Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
We got moving. I sidled up beside JD. “Bradan’s not wrong, they’ll catch up to us eventually. We’ve got no food and no water, and they can keep throwing fresh men at us. We need an extraction. There’s a river, maybe twenty miles ahead of us. A chopper could get in there.”
“But no pilot’s going to come out here and get us,” said JD. “Not after Gantz spreads word of what happened to him.”
“I can think of one who might. Let me borrow the sat phone.”
25
GINA
It was four in the afternoon, and I was in a hammock with a Frenchman.
It had been one of those nights that started with red wine and steak and ended with dancing and tequila. He'd wanted to take me out and treat me like a lady, which was pretty hilarious but he was hot as hell, so I’d agreed. We'd gone to bed with the dawn and not gone to sleep for some hours after that.
Now I felt like my head was an eggshell and someone was pounding on it with a hammer. The only way I could cope with the hangover was to press myself even closer to the naked man who was stretched out next to me. Jean was the son of a smuggler and he was bouncing around South America looking for new opportunities. He had big, brutish shoulders that I’d loved clinging onto and the six pack of an underwear model. Most of all, he had a French accent that was pure sex. It was like he took normal words and dunked them in molten gold, leaving them addictively smooth, warm and gleaming. I could have listened to him for hours.
Someone opened up on my skull with a pneumatic drill and I groaned and tried to bury my head under Jean’s shoulder. Make it stop! But the drill kept going. It took me a while to figure out that it was the ancient landline phone in my apartment. Who the hell is calling on that? I hadn’t used the phone once since moving into this place six months ago. It was on Jean’s side of the hammock, so I prodded him until he woke up and grabbed the handset. Mercifully, the noise stopped.
“Allo?” asked Jean. It was almost worth the pain just to hear the accent. Then the cool plastic of the telephone handset pressed gently against my ear. “Is for you, ma cherie.”
I frowned, my eyes still closed. “Yeah?” I asked grumpily.
“My name’s Gabriel Kain.”
The accent was smooth and sexy, with just a hint of southern gentleman, and I recognized it. “The guy from the bar.”
“Things didn’t go so well. Gantz left us stranded out here in the jungle.”
“I’m stunned,” I deadpanned.
“Look…” His voice changed in a way that made me half open my eyes and pay attention. There was a ragged edge to it: he sounded honest, even vulnerable. “I came here to bring someone home. Someone special. Now I got her, but something’s happening out here. The military’s in on it, probably some people in government, too. We got Special Ops on our tails. We need a chopper out of here.”
“So you want me to become part of an illegal, unauthorized op, fly into a hot LZ, and have Ecuador brand me a terrorist in the process? There isn’t enough money in the world.”
“What if I wasn’t just offering money?” said Gabriel. “What if I said I could get the charges against you dropped?”
I sat up, which set the hammock swinging and nearly made me throw up, but I toughed it out. My heart was suddenly thumping in my chest and I tried not to let the emotion into my voice. “How do you know about that?” I asked gruffly.
“Because before I called you, I called the bar and the bartender gave me your name: she knows you pretty well.” He said it without judgment. “Then I called our guy back in the US and got him to look up your file. Gina Novak, formerly of the 160th Special Operations Airborne Regiment.” His voice became gentle, almost like he understood. “You had some trouble, down Mexico way. Enough trouble that you’re still wanted in the US. Gina, we have a connection in Washington, and believe me when I say it’s at the highest level. If you help us, I can get those charges dropped. You could go home.”
Home. My chest ached. I hadn’t set foot in the US in almost three years.
I cursed under my breath and wished I wasn’t making this decision with a raging hangover. The reasons to tell him to go to hell were easy. I could get shot, I could go to jail. But if I did do it, and this guy was for real…
I looked down at the dozing Jean. I was having fun out here in South America. One-night stands, drinking, a few quasi-legal flying gigs to pay the bills. But life used to be more. I used to be part of something.