He turned the corner and looked around this new alley frantically. His heart dropped to his feet. Two figures ahead, up high, racing across a rooftop. Crap. The Ghost and Kat were climbing now. He didn’t stand a chance of following them up there. He rode along below them, trying to hear them above the wounded sound of his moped. It was no good. The bike was getting too difficult to control. He ditched it and took off running.
“Talk to me.” He panted into his mouthpiece.
“Heading north,” she bit out. She sounded like she was exerting herself pretty hard.
He made the next turn to head north. He passed a couple of tough-looking locals smoking weed in a doorway, but he went by so fast they hardly had time to react.
“Damn, this guy’s agile,” Kat complained. “He’s jumping gaps.”
“Don’t fall,” Jeff retorted in alarm.
“Huh.”
The alleys got darker and narrower and dingier. He dodged sleeping goats and startled the hell out of himself when he narrowly avoided drop-kicking a chicken, who proceeded to take extremely loud umbrage at being awoken.
All of a sudden, intuition washed over him, certainty as real as the dirt beneath his feet. Kat was in trouble. As the hen squawked behind him, Jeff put on a burst of speed.
“Where are you, darlin’?”
Nothing.
“Click if you’re running silent.”
He waited. And waited. Nothing. Dammit! Even if she’d gone to ground and was hiding, she should’ve been able to ease a hand up to her throat to give him a lousy click on the radio to let him know she was okay.
Purely following his gut now, he slowed to a walk. It was a bitch to control his breathing, but he forced himself to breathe light and quiet. He thought he heard a scuff ahead. He raced toward the sound, pausing in the shadow of a doorway and easing around the corner.
Aw, hell.
He spotted two grappling figures teetering on the edge of a rooftop.
He took off running for all he was worth. “Hey!” he shouted at the Ghost.
One of the figures glanced up, startled. And then…oh, God…the fighting pair overbalanced. And fell, plummeting toward the ground two stories below.
“Kat!” he shouted frantically.
Chapter 11
The Ghost lurched in her grip and it was just enough to throw off the razor’s edge of balance they both wavered upon. Kat only had time to register dismay before the two of them launched into space. The ground rushed up from below. She twisted to take the impact on her left hip and shoulder. But then something massively heavy crushed her, and that was the last she remembered.
“Kat. Honey, wake up.”
She vaguely heard the words. Vaguely registered frantic hands running quickly over her body. She managed a groan.
“Don’t move,” the worried voice instructed.
She exhaled, managing with great effort to form words. “Go get him.”
“To hell with the Ghost,” Jeff snapped. “Can you feel your feet? Move your fingers for me, sweetheart.”
Obediently, she wiggled her fingers, although it hurt every bone in her body to move even that small amount. She took as deep a breath as her battered body would tolerate and released it slowly, exhaling the pain as Hidoshi had taught her, closing it off in a remote corner of her mind, far, far away.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
She squinted up at Jeff. The poor guy looked about ready to puke. “Uh, three.”
“We need to get out of here. Those commandos are still behind us somewhere.”
Before she had time to be startled, he’d scooped her up in his arms and stood up. It was a patently annoying display of manly special operator strength that she could never hope to duplicate. Although, at the moment she was profoundly relieved simply to relax in his grasp and let him carry her. Her head was spinning like a top and her body announced in no uncertain terms that it had had enough.
“You okay?” he muttered.
“Uh-huh,” she managed to mumble back.
“Okay if I run?”
“Maybe not.”
“I’m afraid we need to, darlin’. If you’re gonna get sick, lemme know and I’ll set you down.”
Reluctant humor tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
He grinned down at her. “I don’t generally pick up puking-drunk women. I like them reasonably sober and alert in my bed.”
“That’s right. You go for all that sparkling conversation.”
He laughed under his breath. “No. I just like them conscious and able to scream my name.”
“Picky, picky.”
He must’ve heard her fading, because he murmured, “Just rest. I’ve got you.”
Normally, she’d rebel in no uncertain terms if some guy said that to her. She was beholden to no man, thank you very much, and she certainly didn’t need to be patronized by one. But damn, it felt good to close her eyes and let Jeff carry her swiftly into the bowels of the neighborhood. Where he was going, she had no idea. But he seemed sure of himself. And why not? He was a far more experienced operator even than she was.
Had she really run this far? Or was it just that she felt so crappy now that it seemed to be taking forever to get back to the car?
“There’s that damn chicken again,” Jeff muttered balefully. “He’s lucky you’re hurt or I’d stop and make fryer parts out of him.”
She smiled against Jeff’s powerful chest. He smelled salty, but she detected a sour note of fear in his sweat, too. Had he been scared for her? He’d sounded mostly pissed off at her on the radio earlier. She hadn’t meant to ditch him. It was just the only way not to lose the Ghost.
“I got a look at him,” she murmured. “Not a good one, but a look. Thick, dark eyebrows. Narrow nose. Slight droop to the outer corners of his eyelids. Small mouth. Full lips.”
“Could you pick him out of a lineup?”
She considered the question. “Probably. But he’ll change his appearance if he doesn’t leave the island.”
“True.”
Jeff strode on in silence for several minutes. And then all of a sudden he ducked into a dark doorway and let go of her feet so her body slid down his torso to the ground. He glided left to put himself between her and whatever threat he’d seen or heard.
She knew better than to ask what he’d seen. When he could tell her, he would. She felt the zen calm flow over him that operators were taught when they needed to hide. She mimicked the action, too groggy to know if she’d eliminated the intangible essence of her presence or not.
“Let’s move out,” he breathed over his shoulder. “Nice and slow. You stay behind me.”
She gave one tap on his back to indicate that she understood and would comply. Assuming she didn’t pass out, of course. How long they crept down dark alleys, paused before corners and ducked behind various forms of cover, she had no idea. But she did know she ached from head to foot and the adrenaline of the chase had long ago worn off, leaving her nauseous and exhausted.
These were the moments Hidoshi had prepared her for in all those grueling years of training. She called upon his legacy now, and upon the legacy of the Medusas that endured any pain for the sake of the team. It was purely mind over matter. As long as she was conscious to will her body to move, she would keep going, no matter how agonizing.
Finally, after an eternity, Jeff murmured, “Here we are.”
“Is it safe to take our car?” she mumbled.
“No. That’s why we’re taking this one. The owner left the keys hanging from the sun visor. I’ll return it tomorrow. But right now, I need to get you back to the hotel and get some painkillers in you.”
How he knew she was hurting, she didn’t bother to ask.
He asked quietly, “Can you climb in?”
Strangely enough, after all the running around she’d just done, the act of bending down to duck into the tiny Peugeot all but made her pass out.