Shattered Lies (Web of Lies #3)(15)

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Valeria sprinted across the road with the map in one hand and her compass in the other. Her only weapon left with ammunition in it was slung over her shoulder as she raced across the empty street and into the wild. The ground was hard and slippery with dirt and sand. The vegetation was tough and dry as it attacked her jean-clad legs.

The light from the boat was scanning the area as Valeria pushed her way through the low vegetation and into the trees. Calmly, she listened to the boat come to a stop as she read the map and compass. Looking out into the darkness, she envisioned where her extraction was. It was a run into the woods and then up a mountain. At the sound of men jumping off the boat and into the shallow water, Valeria took off in a sprint into the night.

“Ahi!” one of the men shouted a second before a gunshot exploded from the beach. She’d been seen.

Valeria looked down at her white long-sleeved shirt. While it had been a lifesaver in the sun, it was like a glowing neon target in the dark. Not bothering to slow down, Valeria ripped the shirt off and left it behind. She tucked the compass and map into her pocket and moved the gun to her hand as she pushed herself faster in the navy blue tank top she had underneath her shirt.

Not being able to risk leading the men straight to the extraction point, Valeria began to zigzag her path to the meeting point. The trees began to get thicker and the vegetation more lush as she reached the bottom of the mountain. She heard the men after her. They hadn’t been thrown off her trail. Checking her gun, Val turned off the safety and began the climb upward.

Her quads throbbed and burned and her back felt as if it were breaking as she kept bent over to better hide herself in the woods. She darted from palm tree to palm tree, making her way upward as her feet slipped and her calves cramped. The tree line began to thin as she worked her way to the top. Bullets ripped into the palm tree next to her, sending spears of palms flying.

Valeria leapt behind the tree, turned, aimed, and fired down the hill before taking off again. She was breathing hard, her body crying out from the torture it had gone through as she pushed forward. Her lungs burned and her head pounded, but she was still aware of the sound of the men closing in on her.

Valeria burst through the tree line and into the open mountaintop. Instead of stopping, she sprinted across the open area. As bullets dug into the ground around her, Valeria dove for the cover of the tree line on the other side of the clearing. She groaned as she landed partially on a rock before rolling to a stop. She didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself. She didn’t have time to think about the pain. She had to move.

Lying on the ground with a rock and a tree as her cover, Valeria steadied her gun and took aim. She didn’t have bullets to waste. She needed a clear shot every time. She slowed her breathing and cleared her head as she took the first shot. The man running across the clearing dropped.

Valeria rolled behind the rock, only slightly higher than her head, as a hail of gunfire rained down on her. She heard shouts as the men began to fan out. She listened as she lay on her back, staring up at the stars and the bullet-riddled palms. The second the gunfire stopped, she rolled to her left and returned fire. If she was going down, she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.



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Grant saw the gunfire. The flashes from the muzzles of the guns were as bright to him as a flare. He didn’t even need to rely on the Pave Hawk’s night vision. One gun from the far side of the clearing, six or so guns from the other side. Trained to protect his target, Grant turned the helo sharply, putting himself between her and the men firing. He saw the men clearly on his screen as he opened fire.

Grant hovered low and noticed on his night vision display that the lone person had begun to move on the far side of the clearing. He watched as the figure sprinted toward him and laid cover for her. He shot continuously into the woods as he saw his target firing behind her. “Come on, lass,” Grant muttered as the men began to shoot back.



* * *



Valeria tightened her jaw and ran. The helo was right there. She just needed to reach the door. Pain ripped across her arm, sending her slamming face first into the side of the Pave Hawk. Letting out a string of cusswords in multiple languages, Valeria spun and fired with one hand as she used the other to open the copilot’s door.

“Be a good girl and duck, will you?”

Valeria almost argued with the pilot, but when she saw the handgun he was holding out she decided to listen. The man was a freaking mountain and looked like some of the pictures her father had shown her of her distant relatives in the Highlands. He was all wide shoulders, strong neck, and bearded Highlander with a wicked gleam of amusement as he fired three shots over her head.

“There we go. Can you get the door shut?”

“Pòg mo thòin,” Valeria muttered as she shut and locked the door.

Grant laughed a big deep laugh as he pulled the helo up into the air. “I’ll gladly kiss that ass of yours, lass. Bend over.”

Val blinked as she stared at the man hidden behind the helmet and beard. “You speak Scottish Gaelic?”

“Aye. My parents are both from Scotland. What’s more surprising is a Latina speaking it.” Valeria strapped in and really looked at the man who had rescued her. He handled the helicopter expertly even without a copilot. He wasn’t nervous of landing in the middle of a gunfight. There were no signs of the normal adrenaline rush. Shit, she was feeling that rush as she bounced her legs up and down in the red glow of the cockpit. Instead, he calmly flew out over the ocean nice and low. He turned and saw her looking at him and sent her a wink.