“Hawk, did they hit you in the head with something?”
He remembered the mild concussion he had suffered earlier. “Why?”
“Because we’re going to descend really fast and you’re making me light-headed with that marriage proposal.”
He remembered his resolve to tell her about anything that would make her job easier. “I was knocked out of it during the fight. Probably with a bottle. I’ve been knocked out before, by the way. Still single.”
“Did a woman rescue you those times, too?”
He could hear the smile in her voice. He grinned back. “No.”
“Okay, then. Think you can handle thirty meters down?”
It wasn’t as if they were underwater and that he might suffer the bends. “You’ll know soon enough,” Hawk told her. “I’ll be down there either on my feet or on my back.”
She hesitated for a second. There was really no other choice—they both knew that—and she silently started her descent. Far below, the faint sound of sirens broke through the night air. Hawk patted his rib cage lightly. This was going to hurt just a little.
Keep your focus.She mustn’t think about how horribly bruised and abraded Hawk’s face was. She knew he was hiding the amount of pain he was going through, but she had heard the shortness of breath, and the way he coughed didn’t sound good, either. Internal injury. Her heart sped up again when she recalled how close she’d been to being too late.
Don’t think.She had to get them out of there. There was one big problem coming up—how to get out of the compound without being killed. Dilaver and his men would be searching for them. The advantage was that they wouldn’t know yet that there were just two of them. The disadvantage was…the same. The two of them against possibly a dozen or more men. It was small comfort to know that the grenades probably took out a bunch of them and that most of the thugs were still at the otherkafenasat this time of the night.
The fire was a good distraction, but she doubted that would stop them from looking, especially if she had shot Dilaver in that room. She hoped that she had. That scumbag deserved to die, but she had been aiming at blobs of heat seen with her goggles, so she couldn’t be sure. Her main concern had been to get at Hawk, so when she had knocked at the door, she had gone in with the focused intent of looking for only one familiar figure before she started shooting.
Once she had both her goggles and gas mask on, she had had to locate Hawk without actually being able to see him. As luck would have it, he was lying on the floor, being kicked by one of Dilaver’s thugs. That was the perfect place to be when CS gas was released. She’d committed the spot to memory before throwing in the canister of gas.
She heard Hawk’s sharp intake of breath above her and wished she could carry him over her shoulders. She had to smile at the image. Somehow, short of being knocked unconscious again, she didn’t think he would actually allow that. She couldn’t describe the relief and joy that had engulfed her at the sight of him, still fighting his captors.
Now her job was to keep him alive. No, it was more than a job. She looked into the darkness below. Life was so strange. Why did she have to be hanging in midair and being chased by gangsters when she realized that she was in love?
She jumped the last five feet and immediately readied her weapon, looking for signs of Dilaver’s men. She could hear shouts from somewhere not too far away. She heard Hawk’s landing behind her and another sharp intake of breath, but he was reaching for her duffel bag already, pulling out the Uzi and some other weapons she had in there. He reloaded the Uzi as she scanned the area.
“Ready,” he whispered.
“Okay, we keep running that way, no matter what,” she said. “There’s a bush there and a ditch grating in the wall behind there. That’s the target.”
“Ten-four.”
They rounded the corner. Dilaver’s men had turned on all their car lights and there was no way Amber and Hawk could sprint across the grounds without being spotted.
“I have one more grenade left,” Amber said.
“Let me have it, since you’re the leading the way. I’ll use it once when they get closer.”
“All right. Here. Ready?”
“Affirmative. Go!”
Amber took off. She heard shouts and the crack of weapons. Bullets zinged through the air past them. She ducked behind as many trees as she could.
“There!” she heard someone yell. “Get in the car and go after them! Keep the headlights on them!”
But she was heading for the bushes, not the driveway, and their pursuers would have to go on foot as soon as they caught up to where she and Hawk would be. She reached the wall that surrounded the compound and looked for the shrubbery she had marked. There was a metal grate behind it that covered the storm drain leading out of the property. She turned to find Hawk not too far behind. As soon as he saw the wall, he turned and heaved the grenade at their pursuers. A loud initial blast silenced the firing weapons.
“Right through here, Hot Stuff,” Amber said, moving the heavy grate with both hands.
“You know, I now fully appreciate all the trouble you took to see me that first time,” Hawk said as he helped her.
His breathing was uneven and Amber frowned. She had seen him run for miles when he was exploring the alleys with her. He must really be injured. “Not too far now,” she said, although they still had to hike to her parked car.
