“Are you criticizing me?” Dyle asked coldly. “Taken alone, none of those chemicals could have caused this chaos.”
Biers immediately backed down. “No, you’re right, of course. I’m just concerned.”
“And so you should be. We’ll get them back. All of my men are damn good in the desert. Jaden ran my security detail for me in Egypt.” He turned to the remaining security men, Jaden and Eric Nathan, who were approaching them. “Why aren’t you on the road? What do I pay you for?”
“We have two men down,” Jaden said. “French is gone, but Brill stands a chance. We need to get him to a hospital.”
“Later,” Dyle said. “Right now we have to catch Waldridge and the woman.”
“Brill is going to die if we don’t get him to a hospital now,” Nathan said.
Dyle looked down at the burned man, who was struggling to breathe. “He’s going to die anyway. You and I both know that. The nearest hospital is a hundred miles from here.”
“We have to try,” Nathan said. “I’m not leaving him. We’ve been through a lot of shit together.”
“You can try when you get back if he’s still alive.”
“That’s not the way we do things, sir.”
Dyle smothered his rage. He wanted to shoot the son of a bitch. But he had to work with these idiots. He had no one else at the moment. “Honorable. But two people have escaped on your watch, and they have to be retrieved.” Hell, let Jaden handle it. They were his men. He turned to Jaden. “What do you think?”
“I think Nathan is right. Nathan and Brill were buddies.” He looked down at the moaning man with no expression. “And compensation should be made for violating his feelings in the matter.” His gaze shifted to Dyle. “Considerable compensation.”
Whatever. Anything to get them moving. “Look, then suppose I give each of you a bonus of $50,000 when you bring them back.”
That got Nathan’s attention, Dyle noticed. Cash always did. “That’s a lot of money.” Nathan paused. “But you’re actually paying me to let him die.”
“He’ll die anyway. I’m paying you to keep the mission on track.”
“Fifty thousand apiece?” Jaden repeated.
He wanted to make certain his assistance in the matter was going to show a profit. Jaden never did anything without a paycheck. “Absolutely.”
Jaden turned to Nathan. “We’ve got to look out for ourselves. That’s a lot of money.”
“Time’s wasting,” Dyle said.
Jaden said to Nathan, “In the same situation, Brill would take the money and leave our asses. You know that.”
Nathan shrugged. “Okay. Maybe you’re right.”
Jaden turned to Dyle. “We’ll leave Brill and start tracking Waldridge, but this is a big area. We’ll need help. I want your okay to call down to Mexico for reinforcements from Koppel’s team to come up here to give us support.”
“No, how many times do I have to tell you, this mission is confidential.”
“It won’t be confidential if we can’t find Waldridge before they make it out of this desert.”
“We’ll probably find them before Koppel’s team can get up here to help.”
“Then you can send them back. But it will only take a few hours for Koppel to cross the border and get here. It will make the difference if we have trouble locating Waldridge and Michaels.”
“Are you telling me what to do?”
“I’m telling you I’m not losing that bonus if they manage to get away. I want help.” He shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”
Dyle muttered a curse. “I’ll take it. But if any of those men talk, I won’t be shy about taking a contract out on you, Jaden.”
“Expected,” Jaden said. “But no one talks if I tell them not to.” He reached for his phone. “Now how do you want to work this?”
“How do you think? We stop talking, get moving, and find them. You and I will go in my Range Rover. Nathan, you take Biers in the Jeep.”
Biers looked startled. “Me? I thought I’d stay and watch over this poor fellow.”
“I’m sure you did,” Dyle said sarcastically. “But you’re no longer on a free ride, Biers. We need all hands on deck. You’ll earn that fat check I gave you. If Waldridge and Michaels get away, you have everything to lose.” He turned to Nathan. “Give Dr. Biers a gun.”
“What?” Biers said.
But Dyle was ignoring him and already running toward the Range Rover.
KENDRA PUT ON AN EXTRA BURST of speed on the ATV. There was nothing even remotely resembling a road, but the desert was reasonably flat. She dodged a line of scrub brush, noticing at the last moment that it hid large boulders that could have been fatal if struck at her present high rate of speed.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Waldridge shouted over the engine.
She nodded toward the sun. “West. I can’t get any more specific than that.” She checked the rearview mirror. They had already put about six miles between them and the complex, with still no indication that they were being pursued. But she expected that to change at any minute.
A small dune appeared suddenly ahead of her.
“Hang on!” she yelled.
She jumped the dune, which launched them into the air. They skidded on the landing. Kendra tightened her hold on the handlebar grips, wishing that Jessie was the one driving. The wind was so strong that the ATV was being buffeted as if it were a toy, and it was nearly impossible to keep it steady.
The ATV engine sputtered.
It sputtered again.
No. No-no-no-no-no…
The engine sputtered out completely.
“What’s happening?” Waldridge yelled.
Kendra was cursing. “I think we’ve run out of gas.”
They rolled to a stop.
“What now?” Waldridge asked.
Kendra hopped off the ATV and squinted against the strong sun as she gazed into the distance. Heat. Overpowering heat. The skin of her face had no protective covering, and she already felt it drying out, burning, as the hot wind blew against it. “The only thing we can do. We walk. There’s a ridge up ahead, so maybe we can stop there and get out of the sun.” She started toward the ridge. “We’ll take shelter there and start again after dark.”
“And hope they’re not heading this way.”
Kendra nodded. “We got one break. This wind is so strong that any tracks disappear as soon as we make them. Help me push this ATV into the scrub brush. It will be better if they don’t know we’re on foot. They’d limit and concentrate their search range if they did.”
Delta 1904
Atlantic Ocean
It took five calls for Lynch to get through to Griffin when he was finally in the air and heading for the U.S. By that time he was halfway across the ocean, and his nerves were raw. His mood had started out that way, and the iciness of his tone reflected it. “What the hell is happening, Griffin? I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark.”
“Tell me about it,” Griffin said sourly. “Get off my back, Lynch. I’m having enough trouble without you giving me grief. I don’t have time to hand out bulletins to everyone when I’m trying to find your damn doctor.”
“You’d better rethink that. Kendra is with that ‘damn’ doctor. I want her found.”
“So do I.” He paused. “Sorry. I’m worried about Kendra, too. But my director, John Howell is giving me hell about Waldridge. He’s being almost as big a pain in the ass as you are about his disappearing.”
“I’m only giving you hell about Kendra. Waldridge doesn’t matter to me.”
“Well, he matters to Howell. You could have told me about that new research Waldridge is doing. When the director read my last report, he jumped on me with both feet. There are two hot-ticket political items in Washington, defense and health care these days. He didn’t like it that I’d lost a researcher who’s work could sway millions of votes.”