Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(25)

“That was my thinking, too,” Boss nodded. “I guess we didn’t give those spooks enough credit, huh?”

“Guess not,” Bill agreed. “Which is why we need Zoelner”—the Black Knights’ resident ex-CIA operative—“down here to fill us in on their operating procedures. Any luck getting in touch with him?”

Besides the General, Boss had put out a war cry to all the Knights. Telling those who weren’t currently on a mission to get their asses to Costa Rica ASAP.

“Nope. He’s incommunicado in Syria. And even if he could manage to cross the border to Turkey, it’d take him nearly forty hours to get here. And I don’t mean to go all Han Solo on your ass, but I got a bad feeling this is all gonna be over long before that. Goddamnit!” His jaw hardened until the scar cutting up from the corner of his lip went stark white. “I knew we never should’ve let Vanessa go in there alone. She isn’t trained for this shit.”

At this point Becky piped up with, “Now, come on, Frank. You know that was the best option we had at the time. We couldn’t all go traipsing over to Santa Elena after she jumped the gun. And she was right, you know. She was the only one of us capable of speaking the native languages, of blending in with the locals and asking the right questions.”

Boss had nearly shit a brick when Vanessa decided to pull a Lone Ranger—minus Tonto—on them. Taking it into her fool head to track Rock on her own before they’d agreed on the specifics of an exfiltration strategy. But to follow her would’ve raised more than a few eyebrows, so they’d been left with no other option but to let her do her thing. And, miracle of miracles, she’d actually found the guy.

Unfortunately, it appeared the CIA had found her.

Boss was right. She wasn’t trained for this shit. But there was nothing to be done for that now.

Boss blew out a hard breath, “Yeah? And now I not only have one, but two operators out there with their heads on the chopping block.”

“Rock won’t let anything happen to Vanessa,” Bill assured him, as certain of that fact as he was that Eve was in the kitchen cursing him to hell. Because no matter what Rock had done…scratch that, no matter what the government was saying he’d done, he would never let harm come to a woman under his protection. “He’ll die before he allows her to get hurt.”

“Yeah,” Boss grimaced. “And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

***

Snap. Crack. The sound of footfalls in the undergrowth drew closer.

And it was back to being a brick wall for Rock. He stilled beneath Vanessa, his chest, which moments before had been heaving with passion, barely moved. She followed suit, raking in a shallow, silent breath as her heart clenched into a tight ball of fear.

Had Rock been wrong? Had the hit teams already made it down this far? Or was that just an animal out there…?

The air inside the hollow tree felt too dense to breathe, like she was sucking molasses into her lungs.

Schick. Tick.

Oh, shitballs, whatever it was, it was big. And, as if on cue, a snuffling sound reached her ears, followed closely by a barking grunt.

Jaguar.

Vanessa’s stomach flipped as every hair on her head stood on end.

Just an animal? Just? Had she really been foolish enough to have that thought? Because there was no just when it came to a friggin’ two-hundred-pound jungle cat with razor sharp teeth and two inch claws.

“Don’t. Move.” Rock whispered.

Yeah, she hadn’t planned on it.

She felt him reach down beneath her thigh, and for a moment she entertained the crazy notion that he was going to try to pick up where they’d left off. And if they were, indeed, seconds away from being devoured by the big cat, she couldn’t say she really blamed him. At least they’d both die happy, doing something pleasurable. But then the hard steel of a gun barrel kissed the inside of her leg.

Okay so they’d likely survive the cat. A couple of slugs from Rock’s SIG would insure that. Unfortunately the resulting gunfire would undoubtedly bring hell raining down on them in the form of the teams of men currently scouring the jungle.

It seemed their luck was holding steady. Because this was definitely a lose/lose situation.

“He smells the blood,” Rock murmured.

Blood? What blood?

“What are you talking about?” she breathed into the darkness, her nearly silent words still managing to sound like a shout inside the hollowed-out log.

“From my neck.”

Huh?

She reached up, careful not to make so much as a sound, and felt the neck in question. Her fingers raked across a long, deep gash and came away sticky with blood. “Jesus, Rock,” she hissed, “are you hit? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“No.” She could feel him shaking his head. “Just a sliver of wood from a tree.”

Like that was so much better. Because bullet or woodchip didn’t make a damned bit of difference when it came to nearly severing your jugular.

“Slowly,” he instructed, “I need you to slide off me. I hear him comin’ ’round to the base of the log.”

And that was bad. Because if they could squeeze inside the tree, the jaguar would have no problem doing the same. The thought of that big cat in here with them was just too horrifying to contemplate.