Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)(117)
The pilot seemed outright baffled at what went down on his watch and mostly behind his back. He’d tried to set Eagle Two back on the ground, but the VP bellowed about some bomb. Said he had to get out of D.C. before it went off. Keep flying!
While the VP ranted, the stranger returned fire with both renegade Secret Service agents, but not before one of them accidently shot the VP. Again, the frantic pilot attempted to set the chopper down despite the VP screaming at him not to land, but the craft had lost its hover. He had no choice. It crashed. Its rotors took out a good portion of the White House front lawn and the fence. The fuselage, recently refueled with jet fuel because the VP specifically demanded a full tank, burst into flames.
The pilot explained how he never showed up with less than a full tank in Eagle Two anyway. In his opinion, Vice President Winston must have gone berserk.
The stranger and the honest Secret Service agent pulled the VP and the pilot from the wreckage. Before they could return for the renegade agents, the craft exploded. The stranger, whom nobody seemed able to adequately describe except for his icy-blue eyes, dodged back into the flaming aircraft and retrieved the VP’s briefcase.
The hero of the night ended up being the first D.C. police officer on the scene. The stranger slapped the VP’s briefcase into the bewildered man’s chest and told him to “make sure the President gets this.”
Details were still sketchy, but the FBI announced they had linked a local terrorist organization called Chaos Now to the renegade Secret Service agents and possibly Vice President Winston. Police held the chopper pilot as a possible co-conspirator, although he protested he knew nothing. The stranger who’d assisted in rescuing the pilot and the VP? Nowhere to be found.
“I’m going,” Gabe told Shell again. He’d already re-attached his prosthetic before breakfast arrived. Time to move. “Get these tubes out of me. My boss is alive and I’m going to find him, wherever he is.”
“It’s an IV line, not tubes,” she replied, “and no. You’re staying. Get back into bed.”
“I’m going.” Both bare feet were on the floor by then. True, only one could feel the cool linoleum. Again, so what? With two good legs or not, Marines don’t end operations in a flimsy hospital gown with the guys sending rude get well cards and flowers. Or worse yet, paying a visit. No way. They hustled back to HQ and debriefed their CO. Gabe needed to move out of there. Fast.
Shelby had other plans. “Stop being difficult. You’re staying.”
He lifted his ass off the bed, despite the draft on his bare derrière. “And I said—”
“You’re staying,” Zack muttered at the open door. “Cover that rearview, Cartwright. Damn it. Ladies are in the room.”
Gabe glanced over his shoulder, dropping back to the bed because there stood Kelsey, her eyebrows lifted in surprise. He waved her and Zack into his room while he tucked a sheet over his legs, ignoring the heat wave creeping up his neck. The last thing she needed to see was his ass, but did she already know that her husband was back in town? He gulped. She had to know. It was on all the news channels. But if she did, why was she there?
“Kelsey! You’re back.” Both ladies hugged each other as if they’d been separated for years instead of one long day and a night.
Zack ambled in, offering the seat by the window to Kelsey. He dropped a brown paper bag near the counter. “I brought you a change of clothes and your boots, kid.”
Gabe tamped down his excitement, not sure how to break the news. Zack didn’t seem to know, either. What’d they do? Avoid all the news channels all night long?
“What the hell have you and Kelsey been doing since Mark told you to get out of town?” Gabe had to know. He would’ve been glued to the news, waiting for the dirty bomb to blow. What could’ve been more important?
Zack crossed his arms over his chest and shot Kelsey one of his famous spiked eyebrows. “Don’t ask me. Ask the boss.”
She shrugged and lifted her brows too, only she looked guilty. “I wouldn’t leave town, Gabe, and he couldn’t make me, so, umm. We spent the night at my new vet’s animal hospital. Because of Dr. Carin Davis, my boys are going to be okay. Whisper took a drink of water this morning and Smoke got to his feet.”
“And I’ve got a kink in my back that runs all the way down to my boots,” Zack growled, his hand to the back of his neck. “She slept in the kennel with Whisper and—”
“And you slept with Smoke?” Gabe asked, a big shitty smile cracking his face. What a cool picture, this big tough ex-Marine sleeping on the ground with a sick dog. All night. No wonder they hadn’t heard the news, but wow. Were they in for a surprise.
Gabe wanted to be on his feet when he told them. He tried again. “Give me a hand, Zack. Come on. Get this IV line out of my hand. I’ve got something to tell you.”
All he got in answer was a shrug from two massive shoulders and the twinkle in Zack’s brown eyes. “Don’t look at me, bro. I’ve been where you are. You’ve been shot. I say you’re staying.”
“Like hell. He’s going.”
Oh God, no. Alex had just cleared the door. Damn. He looked ready to get back to work, dressed in his charcoal-gray business suit, crisp blue shirt, and black tie—and shocked as hell to see Kelsey.
She jumped to her feet, one hand to her mouth. “Alex?”