Blue Forever (Men in Uniform) (10 page)

“What’ll we do?”

He grabbed her hand. “I vote for run like hell.”

17

Kip and DeAnne ran through the forest for nearly a mile, dodging trees and doing their best not to leave a visible trail. All the while Kip could hear the shouts behind them. The good news was, it wasn’t the PLA guys in Jeeps, and no guns were blasting. Yet, anyway. Their pursuers were on foot and didn’t seem to be getting any closer. The bad news was they weren’t losing them, either. And Kip could hear their pal the dog bellowing in the lead.

Shit
.

He scoured his memory of the map for a possible route to escape. They were heading down to the more populated jungle lowlands where they would find roads and villages with structures where they could hide, scattered among the orchards and fields. That held promise. But they had to throw that damn dog off their scent first.

“Kip, I can’t run much farther,” DeAnne gasped between ragged pants of breath.

“There,” he said, pointing to a place up ahead where the terrain dipped and he could hear the faint sound of water tumbling over cobbles. “Make for the stream. We need to lose the dog.”

It could work. Maybe. Or at least give them a little more lead time. Hopefully their pursuers were simple farmers who didn’t do a lot of hunting. Or watch TV.

They sprinted to the edge of the stream and DeAnne halted, sucking in lungfuls of air. Kip whipped his rucksack around to his front and turned his back to her, bending his knees. “Climb up, piggyback.”

“No, I can—”

“The bottom is treacherous. It’ll go faster this way.”

She hesitated a moment, then did as he asked. She was still breathing heavily, and her hands were shaking, but she managed to grab his shoulders and he boosted her up, grabbing her around the legs.

Their pursuers would most likely expect them to go downstream toward the coast and Sanya, so he turned upstream instead. He’d backtrack just far enough to shake them.

“Hang on.”

He plunged into the water. It wasn’t too deep, but the bottom was all smooth and slippery river cobbles. He was wearing his combat boots, so the treads helped keep him upright as he picked his way upstream as fast as he dared.

“I’m holding you back,” DeAnne said when her breathing slowed enough to speak. “You should leave me here. I can distract—”

“Hell, no,” he said gruffly. “I’m not leaving you anywhere.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s not the PLA, and these people don’t have guns. I can speak to them and—”

“
No
.
”

“I don’t want you to get caught.”

“Me, neither. But no.”

She stopped talking when he hit a stretch of sandy bottom and picked up speed, jogging as fast as he could manage through the water. He could still hear their pursuers, but they’d halted, and the sounds of a heated discussion rang through the trees. The dog was barking nonstop, frustrated. They must have reached the stream.

He sent up a prayer they’d fall for his simple ruse.

Sure enough, the shouts turned downstream, getting more and more distant, and eventually the noise of their pursuers ceased.

Kip let out a breath of relief, and climbed up the bank. Back on dry land, he eased DeAnne down to her feet.

“I’m so sorry,” she said in consternation as she rearranged herself. “You really didn’t have to—I must weigh a ton.”

“Nah, I’m used to carrying much heavier packs,” he said easily. He was barely winded. “You’ve obviously never been a Marine.”

He winced.
Damn
.

“No, thank goodness.”

He grabbed her hand. “Come on. Let’s get moving. We’ve fooled them for a while, but they’ll catch on quick.”

“How do we get past them?”

He surveyed the vee of mountains surrounding the small valley, and oriented himself on his mental map. He pointed at a nearby hill. “On the other side we should hit a footpath down to the main road to the coast. It’s more populated over there, though, so we’ll have to be careful.”

She nodded. “What about checkpoints?”

“There’s only one left between us and Sanya. We should be able to avoid it if we stick to the smaller paths.”

They struck out at a fast clip, his waterlogged boots squishing underfoot, and in an hour they were standing on top of the hill. Below them, an undulating checkerboard of fields spread out in the morning sun. As they rested, ate some fruit, and drank water, he got out his camera and took some shots.

“Wish I had the telephoto lens,” he murmured, taking in the sweeping panorama. “Nothing’s going to show up.”

She watched him, a mildly puzzled look on her face. When he asked her what she was wondering about, she just shook her head. But he knew what she was thinking. He was used to the reaction.

“What? Can’t a Marine be artistic?” he asked, aiming the camera at her.

Her eyes widened in alarm. “Don’t you dare take my photo!” She turned her face and covered it with the water bottle she was holding. “I’m a mess!”

He grinned, clicking away. “A beautiful mess. I love how you look.”

She peeked out from behind the bottle, her eyes soft and vulnerable behind a façade of skepticism. “You’re such a liar.”

He clicked off a series of shots. “Am not.” He reached out and shifted aside a tangle of chestnut curls from her flushed cheek. “Mmm. Like you just got out of bed after a night of making love. Makes me hard just looking at you.”

He fired off some more shots as she dropped the bottle to her lap, forgotten. “You are so bad,” she murmured in embarrassment, but he could tell she secretly liked it.

He winked. “Hell, no. Bad would be if I asked you to take off your clothes and let me photograph you naked.”

She let out a small gasp. “Kip!”

“Maybe when we’re not running from bad guys,” he said with a mock sigh, and stowed the camera in his rucksack. “Ready?”

Nodding, she capped the water bottle and slid it into her shoulder bag. As she turned to him, he gathered her in his arms and kissed her.

It was their first kiss since they’d awakened and had to start the day running for their lives. He made the kiss long and deep, mating their mouths as he’d mated their bodies last night. She melted into him like she belonged there. He liked that. A lot.

After the long, sensual kiss, she moaned and pulled away. “Kip—”

“I know. We need to get going. I just had to do that first. It’s been too long since I tasted you.”

She licked her lips, uncertainty shining in her eyes. “You’re complicating things.”

He touched the tip of her nose. “No. You are.”

With that, he turned, hefted his rucksack, and started down the other side of the hill, his lover following on his heels.

His lover
.

It had a nice ring to it. He liked thinking of DeAnne that way. As his lover.
His
lover.

No one else’s. Just his.

Except that it was, he reminded himself, not true.

But it could be. She’d already agreed to see him again when they got back stateside. How hard would it be to talk her into being his steady lover? A hot, undemanding relationship they could both enjoy.

Of course, there was her job to consider. She’d no doubt change her mind about quitting the State Department, so she’d be posted God knew where out in the world. Getting together could be tough.

And then, there was that whole crazy Marine thing. Not that he was too worried about that part. Her father sounded like a real bastard, but Kip was
not
a bastard, and he was sure she’d see that pretty quickly.

It could work.

Assuming he made it out of this godforsaken country alive.

Which led him back to thinking about his mission. Ever since Jake had clued him in to its true nature, he’d been getting more and more steamed about the situation. Had Colonel Jackson known Kip was sent in merely as a decoy for the real mission? He didn’t think so. The colonel could be hot-headed, demanding, and severely old-school, but he was a straight-shooter. And he respected his men. He’d never send his troops into battle without all the facts.

One thing was for damn sure, if Kip ever met up with that navy jerk again, the guy was toast.

But that would only happen if they could get down to Sanya, and he could find a way off the island.

“Kip! Slow down!”

At DeAnne’s winded call, he halted and turned. And realized he’d been double-timing it down the path, leaving her in his dust.

Whoops
.

“Sorry,” he told her when she caught up.

“Gathering wool again?” she asked with a little smile.

“Something like that.” He looked around and saw they were nearly at the foot of the hills, approaching a small village.

“How much farther?” She wiped a sheen of sweat from her brow.

He did a quick calculation. “Barring trouble, five or six more hours on foot.”

Her face fell and she looked as though she wanted to groan, but she didn’t. She just let out a long breath. “Five or six. Okay. But I swear, you better make sure I get a long, hot—”

Suddenly, he spotted something that put a big smile on his face. “Hello.”

She broke off, frowned, and glanced around. “What?”

“That.”

He indicated the narrow dirt road that wound out from amid the ramshackle buildings. Along its verge, leaning precariously on a rusty kickstand, was an equally dilapidated motorcycle.

Hallelujah. Transpo.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’ll do quite nicely.”

* * *

“So, you really think Llowell kidnapped that diplomat?” Darcy asked Captain Jenson, then shook her head. Sounded like a real stretch to her.

Last night at the midnight sit-rep, the team had managed to impress Commander Bridger with their daring mission plan. At least he’d pretended to be impressed. She still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t manipulated the whole operation himself.

After a long night at the drawing board, finally satisfied with the plan, the STORM team had fallen into their bunks just as the sun came up. Only to be awakened about five minutes later for an eight a.m. meeting with the client.

Maybe it was their continued lack of sleep, but no one on the team was remotely happy with Captain Jenson’s orders for the day, to be carried out while they waited for the submarine that Commander Bridger had requisitioned to arrive.

A submarine! How cool was that?

“Why else would an educated, well-respected deputy director for the U.S. State Department ally herself with a roughneck spy running for his life?” Jenson insisted, bringing Darcy back to her question. “And quit her job to boot? Hell, no. Major Llowell’s got to be threatening her. Or worse.”

Darcy lifted a brow. “Worse?”

Captain Jenson gave her a knowing look. “A defenseless woman alone in the wilderness with a desperate fugitive?”

Based on the woman’s behavior thus far, Darcy had her doubts she was all that defenseless.

But Captain Ass-hat had his mind made up.

All right. Whatever. He was the client.

Darcy would keep her mouth shut, but she still wasn’t buying it. And from Jaeger’s profile of Llowell, he didn’t seem the type to go around kidnapping and threatening random women, either. The guy had a chest full of medals for valor, and he was an artist to boot. Some of his photographs had been featured in an online gallery, and they were frikkin’ good.

“Desperate fugitive?” Clint Walker put in. “You realize Major Llowell’s on
our
side, right?”

Exactly.

“And
you
sent him in to be captured,” Zane reminded Jenson with a bitter note to his voice.

The captain bristled, at the same time looking guilty as hell. “That was
not
the intent. And he hasn’t been captured.”

“That we know of,” Darcy muttered at the same time Zane muttered, “Yet.” They looked at each other and grimaced.

Jenson slashed a hand through the air. “We’re talking about the woman now. The embassy is more than concerned for her safety. Regardless of her exact status, they want her back at the compound and out of danger. And I want to debrief her.”

“Why?” Commander Bridger asked. He’d been pensively silent up until this point. Now even he was looking irritated.

Jenson’s face hardened. “The Pentagon needs Llowell taken out of the picture, ASAP. With his cover being blown way too early, they’re worried in his present status as a fugitive he’ll interfere in your operation instead of leading the Chinese away from it as originally planned. Jeopardize the outcome. That’s not acceptable.”

“So why aren’t we going after
him
instead?” Quinn asked.

“You really think a seasoned operator like Llowell will just waltz into town and announce himself?” Jenson shook his head. “He’ll have her dropped off somewhere we can find her, but he’ll no doubt be long gone. At this point she’s just a liability he needs to be rid of. But trust me, you won’t see a shadow of the guy.”

Darcy pursed her lips. Apparently the client didn’t have much confidence in the team’s abilities.

“And you think the woman will lead you to him,” Quinn speculated without betraying the disdain she sensed emanating from every pore in his body.

“If she wants her job back.”

Hmm. The job she’d just quit in protest over being asked to betray the major? Darcy could only think of one reason to give up your job for a man, and it wasn’t altruism.