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He knew by Ethan’s hesitation that something was wrong. “Where’s Kill Shot?”
“I can’t get her to respond on the com link. Grim Reaper either. Renegade is inside the house. He should be coming through your door in just a few minutes. The last thing Kill Shot said before the line went cold was that Renegade would get you out.”
The pain in his body was easily forgotten, and something else took its place. Something dangerous and dark. He came to his feet, closing his eyes for a moment at the lightheadedness, and then he stumbled to the kitchen area. He searched through the drawers until he found a stack of clean white dish towels. He pressed one of the smaller ones to the wound on his chest and then wrapped a larger one so it looped under his arm. He held one end of the towel with his teeth as he knotted it tightly.
His gun was gone, but he searched the rest of the drawers for something he could use as a weapon. There were no knives, but one of Kimball’s staff had left a corkscrew under a napkin. It would have to do.
Gabe heard the grunt and fall of the two guards standing outside his door, and Jack slipped in a few seconds later. He must have looked worse than he thought if Jack’s grimace was anything to judge by.
“Do you need help?” Jack asked, readjusting the crude bandage Gabe had tied around his shoulder.
“No, I’m good.”
“What are we going to do about Kimball? We can’t go in guns blazing and make it back out alive.”
“We find Grace and Logan, and if things have gone to hell we detonate the explosives and get off this island.”
Gabe didn’t have to explain to Jack that he wasn’t leaving the island without Grace’s and Logan’s bodies, if there were even bodies to claim.
* * *
“We’ve got company,” Grace heard Logan call out. “Six or seven headed our direction.”
She left her rifle in position on top of the guard tower and slid down the fire escape all the way to the ground. The first guards were running toward them, weapons raised, as her feet hit the dirt. Plaster and mud exploded all around her, and she slid feetfirst toward her enemy, her pistol raised and firing rapid shots as Logan laid down cover fire.
The area was mostly open, and there weren’t a lot of places available to hide, but she hunkered behind a decorative half wall that followed the stone path up to the main house. Gabe’s voice rattled in her ear, and she breathed a sigh of relief that he was okay, but she couldn’t deal with the distraction right now and turned off her com link. She saw Logan do the same thing and nodded in his direction while she changed the magazine in her gun.
Logan was positioned directly across from her behind the other half wall, and she gave him the signal for what she wanted. Once she saw he understood, she flattened her body into the mud and waited for his report.
His gun seemed extraordinarily loud, as if it was somehow amplified by the rain and wind, and time seemed to slow to the point where she could see each of his bullets cut through the air. Logan ducked back behind the wall as shots were returned, and he held up his fingers so she’d know the position of her targets.
There wasn’t time to think. She could lose her shots if she wasted those precious seconds. She took a breath and held it as she rolled into the open, firing in the directions Logan had just given her—seven, eleven, one, and four o’clock—from left to right, and then she quickly rolled back to the relative safety of her position.
They waited a few minutes more, and Logan signaled the all clear. “Go,” he said. “Finish off Kimball, and let’s get out of here.”
She nodded and climbed back to the top of the guard tower, flicking the switch on her watch to check in with command.
“Dragon, I’m back in position to take the shot. Kimball’s moved the party to the dining area. I have a clear shot.”
“Everything okay?” Gabe asked.
She heard the worry and fear and relief in those two words and relaxed as she realized Jack had helped Gabe get out of the house.
“I’m good.”
And she realized she really was. Her mind was clear and her hands were steady. But this was going to be a miracle of a shot, and she’d only have one chance to get it right. It was close to a mile in distance to the main house—similar to the length of the shot she’d made when she’d taken out Peters—but the wind was going in the opposite direction, and rain was pelting her directly in the face. There were a lot of added variables with this shot that there hadn’t been with the other.
“Grim Reaper, what’s your position?” Gabe asked.
“I’m spotting for Kill Shot.”
“Stay where you are. Renegade and I are going to set off the light show a little early. Take out the target now, Kill Shot. Things are about to get crazy.”
“I’ve intercepted a signal that military aircraft are headed in our direction,” Ethan said. “Their attitude is hostile. We’ve got less than fifteen minutes before we need to be as far from this island as possible.”
“Roger that, Dragon. Close up shop and pick us up shore side.”
Grace adjusted her aim, blanking out the wind and rain and occasional voice from the com link until she was completely alone in her mind and silence reigned. Her weapon hesitated, and her finger flexed, wanting to pull the trigger, as she passed her scope across Tussad.
