“Just fine.” And better prepared now.
Pop. Pop. She squeezed off two more shots that made her ears ring. The first van spun out as the engine spewed smoke. A second van roared around, taking the lead as the other stopped altogether.
Hugh steered around a tree. “Good job evening up the odds. Need you to hunker back down, though, and hold on tight. This next part’s gonna be rough.”
Like the rest wasn’t? She passed the gun back to Hugh.
Amelia ducked behind the seat again, staring at her feet bouncing on the floor from the rough ride. She locked her arms and gave Joshua a kiss on his forehead.
The Jeep raced out of the jungle, going airborne for an instant before landing in the muddy sand. Her teeth slammed together. Blood filled her mouth and she realized she’d bitten her tongue. Joshua started crying in earnest, his fearful wails tearing at her heart. She checked him over with her hands as best she could and he didn’t appear hurt. Just terrified.
“I’m right there with you, sweetie,” she whispered in his ear. “Hang in there.”
Rear tires fishtailed, spewing sand as the Jeep worked to catch traction. Just when she’d begun to fear they were going to bog down… the four-wheel drive launched forward smoothly, flying across the sand like a sailboat over smooth waters.
She looked up at Hugh again in the rearview mirror, her mouth so dry she could barely form words. “Update? Please?”
Smiling, he winked back at her. “Other van’s stuck in the sand. How’s the kiddo?”
“Vocal.” She eased up and checked every inch, kissing each precious finger and toe to be sure. “Pissed off, but completely unscathed.”
“Nice work. In about ten miles we should be home free.”
“Home free,” she repeated, some of the relief seeping away since they were headed right back to the middle of a lawless city devastated by an earthquake.
***
Holding an IV bag, Liam raced alongside the litter carrying their latest rescue toward the open cargo plane of the C-17 preparing for takeoff on the crappy small runway—basically a long strip of dirt.
“Hold, hold,” Liam shouted, as he jogged beside the victim he’d just freed from under a collapsed college building. “We’ve got one more. Critical. Head trauma and double amputee. Gotta get him out.”
A three-ship of cargo planes roared overhead. Aircraft had been flying in and out at a regular clip, transporting humanitarian relief from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Italy, and Cuba, and the list of countries grew by the day. More than twenty so far. Ports were beginning to fill with boats and ships as well. Some supplies, especially early on, were parachuted in.
The loadmaster in the C-17 raised a thumbs-up and waived them forward. “Haul ass, sir. We’ve gotta clear out.”
There wasn’t much parking space alongside the already-short runway, so as soon as supplies, troops, and relief workers were unloaded, the cargo hold was filled with departing injured and they were quickly airborne again. The C-17 was the world’s premier cargo craft for delivering troops and supplies anywhere, anytime, able to land on dirt runways as short as thirty-five hundred feet and as narrow as ninety feet.
Communication was improving with more reliable cell phone reception, satellite phones, and radios. And still he hadn’t heard anything more about Hugh Franco, the woman, and the child. Meeting the woman’s family—Dr. Aiden Bailey and his wife, Lisabeth—hadn’t brought any new information on the whereabouts of the missing trio. The Baileys had looked at him with such damn hopeful eyes, as if he could deliver their loved ones back to them. It had been hard as hell to tell them he knew nothing more than they did. Just that Hugh, Amelia, and the baby, Joshua, had last been seen together at the field hospital set up in a school.
Never had keeping his focus sharp been more difficult than now. One foot in front of the other, he kept charging ahead because he couldn’t afford to deal with the emotional fallout until afterward.
His combat boots clanked along the load ramp as they passed over the patient. Turning, he almost slammed into a vaguely familiar military nurse handing off an infant to a refugee in the plane.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, angling past, checking her name tag, then remembering.
“No problem, sir,” answered Lieutenant Gable, the nurse from the school/hospital.
Another reminder of how he’d screwed up in not keeping a closer eye on Franco. He’d known the guy was more on edge than ever and hadn’t pulled him out of the field. Liam had weighed the risk to Franco against all the lives in danger here… and had chosen wrong.
After nearly twenty years of service, maybe it was time for him to call it quits. Liam had enlisted in the army at eighteen, become an Airborne Ranger medic, gotten his college degree, then switched service branches to become a PJ. Maybe his body was just past the point of being able to do this kind of work. Shit, it sucked getting old, and why the hell did nearing forty have to be considered old?
He tipped his head skyward, where life was crisper, cleaner, with only the clear blue, some puffy clouds and airplanes. He could almost feel the rush of plummeting out of the craft, arms wide as he hugged the air in free fall.
Too old?
Fuck that.
Stepping away from the C-17 as the load ramp raised, he scrubbed a hand over his bleary eyes, his hand coming back full of grime and sweat. He needed to haul ass over to the hooch to shower and sleep. But he was still too restless from the lack of information, too wired from the last rescue mission. He grabbed two water bottles from a relief station, drinking one in a long continuous swallow and then pouring the other over his head.