Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(53)

“Hooyah!” three voices rang out right before Wolf laid on the throttle and they took off on an intercept course with the terrorists.





Chapter Eleven


2:29 p.m.…

I’m going to kill him! Olivia thought as she struggled to thrust her arms into the life jacket. If we live through this, I’m going to—

But that’s as far as she got before the bullets started flying and all thoughts of murder instantly turned to prayers for his safety. For the safety of all the men. Her heart became a black hole, sucking away everything but her fear as she watched helplessly—utterly, infuriatingly helplessly—as the two dinghies raced toward each other.

The rat-a-tat-tats of the tangos’ AKs were constant, but the distance between the little boats was too great for their rounds to hit their marks with any accuracy. In contrast, Leo and his men had yet to take a shot. Wolf was piloting the zooming skiff with one hand, his weapon raised to his opposite shoulder. Mason was in the middle of the boat, his M4 resting against the side, ready and willing. And both Bran and Leo had positioned themselves on the front of the dinghy, lying lengthwise along each side, one leg in, one leg out, their weapons poised for action like a couple of snipers, waiting until it was time to lay on their triggers and make their rounds count. She held her breath.

Suddenly—Thump! Thump!—Bran’s machine gun jerked once, twice. He was the best shot of the bunch, his reputation as a crackerjack gunman known far and wide within the spec-ops community. That point was proved a split second later when blood exploded from one of the terrorists’ skulls in a pink cloud. The tango toppled overboard, arms flying wide and AK-47 falling from his lifeless fingers before he hit the water and rolled in the wake of the boat.

Olivia had only seen two other men killed in her entire career—well, one, really; she’d only thought Rusty was dead—and those memories still haunted her, made her sick to her stomach anytime she replayed the gruesome scenes in her mind. This time wasn’t any different. Her gut contracted, spewing burning bile into her throat until she gagged. Being shot at with RPGs should have been a mitigating factor for squeamishness and a motivating factor for vengeance, but apparently she’d been absent the day they handed out steel stomachs in field-agent training.

She managed to blow out a breath, beat back the urge to spew, and whispered, “One down. Five to go.”

Her words drifted out over the waves, which is when she realized she’d basically been turned into a cheerleader, rooting from the safety of the sidelines. And that thought was a shot centered directly in the bull’s-eye of her pride. Missing steel stomach aside, she was a trained agent for the Central Intelligence Agency, for shit’s sake! Even weaponless, she was an asset, not a liability. She was just about to swing back around to thoughts of wrapping her hands around Leo’s stupid, gallant neck when she got distracted by the terrorists’ dinghy quickly changing course, pulling a U-ey and racing back toward the yacht.

And just like that, the game changed. Leo and his men were now the pursuers. Wolf altered course as well, steering their boat in a wide parallel line, no doubt trying to give Bran and Leo an opportunity to see past the great, white plumes of water jettisoning from the terrorists’ outboard so they could get a clear bead on their targets. But the tangos had more horsepower. And they were pulling away fast.

Still, that didn’t stop Leo from taking a shot. His weapon barked, the sound echoing over the water. Once. But that was enough. One shot. One kill. Olivia couldn’t see where he’d hit the terrorist, but the tango toppled overboard, smashing into the water and tumbling in the wake of the whirring engine before his body sank beneath the surface. The absence of gore allowed her to keep her stomach acid where it should be. Inside her stomach.

“And then there were four,” she murmured to herself, paddling against the current that was trying to pull her away from the action. The adrenaline surging through her body heightened all her senses. Her sight—it was like she was watching it all on a movie screen in HD. Her sense of smell—along with the pungent aroma of marine fuel, she would swear she could detect the iron richness of blood. And definitely her terror—Leo and his men were a far cry from being out of danger. And if one of them was killed or injured because of her, because she’d dragged them on this mission, she’d never forgive herself.

With gritted teeth and ragged breaths, she watched the two boats slice and weave. She thought she heard one of the terrorists scream an order in Arabic above the whir of the engines. It sounded like Turn! But she couldn’t be sure. Of course, when their dinghy spun around in a tight circle a half second later, she knew she’d heard right. The tangos barreled toward Leo and his men like they were playing a watery game of chicken, or else they were friggin’ kamikaze-ing it.

The move caught the SEALs off guard, evidenced by the fact that Wolf didn’t adjust their course quickly enough, and Leo and Bran were forced to dive for cover in the bottom of the dinghy when the front of their rubber boat lit up with enemy fire. A second later, their engine took a round and sputtered and died.

“No!” she yelled, the skin over her entire body tightening until it was a wonder her bones didn’t poke through to the surface. Leo and his men couldn’t lose the boat. They’d be sitting ducks! Cannon fodder for the terrorists who—

What’s he doing? What’s he doing?