Running Hot (6 page)

With that the men moved back. Gone was any casual discussion. The air took on a suffocating thickness. The guns no longer hung in front of the men. Now the barrels pointed at the dead center of Ward's chest. He didn't love the change.

“Step away from the woman.” The shorter one barked out orders as if he thought they'd strike fear.

Not even close.

“I don't think so.” Ward's arm inched farther back along the side of his leg and closer to the gun stored behind him.

Tasha's fingers tightened against his skin. “It's okay, honey.”

Ward barely heard her. The sensation of her pulling the gun away from his body filled his brain. “You sure?”

She clearly had a plan; it involved bullets, and Ward wished he knew the rest. He'd have to make a solid guess based on what he knew—this woman would attack without remorse. He respected that.

“We'll be fine.”

That voice. The brush of her hair against his cheek. The woman did know how to soothe. Ward hoped her shot proved half as good, because his choices carried some limitations. Thank goodness for the knife within reach.

The taps came next. Her fingers drummed a steady beat on his back. Her body barely moved. This woman had some practice hiding her movements.

Ward's admiration grew as his mind clicked into gear. They had one shot at this. Take out both guys with minimum noise. That was the plan . . . well, it was
his
plan.

The tapping pattern clicked down from five. When she reached one, he hit the ground. Dropping to a crouch, he let his knife fly as her hand rose. The blade flipped through the air and landed in the taller guy's shoulder. He let out a squeal as his shooting arm dropped to his side.

Ward didn't wait. He crashed into the guy before he could raise the gun again. The forest erupted with noise as their feet trampled the fallen leaves and the tall one hit the ground on his back. Ward pulled out the blade and was on him in less than a second. With the handle of the knife between his teeth, Ward grabbed the man's head and smashed it against the ground. Once, twice, then his eyes rolled back in his head and his body turned limp.

Grunts sounded behind him, and Ward spun around, ready for the next fight. Tasha was already locked in battle with the smaller guy. Her kick smacked into the guy's chest just as Ward scrambled to his feet. Off balance, the guy fumbled for his gun and started yelling. The sound cut off when Ward wrapped an arm around the guy's neck—put it right in the crook of his elbow—and squeezed. Three seconds, and the guy crumpled into a heap next to his friend.

A cursory check of pockets revealed a decided lack of identifying information. No surprise there. If these two were mercenaries—they certainly had some training, just not enough—they knew not to possess anything that could trace back to actual names.

Ward grabbed a radio off the small guy and an extra gun. He handed the latter to Tasha. If he had more than one, so should she.

“Nice kick.” By a very impressive leg. That was the type of agility he could admire and did. That and her ability to fight without so much as breathing hard.

Everything this woman did was hot.

After a quick check, she took the weapon and slipped it into her pocket. “So, I can see that you do fight when you have to.”

“Did you have any doubts?”

She didn't hesitate. “Yes.”

Well, that was annoying. “I'm going to see this as a glass-half-f situation.”

“How so?”

“In your eyes I don't have anywhere to go but up.” He tried to keep the words light, but the sentiment behind them was all too real. He'd never had anyone doubt his judgment or abilities before and he didn't like it now.

But on one level they did understand each other. After that kiss, maybe more than one. They worked the same way.

“Is your head okay?” she asked out of nowhere. “I need to know you can handle this.”

“Despite your efforts, I'm fine. Hurts like hell, but I'll live.”

She frowned. “I guess that's good.”

Without checking with each other, they started securing the scene. Each one took a man and conducted a final search of pockets and the area. The next step would be hiding the bodies and covering tracks. If they couldn't come up with a solid plan, they'd have to move from quieting the mercenaries to killing them. Ward didn't relish that.

A year ago he witnessed a bloodbath on the job. Stood there as armed gunmen emptied out a refugee camp. The dirt ran with blood by the time the gunfire stopped. Bodies piled upon bodies. Women and children thrown around like garbage. Ward took a vow of humanity that day. Sticking to it challenged him every fucking day on the job.

So many orders. So much death. Years of working with one side in some country only to take an abrupt turn and undermine the very people he'd helped put in power a few years later. It was a stupid, endless, and necessary game. He just grew weary of playing.

Tigana was just one example. Having seen the file with the information about the torture he inflicted on his own people, Ward knew the man needed to be terminated, no matter what the mission objectives were. That didn't mean they had to leave a trail of bodies across Fiji. The lower the loss of life, the better this would be.

“These two are going to wake up,” Tasha said as she stepped between the bodies.

“Lucky for you I brought some of these and gags.” Ward pulled a wad of zip ties out of his lower pants pocket. “Yours, I believe.”

She fingered the plastic strips in his palm. “We're not killing them?”

“Do we need to?” He tensed as he waited for her response.

She held up a tie. “You're the one who said any idiot can break those.”

“Not the way I use them.”

She smiled. “I'll remember that.”

Chapter Five

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
, they dragged the bodies into the heavy greenery and Ward started covering the marks left in the dirt. Tasha watched, trying to shake off the prickling sensation at the back of her neck.

On any other day, any other job, the mission objectives would trump and they'd eliminate potential witnesses. She didn't see a reason to stray from that now. These two would wake up and cause trouble that far outweighed the potential of their bodies being found or what the combination of heat and animals would do to the corpses.

She stood there with the unused zip ties hanging from her fingers. “We have a problem.”

“I can come up with six without even thinking about it very hard.” Without so much as breaking a sweat, Ward covered every footstep. Removed any sign humans once waited there.

Impressive work but not good enough. The stakes were too high. “We can't leave them alive.”

He nodded but didn't take out his gun or do anything to suggest he agreed. “We need to watch the area from a distance so we can track movements in and out, count guards. Those sorts of things.”

She agreed with the plans and highlighted one of the “to do” items on the list. “We have to relocate.”

“You mean move?”

She wasn't in the mood for a word debate. “I have a car. We need to pick it up on the way out.”

“Car as in the truck?” He shook his head. “If so, it sounds like they found it, which means they know what it looks like, and wherever we take it we'll be tracked. Hell, with the number of people on this island, they could already know it's yours.”

He assumed she would be dumb enough to use her own vehicle on this job. Typical. The guy needed a little work on his how-to-play-nice-with-others skills. “Wrong. Tasha the bartender hasn't done anything wrong and doesn't drive an SUV.”

“So, there's nothing in that vehicle that will get your ass arrested or shot?” He leaned in closer. “If you're as competent as I think you are, you've got weapons stored in there.”

That show of faith in her skills sounded better. Not great, but better than some of the men she got paired with. “My bum is fine.”

He frowned. “What?”

The man got thrown off by simple words. Lethal and stumbling for a British dictionary. For some reason, that combination when mixed with the lean body and escape skills snagged her interest. “The weapons are locked down.”

“They will take a blowtorch to the truck, and you know it.” Ward pointed to the lifeless bodies next to her feet. “These two are trained mercenaries. They were the scouting party. Can you imagine the skills on the experienced men in the group?”

Not a bad argument. She was willing to listen to more but held on to her veto. “So, what's the plan?”

After a quick check of the direction from which the two armed men came, Ward stood in front of her again. “Secure and hide the bodies as fast as we can, double back to take a look at the truck from an elevated, safe distance, and then once we know who is where and how many we have to shoot through, we hunt down Tigana.”

He'd clearly given the afternoon agenda some thought. She appreciated his planning. “Sounds like you've done this before.”

“Since the last part of the plan is to run like hell if they see us, you can assume that I'm a professional. Unless you think that's an amateur move—then forget I said it.”

Oh my God, that smile
. He aimed it at her, and her control puddled at her feet. She didn't lose sight of her job, but she did entertain the idea of running her hands all over him if they ever finished this assignment and got to a safe place. “We have to move in on Tigana.”

“We have to live through the next few hours first.”

“You know how to kill the mood.” But those priorities made sense. They also reinforced her belief that they needed a more permanent solution for the men at her feet.

He leveled a serious flat-lipped stare in her direction. “Let's hope that's the last time you think that about me.”

“We're not having sex.” The words shot out before she could stop them.

“Well, not here.” He glanced around the hard ground. “That would be stupid.”

“Not ever.” She tried to signal her brain to shut up, but the words kept dribbling out. Last thing she needed was for him to know
she
was thinking about sex.

She shifted her weight, and her foot hit against something. Before she could glance down, a hand clamped around her ankle. One hard yank, and her knee buckled. On the way down she reached for the gun Ward gave her, jerking at her clothes to free it and fire.

The shot stopped her. It rang out, echoing through the rough terrain. The grip on her loosened right as Ward grabbed her around the waist. She picked up the telltale metallic smell she'd been trained to detect and saw Ward's weapon on the way back down to his side.

She leaned into Ward for an extra second, more out of shock from being caught off guard by the gunman than anything else. People rarely got the jump on her.

That would teach her to think about sex on the job.

She stood up straight and tugged on the bottom of her T-shirt. Retucked it into her shorts. At least she'd changed from yesterday's outfit before heading out to find Tigana. In this humidity clothes stayed bearable for only so long.

“I got the impression you were going for minimal loss of life here,” she said as she stared at the two bodies, one lifeless and the other unmoving.

“No one touches you.” Ward's eyes burned with a new intensity.

It sounded like a vow, and she took it as one. Too stunned to say anything else, she went with the first lame thing that popped into her head. “Okay.”

When the second guy stirred at her feet, she didn't hesitate. Gun out and barrel down, she fired. The man's face fell back to the ground with a thud.

Ward winced but otherwise did not move at her impromptu shot. He looked down at the man with the blood now pooling around his head.

Ward stepped back and out of blood range. “Was that necessary?”

No way was she justifying saving them both from a shootout. Still . . . “We both know he'd have somehow gotten free and blown our cover, and that's if he didn't kill you first.”

Ward nodded. “Now he won't be doing anything.”

A cryptic comment. One she jumped right over. “Right.”

“You're in charge.” He let out a long breath. “So, lead.”

She almost felt bad about what she was going to say. “I'm happy you remembered that.”

If anything his frown deepened. “Why?”

“You need to start digging.” She skimmed the tip of her boot over the ground and listened to pebbles scrape against the sole. “We need these guys buried, and you should hurry.”

A
N HOUR LATER
Ward's muscles still burned. Digging in dirt filled with roots will do that to a guy. Without a shovel he had to use her knife to pound at the ground. When she'd joined in, the task went faster but not by much. They'd removed enough soil, rocks, and fallen leaves to put the bodies at only a slightly higher level than the rest of the forest floor. Moving boulders and branches did the rest to provide cover.

Now they lay next to each other on their stomachs, flat against the ground and hiding behind low bushes on a small hill a football field's length away from the SUV, which he could only see with binoculars. Good thing she carried a pair with her.

More strategy on her part. Like how she'd picked a cleared area to park but that the forest walls covered on three sides. That made spotting the gunmen easy. With their vantage point above, there was nowhere for the men to hide.

She took the binoculars out of his hands and took a long look, scanning the entire range. Her gaze moved, then stopped and doubled back.

“Well, that's going to be a problem.” She handed him the binoculars and pointed. “Look about fifty meters to the left.”

“Any chance you could talk in feet?”

“No.” She dropped her head between her arms. “You're right. They're going to tear it apart.”