LITMIR.BIZ

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      As if she hadn’t spoken, he tossed the bundles aside. “Duncan,” he said, raising his voice. “Come over here and hold the kid for me.”

      “Sorry, Jack,” he said, his fingers flying over the keyboard of a laptop computer. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

      “Junior?”

      The man at the tailgate shook his head without turning around. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know anything about babies.”

      “What’s to know? Pretend she’s a bomb.”

      “Nope. Bombs are more predictable.”

      Eva crooked one arm around Katya. “She’ll be frightened without me. This isn’t necessary.”

      Sergeant Norton frowned and looked at Eva. “I’m a medic. While I’m not a doctor, I have been trained in basic first aid.” He closed the knife with a flick of his wrist that made him look more like a hoodlum than a doctor. “And I intend to assess your wound.”

      “No, I—”

      “Ma’am, I understand you’re scared and for some reason you don’t want to admit that you’re hurt, but you’re going to have to trust me on this. You won’t be any good to your baby if you pass out from blood loss.”

      She couldn’t argue with that reasoning. Not that she was going to trust him, but for Katya’s sake, she had to allow him to help her. That was the logical thing to do. And this was hardly the time to think of pride or modesty. Not with their survival at stake. Eva glanced past him at the other two men, but their attention appeared totally focused on their tasks. The window to the cab of the truck seemed too grimy to see through, even if the men in the front chose to look back. She pressed her lips together and gave a curt nod.

      Sergeant Norton undid the knots that held the sling behind her neck and waist, then lifted Katya out. He supported the baby stiffly across both his palms for a moment, as if unsure what to do with her. Taking advantage of her sudden freedom, Katya began wriggling and kicking her feet. The nylon snowsuit she wore was slippery, causing him to juggle her awkwardly.

      “Cup your hand under her head and lay her along your arm,” Eva said, motioning toward him. “Like an American football player.”

      It took a few attempts for the sergeant to comprehend what she described. Finally, he managed to do as she instructed, tucking Katya’s legs under the crook of his elbow so he could hold her with only one hand. The baby looked tiny against his body, yet she was apparently happy with her new position. She brought her thumb to her mouth and stopped squirming.

      As soon as Eva reassured herself that Katya was being held securely, the strength she’d managed to summon began to ebb. Without the warmth of her daughter against her chest, there was nothing to distract her from the pain that radiated across her ribs. She inhaled hard, then started the pattern of shallow panting once more.

      Keeping the baby cradled against his side with one arm, Sergeant Norton clamped the flashlight between his teeth. With his free hand he pinched the lower edge of Eva’s sweater and pulled it upward.

      Her blouse clung wetly to her skin. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as the fabric was peeled away. The stinging deepened. Something hot trickled down her side to the waistband of her pants.

      He let the flashlight drop from his mouth. “This is getting to be a bad habit of yours, Dr. Petrova.”

      Eva exhaled on a hiss. “What?”

      “You’re trying to hide things under your coat again.”

      “Sergeant, I’m not—”

      “Save your breath, ma’am,” he said. His fingertips were featherlight as he touched her side. “It wasn’t any splinter that caused this wound. It was a bullet.”

      The storm blew in faster than any of Duncan’s meteorological program models had predicted, and as luck would have it, they were driving straight into the thick of it. The packed dirt that served as the road had already disappeared beneath a layer of snow. It was falling so fast that Jack could barely see the tracks they’d left behind them. Kurt had reduced his speed to maintain control as the wind buffeted the truck, but they were no longer concerned about making the rendezvous. Until the storm let up, the chopper wouldn’t be coming. The objective now was to find somewhere to wait it out.

      Jack let the tarp fall back into place and glanced over his shoulder. Eva had her eyes closed and was leaning against the side of the truck, but he knew she wasn’t sleeping because her hands were curled in a white-knuckled grip over the baby. At his insistence, she’d laid the kid on her lap instead of returning her to the bed-sheet carrier and strapping her back on. It was her only concession to the compress that Jack had taped over her ribs.

      That woman was giving him one surprise after another. Jack couldn’t think of a single female of his acquaintance who would have even dreamt of concealing a bullet wound—or would have been capable of trying. Most men wouldn’t have endured it as stoically as Eva had. And to top it off, her main concern, once she’d learned she’d been shot, was to ensure that the bullet had missed her baby.

      Damn, she was something.

      Beside him, Tyler adjusted the canvas to minimize the amount of snow that curled in and resumed his watch through the gap that remained. In spite of the weather, he hadn’t relaxed his vigilance. “How bad is it?” he asked.

      Jack knew Tyler wasn’t referring to the storm. Though the other men had concentrated on their own responsibilities while they’d left Jack to tend to Eva, they would be as concerned about her condition as he was. “The bullet only grazed her,” he replied, keeping his voice low so she wouldn’t overhear. “It lost most of its velocity when it passed through the side panel of the truck.”

      “So it’s not serious?”

      “No, it’s minor. She was lucky. There was no penetration. Just a shallow gouge where it skimmed along her rib cage.” Just? Sure, if he’d been talking about one of the guys, he’d laugh this one off. They referred to anything that didn’t involve broken bones or major organs as a flesh wound, and Eva’s was just a flesh wound. “It’s ugly, but the bleeding was already slowing down. She’ll need some plastic work once we get back if she doesn’t want a scar.”

      “It must have stung like hell when she got hit.”

      “Yeah.”

      “She never said a word. Why do you figure that?”

      It was a question Jack had already asked himself. He’d noticed that Eva had been in rough shape as soon as she’d sat up. Her sweater was black so he hadn’t been able to see the blood on it right away, but she probably wouldn’t have allowed him to touch her at all if he hadn’t used the ruse about examining her kid first. Her defensiveness had begun long before she’d been injured. She’d been prickly from the moment he’d confirmed her identity. “She doesn’t fully trust us,” he replied. “My guess is she’s worried that we’ll take the disk and leave her behind.”

      “Smart woman,” Tyler said. “She must have realized what the brass are really after. There’s some heavy-duty stuff on that disk.”

      “Yeah, well, then it’s a good thing we take our orders from Major Redinger. He doesn’t have much use for politics.”

      “Wonder what he’ll say when he finds out about the kid.”

      “Knowing the major, he’ll probably add babies to the list of possible scenarios we have to cover when we train for the next mission.”

      Tyler grunted a laugh. “You could use the practice. You looked like you were getting ready to rush the kid through the Giants’ front four.”

      “The football grip was Eva’s idea. It worked, too. Want me to show it to you?”

      “No, thanks. Give me a nice, safe bomb any day.” He tipped his rifle to blow the snow off the scope.

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