She also felt naked, until she reached up and clasped her necklace. She"d loved the start of surprise from the audience when she"d unclicked it and hooked up the special USB end on it. The enemy had to be kicking themselves over that. She"d been asked to come back in a few days for a more in-depth session. Of course she"d been pleased to accept.
But she wouldn"t be showing them everything until she had a contract. She had a long list of add-ons she wanted to develop. She had to decide on a priority list first. And hire more help. She frowned, her fingers pleating the sheets.
Poor Robert. He hadn"t survived. His body had been found, dumped in the woods by his house.
The whole scenario felt...odd now. There"d been so much tension, fear...just that unknowing had driven her for so long she felt cut off. At loose ends in a way. As if adrift and no idea of what to do or how to do it.
Maybe that was okay too.
She closed her eyes and drifted. There were sounds in the hallway. Doctors talking. Clipped footsteps. Her room was empty and there were birds chirping outside yet everything was muted. She yawned again and snuggled deeper.
Sleep waited just outside of her awareness. But she couldn"t seem to get there. She needed sleep.
Sinking deeper she reached for it.
And slept.
She barely felt the needle go into her arm. Or the sheets under her lifting as she was moved to another bed. As the awareness of something happening to her filtered into her subconscious, she struck out, her arms falling limply at her side. The cold hit her next as she was suddenly outside. Then inside a vehicle. She struggled to open her eyes, but there was a weird set of colors everywhere. She had no idea what the heck was going on.
"Mason," she cried, only her voice was weak as a kitten.
She collapsed back to the bed, and the last thing she heard was someone saying, "She"s out. Finally."
"Good, the plane is ready. Let"s get the h.e.l.l out of this d.a.m.n country."
HAWK HEARD THE rustling beside him. They weren"t in rooms yet just in the small examining rooms. His head was booming like a series of rockets going off.
Mason walked in. "Hey. What are you still doing in bed?"
"Trying to get this a.s.shole in my head to stop trying to break his way out." He waved to the s.p.a.ce around them. "This is hardly even a room. You can hear everything. It"s making my head boom like rockets going off."
"You"re off duty until that"s fixed."
"Good luck with that. Loved the nurse, I overheard her say something to Tesla about no more running around and she needed to rest."
"Yeah, like that girl needs the reminder."
"I know." Hawk grinned. "She"s good people."
Mason nodded, staring at the curtain that surrounded Tesla. He"d tried to see her earlier, but the nurse had kept him away. Only now there appeared to be several people in there. And why was that?
"The doctors maybe?" Hawk suggested in a low voice, but he didn"t sound like he believed it himself. Mason slid to the curtain and peered around the corner. Two men dressed as orderlies were moving her to another bed, only she didn"t seem pleased to go. Was she hitting them? d.a.m.n. The men pushed the bed to the door and maneuvered it out into the hallway.
He watched a moment longer until the man whose back was facing him, turned slightly. Just enough that he could see his profile.
Daniel.
He spun and stared at Hawk, who"d already bolted to his feet. They raced down the hall in the direction the gurney had driven.
By the time they found them again, the orderlies had pushed Tesla down the far end of a hallway and turned the corner. With a shout, they raced after her, catching sight of them again as they barreled out to the loading bay in time to see Tesla loaded into the back of a waiting ambulance and the men jumping into the front.
"Stop," Mason roared as the doors slammed shut. He sprinted to the vehicle only to have it rip out of the parking lot just as he tried to jump onto the back.
"G.o.d d.a.m.n it," Mason was already calling in the license plate when a jeep came screaming around the corner.
Swede pulled up in front, they hopped in and he took off after the ambulance.
"Why didn"t you take them out at the hospital?" Swede asked.
"Guns in a hospital are never a good thing," Hawk said, his phone ringing.
"And this has to stop once and for all," Mason snapped. "If they are meeting someone then we need to finish this."
He s.n.a.t.c.hed up his phone and listened to an update on the situation. A small plane had caught the radar this morning out in the old airstrip primarily used now for pilot training. A team were there now. The plane had landed last night and was lined up with several other private planes. The other planes were registered and owners were local. Not this one. According to the recent intel, there was no pilot and the plane was just parked.
He relayed the information to the others.
"And if that"s not the way these guys are going?"
"Then we take them out sooner than later," Mason snapped.
"Not to worry, look..." he pointed as the ambulance turned down s.e.xsmith Road, which was the old highway.
"Right direction but it"s going to be obvious if we follow," Hawk said.
"No. We can take the shortcut from Taylor Ave and come out ahead of them."
"And take a chance of losing them?" Hawk asked. "We need eyes in the sky on them."
"Already in progress. Should be overhead in a couple of minutes." In fact, he could hear the sounds of a helicopter approaching from the left.
"Isn"t an ambulance a little too visible for a getaway vehicle?"
"Oh h.e.l.l. That"s right, they are doing practice rescues at the airstrip today. EMT drills. The ambulance is going to fit right in."
s.h.i.t. Mason watched as several other ambulances took the turnoff heading in the same direction. That was three now. d.a.m.n it.
The helicopter quickly relayed all were heading to the same location. Without needing to hide any longer, the men moved up between the second and third ambulance. And using the helicopter, kept an eye on the first one.
The convoy hit the old airstrip in ten minutes. The ambulances lined up on the side with the people exiting and gathering around. Mason had no idea what the training schedule was for the EMTs, but he knew Tesla wasn"t supposed to be part of it.
Swede drove to the far side of the planes. They quickly disembarked and raced to the plane.
His communicator crackled. "Someone is boarding."
His men moved into position. Mason, hidden behind the wheel on the far side watched as Tesla was picked up and carried to the small set of stairs.
There"s no way he was letting that plane take off.
A hawk"s cry rent the air. The man carrying Tesla raced toward the stairs and was up in a flash. The third man stopped and turned. Daniel.
Mason stood up. "h.e.l.lo, Daniel."
Daniel made a startled movement then turned to face him, his hands in his pockets, casual like. "Well, Mason. We meet again."
Mason walked over. "You"re not leaving with her, Daniel."
"I am," Daniel said in a conversational tone. "Not sure why you care though."
"Why do you?" Mason snapped. "She already handed over the software."
"Ah, but she"s the brains behind it and some of her other ideas now... That"s what the buyer is interested in."
"Not happening."
Daniel tilted his arm and shot through his jacket pocket. Just a single pop. Mason had already moved. He came in low and hard and had Daniel on the ground in seconds. With his knee on the gun and his thumb digging into Daniel"s neck, he whispered, "You should have chosen someone else, Daniel."
Gasping for air, Daniel asked, "Why?"
He shoved his face into Daniel"s. "She"s one of us now."
"Like h.e.l.l."
Hawk stood behind Mason. "He"s right."
"She"s not a d.a.m.n SEAL. No way she"d make it."
Mason smiled gently. "I bet that rubs, doesn"t it? See, she has something you will never have."
"Loyalty," Hawk said.
"Courage," Dane piped up behind him, pushing the pilot and third man, now cuffed ahead of him.
"Endurance," Swede offered, carrying Tesla in his arms over to the group.
"Determination," Cooper said, walking around from the other side of the plane.
"Grit," said Shadow.
"And on top of all of those, she"s got heart," Mason admitted. "And a lot of it. She"s SEAL through and through."
"She"s nothing but a d.a.m.n woman," Daniel snapped in an ugly tone. "They are good for one thing and one thing only."
"Oh, programming software to save lives?" Mason asked in a mocking voice. "Well, you"ll get a lot of time to think about how she beat you out in all those categories too because you"re going away for a long time."
"I"m going nowhere." Daniel lunged upward and slid a knife out toward Mason.
The single bullet went through his forehead and blew out the back of his brain.
Silence reigned.
Mason spun around to see Swede, a shocked look on his face stare down at the woman in his arms. And his gun that she"d s.n.a.t.c.hed from his shoulder holster was still pointed at the fallen man.
"Jesus, Tesla." Mason raced to her side.
She held the gun up for Swede to put away, and whispered, "If we wipe my prints off, no one will know I did that, right?"
Swede cast a long look in her direction then another around at the dozen or so people converging on them and shook his head. "You could try that line. Not sure it"s going to work though."
"d.a.m.n."
Mason stood in front of her and glared. He couldn"t believe what he"d just heard. And she had the nerve to lift her nose into the air and cling to Swede"s arm.
As if he"d protect her from Mason"s wrath.
"Do you ever do the expected," he exclaimed.
"What? I was supposed to let him kill you? Besides, Swede"s arms were a little busy," she snapped. Her face turned crafty. "Basically, we could just say he used me to shoot Daniel."
"Whoa, leave me out of it," Swede protested.
Mason groaned. He turned away and ran his fingers through his hair as he stared at the rest of the team now surrounding them. They all wore big grins.
"It"s definitely time," Hawk said, smirking.
"Time for what?"
"Time to tell us if you"re keeping her," Swede said from behind him. "Cause if you aren"t then I am."
"h.e.l.l no, I am," Hawk snarled.
Cooper spoke up behind them. "Uhm, if we"re placing bids..."
"No. This field is closed." Hawk shook his head at his old friend. "And you were too d.a.m.n late."
"It"s too d.a.m.n late for all of you," snarled Mason, his voicing thundering as he added, "I"m keeping her."
Silence.
And he turned around, a frown on his livid face. "Now if only she"d stop going missing!"
Chapter 28.