The aircraft rose higher.
*******
On her back, her boots pushed up against the side of the Bell, her fingers curled inside her sister’s belt, Faith held on tight.
Her upper body hanging off the deck, her boots spread wide for stability, Devlin sent a steady stream of automatic fire down on her teammate’s would-be killers.
Standing astride his snowmobile, the nearest man juked in place, his clothing splitting open.
His accomplice sought cover behind his machine.
Devlin adjusted her aim and sighted in the second man who was getting smaller and smaller while the helicopter went upward. She emptied her MP5, but the vessel banked before she was able to see if her shots hit her target. “Pull me in. Pull me in.”
Faith did a horizontal squat thrust and dragged her sister aboard.
Randall’s NVGs appeared a couple seconds later.
The women hauled the goggles’ owner in through the open door.
The hoist operator followed and shut the door. “We’re clear. Get us out of here.”
The 412EP made a wide turn, straightened out, and picked up speed.
Randall climbed up into a seat.
Faith claimed the one on his right.
Across from Randall, an unconscious Crane on her nine o’clock, Devlin put on her safety belt.
The hoist operator sat on Crane’s left and buckled himself in.
Devlin and Randall regarded each other.
She shook her head at him. “You’re nuts,” she shouted above the rotor noise, “pulling a stunt like that.”
He grinned.
She saw herself doing something similar not long ago, jumping from one building to another...
Her heels touched down two inches from the edge of the building. Throwing out her hands, Devlin scraped her right knee and both palms, and fell onto her right hip before rolling through the landing. She stuck a boot spike into the rubber-coated, flattop roof to slow her momentum. Her knee boot skidded a short way, and she came to a halt, down on one knee, one hand on the roof. Getting to her feet, while rubbing the smarting knee, she glanced over her shoulder.
One hand on his hip, the other holding his Glock loosely at his side, his lips mashed together, her partner Blake Hawkins slowly shook his head at her.
Devlin bobbed her eyebrows once. Then again, who am I to judge? She poked her chin at Randall. “What if I hadn’t figured out your crazy ‘A’ double ‘S’ plan, and the chopper hadn’t been there for you?”
He shrugged and bumped up the volume of his voice. “We would’ve found another way. We always will, Jessica.” He leaned forward and stuck out a hand.
She listed toward him and clamped fingers around the offering.
“We make a great team, Marshal Devlin...especially now that we can apparently read each other’s minds.”
She laughed and sat back.
He turned toward the other woman. “And thank you...for your part in my rescue. Consider your debt to me paid in full.”
Faith gave him a sultry half smile. “What if,” she spoke so only he could hear her, “I don’t want my debt paid in full? What if I want to find some,” she paused, “other ways to show my gratitude?”
Randall smiled back at her. “What did you have in mind?”
“For starters, I’d like that drink you promised me.”
He nodded. “I’d like that too.”
“From there,” she peeked at his lips before taking in his eyes again, “we’ll just have to see where things take us.” A beat. “Maybe I could assist you with another...magazine change.”
His mind took him back to the time they had spent in the cramped cabinet in Seattle, and his smile grew wider.
Unable to hear what her sister and Randall had been saying to each other, but seeing them exchanging googly eyes and furtive smiles, Devlin frowned. In the next instant, three separate scenes from the last couple of days flashed before her eyes...
In Devlin’s office:
“You know yourself, Jess.” Turning away from Devlin, Faith eyed Randall. “I get what I want.”
Later, after the meeting with Thorn, in Devlin’s office:
Faith lingered.
Randall regarded her.
Her eyes went south before meeting his. “If you’d like,” her voice was low, “I could hang back and help you with your pants.”
The right side of his mouth ticked higher. “Thank you, but I’ve been unbuttoning and unzipping my pants for a while now. I’ve become very adept at it.”
“You never know.” She pivoted away while keeping her eyes trained on him. “I might do a better job.”
Picking up bits and pieces of the hushed conversation behind her, Devlin cranked her head around in time to see the tail end of a visual exchange between Randall and Faith. Stopping, frowning, biting her lower lip, Devlin shot back-and-forth glances at the two while her sibling strolled toward her.
On the gondola in Lillehammer, Norway:
“And,” Faith grinned at the boasting male, “without any visible evidence, we ladies rarely put much stock in a man’s wild claims.”
Chase beamed back at her for several seconds before bursting into laughter while facing the man across from him. “You never told me your companions were going to be such fun. I like them,” he came back to the woman on his left, “a lot.”
His expression doing an about-face, Randall clenched his teeth.
Devlin observed her partner’s jaw muscles bulging while his eyes flitted from Faith to Chase to Faith again. What’s eating him?
Seeing those scenes through the lens of what she was now witnessing, Devlin glared at the side of her sister’s face. Oh, HELL no. You are NOT doing this to me again.
∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞
.
Chapter 32
Antie Fay
13 MAY—6:25 P.M.
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
“Antie Fay! Antie Fay!” Six-year-old Cassandra Devlin ran around a couch and raced toward the front door. Closing to within three feet of her Aunt Faith, a wide smile on her face, the little girl stretched out her arms.
Twenty-two hours ago, back in Norway, the Bell 412EP had landed in a secluded field where Chase had a car waiting to shuttle Devlin, Randall, and Faith, and their prisoner, to the airport in Oslo.
Once aboard a jet,
