Close To Danger (Westen #4)(65)
“Only you didn’t.”
His mind slammed back into the hot, steamy jungle. Gunfire and shouting filling his ears.
“Mostly thanks to Bulldog and Snake. The group ambushed us as we came out of the hut. Cannon got hit in the leg, then in the neck. Bulldog put pressure on it while Snake set up cover-fire for us. The CIA agent helped Bulldog get Cannon to the edge of the forest before he took one in the head. Bruno, who had taken one in the shoulder and arm, dragged him as far as he could. Snake and I took out as many of the enemy as we could, including the traitorous guide, so the others could get into the surrounding jungle. We managed to go about two klicks before I realized Snake wasn’t keeping up. He’d taken a shot just beneath his tactical vest. Bulldog said it must’ve hit his spleen.
“By the time we found a place to take cover, we realized that the guide had lead us in a serpentine route, backing up on our own trail at few times, so finding our way out on our own with three wounded men—two near critical—was near impossible. We dug in and pulled the sat phone out to contact the agency and ask for an extraction team with a helo to get us out. It was shot to hell.”
“Dear God, you were trapped with no help coming?”
He nodded, biting down on his lower lip to stop the rising anger the memory elicited. “With the wounded men, Bulldog did his best. Cannon died first. Mere minutes after we found our hiding spot inside what looked like a spider web of tree trunks surrounding this huge thick tree. The bullet nicked his carotid artery. If he’d been in a city with a major trauma center and he’d gotten on the table quickly he might’ve made it.”
“But not in a jungle with little medical aide,” Chloe said with quiet compassion.
Tears stung his eyes. He clenched his jaw tight and fought to stop them. “Bruno didn’t tell us how bad his wounds were. Bulldog had me holding pressure on Snake’s side to stop the bleeding there and went to check on the stubborn Italian. He’d been hit in the brachial artery and what we thought was a shoulder shot turned out to be in his chest and his lung collapsed. Bulldog tried a tourniquet on his arm, but he’d already lost a lot of blood from it and in his chest. It was just after dark when Bruno died.”
“And Snake?” she asked.
“God, he was the worst. There was nothing Bulldog could do. The spleen is such a vascular organ, he bled internally even with us keeping pressure to the site. He lingered for hours. Begged us for water, then talked about his kid sister. Then begged us not to let him die. Then asked us to kill him. At some point, he started bleeding out his eyes and nose. Bulldog called it DIC. Something about the clotting system knowing there’s bleeding somewhere, but not sure where. All these clots form in capillaries but not where they’re needed. And your body just bleeds out.”
“Oh, how awful.” Chloe wriggled up to press her lips to his chin, wrapping her arms tightly around him. The tears started and this time he didn’t try to stop them.
“I’d never seen anything like it. The other guys went quickly. Poor Isaac. His lungs gave out before his heart.”
A shudder ran through him and he clutched Chloe to him like an anchor in a violent storm, the tears and pain ripping from his body. She held him tight as he finally let those memories out. He’d refused counseling of any kind when he got home. Choosing instead, to leave the agency and wander until he landed in Westen.
The fire had died to a few burning coals by the time he’d settled down, Chloe’s body draped over him like a warm, soft blanket.
“How did you get home?” she asked.
“Once we buried all four of the others, Bulldog and I headed south, following a river that wound through the jungle. We were hoping it would lead us to a bigger tributary, maybe into the Amazon. We walked for days. Then the funniest thing happened.”
“What?”
“We stumbled upon a team of American scientists studying flowers and trees indigenous to the area for possible use in medicines. They fed us and helped us to get to a place where we could get picked up by our agency.” He sucked in a deep breath, then let it out in a slow shuddering motion. “Such a fucking waste. The hostage lost. The young agent gone. And three of my men. I knew it was a bad set-up deep in my gut. Should’ve called the damn mission off.”
Suddenly, Chloe was up on her arms, leaning over him. “Stop it. Stop it right now. This was not your fault. You had a job to do, get that idiot home. The CIA agent should’ve vetted his guide better. You can blame the CEO for getting himself in the mess in the first place. You can blame the guide for selling you out. You can blame the agent for not doing his job, but you will not blame yourself for not being psychic. That’s an order, do you hear me?”
The fierceness in her face did two things to him. First it washed over his own sense of guilt like clean water over a dirty car, taking most, but not all the grit and grime away. Secondly, having her get all dominatrix on him had him hard as a rock again.
Slowly he grinned up at her. “If I don’t follow your orders?”
Her face softened and heated with desire at the same time. She climbed up to straddle his hips, his erection pressed between their bodies. “Then I might just have to convince you who’s in charge here.”
As she leaned down to capture his mouth with hers, he’d decided he’d be a very willing pupil.