Page 42 of Her Fearless Warrior

“I can’t. If I let her go, her head will go underwater.”

Holy mother of God.

“Jase, I’ll get her up a few rungs, then you can pull her up,” Linc said as he started down the ladder.

“Right,” Jase replied.

When Linc stepped down onto the floor of the hole, the water went past the top of his boot. It smelled.

“You can let go of Katherine now. I’ve got her,” Linc said.

He put her over his shoulder and started up the rungs of the ladder. Jase grabbed her before Linc even made it to the top.

“I’ve got her,” Jase assured him.

He turned around to get Leila and found her already halfway up the ladder. He went with it and turned back and got out of the hole. When he was out, he held out his hand, and Leila took it. He helped to lift her the rest of the way out of the hole.

Once she was steady on her feet, she wrapped her arms around him.

“Thank you. Oh, my God. Thank you.”

9

Jase was driving. They started out slow and steady. First he hit the remote and when the gate opened, he smoothly drove out. The plan was to haul ass until they were out of range of normal automatic rifles and grenade launchers, then leave it to Linc to do what he did best.

Jase had left the compound’s gate open for Linc. With his scope, he could clearly see the interior of the courtyard. One of the Humvees was starting to move. Before he hit that one, he wanted to hit the garage, in case there were other vehicles he didn’t know about.

He saw the C-4. Jase had marked it with the orange glow in the dark paint stick. Linc took the shot. He started to line up his next shot. It was the Mercedes at the back of the courtyard. Then he saw the explosion out of the corner of his eye.

Bullseye.

Again, Jase had marked the target for him. Linc hoped like hell that Jase was right, and that he’d placed the C-4 next to the gas tank, because that Mercedes was built like a tank. Linc took the shot, then changed his focus to the lead Humvee coming his way. They were probably eleven hundred meters out. It entered his consciousness for a split second that the Mercedes had blown.

Now it was the Humvee’s turn.

Fuck.

He couldn’t see the markings. He should have shot them first. Jase had probably placed the C-4 on the side of the vehicle. Now they were a thousand meters out. He could see the passenger side had his rifle out. Linc set his eye to his rifle and shot the driver. Then he shot the man in the passenger seat. He watched dispassionately as the Humvee careened off the dirt road, into a tree.

The next Humvee appeared out of the dust of the first Humvee. Now it was maybe five hundred meters out. Linc set up his shot for the driver when out of the corner of his eye he saw orange. He grinned.

Linc repositioned his rifle and fired. This close, he didn’t have to wait long at all. He watched as the front of the Humvee blew upwards by at least five feet before coming back down. Smoke was coming out of the engine, but nobody was getting out. Then the engine blew. Linc picked up his rifle and got back into the passenger seat.

“Time to go.”

He slammed his door shut, put on his seat belt, then turned to look in the back seat. “What’s wrong with her, Leila?”

“She thought it was her sciatica acting up. She was in terrible pain. I think that was about noon yesterday. She passed out before the sun went down today. She convulsed once. I thought she was going to die.”

“Does she have a fever?” Jase asked.

“No.”

“But you haven’t been able to wake her up, is that right?” Linc asked.

“No, I haven’t.”

“We’ll try to get her to a hospital as fast as we can,” Linc promised as their vehicle slowed down.