“I planned to take you all to ensure we received what we asked for, but only the girl is absolutely necessary.” The leader said something in a low voice to the others, and they advanced on Veena.
“No!” She clung to me.
I murmured to her. “Veena, go with them.”
Shame flooded me for giving up, but what else could we do? They wouldn’t kill her, at least until they had what they wanted. She’d survive for now. Maybe my team could still find her.
The men stepped to us, weapons on Connor and me, and one reached cautiously for Veena.
Her dark eyes met mine, watery but defiant, and for a moment, snowflakes drifted quietly between us.
Until an explosion rocked the garden, lighting up the night sky and knocking the kidnappers off their feet.
Twenty-Three
The snowcats were on fire. Men wearing helmets, body armor, and night vision goggles surged around the vehicles, around the kidnappers—who were already getting to their feet—and around us. I tried to move, to help Veena or Connor, but my hands were still secured. Veena threw herself over me, covering my face so I couldn’t see.
“Veena, get off!” I yelled.
Connor shouted something, but his words were garbled. I wormed my way out from under Veena, yelling at her to stay down. A few shots cracked the air, and male voices called in German and English. Veena whimpered.
“It’s okay. You’ll be okay.” I babbled. I wasn’t sure any of us would get through this, because I didn’t know what the hell was happening. But a second later I relaxed when I heard an American voice.
“Who’s hit? Who’s hit?” The man shouted.
“Nic is!” Veena yelled, her voice panicky. “Her arm!”
Someone cut the zip tie, freeing my arms, and rolled me gently onto my back. If I wasn’t already in shock, seeing who leaned over me might have done the job. It was the mystery man.
He looked me over. “Can you move your left hand?”
I tried, and my fingers twitched. He nodded, looking relieved. Veena, hovering over me, burst into tears.
“Who are you?” I asked the man.
He patted my good shoulder and yelled, “I need a medic over here.” And he took off.
“Veena! Are you hurt?” This voice I definitely recognized. Brown.
“No! I just . . . can’t . . . stop crying.”
He put an arm around her, and she sobbed into his chest. Now I’d seen everything.
“Chief, I’m—” I wanted to apologize for disobeying his orders, but a million knives shoved themselves into my arm. My lips pulled back in a grimace instead.
“Later,” he said. He waved a hand at someone behind him and pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Veena, your father wants to talk to you right damn now.”
She took it. “Appa? I’m safe. I’m okay, Appa. Amma?” She moved away, and Brown followed.
A new person pushed into my line of sight. Latex gloves covered his hands. “Let me take a look at that arm.”
“Connor was hit, too. His leg.” I craned my head around to look for him, but the pain from my shoulder down was exquisite. I gasped.
“I’ll get to him in a second,” the medic said. I almost passed out as he poked and prodded my arm. He gave me a shot of something, and within seconds, it all went numb.
As I listened to our rescuers secure the scene, I slowly let myself relax. Not one damn thing had gone as planned, but the kidnappers were neutralized. Connor and I were alive.
And most importantly, Veena was safe.
Helicopters delivered Veena, Connor, and me to a hospital in Ilanz, about a ten-minute flight. Not a bad trip—if you weren’t flying off the backside of a glacier on the tail end of a snowstorm in the Swiss Alps.
Thanks to the narcotics the medic gave me, the jerky flight wasn’t as terrifying as it might have been. Veena kept one hand on me and one on Connor, her jaw clenched. He kept trying to talk to me, to explain, but between the meds, the shock, and the turbulence, I couldn’t focus.
Later, I was seriously pissed at him for something . . . only I couldn’t quite remember what.
Veena’s parents and their security team met her at the hospital. When the medical staff whisked Connor and me away to separate examination rooms, Veena promised to visit as soon as possible.
The bullet chipped my humerus. At least, I think that’s what the surgeon said after they scanned me. His German accent was thick, and I was pretty out of it.
I went to sleep in an operating room and woke up sometime later in a private room, propped up by fluffy pillows, my left arm in a cast, and an IV piercing my right forearm. I could feel the cold trickle of fluids into my vein. The fuzziness in my head told me I still had plenty of painkillers on board, but considering everything, I felt pretty good being alive.
Brown talked on his phone in a clunky chair a few feet away. A little sign on the wall over his head showed a picture of a cell phone with a red slash over it.
“Yeah, the media’s in a froth,” he said to whoever was on the other end. “The Swiss government wants to know who the hell we are and how we were involved. They want to interview everyone and their mother. Better keep the clients away—it’s a shit show down here.” His eyes found mine. “Gotta go. She’s awake.” He stood, filled a cup with water, and held it out to me. “Thirsty?”
I winced. His voice was too loud, like he yelled through a megaphone. I didn’t doubt that the actual yelling would start soon. No megaphone required. I took a drink with my good arm.
“How’re you feeling?” His expression was neutral.
“Fantastic,” I said, “as long as they keep the drugs coming. What time is it?”
“Sixteen-hundred local.”
Four in the afternoon. The kidnappers grabbed Veena almost exactly
