Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(41)

“Shhh,” Miles hissed. “Move!”

They hustled toward the vehicle. Lara tugged the back door open. Miles heard noise on the hillside as he bundled Connor into the back.

He shoved Lara down on the floor of the vehicle, then crouched down to listen and sniff the air. He had to pull something brilliant out of his ass, right now, but nothing was coming to him, and the sound of shushing boughs and snapping twigs was getting louder.

Aaro. He couldn’t have said how he suddenly knew it was Aaro coming down the hill, but he did, and he almost wept with relief.

“Look after him,” he said to Lara. “I’m going back for the others.”

He sprinted toward the sound. They emerged from a grove of young firs. Aaro was half carrying Sean, and staggering beneath the other man’s weight. Sean’s nose bled. Aaro’s face was a rigid mask of endurance. He was hurting, but functioning better than Sean.

Of course. He was shielded.

Miles slid an arm beneath Sean’s shoulder, hoisting him up. “It’s Greaves,” he told Aaro. “Long-distance mind-reaming.”

“Can’t talk,” Aaro ground out. “He’s squeezing me even through the shield. Oh man. Hurts. Fuck this shit.”

“Amen,” Miles agreed fervently.

A few minutes of frantic stumbling got them back to the car. Lara was holding Connor’s head, pressing a wad of pale cloth to his nose. Her eyes were big, shadowy pools. Haunted and afraid.

Miles addressed Aaro. “Get yourselves out of range,” he said, hoisting the groaning Sean into the passenger side.

Connor opened his pale green eyes. “Davy,” he wheezed.

Of course it would have been Davy to volunteer to create the distraction. Davy was the best shot of all the McCloud brothers, which was saying a lot, since they were all kick-ass with both long-and short-range guns. Davy had gotten much closer to Greaves than the others had been. If they had been felled by Greaves’ mind-reaming, God knows how Davy had fared. Greaves was much stronger than Rudd, and Rudd had left Miles in a coma.

“I’ll go for him.” Aaro’s voice was rough.

“No,” Miles said. “I’ll go.”

Aaro waved his hand at Lara. “Finish the job. Get the girl clear. I’ll do clean-up. I have a shield.”

“My shield’s better,” Miles said. “Take Lara, Sean and Connor, and get the f*ck out of range. I’ll get Davy. Give me my car keys.”

Aaro glowered at him. “Getting bossy, punk?”

“Yeah.” He waggled his fingers for the keys.

Aaro was too messed up to argue. He pulled the keys from his pocket and tossed. Miles snagged them out of the air.

He bolted up the hill, chest pumping, every souped-up, tricked-out capacity he had bent upon calculating Davy’s location. The first window that had shattered was on the top floor, on the side, a vaulted picture window that faced the opposite hillside, not the canyon. Davy would have had to climb the hill to get that shot. He also would have hauled ass back down as soon as the job was done. Miles factored in the moment when Greaves’ mental attack had begun, which would mark the spot where Davy presumably stopped.

A few breathless minutes, slapping through the trees, chest heaving, legs pumping, and he almost tripped headlong over Davy’s prone body. The guy had made it fifty meters further down toward the rendezvous point than Miles had calculated. Typical McCloud.

He fell to his knees. “Davy! Can you hear me?”

Davy’s body was rigid. “Pulling,” he gasped. “Can’t move.”

Miles dragged him upright, somewhat helped by how rigid he was. Good thing it wasn’t dead weight, considering Davy’s mass.

It was impossible not to make noise crashing through the underbrush with Davy staggering beside him. Miles could hear their pursuers drawing closer. One was at about a hundred and twenty meters, another was at ninety. Probably in body armor, with infrared, and/or thermal imaging. Both moving much faster than he and Davy could. He eased Davy onto the ground, and put his finger to his lips. “I’ll go take care of our company,” he whispered.

No time to answer the frantic questions in Davy’s eyes. He darted away, weaving low and silent among the scrubby trees and foliage.

A shelf of granite protruded from the hillside, above the best probable path. If he was high enough, the man might not even look up to catch the heat signature with his thermal imager.

Miles scrambled up the rocks, grateful for the intensive rock-climbing he’d done over the last several weeks, and stretched himself out on the lip of granite. It was barely wide enough. He was glad for the camo jacket, and the ski mask.

The man emerged from the shadows of the trees. Silent, swift. Only Miles’ augmented senses could have picked him up in the dark. He listened to the soft pad of booted feet, the guy’s rapid heartbeat. He was bulked up with body armor, a helmet. And scanning telepathically. The probe slid right over Miles’ shield, not registering him.

The realization slid abruptly into place. So that was why he’d been able to take them by surprise and penetrate the place solo. They had thought that they had the ultimate secret weapon, with their psi, that it made them invulnerable. But a weapon was a weak spot if relied upon with any kind of arrogance. The precise reason he’d always been ambivalent about guns.

Miles emptied his mind of everything but the muted crunch of dry grass and pine needles, waiting . . . crunch . . . crunch—