Ow.
Sharp pain shot up and down his arm. He probably should have looked for a rock to smash the window with. But soldiers and cops on TV always used their elbow. Of course, they were busting out prop glass, and he was an idiot for not thinking of that before attempting it.
He did pick up a rock, though, and used it to knock the remaining shards of glass out of the frame. He bent down to set the kid on the ground so he could reach inside and grope around for the lock. But she wailed the moment he set her down.
Crap! He scooped her back up, joggling her and whispering frantically to her to hush. He looked up and down the alley in panic, expecting men with assault weapons to come around the corner and make swiss cheese of him any second.
Fortunately, the little girl quieted almost immediately. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so much that she was a good baby as a traumatized one. But he would take it if it meant she was quiet and didn’t draw the shooters to this alley.
It was awkward as hell to reach through the window while holding the kid, and he had to use his left hand to find the lock, but he did eventually feel a deadbolt. He turned it ninety degrees and tried the door. Still locked. Damn. Must be another lock. This time he groped lower and found the doorknob. It had one of those little turn locks in the center of it, and he gave that a twist. This time, when he tried the door, it opened.
Thank God.
He slipped inside and quickly locked the door behind him. Using his cell phone flashlight, he took a quick look around. He was in the storeroom of a pub or restaurant. He found an empty cardboard box, put it up against the broken window, and held it in place with a tall coat stand he dragged over to the window. If it looked like the window wasn’t recently broken and had been patched over, maybe the bad guys wouldn’t feel the need to come in and slaughter whoever was hiding inside. What the heck did they want, anyway? And what did this kid have to do with it? For as sure as he was standing here, Leah had brought the baby to his front door for a reason.
He grabbed several coats and a sweatshirt from the coat stand and went hunting for a hiding spot. A pair of disgusting bathrooms were a possibility, but there was nothing inside to use to barricade the doors. He kept searching and found a tiny, cluttered office with an oversized desk taking up most of the space. And the door opened inward. Better.
He locked himself and the baby inside and braced his feet against the far wall to shove the massive desk up against the door with his hip. He pulled the desk chair out of the way and made a nest out of the coats under the desk. He crawled under it, curling up awkwardly in the little cave with the child.
Finally, he could stop and take a real look at her.
Using his cell phone light again, he examined her, looking more closely for wounds. She had big dark eyes, straight black hair, and almond skin. Petite. She was Asian, Japanese if he had to guess, and cute as a button. He stuck with his first estimate of around eighteen months of age.
She was starting to tremble—maybe cold, maybe shock setting in. He wrapped her in the sweatshirt and cradled her in his arms so her ear was pressed against his heart. He didn’t know much about toddlers, but in his experience with the occasional freaked-out five-year-old, the sound of a heartbeat was calming.
His own shock started to set in, and he pulled one of the coats around both of them, then huddled together in the dark under the desk. All they needed was a blanket over the desk to have a perfect fort. If only.
He was too wired to sleep, too scared by every little noise to do anything but sit there, clutching the little girl close and periodically reassuring her that they were both going to be fine. He hoped.
GUNNER SWUNG his bare feet to the floor, so relieved to have a mission to do, a crisis to handle, that he was nearly sick with it. He eased his weight onto his feet and straightened carefully.
What the hell were they all going on about? His back felt fine. In fact, he didn’t feel it at all. Must be the meds they’d allegedly injected him with. Hell, all they had to do was keep him on these painkillers and he’d be good to go for another few years.
A quick search of the wardrobe in the corner of the room revealed a large plastic bag holding his personal possessions. And more importantly, his rucksack stuffed full of combat gear was stowed inside. Praise the Lord and pass the potatoes. He tried to dress quickly, but truth be told, it was a slow, creaky affair. He pulled on camo pants and his olive-green undershirt and carefully zipped up his jump boots.
All the while, images and snippets of memory kept flashing through his head. Riding banana-seat bicycles with Chas out to the reservoir to swim in the icy cold pond. Sitting in the back of seventh-grade English class blowing spit wads at the blackboard. Getting sent to the office together for that stunt. Crying in Chas’s arms when his dad left him and his mom.
Gunner shook off the flashbacks and used his cell phone to call an old buddy, Rafael Adler, who’d been medically retired from the Air Force after a helicopter crash a few years back. Nowadays Rafe flew chartered jets, mostly. He’d been flying since he was a kid, starting out with crop dusting. He even did some stunt work in Hollywood before landing in the military. Dude had never met a flying machine he couldn’t handle like a pro.
“Hey, Rafe. It’s Gunner Vance.”
“Gun, man. How ya doin’?”
“I’ve been better, but that’s another story. I need a favor, dude. I gotta get to New Hampshire ASAP.”
“How ASAP? I get to stick around a few hours and fuck this hot guy I’m with ASAP, or ditch the date and get my ass to the airport ASAP?”
“Ditch the date. This one is life-or-death. I need to go now.”
Rafe muttered off the line for a second, telling someone to hit the road, and then said briskly, “Where am I filing a flight plan to?” It sounded like he was jogging as he talked. Good man. The guy had worked with the SEALs long enough to understand that now meant now.
“I need to get to a little town upstate called Misty Falls. North of Manchester.”
“’Kay. I’ll find it. How long till wheels up?”
“I can be there in a half hour.”
“I’ll be ready. White Learjet with a red stripe down its side. Tail number Yankee X-ray 84 Zulu.”
“Got it.” He added, “Any chance you could bring me a couple of boxes of 7.62 mm ammo?”
“Regular or Teflon? And do you want hollow points or hydra-shock rounds?”
“Bring me whatever you’ve got on hand, and I’ll be mighty grateful.” Since it had been a training jump, he had his sidearm in his gear, but he hadn’t been carrying live rounds.
“See you soon, Gun.”
“Soon.”
Sneaking out of the hospital turned out to be as easy as looking like he was supposed to be walking down the hall and knew where he was going. He stepped outside just as the ride-share car he’d called pulled up.
“Norfolk International Airport?” the driver called through the open window.
“That’s me.” He was tempted to offer the guy an extra twenty bucks to get him there fast, but the man looked to be pushing sixty years old and was not likely trained in combat driving.
The car pulled away from the hospital sedately, and he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The memories of Chas continued to flow. Sneaking Playboy magazines into his bedroom. He looked at them for the naked women, Chas looked at them for the fashion and the articles. Who in the world opened a Playboy for the damned articles? He snorted over that, even now.