting away? Going into hiding with all his intelligence connections? These thoughts filled her mind as Hawk steered the truck along the rutted two-lane road through the dense forest. The thrum of helicopter rotors resounded through the trees, letting them know that Charles Whitman was getting away.
Hawk accelerated, but the old truck wasn’t going much faster. Besides, the road was so bumpy she was going to get knocked out if he kept this up. Finally, the helipad where he’d landed earlier came into view.
The truck slid across the mud when he stopped.
“Oh no!” Hawk growled. He pounded the steering wheel. “Gordo’s going to kill me. Does Whitman even have the skills to fly in this storm?”
Gordo’s helicopter lifted above them and started moving away over the trees and then out over the ocean. The wind was blowing so hard, and even Remi could see the chopper was struggling.
She and Hawk got out and ran toward the cliff to watch, rain and wind thrashing them where they stood. A sound drew her attention around in time to see a rocket racing toward the helicopter.
Remi screamed as that day from her past collided with this catastrophic moment.
Instantly, the bird exploded. Flashes of orange and yellow flames filled the sky. The blast boomed over the roar of the storm. The wind drove debris and the body of the broken helicopter toward the cliffside.
Instinctively, Remi ducked as though her action could have protected her, but what remained of the destroyed chopper crashed into the ocean, swallowed up as if it never happened. The jagged edge of a rotor lodged into a sea stack as if to stake a claim, but violent breakers snatched it away. All of it happening within a few seconds, leaving her stunned. Heart pounding, she glanced toward the woods from where the rocket had been launched. Remi caught a glimpse of a masked figure watching.
“Erika? Is that her?” Just because the person had on a mask didn’t mean it was Erika, or Latasha.
Then the mask came off. Erika-Latasha saluted Remi, then disappeared into the woods.
Remi sucked in a gulp of air. “I thought she wanted me dead.”
“Looks like she had it out for Whitman more.”
“Could she have learned that he had made a deal with someone within her own government?” Remi shrugged, confused. “He made it sound like he’d ended her. So obviously he tried but got it wrong. She escaped.”
Remi didn’t know if she was safe or not since Erika had tried to kill her while pretending to be part of the staff at the lodge, her cover and her alibi working to keep her from suspicion. “Whitman said she was an operative for Zarovia. I guess her mission was to watch me, and if she thought I was starting to remember, then she was supposed to take me out.”
“Except just now, she took out someone else,” Hawk said.
“Erika could have been the one to take out the helicopter with Sergei and the special forces team. I was supposed to die. So was Cole.”
The storm picked up with gusts fiercer than she’d ever experienced, as if it had been holding back the last few days. Gale-force winds were upon them. They raced to the truck and got in. The forces of nature buffeted the old truck, pushing it across the mud. Hawk gained control again and steered down the mucky path, then floored it.
“You’re a speed demon, aren’t you? Anything with wheels or wings or rotors.”
“I like that you know that about me.”
I do too, Hawk. I do too.