Hot Zone (Elite Force #2)(60)
Author: Catherine Mann

“Thank God.” She sagged against him, gasping, damn near hyperventilating. She blinked fast. “I can’t believe it, but oh my God…”

He hauled her close to his side, barely able to believe they’d gotten out alive. “One of the cops here will escort you two back to them and we’ll get you on the first plane out of here.”

“And you?”

“I’m still on the job.” His thumb stroked the side of her neck. Even though he didn’t want to leave her, it was probably just as well he was going back into the field, since his emotions threatened to bleed right out if he didn’t tighten up posthaste. “We’ll talk, though. Soon. I promise.”

She cradled his face in her hands. “Be careful. Promise?”

For five years he’d been anything but careful. He wasn’t sure he even knew how anymore. But looking at Amelia and the little boy sitting next to her teething on a pair of handcuffs, Hugh actually cared whether he came out of this alive.

And having a woman hold his heart in her hands again scared him a helluva lot more than the hazardous mission ahead.

***

Jocelyn drove her other Jeep along a back road through the jungle. It wasn’t her best four-wheel-drive vehicle. That military man and his girlfriend had stolen her personal transportation and escaped. Rage, frustration, and impending doom shuddered through her as tangibly as the latest aftershock shaking coconuts from the trees.

She didn’t have much time left. Once that air force guy made his way to someone with a working cell phone, her whole compound would be exposed.

The Jeep jostled over roots and buckled earth. The remote road was known to few. But then she’d thought her homestead was secure as well.

She didn’t know how he’d found out, but then she wouldn’t have expected him to be able to steal her Jeep and escape with a woman and child in tow, no less. Why the hell hadn’t she killed Hugh and Amelia when she had the chance? But she’d genuinely thought she had them safely locked down. Maybe she was getting soft in her old age. She’d hoped she could find a way to spare their lives. If they didn’t know anything about her operation, she could let them go free. They were innocent people trapped by Oliver’s mistake. God, she tried so hard to be better than her family, to prove she didn’t take lives unnecessarily.

Her fists went white-knuckled around the steering wheel. She’d overestimated herself and her people. And the mistake was going to cost her everything.

Nineteen years of work, over in a day.

It wasn’t as if she had millions of dollars tucked away in some Cayman account to help her slip away and start fresh. Every penny she’d made through those adoptions had gone right back into the operation. Helping abused spouses create new identities. Funding the forces necessary to take those babies in need and house them until homes could be found.

Branches whipped at the windshield as she tore along the narrow road her people had carved out of the woods. She’d been so certain this was her time, the moment she’d been created for. Where her whole operation could be the salvation for dozens, hundreds even, of those orphaned in this natural disaster. She would be their guardian angel.

Instead, this had ended her.

Already she could hear sirens in the distance. Police vehicles coming to raid her home. To arrest her warriors. To take all the children.

She couldn’t let those sirens, the destruction of her operation, be the end. She had to save at least one more child. According to her contact, there was a U.S. cargo plane heading out today with space enough to slip one child in with falsified paperwork. And she had that one baby girl strapped into a car seat in back.

Now Jocelyn just needed to make it to the rendezvous point, to hook up with her guardian warrior from the United States—the military nurse who’d been instrumental in helping her smuggle out four other babies since the earthquake hit.

The sirens grew fainter as she put more distance between herself and the plantation. Only a few more miles until she could meet up with Lieutenant Gable. Together, they would save this last child.

And then? Jocelyn didn’t care if she lived or died now that her mission of mercy had been brutally ripped from her. Without her children—her whole purpose for being—she was nothing but a bankrupt expatriate with nowhere to turn.

Perhaps a little of her mobster family’s blood coursed through her veins after all. Because with nothing left to lose, now she lived only to make sure those responsible for exposing the Guardian paid the ultimate price for what they’d destroyed.

***

Lisabeth’s whole body shook so badly her teeth chattered. She could hardly believe that finally, finally, the fear and grief would end. She would have her baby Joshua in her arms again.

Thank God for Aiden’s supportive arm around her waist as they waited in the small mobile command post set up near the runway where air force planes took off and landed at regular intervals. The command center consisted of a tent and a bunch of computers and other tech equipment on pallets, hooked up to a huge military generator. Even nearly a week after the earthquake, this place still looked like a bombed-out war zone, but at least communications were improving.

They’d been told by Major McCabe that they would be leaving on one of the night’s flights out. Returning home would feel like culture shock—but so very welcome. As she stared at the destruction, her heart squeezed with grief for those who didn’t have the chance to simply leave.

“Dr. Bailey? Mrs. Bailey? Could you step outside for a moment, please?” The woman in uniform looked so official. So serious.

Had something gone wrong? Why couldn’t the woman have just smiled? Lisabeth’s head went dizzy and she stumbled.

Aiden grabbed her elbow. “I’m here, Lisabeth. Whatever happens, I’m always going to be here for you…”

She wanted to stand right here in this spot, in the place where she still had a living son named Joshua. In a time where her sister-in-law still might call at any second, her dearest friend as well as family.

Aiden slipped his arm around her waist and guided her forward. And how strange was that? She was always the one who faced life head-on, while he lost himself in work or moody silences. But something had shifted between them when they’d made love in the van last night. Something amazing and beautiful. It seemed wrong that they found this closer connection only to have to use it to support each other through grief.

She followed the uniformed guard from their tent into a smaller one set up next to it. He pushed the flap back and she saw—