A Question of Intent Page 15

  "Describe your position. Are you lying down? Sitting up? Jill! Are you sitting up?"

  "On...my...knees."

  "That's good, sweetheart. That's good."

  If she'd crawled onto her knees, she probably hadn't suffered spinal injury.

  "What about your head laceration? Is it still bleeding?"

  "Yes. No. I... I don't think so."

  God, he hoped it wasn't. If she'd fractured her skull, he didn't want her applying pressure to the injured area in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

  "Okay, I need you to sit down. Easy, Jill. Easy. Just roll onto your bottom and sit."

  He held his breath until he heard a little grunt. When it tipped into a low moan, sweat pooled at the base of Cody's spine.

  "Stay put now. Do not move." Lowering his voice, he drilled the controller. "We've got her location pinpointed, right?"

  "That's affirmative, sir."

  The controller jerked his chin at the console, which showed a digital map of the site. Jill was the blinking red dot in the far northeast corner of the map.

  "You've got patrols out," Captain Westfall snapped. "How close is the nearest one?"

  "Rattler Six is patrolling sector four, almost fifty miles to the southwest. Rattler Two is even farther, two hours or more from the major's position."

  "What about the chopper?" Cody asked, whirling to face the captain. "Is it on-site?"

  "No. With the test run delayed until tomorrow, the crew flew the bird up to Kirtland for some required maintenance."

  "Hell!"

  His chest tight, Cody fixed his eyes on that blinking red dot and forced a calm, steady transmission.

  "I'll get to you as soon as I can, Jill. I'm leaving the site right now. Do you hear me? Jill! Do you hear me?"

  "Yes."

  It was a sigh, a whisper of sound that ripped the heart right out of his chest.

  Alicia had died after sustaining massive head trauma. For a horrific moment Cody was once again standing in a sterile ICU, a consent form crushed in one fist, while machines pumped air into his wife's lungs.

  He shook his head, shattering the image. This wasn't Alicia, the woman he'd loved and lost. This was Jill, and Cody was damned if he was going to lose her, too.

  "I'm coming to you," he swore fiercely. "I'm coming. Just don't move."

  He whirled and started for the door.

  "I'll get my bag," he barked at the controller. "Have one of those souped-up Humvees ready to run."

  "Yes, sir!"

  Captain Westfall interceded. "We'll do better than a modified Humvee. You get your bag and I'll get hold of Major McIver."

  "Mac? What do you want with...?" Cody stopped dead. His eyes locked with those of the captain. "Pegasus?"

  "He's ready to run. Mac took him for his first gallop. He can take him out for this one, too. Go get your bag and meet us at the hangar."

  Chapter 15

  By the time Cody raced back to the hangar with an emergency medical kit, Russ McIver had climbed into Pegasus's cockpit, fired up its engines, and rolled the vehicle out onto the tarmac where chocks were placed in front of its wheels.

  It quivered like a finely bred racehorse ready to run. Sleek and gleaming white in the bright sun, Pegasus was in land mode. Its rotor blades were folded, the wings were swept back and tucked into the fuselage. The sturdy wheels that would carry it across gullies and up steep mountain slopes glistened clean and black.

  Two modified Humvees bristling with armament stood ready to serve as chase vehicles. Captain Westfall was taking a chance sending a highly classified prototype vehicle out into the field without accompanying air cover. His tight jaw and the glint of steel in his gray eyes indicated he was more than willing to assume the risk.

  "Bring her home, Doc."

  "I will."

  Cody tipped him a quick salute and ducked through the open side hatch. As soon as he was aboard, Mac closed the hatch. Cody strapped his medical kit into one of the side-facing passenger seats that ran the length of the fuselage and climbed into the cockpit. The buzz-cut marine in the operator's seat greeted him with a curt nod.

  "Buckle up, Commander. You're in for one helluva ride."

  He wasn't exaggerating.

  Mac punched the coordinates of Jill's location into the on-board navigational system and did a final systems check. A quick thumbs-up to the ground crew sent them scuttling to remove the chocks.

  Mac's right arm thrust the throttle forward. Like a lightning bolt hurled by an angry Zeus, Pegasus shot forward. The swift acceleration threw Cody back against his seat.

  "Man, I can't wait to take this baby airborne," the marine muttered.

  The airborne test phase would come next. For now Mac had to be content with sending the sleek, swept-wing vehicle shooting off the end of the concrete and onto the hard-packed sand. Not until he had the vehicle skimming across the desert on a direct vector to the mountains did his passenger draw in a full breath.

  With air in his lungs again, Cody's first action was to request a satellite channel. Rattler Control patched him through on a direct link to Rattler One.

  "Jill, it's Cody. Do you read me?"

  His heart ticked off the seconds. One. Two. When ten or more had passed with no response, he tried again.

  "Jill! Come in, please."

  Still no answer. His fist cold and clammy on the mike, Cody shot the man next to him a grim look.

  "Is this as fast as Pegasus can sprint?"

  Mac tore his intent gaze from the instrument panel. "We're pushing the limit of the test parameters now."

  "To hell with the test parameters. Open it up, Mac."

  Captain Westfall was listening in with the others at Test Control. His deep, gravelly voice came over the intercom hard on the heels of Cody's terse demand.

  "I'm authorizing a situational test deviation, Major. Take Pegasus to full land speed."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Mac flashed Cody a swift grin. His gloved fist wrapped around the throttle and shoved it forward. With a roar the engines kicked into overdrive.

  A glance out the wraparound cockpit windows showed Pegasus churning up great spumes of sand from under its wide-track wheels. It also showed the chase vehicles falling well behind.

  Within moments there was only the racing vehicle with its two occupants, the foothills looming dead ahead, and the continuing silence at the other end of the satellite link.

  Jill kept hearing voices. Instructing her to do something. Not do something. She couldn't make out the exact words through the buzzing in her head.

  Lord, it was hot! So burning, blistering hot! She was swimming in her own sweat.

  Hot. Sweat. Fever.

  A dim, shadowed scene formed in her mind. She saw a bed. A flushed soldier stretched out under a thin sheet. Cooling packs tucked around him.

  The red mists in her head parted for a moment, only a moment. The fever spiking through her body could kill her. It would kill her if she didn't bring it down.

  Panting, she tore at the buttons of her BDU shirt. She had to get it off. Had to douse the fire raging through her veins. Pain splintered through her skull as she dragged off the fire-retardant fabric. She tried to shed her heavy web belt with all its accoutrements, as well, but the buckle defeated her sweat-slick, fumbling fingers.

  She felt a blessed relief for all of a moment or two, until the blazing sun heated her blood to boiling again, and small, biting gnats began to feast on the tender flesh left bare by her short-sleeved T-shirt.

  The stinging bites were a mere annoyance at first, a vague distraction at the far edge of her mind. Seemingly in the next breath the swarm intensified, became a cloud that voraciously attacked the blood drying on the side of her face.

  Jill stumbled to her feet. The world went black. She swayed, dizzy, disoriented, almost fell again. Sheer determination kept her upright.

  A stream. She remembered crossing a stream. One that led to a rock basin and a pool. Cool. Shaded. Wet. Gritting h
er teeth, she swiped the sticky blood from her eyes with the back of her hand. Which way? Where was it?

  Without knowing whether she was heading east or west, she staggered at a drunken angle across the slope. She left her shirt behind. The mangled remains of her ATV. Goofy. A sob rose in her throat as the image of a dog with a long muzzle and a silly grin slowly lengthened, thinned, began to writhe right in front of her eyes.

  Snakes. She had to watch for snakes. Slithering. Hissing. Sinking their fangs into Sergeant Barnes, who suddenly materialized not ten yards away. He was beckoning to her, smiling at her, but with each stumbling step she took toward him, he, too, changed size and shape.

  Cody! That was Cody with a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Cody urging her on. Cody who stood to gain millions if he sprayed something in Jill's nose.

  Voices rang in her head again. One angry, filled with hate, spewing out an accusation of murder. Another deeper, rougher, husky with passion. Gradually, a muted roar was added to the voices, growing louder, drowning them out.

  Gasping, her neck and arms slick with sweat, Jill swatted at the vicious little gnats and stumbled toward a stand of twisted piñon. Her boot caught on a squishy lump. She looked down, saw she'd buried her foot in the rotting carcass of another reptile.

  The hot, bitter taste of bile rose in her throat.

  Pegasus barely broke stride as he pawed his way up the steep, rocky slope. Mac leaned into his shoulder harness, his right hand working the joystick that guided the vehicle around trees and boulders.

  Branches scraped the hull. The multiple-suspension tires absorbed shock after shock. Despite the rough ride, Cody kept his gaze locked on the navigational display indicating the remaining distance to the spot marked by a blinking red dot.

  Two hundred meters.

  One-fifty.

  One hundred.

  "That looks like an ATV. Or what's left of one."

  Mac's grim pronouncement brought Cody's head whipping up.

  "She must have jumped out of the ATV before it wrapped around that rock," he ground out. "The nav display is showing her another sixty plus meters farther up the slope."

  Mac pushed Pegasus on. His heart pounding, Cody scanned the rocky terrain ahead for a glimpse of a black beret, honey-blond hair, blotchy-brown and tan fatigues, anything!

  What he spotted was a splash of glistening red on an outcropping of jagged gray stone.

  "Over there!"

  Mac maneuvered Pegasus to a safe angle and hit the brakes. Cody was out of his seat and had his bag in hand before the hatch whirred open. Mac scrambled out after him scant seconds later. The crumpled, blood-soaked shirt lying beside the gray stone stopped both men in their tracks.

  With a short, vicious curse, Cody dropped down on one knee, thrust a hand in the shirt pocket and pulled out a slim leather case. Inside was Jill's holographic ID with its embedded homing signal.

  "She can't have gone far," he said grimly, pushing to his feet. "Not if she's concussed and burning with fever."

  "Right," Mac concurred. "You angle down and to the right. I'll go up and to the left. We'll walk fifty meters, turn and work a grid."

  The voices started again.

  The roaring inside Jill's head had stopped, thank God, but now she heard someone—several some-ones—-shouting in the distance. She was in the pool, the cool, shaded pool. She'd tucked her knees under her so the water could lap her chin and cheeks.

  Even with a shroud of water wrapped around her up to her chin, fire still raged in her veins. Nauseous, dizzy, so confused she couldn't remember her name, she unfolded her legs. Some deep, hazy instinct had her struggling up. She was supposed to guard. Protect. Something...something important.

  The weight of her bat belt almost dragged her back down into the pool. Finally she got her boots under her. Water sluiced down her body as she fumbled for the flap on her holster. Her hand wrapped around crosshatched steel.

  The butt of the Beretta felt so familiar, so right. This was her job, her mission. To protect. To guard.

  The scrabble of boots on rock brought her torso around and her arms up. She held the Beretta two-fisted, the way she'd been taught. The way she'd cradled it in countless sessions at the firing range. The way she'd steadied it before that last, murderous exchange of shots. Where? Kosevo? Baghdad?

  A blurred figure crashed out of the trees to her left. Whirling, she squinted against the pain in her head and tried desperately to bring the shadowy figure into focus.

  "Stop right there!"

  She'd shouted the words. Why did they sound so low and hoarse, like the last croak of a dying frog.

  Dying. They were all dying. The frogs. The snakes. The members of the test cadre.

  "Jill."

  The single word was deep. Quiet. Wary.

  "Put the gun down."

  "My job," she rasped. "My duty. Protect...at all costs."

  She couldn't surrender her arms. She wouldn't! The figure took a step. Her finger locked on the trigger.

  "Stay...there!" Had she pushed the safety to off? She couldn't remember. Oh, God, she couldn't remember!

  "It's Cody, Jill. I told you I'd come for you. I'm here, sweetheart. I'm here."

  The slow, deep resonance penetrated the pain pin-wheeling through her skull.

  "Put the gun down, Jill. It's me. Cody."

  She knew him. Knew the name. How? Why? The answer burst in her head like a Roman candle.

  Cody Richardson killed her.

  My baby.

  He killed her.

  Dead snakes. Dead babies. The images brought bile back up into her throat. Her knuckles whitened. Her ringer squeezed against the trigger.

  The figure moved closer, waded into the pool.

  "Stop!"

  He ignored her. Took another. Two. Until she couldn't possibly miss.

  She locked her knees, sighted on the spot squarely between his eyes. His calm, steady blue eyes.

  She knew those eyes. They'd smiled down at her. Just before he kissed her.

  "Let me help you," he said slowly, quietly, and reached for her weapon.

  A sharp crack split the air.

  Russ McIver had spent enough years in uniform to recognize the report of a pistol when he heard it. His first instinct was to drop into a crouch. His second had him reaching for his radio.

  "Doc! This is Mac. Did you just fire a signal shot?"

  He waited, his jaw clenched.

  "Doc, this is Mac. Come in please."

  When the radio remained silent, the marine cursed viciously and charged back down the slope.

  Chapter 16

  Cody was on his knees at the edge of the pool when Russ McIver came pounding up.

  The marine skidded to a halt. His glance zinged from the rivulets of blood running down Cody's arm to the woman stretched out on the ground beside him.

  "What happened?"

  "Jill's gun went off."

  "She shot you?"

  "Not intentionally."

  Cody was almost sure of that. He'd reached for the Beretta at the same instant her legs had collapsed under her. The combination of her sagging weight and his tentative grip on the barrel had sent a bullet right through the sleeve of his khaki uniform. It missed the bone, thank God, but had taken out a chunk of his skin and muscle.

  The flesh wound didn't worry him. Jill did. His initial exam indicated a lacerated scalp and probable concussion. He wouldn't know for sure whether she'd fractured her skull until he got her into X-ray.

  She'd also suffered severe dehydration from the heat and the fever raging through her body. Her confusion and near delirium could be ascribed to the blow to her head, but her decreased tissue turgor, mottled limbs and rapid, thready pulse had told him she needed an infusion of fluid and fast.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm, Cody ripped the plastic off the packet of IV solution he'd extracted from his bag, spiked the port and squeezed the life-saving liquid into the drip chamber.

  "Hold
the bag."

  The terse order brought Mac jumping forward. He positioned the packet waist-high while Cody inserted a length of coiled plastic tubing and squeezed fluid through it to expel the air bubbles. Once the solution ran freely, a twist of the flow clamp stopped it.

  The bite of a rubber tourniquet six inches above her elbow drew Jill's brows together. Frowning, she lifted her lids. "What...? What are you doing?"

  The glazed look in her eyes hurt him worse than his wound.

  "It's okay, sweetheart. I'm just starting an IV."

  He worked swiftly, cleansing the insertion site with a Betadine wipe, sliding in the needle, yanking the rubber tourniquet free.

  Only after he'd adjusted the clamp and started the flow did he lift an arm to swipe at the sweat beading his forehead. Too late he realized it was the same arm Jill had put a bullet through. Swearing, he ground his jaws together against the burning ache.

  "We need to give the IV a few minutes to infiltrate before we transport her back to base," he told Mac. "In the meantime, it would help to wet her down again."

  "I'm on it, Doc. Hold the bag."

  Dragging off his helmet, the marine tossed it aside and waded into the pool. He didn't give a thought to the electronics built into the sophisticated headgear, nor did Cody. One of their own was down.

  The combination of the IV and a cool, soothing soak worked miracles. Within a remarkably short period of time, Jill had recovered enough to mumble out the right answer when asked her name. Only then did Cody push up his sleeve and tend to his still-sluggishly bleeding wound.

  When he deemed Jill stable enough to move, however, she seemed to sink back into delirium.

  "Snakes," she muttered as he eased her into a sitting position.

  "What?"

  "I saw snakes." She gave her head a confused little shake. "Stepped on one."

  Cody's stomach dropped clear to his boots. "Were you bitten? Jill! Answer me! Were you bitten?"

  "Don't...think so."

  Hell! He'd been treating her for the blow to her head and raging fever. It hadn't even occurred to him she might have sustained another injury. Ignoring the scream of protest from his injured arm, he tore at the laces of Jill's boots and yanked them off.