much everything before the fire service had been able to contain it. At least the woods surrounding the compound had not been affected. The fifty-foot expanse of dirt around the perimeter had made an effective fire barrier.
Tyler McCall was a man who prepared for every eventuality. Even someone trying to blow him up apparently. He’d been sleeping in a secret bedroom that students and faculty alike knew nothing about.
Daniel understood that kind of caution. All soldiers for hire did. Few men could be trusted in a world where money bought a soldier’s allegiance. He’d been damn lucky to hook up with Wolf and Hotwire, but they were getting out of the business, setting up some kind of security consultant firm. He wasn’t ready for that kind of stability yet. Maybe he never would be.
He picked his way across the wreckage to where partially destroyed file cabinets indicated her dad’s office had been. What had once been a computer was a melted mass of metal to one side, and the file cabinets he knew to be fire retardant had nevertheless been unable to completely withstand the temperatures of the blaze.
They were almost completely destroyed, too, but something interested him about them. The files, or whatever might have been left of them, were gone. No charred bits of paper or manila folders remained.
“It was a standard weapon of mass destruction augmented by cylinders of a highly volatile substance, probably petroleum based.” Josie’s voice came from right behind him.
He turned to face her, not even tempted to question her verdict. “Whoever did this was serious about getting rid of the compound as well as your father.”
“Yes.”
Maybe the bomb had been about the school after all, but Josie’s instincts had said not, and even in the face of evidence to the contrary, his agreed.
“They’ve been back.”
She stared at him, her expression not registering understanding. She had to be exhausted.
“Since the blast…They came and emptied out whatever was left of your dad’s file cabinets.”
Josie’s moss green eyes widened, and she spun to look at where he pointed.
“But we didn’t see anyone on the road.”
“They could have hiked in.”
“Then they would have left a trail hiking out.”
“If they were moving too fast for caution, yes.”
They found the trail and followed it, after Daniel saw that they were both armed with weapons he kept in his car at all times. The trail ended at a logging road, and fresh tracks indicated a four-wheel drive had been there recently. The width of the tires indicated a truck, but their tread was too common to get anything else from the tracks.
“Darn it.” Josie sank to the ground, letting her head rest against her knees. “The tracks are too fresh for them to be very long gone, but we can’t follow on foot with any hope of catching them.”
He said something pithy and unpleasant.
She looked up at him. “That’s one way of putting it, but I think you’ve got some verb confusion going on.”
He was in no mood to appreciate her subtle humor. “If I’d gotten to the hospital sooner, or come by here first, I could have caught their sorry asses.”
She shook her head.
“You doubt it?”
“I doubt your culpability in timing that they obviously took a lot of effort making sure was right.”
“I’d like to see whatever it is they wanted from your dad’s files.” But that was about as likely as Tyler McCall showing up to allay Josie’s fears.
“No problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just finished computerizing dad’s files. I’ve got a backup of the data on the hard drive in my apartment.”
“I don’t like computers much.”
“Hotwire told me. Don’t worry. I’ll do all the interfacing with the computer.” She yawned.
“You need to sleep before doing anything else.”
“First, we’ve got to hike back. Then we have to see if Dad’s journal survived. Then I can sleep.”
When she stood up, she wobbled, but like the trouper she was, she started marching back toward the charred buildings.
He shook his head, caught up with her, then bent down and lifted her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry before she had time to figure out what he planned and stage a major protest. He started double-timing it back to the compound.
“What do you think you are doing?” Her words came out funny, like hiccups, because her diaphragm was hitting his shoulder.
“You’re too tired to hike back.”
“I am not.”
He didn’t bother to argue, but she wasn’t so sanguine.
“Listen here, Neanderthal man, I’m a trained soldier. A mile hike is nothing for me.”
“You’ve been awake for twenty-four hours or more, inhaled smoke, saved your dad from a burning building and tracked perps at a running jog.”
“So? I’m not a wimp.”
“No, but you are a termagant.”
“What’s that?”
He smiled as he told her.
“I do not nag and I am not a shrew!”
“But you are overbearing on occasion.”
“You can say that when you’re the one carrying me against my will?” she asked furiously. “If anyone’s a termagant here, it’s you.”
“Men can’t be termagants.”
“You use pretty big words for a mercenary,” she grumbled.
“I like to read.”
“I do, too, but the word I want to call you is one I learned listening to soldiers.”
He laughed, something he rarely did…except when he was with Josie. How could she think he didn’t like her? She made him smile, and that wasn’t easy.
“Put me down, Nitro, or I’m going to get mean, and I don’t want to because you’re helping me.”
“Call me Daniel.” He didn’t like being reminded of his past when he was with her.
“What?”
“Daniel. It’s my name.”
“Hotwire and Wolf call you Nitro.”
“I want you to call me Daniel.”
“Daniel, put me down or things are going to get ugly.” The tone of her voice said she meant what she was saying.
They were more than halfway back to the compound, so he stopped and let her slide to her feet, his hands loosely guiding her at the hips. When she was solidly on terra firma again, he should have let go, but he didn’t.
And she didn’t move away immediately, but stood staring up at him like an accident victim. It was a look he’d gotten very familiar with on their last mission, but he still didn’t know what it meant. She licked dry lips, and his body told him what he wanted it to mean. She was too close not to notice the change, and she jumped away from him like a scalded cat.
It wasn’t the first time she’d responded that way to evidence of his desire, but his ability to deal with it rationally diminished the more he wanted her. “I can’t help my reaction. If a woman is going to press herself against me like a succubus, I’m going to get hard.”
“I didn’t press myself against you like a succubus, whatever that is…I didn’t press myself at all. You’re the cretin who insisted on carrying me and then, and then…”
“And then?” he taunted.
