Chapter 21

That wasn"t an improvement. As far as I"d been able to tell, Noah and I were only up against one guy, but our opponent had figured out how to control the bigger, more athletic man.

Cram that weapon into the naked spine of somebody he cared about.

As I understood the threat to Noah, a cold white flash of fury shot through my veins, replacing every drop of human blood.

One day, buddy, one day. You are going to meet some harsh payback when you least expect it. I will learn your name. I will hunt you down. I will tear out your heart. I will eat it raw.

The starless dark under the clouds and forest was close to absolute. I sensed where we all stood more than I actually saw it. The man"s face was an unseen blur of darkness against the even greater darkness of our environment.

Before this night was done, I would see that face. Memorize it.

This fucker could fucking count on that. He"d painted the target on his own back.

"You think you"re pretty fucking cute, don"t you?" His insultingly jaunty tone sent another flash of rage through my veins. He was utterly unafraid. What did he have to fear when we were naked, and he carried all the firepower?

But two could play at being jaunty. "I think I got the drop on you," I said. "Sloppy work for a team of alleged professionals."

"The fuck you did. You got the drop on my fuckoff buddies."

Noah stumbled. The fucker had just used the rifle to nudge him harder in the kidney. Noah didn"t whimper though. He was no longer bothering to playact the scared kitten.

"We don"t need to argue," he said. "Let"s fix this. You don"t want to get caught holding us at gunpoint when we"re working with the FBI."

"Again with the FBI?" Our captor snickered. "I"ll say one thing for you two. You"ve got a wild sense of humor. There"s only one reason you"re even alive right now."

"Oh, yeah?" I tried to maintain the sass. Kinda hard with his weapon in Noah"s kidney. "What"s that?"

"I need you to hump my casualties back to the chopper."

So, against all the odds, I"d knocked out the other two after all?

Chalk one up for the championship throwing arm.

Much as I disliked the creep, if both of his teammates were unconscious, his request wasn"t entirely unreasonable. I might even have been tempted to nod along and say, "Sure, fine, happy to help a man out."

If not for that trank in Noah"s kidney.

The rain was letting up some. There might be a star or two. Even a hint of fluorescent fungi. I was finally beginning to pick out some details in the dark.

"You could have asked nicely." I didn"t seriously expect to persuade him. I was buying time to get a better look at the big pissed-off shadow poking a long weapon into Noah"s naked back.

"Yeah? Well, I"m asking this way."

Even this close, the details were impossible to pick out. I had to assess the guy strictly on the basis of his shape. Well, I had plenty of experience doing that from football. You didn"t try to read a man"s face through that helmet. You read his body language.

I"d take this guy for an ex-bouncer rather than ex-military. Roughly three hundred pounds. Some belly fat, but he carried himself light enough that you knew he knew how to move his mass like a weapon. The rest of him was iron muscle.

He could play the part of somebody"s henchman in the movies.

"I can"t carry two knocked-out bodies all by myself." I nodded at Noah. "Let him help me."

"Thought you"d never ask." He shoved Noah roughly in my direction. He stumbled but got his balance back with his usual grace.

At last, we were close enough to see the courage in each other"s eyes.