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“Keep the link open,” Atticus demanded. “We can see their shoe size from here and they’re packing major heat.”
Nate could tell as soon as the first snowmobile appeared at the edge of town that these were a different caliber of Russian agents than the ones who had held Eden in the warehouse. He watched in silence through a rotted hole in the wall, and then swore as two of the agents peeled off and went behind the buildings.
The good news was that everything was in close quarters. He could throw a rock and hit one of the buildings across the street. The lane between the two sides was narrow, and the Russians would be sitting ducks if they came down that way.
“Oh, hell,” he whispered as one of the agents hefted a rocket launcher and settled it on his shoulder.
The Russian didn’t know where he and Eden were hiding, but that didn’t matter. His goal was to smoke them out, get them out in the open. And it was a pretty effective way of doing so.
Before the man could get a shot off, Nate moved outside of the building and pulled the pin on the grenade in his hand, launching it toward the enemy. He’d just given away his position, but it was sure as hell better to take the offensive than having to dodge rockets.
The four agents scattered like bowling pins as soon as they saw the grenade, and the explosion rattled the fragile building that was his only protection. Gunfire erupted and he knew without looking that Eden had the sub on full auto and was laying down cover so the Russian with the rocket launcher couldn’t get that shot off.
“You’ve got two heat signals coming from the opposite end of town,” Cypher said through the phone.
As long as Eden kept laying down cover, he could take care of the others coming in. He caught them by surprise, moving quickly so he was almost perpendicular with them when he took them down. Two quick rounds to the chest and the enemy was now four instead of six.
The Russians were returning Eden’s fire now, having found their own places for cover, and he made his way back up the strip. A man stepped out in front of him, so close there wasn’t room to get his gun up in time, and he barely ducked back as the blade of a knife swiped toward his middle.
He didn’t feel the cut along his side, but he smelled the blood. Nate grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone as his fingers went limp and the knife dropped to the ground. Another punch to the throat killed the man instantly. He kept moving forward, toward Eden.
A body lay prone in the middle of the lane, the snow beneath him bright crimson. But Nate’s blood turned cold and his heart stopped in his chest when he heard Eden’s yell and the sound of the rocket launcher as it fired straight at the building she was using for cover.
He started running. And praying. And he watched with amazement as Eden’s body shot out of the building just before the rocket hit, curling up in a ball at the last minute so she rolled out into the middle of the lane as the building exploded behind her.
The two remaining agents stepped out of their hiding places, their weapons trained on her, and all he could think was that he couldn’t lose her. Not like this.
He sprinted to the bigger of the two men and knocked the gun up just as he was about to fire, so the bullet went wild into the sky. This agent was better at hand-to-hand than the other, and didn’t let Nate get in too close. They were evenly matched and it was only hearing similar sounds of combat coming from Eden and the other agent that had him taking a chance to reach into his boot and pull the knife, striking it between the man’s ribs and into his heart before he could deliver his own killing blow.
* * *
Eden couldn’t show weakness. Couldn’t let her guard down. Blood dripped into her eye from the cut above her eyebrow and she wiped at it quickly as she dodged a punch from the man who’d fired the rocket launcher.
She knew how to fight. Knew that concentration and focus was the most important thing. But something broke through that concentration, and before she could blink the man had her in a headlock, her breath cut off and her lungs burning. Blood rushed in her ears, muting the sounds around her, but she realized with complete clarity what had broken through her focus.
It wasn’t the static of the sat phone from somewhere in the distance and Atticus’s frantic warnings. But the pitched tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel” being whistled in a rather upbeat tempo.
It was that moment she knew she was going to die—the arm around her throat was cutting off the oxygen to her brain, but it was Jonah Salt whistling from just over the hill who would deliver the killing blow.
The man holding her captive jerked behind her and his arm loosened around her throat, so she was able to greedily suck in air. The report of a rifle had been close and she managed to get a glimpse of the man who’d held her, a neat bullet hole right in the center of his forehead.
“Down,” Nate yelled. But her brain and her reaction time were slow. She felt his body jerk as he knocked her to the ground, his body covering hers as the sound of another shot being fired penetrated the fog in her brain.
“Get up! Get up!” She knew he’d been hit, but he had her up on her feet, his body hunched over hers for protection as he ushered her back toward the safety of the buildings.
ChapterFourteen
“What the hell was that?” Atticus said through the open line once they made it back to home base. “I’ve got six bodies on the ground and then a heat signal comes out of nowhere and starts laying down rifle fire.”
“It was Salt.” Eden’s voice was barely discernable and Nate handed her a bottle of water. “I heard him.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Atticus asked.
“He whistles while he works. He always has. The sound of it broke my concentration and that Russian agent almost snapped my neck.”
“And then Salt shot him and saved you?” Cal asked. “That makes no sense.”
“It’s part of the game,” Nate said, looking at her intently. “He wanted her to know he was there. That he was the one pulling the trigger. He killed the immediate threat so she’d know.”
