The Impossible Alliance Read online

  They both breathed easier.

  She stepped away from the pile of gear as he hunkered down, fully aware that she was affording herself room, rather than him. He dug through his ruck and pulled out a dark T-shirt. Before she could stop him, he’d stripped the sweater from his chest and he held it out.

  “Put it on. We’ve got a decent hike ahead of us.”

  “No, you keep it. Since you’ve read my file, you know I did my grad work in Colorado. I doubt I’ll even notice the cold.”

  “You’ve also been in a coma for three weeks. Trust me, you’ll notice.”

  Three weeks? Just like that, the vertigo returned. She swallowed the nausea that came with it. “That long?”

  He nodded…and held out the sweater.

  This time she took it. Evidently he was right about the mood swings, because she couldn’t muster the brazenness she’d ridden earlier as she’d stripped the prosthetic from her chest in front of him. She left the filthy shirt tied beneath her breasts and pulled the thick turtleneck on over it. His tantalizing scent swirled through her, suffocating her. Worse, the sweater still carried his heat.

  Ignore it.

  Somehow she managed—until she glanced up and caught the glimmer of moonlight slipping across that seriously sculpted, dangerously dusky chest. A moment later the rippling muscles disappeared beneath the T-shirt. Disappointment warred with relief as he tucked the hem into his jeans, then leaned down to repack his rucksack. But at least her lungs had kicked in. She breathed deeply as she pushed up the sweater’s sleeves.

  Shock yanked the air right back out.

  Blood?

  She raised her right arm and fingered the damp stitching again, the raw edges of the rip. She leaned closer, this time sniffing the knit fabric, and cursed.

  “You were shot.”

  He nodded as leaned down to tuck his jumpsuit into the ruck. “Grazed.”

  “Let me take a look.”

  “I already did.” Before she could argue, he reached into his first-aid kit and pulled out another cravat. He flipped the green fabric over itself and wrapped the resulting triangle around his right biceps as he stood. “But you can tie it off for me.”

  Alex retrieved the ends as he stepped in front of her, avoiding the man’s steady gaze as she pulled the fabric snugly against the muscle bulging beneath the bandage. His subtle, smoky scent swirled through her. Dammit, he was fantasy fodder, nothing more. A figment of her dreams. She secured the knot quickly and stepped back. “How far?”

  His dark brows rose as he glanced up.

  “The hike,” she clarified. “I assume we’re headed to a safe house.”

  “We are. Four kilometers.” He flipped his thumb over his right shoulder. “That way.”

  “And this new assignment? It has to do with Karl and Bruno DeBruzkya, doesn’t it?”

  Jared took a step back, as well. But he said nothing.

  He was holding out on her. She could feel it. The air between them had changed. Grown cool, distant. Almost wary. Like him. For a man who’d been tasked with a mission, a mission he’d already told her she shared, he was suspiciously closemouthed. Why? All she’d done was ask about DeBruzkya and—

  “Karl.”

  Jared reversed his direction, this time stepping toward her. Still guarded, still wary. If anything, even more so. His body language sealed it. Her memory might not have been functioning up to par, but her instincts were. She took a deep breath, sucked up the pain and regret and just said it. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Jared nodded slowly. “When ARIES lost contact with you, they went searching for Karl. He wasn’t there. Not in your room or his. He didn’t settle his hotel bill, nor did he attend his own lecture scheduled for the following day. He just vanished. Our recon team found traces of blood in his room. His type. A week later his body turned up on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t pretty.” He reached out and cupped his hands to her shoulders. “You okay?”

  “No. He was a contact, but he was also my friend.” She grimaced at the irony of it. At her pathetic self. Karl might have been her friend. But he hadn’t even known she was a woman.

  “H-how—” She swallowed the tears that threatened for the second time. She refused to give in to them. Nothing would be gained by it. Karl would be better served if she focused on finding the bastard who murdered him. She pictured her friend. His shaggy blond hair. His awkward, hulking body. That damned goofy grin. The passion that radiated off him when he spoke about his true love, physics.

  It worked.

  The tears dried and the pain in her heart eased, if only slightly. But at least she could think about Karl without that stifling sense of suffocation that had clamped down onto her lungs since she awoke. She could even see him at the conference, in his hotel room— “That’s it!”

  “You remember seeing him?”

  “Yes. We were supposed to meet in his hotel room. We did. I was furious, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’d had me fly halfway around the world to rehash some wild Rebelian legend about the Gem of Power.”

  “The Gem of—”

  “Power.” She nodded. “I know. As wacky as it sounds, it’s true. It has to do with some ancient regional story about a jewel that was supposed to give one man the power to rule the world. Can you believe it? Karl Weiss was a contender for the Nobel prize in physics three years ago, and he’s wasting my time on some pile of hokey drivel. I was pissed as hell and I told him so.” Poor, driven, didn’t-get-out-much, Karl.

  Maybe that’s why they’d hit it off.

  “You’re sure it’s hokey?”

  She blinked. Surely Jared wasn’t referring to Karl’s tale? She studied his face in the moonlight.

  Good Lord, he was.

  “What did you say your degree was in?”

  “I didn’t.”

  She waited.

  “Well?”

  “I dropped out before high school. Eighth grade. I have a GED.” Shame burned through her as he stepped away and turned to busy himself with tucking the spare ammo magazines into the side pockets on the rucksack. Except for the prosthetic chest, the remnants of her disguise followed his gear into the main pouch.

  He pulled the flap down and tugged it tight.

  Way to go, Alex. Open mouth, insert foot. Chew.

  He stood.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” He shrugged. “I’m not.”

  She opened her mouth, but his gaze cut her off. A gaze that unfortunately, despite the two feet of forest between them, she could see quite clearly. Steel wasn’t gray, it was amber.

  Dark, cool amber.

  He swung the ruck onto his shoulders, then grabbed the machine gun and prosthetic, effectively ending the conversation as he turned to take the lead position through the sparse but shadowy forest undergrowth. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was best to let it drop. At least for the moment.

  She turned to follow him. Alex took exactly five steps—and stiffened.

  Either Jared’s hearing was as good as hers or his instincts were better, because he swung around. “What is it? Are you still feeling dizzy—”

  She held up her hand.

  He fell silent. Unfortunately the forest didn’t. The sounds were faint, but they were definitely there. Snarling, yapping. Yelping. She definitely heard it. Heard them. An entire pack of them.

  Dogs. Worse, she could make out the faint bellows of their handlers as well. Adrenaline surged through her. “Run!” She lurched forward and grabbed Jared’s arm, managing to drag his massive body a good eight feet before he jerked the both of them to a halt. “Move, dammit! I hear bloodhounds.”

  And they were racing toward them.

  Chapter 4

  Jared froze, blocking out the nocturnal noises of the forest, the shallow breathing of the woman locked to his arm. The woman was hearing things. She had to be.

  “Alex, I don’t hear—”

  “I don’t care, I do. Now let’s go!”<
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  He winced as her frenzied fingers bit into the wound on his biceps again as she attempted to drag him another eight feet. He was ready this time. He planted his six-foot-four-inch frame to the forest floor and refused to budge. “Dammit, Alex, DeBruzkya’s castle is a good twenty minutes away by chopper, and I don’t hear one of those, either.”

  Her fingers dug deeper. “I don’t care if that castle is in South America. Maybe DeBruzkya has an outpost nearby. I don’t know. But I do know I hear dogs. Now move!”

  He closed his hand over hers and gently pried her fingers from his smarting arm. Maybe the coma had affected more than her memory. Maybe it had affected her hearing or her reasoning, too. He didn’t know. But he did know she was serious.

  She was also frantic. “Please. You’ve got to trust me.”

  He stared into her eyes and weighed the risks. If he allowed Alex to push herself physically before her body was ready, she could suffer a serious setback. But if he didn’t, the perceived betrayal could bring on another, possibly violent personality shift, potentially damaging her brain and neural system, anyway. “All right. But I set the pace.”

  “Fine. Just make it a fast one.”

  He did, deliberately choosing the smoothest and most level route he could through the undergrowth. Five minutes later, he changed his assessment of her mental state. Her hearing, as well. Both were functioning perfectly—because he could now hear the occasional faint snarl and yap of hounds, too. He locked his right hand to her arm and picked up the pace. Fortunately Agent Morrow was a runner. Or she had been before the coma. She met his pounding stride easily, matching the focused pace of his breathing intake for intake. Five minutes later he had the sinking feeling that if they kept up the challenging clip much longer, he’d soon have trouble keeping up with her.

  His leg was worse than he’d thought.

  He could feel the blood trickling down his left hamstring, soaking his jeans down to his calf, causing the fabric to cling and ride up on his entire leg. The cloth pulled across his wound steadily, tearing the gash wider with each step. Another few minutes and the hounds would be following the ripe, steady scent of fresh blood.

  He slowed their pace, then brought them to a halt as he shoved his free hand into his first-aid kit, air ripping in and out of their lungs as he rooted around for another cravat.

  “Wh-what is it? What’s wr—”

  “I need a tourniquet.”

  He felt her gaze drop to his arm, but before she could swallow her exhaustion long enough to tell him his biceps didn’t look that bad, he smelled it.

  “Water.”

  He jerked his gaze to hers, startled because she’d said it for him. She was staring directly over his shoulder. What the hell? “You hear ducks, too?”

  She glared back. “Don’t you?”

  No, he smelled them. But now wasn’t the time to get into that. He spun about until his back faced her. “Reach inside the outer pouch, at the bottom. You’ll feel a vial. Grab it.”

  He felt her release the strap. “What’s in it?”

  “Deer urine.”

  “Thank God.” The rucksack shifted as she rooted through the pouch. “Got it.”

  He waited until she tugged the strap home before he spun around to sprinkle a liquid more precious than gold between their boots and the closing hounds. If he’d doused their trail properly, one whiff and those dogs would lock on to a new target—an imaginary female deer—with a vengeance. There wasn’t a damned thing the hounds’ handlers would be able to do about it.

  Alex grinned as she grabbed the empty vial from his hands when he finished and stuffed it into her pocket. “It’s almost worth it to stick around to see their faces.”

  He grinned back. “Yeah.”

  Almost. It was time to take care of the handlers. He tore through his medic’s pouch, retrieving the cravat he’d originally stopped for. He wasted precious seconds wrapping it around his thigh and knotting it before they took off again, this time ninety degrees out from their original route.

  Two minutes later they were there.

  Relief burned into his lungs, supplanting air, as he caught sight of the lake. The water stretched a good mile. He skimmed the map he’d memorized the night before, verifying the global positioning unit’s earlier results as he pinpointed their location in his head. His leg gave way slightly as he stepped forward.

  This time she caught him.

  “Thanks.” He glanced down at his leg and cursed. The tourniquet had loosened during their sprint. He was losing blood and a lot of it.

  The snarling hounds grew louder, closer.

  Alex waded into the water and leaned down to study the thatch of plants floating at the surface. “The water’s healthy.” They both knew it wouldn’t have mattered. They didn’t have a choice but to cross. She turned back, her hand outstretched as she reached the rocky bank. “Give me your flashlight.”

  He reversed his earlier assessment. The coma had to have affected the woman’s reasoning, after all. Why else did she intend to offer those bellowing men a visual?

  “Dammit, Jared, I’m not nuts. Give me the Mag.”

  He dug the flashlight out of his pocket and passed it over. What the hell. If he had to go, might as well be on the job. But by the time she’d unscrewed the base of the Maglite and started in on the flared head, he knew she wasn’t nuts. He also knew why Samuel Hatch had been dragged far enough out of his grief to notice the woman. Not only was Alex stunning, she was truly brilliant. Most people he’d met who were that sharp didn’t have more than two common-sense brain cells to rub together. She had billons. And she’d just used them to buy them time.

  Air.

  She shoved the discarded ends of the Mag, as well as the batteries and spring, into her trouser pocket and gripped the empty black steel tube as she latched on to his arm once more. They leaned on each other as they waded out into the lake, stopping when the water reached chest level. From the stats he’d skimmed, it wouldn’t get much deeper. Not soon enough to do them any good. He kept the ruck on his back and slung the rifle on top. The gear’s weight would help keep them down.

  He glanced back. “This is far enough.” Besides, the snarling hounds were just over the rise. He could hear them. Feel them. It was now or never. “Ready?”

  She nodded firmly.

  “Then let’s do it.” He sucked in one last breath along with her as he knitted the fingers of his left hand firmly into her right, pulled her close and dragged her under.

  He settled the ruck into the rocky lake bottom, settling her body beside his in the murky water. Ten seconds later he refused first pass at the Mag’s tube with a squeeze of his hand. He raised his arm slowly, guiding her toward the surface, instead. The squeeze she sent back told him she’d reached it, had emptied and refilled her lungs, and was ready to come back down. He pulled her to the lake bottom, holding her there as he accepted the tube with his right and pushed off with his boots. A silent exhale, a fresh store of air, and he was headed down. They repeated the drill for close to a hundred breaths apiece before he felt comfortable enough to let his gaze skim the water.

  Dogs.

  Half a dozen, near as he could tell. Twice that many handlers. Though the deer urine had destroyed the hounds’ single-minded resolve, it hadn’t put a dent in the handlers’. The camouflaged men were still milling about the perimeter of the lake, determined to pick up the trail.

  Crap.

  Jared slipped beneath the surface once more. The moment he settled on the bottom and prepared to nudge Alex to the surface, he realized he had more to worry about than DeBruzkya’s goons. Morrow’s hand was locked to his, her fingers tense. Shaking. He pulled her close when she completed her breath, skipping his turn to seal her torso, hips and legs to his side. Damn. Her entire body was trembling. A three-mile sprint on top of a coma? He didn’t care how in shape she’d been. If those soldiers didn’t leave soon, her battered body was headed straight into shock. Her grip tightened as he claimed his n
ext breath, the shaking in her limbs increasing as he settled back.

  He forced himself not to panic.

  She was fine. They’d be fine.

  Just as long as she didn’t pass out.

  The world was dark again. Silent. And she was damned near frozen.

  Alex clamped down on every major instinct in her body. The ones screaming at her to shoot to the surface, to stand and kick her legs into motion, to run as far away from this dark, suffocatingly wet coffin as she could get. If it wasn’t for the steady hand still locked to hers, guiding her toward the surface of the lake for what had to be the thousandth time, she would have. A wave of almost violent chills ripped through her body as she sank back down to the bottom and passed the steel tube to Jared. She locked her jaw against them, willed herself not to take in water. If she did, she’d be done for. If she didn’t go insane first. Though she hadn’t wanted for air since she and Jared had settled in, the pressure on her chest was slowly but surely driving her over the brink. The next wave of chills didn’t help.

  And then, suddenly, it was over.

  She hadn’t even realized Jared had broken the surface of the water until he reached down and used both hands to drag her to her feet. Water streamed down their faces and bodies, as well as the machine gun and rucksack on Jared’s shoulders. He wrapped his arm around her waist and led her to the bank. She stopped when they reached the shore, instinctively straining her ear against the night, sifting through the nocturnal sounds of the forest.

  There.

  She could still hear the hounds, as well as their handlers, but they were faint and growing fainter by the second. She breathed her relief—until her hearing aid sparked.

  “—kay?”

  A lifetime of electrical interference, low batteries and the occasional downright shorting out allowed her to nod.

  “I’m fine.” But if she didn’t get him on her left side soon, that could change. A moment later, her hearing aid cut out, then back in again. She heard Jared’s deep, steady breathing as he, like her, worked to convince his lungs their air supply was no longer being rationed. She forced herself to relax as he helped her over the bank. But the second they re-entered the forest, the tension returned.