LITMIR.BIZ

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climbed in the SUV. “Bug out the CP.” He’d catch up when they didn’t have so many soldiers climbing up their ass.

      The chopper engine grew louder as it closed in. Logan pulled her with him toward her VW, threw down the hood and climbed in, then turned over the engine.

      She was already beside him. “You can’t outrun that chopper.”

      “I don’t have to.” He got out and leaned against the hood as if he had all the time in the world.

      “Those guys are armed, you know that, right?”

      “They’ll think we’re civilians.”

      The chopper lowered over the area, kicking up dirt and leaves in an opaque spin of debris. Then the door slid open.

      “Logan. Let’s go.”

      A man hopped out before the skids touched down, and two more followed, armed with assault rifles. Prisoner guards didn’t carry more than a pistol. The leading man hurried forward, then froze when Logan aimed.

      “You’d better be ready to shoot something—!”

      “I’m trying. Hush, please.” Logan realized the man wasn’t looking at the weapon trained on him, but at Tessa. He fired. The van exploded, the charge ripping the tire off the rim and pushing the vehicle on its side.

      “I don’t believe you did that!” she said as he got in. “Cool move.”

      He threw it in gear and hit the gas. Dirt spit from the tires, and they shot forward, bouncing over the road. A secondary explosion rocked the darkness and she flinched, hunched, then twisted in the seat to see it tear through the side of the van, ripping metal like tissue and kicking the rear up. It landed on its roof.

      “Do you always piss off the host before you leave a party?”

      “When we don’t have cover, and he knows this land better than we do, hell yes.”

      She couldn’t argue that. “See, that’s why you’re the commando and I’m not.”

      Logan glanced in the side-view mirrors. “Damn, it didn’t hurt the chopper.”

      “Wonderful, a few more deaths averted.”

      “I don’t remember you being this whiny.”

      “It comes with age.” She smiled to herself, and despite the danger felt only relief that he hadn’t died on some operation in a Third World country in the name of democracy.

      Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes, turned the wheel, throwing her against the side as he drove the car down an alley. They splashed through puddles, the little car struggling up a hillside. Once they crested it, he took his foot off the gas, coasting the car on its own power. He didn’t check the streets, but the sky.

      “We need to get out of sight.” Deep, he thought, thinking like a wanted felon and doing the opposite.

      She tapped him, pointed. “Under there.”

      Logan turned the wheel and slid the car beneath a blue tarp awning sandwiched next to a house. He shut off the engine.

      “It might not start again,” she said.

      “We have to leave it. Come on.” He got out.

      She stood on the other side. “We lost them, we’re okay.”

      He gave her a dry look over the top of the car. “You never were very good at this.”

      “That’s why I left.”

      His expression darkened, and she came around the back of the car. “It was the way you did it.”

      “I had my reasons.”

      “Care to share them?”

      “Not really.” Not if she wanted her life back. She knew all this was a desperate attempt to recapture the moments before that call, and behave as if nothing had changed. But as she stared into his eyes, she knew nothing would be the same. It was cruel, but Logan wasn’t ready to hear it. He’d never believe her. “I did my part, you’re free to do whatever it was you were doing.” She flicked her hand the way they’d come, then turned in the other direction.

      “You’re just all sorts of misbehaving lately, aren’t you?” He swung her around with him in the other direction, walking the alley.

      “Stop talking to me like I’m some kid, Chambliss, and why are we rushing?”

      “To get out of sight.”

      “And why should I come with you? Jeez, Logan, slow down.”

      “Tessa,” he said patiently, though she was practically running beside him. “They’ve chosen to hunt us instead of my team. They won’t stop looking. There was surveillance in the house we didn’t know about.” Not to that extreme, Logan thought. Someone had a voyeuristic fetish. “They know our faces and they were looking for something.”

      Her insides seized.

      “Now, I don’t have a thing from Ramos, but you were already there. So what did he give you?”

      She felt the clamminess of the leather tucked against her stomach and Tessa had two good reasons for not showing it to him. This was her problem, and he’d want to help. He was that kind of guy. Well…except maybe now.

      “They don’t have video of me. He told me where the cameras were located.”

      He scowled. Their pursuers’ interest in her in particular said otherwise.

      “I knew how to get to him, and it was easy. I studied the layout.” She shrugged. “Somewhat. The plans are public record, the press knows his routine.”

      “Clever. You haven’t been working the game?” But he knew the answer.

      “Oh God, no. I’m a National Geographic Society location scout.”

      “No roots.”

      “I couldn’t have any.”

      “Except him.”

      She blinked. “You’re jealous?”

      “Don’t flatter yourself. I could have told you not to trust him. Or didn’t I mention that before?”

      “Now you’re just being sarcastic,” she said.

      “But that doesn’t tell me what he gave you.”

      “We talked.”

      “So then, what did he tell you?” Frustration laced his voice.

      “Do you really want to get into this right now?”

      “Just so you know,” he said, taking her by the arm. “I’m not long on patience anymore.”

      “Yeah, well,” she said. “You’d be surprised how stubborn I’ve gotten over the years.”

      He’d already noticed that difference in her and the irony of this struck him. She’d pretended to die, while Ramos, as Garcia, pretended to live.

      His problem was that eleven years hadn’t lessened her effect on him. He felt choked by it, and when he turned his head to look at her, he got the full impact of her pale, pleading eyes, the rich brown hair streaked with gold flowing wildly past her shoulders. Her skin still looked incredibly smooth, tanned, and his gaze slid to her throat, dove lower as rounded skin disappeared under the clingy neckline, the dark shorts exposing her muscled thighs.

      She was still gorgeous in a kick-your-ass sorta way. More striking than delicate. Everything about her was vibrant, and very different from the woman who was shaking in her boots when she’d passed herself off as a Chechen courier and fast-talked her way around hired guns to access a faction leader. He frowned, dragging his gaze from her and staring at nothing in particular as he remembered her hand on his arm, as if she wanted human contact one last time before she faced the devils with AK-47s

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