“The chopper’s too secure,” Drew softly replied as he pulled her toward a thick, dark tarp. “We wouldn’t be able to fuel it and get out of here before every man in the area swarmed us.”
A swarming sounded bad.
“This is what we need.” He tossed the tarp aside.
She saw the curving body of a motorcycle. One that looked as if it had seen better days a very long time ago. “Uh, I’m not sure...”
He’d already climbed on the motorcycle, the movement, of course, propelling her forward.
Tina dug in her heels. “There are tools here. Maybe we can cut the cuffs.” So what if most of the tools looked to be about ten years old? There could be a sharp saw in there, somewhere.
“Our priority is getting to freedom right now, before a patrol comes through here.” His eyes glittered at her. “We don’t have any more time to waste. Get on the bike.”
“I don’t see a helmet.”
She heard voices then, rising from outside.
He heard them, too. His body tensed. “Get on the bike!”
She’d just broken the no-hesitation rule of his again. Tina jumped on the motorcycle just as someone threw open the door to the garage.
“What the hell?” the guy in the doorway demanded. “Stone?”
Drew revved the motorcycle’s engine. Because of their linked hands, Tina had to stretch her arm out next to his and had to press her body intimately close.
“Hold on,” Drew told her.
She already was. For dear life.
The bike leaped forward, heading straight for the man in the doorway. Tina clamped her lips together so that she wouldn’t scream.
After all, there was no need for her to scream. The man in the doorway was doing plenty of screaming.
Then that man was diving out of the way. Drew drove the motorcycle right through the door and out into the night.
Wind whipped against Tina’s body, her hair flying behind her and— Oh, no, she realized that she’d dropped the gun.
Not exactly the pro move of an agent.
But then, she wasn’t an agent, and she needed both hands to hold tight to Drew because he wasn’t heading for some nice, paved road.
He was heading straight for a fence. One that had barbed wire at the top.
“Uh, Drew...”
“Don’t worry, Doc. I got this.”
At least, that was what she thought he said. It was hard to tell for certain over the roar of the bike. They were going faster and faster and— Was that a ramp? No, no, that was just boards, propped up against the fence. He couldn’t possibly ride up on those—
He could.
He did.
They hurtled over the fence, clearing the barbed wire with inches to spare, even as voices shouted behind them.
When the bike touched down, Tina nearly flew right off the cracked seat. Luckily, the handcuff—and her death grip on Drew—had her jerking right back down.
The motorcycle’s wheels spun. Dirt flew in the air. But Drew righted the bike before they could crash.
They hurtled forward once more.
Bullets thudded into the ground behind them.
Drew didn’t stop. He gunned the engine and they raced off into the night.
Tina clung tightly to him. Breathe. Just breathe. The nightmare had to end—sooner or later.
* * *
“WE HAVE A PROBLEM.”
Dylan Foxx glanced up at those quiet words. Rachel Mancini stood just inside the doorway of the small office. Her dark hair fell in a perfect, straight line to her chin. Her eyes—a bright blue that always seemed to look through him—reflected worry.
Rachel didn’t worry often. There wasn’t much that could make the ex-Marine worry.
“Another one?” Dylan muttered as he yanked a hand through his hair. He’d just finished a second phone call with Bruce Mercer. The big boss was furious and demanding action.
It was time for the team to move. They couldn’t give Drew any longer on his own.
“Drew didn’t check in.”
He sucked in a sharp breath at the news. Yeah, that counted as a problem. Dylan surged out of his chair. As he walked toward her, Rachel’s shoulders seemed to stiffen. She did that around him. Always tensing up. Always closing him out.
He locked his own jaw. “Maybe he was delayed. Maybe—”
“Drew’s never missed a check-in. I waited ten minutes, and he didn’t make contact.” She shook her head. “And I picked up some radio noise—something is happening out there. All of the men were called to action.”
Hell. Rachel had been monitoring the radio waves and transmission signals from the HAVOC compound, extra ears in case Drew got into trouble.
She wet her lips. “There’s...something else.”
Her tone told him this was even worse.
“Drew’s tracker went off-line.”
Every EOD agent in the field had a tracking device implanted just beneath the skin. In case the agent was taken by the enemy, Mercer wanted to be able to get a lock on the missing man or woman. The EOD didn’t like to lose agents.
Dylan had no intention of losing a teammate, and a friend.
“Maybe it’s a system error,” he said, even though his gut told him otherwise.
“I checked in with the techs at the EOD. They said his signal was transmitting fine until an hour ago, then it went dead.”
Hell. “And there’s no tracker implanted on Dr. Jamison.”
“No, she’s not an agent. Mercer never saw a need for her to be monitored. She wasn’t supposed to be at risk.”
Now she’d been taken and Drew had gone off the grid.
They had to get into the field. ASAP. Dylan hated being away from the action, especially when his team needed him. Especially when—
His phone rang. He glanced down and swore when he saw the number. He knew they were about to have more problems coming their way. With his eyes on Rachel, he answered the call. “Foxx.”
“I just sent you a file that you need to view immediately.” The voice on the other end of the line was feminine, husky, and one that was used to giving orders. Sydney Ortez. When it came to EOD Intel, Sydney was the go-to girl. She was also Mercer’s right-hand woman. If something was happening within the organization, Sydney knew about it.
The fact that Sydney was supposed to be out on maternity leave as she prepared for the birth of her twins—well, the fact that she was calling him meant that something serious had gone down.
He put Sydney on speaker and pulled up the file on his phone.
Tina Jamison’s face filled the screen. Her eyes were wide with terror.