shoulder. Breathing was an effort now as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
He laid her body on the ground, careful to move her gently. “Don’t leave me,” she pleaded as she felt his hands move away.
“Don’t worry,” he bent over to kiss her forehead. “We’re going home.”
“America?” A light shone ever so briefly in those beautiful eyes.
“Yeah,” he lied bravely. “America.”
He looked up to see Hamid standing over them, a grim, shadowed look on the Iraqi’s face. “She’s not going to make it,” he stated, his voice quiet.
“She needs a medic,” Thomas shot back, unwilling to face it. Not now. “Do you have IVs?”
Hamid started to nod, then movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to turn. Just as the shooting started.
Harun dove toward the ground as the Americans started to return fire, cursing as he did so. One of his men had lost his nerve and opened up too soon. He saw the offender stagger and fall, cut down by enemy fire, and Harun smiled. Justice…
“Get him back to the vehicle!” Hamid yelled, going prone near the body of the horse and aiming his AK-74 over the corpse.
Two Rangers took hold of Thomas by the arms and pulled him away from the scene, hurrying him back toward the border and the waiting Humvee.
Hamid toggled the switch on his lip mike. “Disengage and fall back. We are on the wrong side of the border. I repeat, disengage.”
He knelt by the girl’s side, feeling carefully for a pulse. There was none. His gaze swept over her bullet- riddled torso, up to where her sightless eyes stared skyward. Such a waste, he reflected, taking his fingers and gently closing her eyes in a final gesture of respect. Time to go…
“We just received a message from Officer Zakiri,” the communications officer stated, poking her head into Daniel Lasker’s cubicle. “They have Parker and are exfiltrating from the Qandil. He’s been shot in the side, a flesh wound.”
“They had trouble, Michelle?”
The woman nodded. “An Iranian helicopter showed up just as they were crossing. They were forced to bring it down.”
Lasker took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll need to wake up the DCIA. We’ve got to start putting together a story. Do they have the blood samples?”
“I don’t know,” she replied after a moment. “Zakiri didn’t say.”
“Then call him back. Lay will want to know.”
Thomas winced as the Humvee went over a bump, feeling pain shoot through his side as the adrenaline faded from his system. Hamid was wrapping a bandage around his mid-section and he looked up into the Iraqi’s eyes. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
A nod was the only reply he received. Thomas fell silent, fighting against the emotions inside him. To have left her that way.
Hamid’s TACSAT went off and he motioned for Davood to pick it up, as he tightened the bandage firmly against the wound.
“They want to know if we have the vials,” Davood stated over a moment, covering the phone with his hand.
A look of surprise spread over the Iraqi’s face. “Didn’t you get them?”
“No.”
Hamid banged his fist against the door of the Humvee, swearing under his breath. “We can’t go back for it- that place is swarming with military. Tell Langley that the mission was a wash.”
“Wait.” It was Thomas’s voice.
“What’s the matter?”
Grimacing against the pain, he reached into the remnants of his jacket and pulled a pair of vials from an inner pocket. “I got these.”
“Affirmative, Langley,” Davood responded. “The package is secure. In transit.”
“The front door just opened. We have a twenty on Nichols.”
“He’s leaving early,” Vic observed, stamping his feet against the ground. “Are you ready to move, Terri?”
“Already on the road,” the woman’s voice replied over his headset.
Harry felt the lock click behind him and then he was out, into the darkness. There was something he loved about this time, the early morning before the world was awake. He was a creature of the night, at his most comfortable when surrounded by darkness.
But something was wrong. He could feel it in the air. He was wearing a light jacket, the.45 holstered underneath close to his side.
He picked up the pace, jogging out onto the country road that ran past his house. The countryside had changed greatly since his parents had been alive, the urban sprawl spreading out from Alexandria and Richmond in all directions. But Cypress had somehow escaped, remaining a largely rural community. At times, that was a good thing.
“Start moving, Vic. I’m on him.”
At her words, he leaped from his cover and ran toward the back door of the manor, ducking low to minimize his silhouette against the moonlight.
The security system was sophisticated, but nothing he wasn’t capable of handling. His only problem was time-Nichols’ early departure had thrown them. Was he going to stick to his routine, or cut the run short today?
The woman had been behind him for ten minutes. She wasn’t a local, Harry knew that much for certain. It was the main reason he still lived in Cypress, despite the commute and other disadvantages. Someone who didn’t belong stuck out like a sore thumb.
Speaking of sore… He slowed down and limped to the side of the road, sitting down and breathing heavily.
Her pace never slackened as she ran toward him and he watched her come, his hand across his stomach and near the butt of his Colt.
“You all right?” she asked, slowing as she came up. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, a pleasant if not pretty face gazing down upon him. A wire ran from her ear to what looked like an MP3 player at her waist.
