Now, if the hostiles started shooting, that’d be a different story.
Except they, too, were in freaking Maine. No way would they fire at a stranger in the woods. Would they...?
Rio hoped the hell not, because with Ted’s current lack of cover, if these bozos started shooting, he’d be dead. Come on, come on, come on, Ted, don’t do anything stupid, like pull out that handgun you’re hiding in your pocket...
“I said hands!” the commando shouted, “In the air! Now!”
Reveal and distract was their only real option here—although it meant they might get their asses shot—or worse, lose Ted—in the melee, but Rio signaled Dave to spread out and go right while he went to the left.
But before they could burst out of the brush where they were hiding, the prince surprised them all. He launched himself up off the forest floor and ran like hell, back up and over the ridge, heading toward the ski lodge.
It all happened so fast.
Thomas was crouched down, a dozen feet away from where Tasha was hiding as men shouted for someone to freeze; to put their hands in the air.
At first, she thought they were screaming at Thomas and her heart nearly stopped, but he didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as blink. His hand was still up in that Don’t move warning as he continued to listen hard. And she realized, over the sound of her hammering heart, that the voices were some distance away from the hide.
But then she heard crashing noises—like someone was running through the brush. Twigs and branches snapped and broke, dried leaves rattled and crunched. Someone was breathing hard—panting, gasping—as they rushed closer.
Thomas’s face shifted, hardening in steely realization as he went into warrior mode. He glanced at her only briefly, silently mouthing the words, “Do not move.”
The crashing and gasping got louder and louder and...
And oh, God, she saw him then, through the branches of the hide. The man being chased was... Ted...?
Thomas slipped into firefight mode. Everything around him was sharply, crystal clear.
A man stumbled into view, less than forty feet from where Thomas was crouching near Tasha and the hide.
Car. The car that the complained-about Charlie had spotted must’ve belonged to this man, and it was probably parked down on the road, just ready and waiting for Thomas to hotwire and use to get Tasha to safety.
They just had to stay silent, stay still, let this man lead his pursuers away from them without being discovered.
Wait. Was that...?
Fuck.
Thomas turned to look at Tasha and his worst fears were instantly confirmed. He’d only seen photos of the prince as he’d prepped for this assignment, but Tasha’s wide eyes and expression of shock and horror confirmed his positive ID. She even nodded slightly, mouthing his name. “It’s Ted.”
The prince staggered and scrambled to get his footing in the dry leaves, as he tried to get away from the four-man patrol that was now in hot pursuit.
Thomas could hear them coming, closer and closer, making four times the noise as they crashed through the brush.
And he knew exactly what Tasha was thinking as he glanced back into her eyes—that she thought it was time to give herself up. She still believed that she was the one the hostiles were searching for, and she was ready to launch her last-ditch, sacrificial Plan Z.
She was ready to trade her life for theirs.
Not only was she wrong, but Thomas could do this. She had to let him try. Four to one were not great odds, but when the one was a Navy SEAL, armed with a rifle and a shit-ton of luck and good karma...
He shook his head at Tash, just the slightest of movements, silently telling her “Trust me.”
He saw her hesitation and fear. If he was wrong, if he failed, she was going to watch him die, and she knew it—he could see that realization in her eyes.
“Stop or I’ll fucking shoot to kill!” The first of the patrol had crashed into view, his voice shrill with his own fear—not a good indicator that this was going to end peacefully.
But Ted didn’t stop, and time hung as Thomas looked into Tasha’s eyes for what he knew could be the very last time. “Love you,” he told her silently.
And she did it—she trusted him. She nodded.
Her lips moved. “I love you, too.”
And Thomas dove away from the hide, throwing himself toward the cover of that enormous tree, with his weapon already aimed at the man drawing a bead on the prince.
Thomas’s sudden movement made the hostile’s shot go wild, saving Ted’s life.
But it drew the man’s fire to Thomas, and Tasha flinched, desperate to know if the gunman’s second shot had also missed, praying that the tree had kept Thomas from being injured or killed. Please God, please, please God...
Thomas fired back—he wasn’t dead!—and the gunman fell, but now the rest of the patrol had crested the mountain top and they were shooting at him, too. There were three of them, and one of him, and Tasha had never felt so utterly useless and terrified in her entire life.
But she knew if she moved or announced her presence, they’d aim those guns at her. She wouldn’t get to speak—“Wait, don’t shoot! I’m the one you want!” They wouldn’t listen even if she shouted. And Thomas would lose what little chance he had of surviving this as he threw himself in front of her to shield her from their bullets.
Trust me. She did trust him. She forced herself to stay very still even when one of the hostiles moved close enough to the hide for her to hear his unsteady breathing.
He had some kind of radio—or maybe a walkie-talkie. He was using it to call for backup. “We need help,” she heard him say. “Tim, it’s Emmet, we’re under fire, can you hear me, over? I think it’s the SEAL—that motherfucker just will not die.”
That was bad. That was really bad. One against three was one thing. But one against twenty...?
“Goddamnit, Tim,” the man said. “Where the fuck are you? We need backup now, over!”
Tasha looked wildly around her, searching for a large enough branch among the brush that covered her. The biggest was maybe three inches thick.
That didn’t seem to be big enough, but it was going to have to do.
From the corner of his eye, as he kept the second and third hostile from killing the prince by shooting one—two down, two to go—and driving the other back, Thomas saw the fourth gunman duck directly behind the cluttered brush of Tasha’s hide.
Not good.
From his current position, he didn’t have a clear shot that wouldn’t endanger Tash, so he threw himself out from behind the tree, staying low, even as he shouted, “Get to cover!” at the stunned and clearly overwhelmed prince.
“I’ve been shot,” the prince shouted. “I can’t! My leg! I think it’s broken!”
Somehow Ted had been hit—his blood bright red against the brown leaves. Thomas grabbed him to pull him back toward the same tree he’d used for protection.
The prince said something that sounded like “Wait!” before it melted into a howl of pain.
Yeah sorry no, not waiting. Thomas dumped him there—“Stay down!”—and scrambled around toward the back of the hide when—Jesus!—Tasha erupted from the tangle of branches, screaming and swinging a branch like a baseball bat.