Cover Me (Elite Force 1)

Her eyes darted to the middle of the road where the other man lay, his legs twisted at an unnatural angle, his hood back. His face was clear. She sunk onto her haunches, stunned, horrified. It hadn’t been her imagination. She stared in shock at the familiar face, the last one she expected to see ever again. Only a hand’s reach away from her lay…

The dead body of Deputy Rand Smith.

Chapter 9

Rolling to rest against an icy stop sign, Wade shook his head clear. Adrenaline stinging his veins, he scoured the growing crowd for Sunny. Her dog’s heart pounded steadily under his hand as the mutt sat up carefully. No blood. Just chunks of snow in Chewie’s fur. Not surprising, since Wade’s cheek stung from contact

with the ice.

He worked his own shoulder gingerly and all seemed intact as he shoved to his feet, still searching the swelling throng. And there she was, holding onto a telephone pole, pale but in one piece. He reeled with relief.

Thank God. He hadn’t realized until that moment that his heart was lodged somewhere in his throat. He never, never lost his edge in a crisis. His job demanded cool and calm. He forced his pulse to steady.

The wrecked car jutted from the mom-and-pop diner, steam from the hood encompassing the scene. Bricks and glass littered the sidewalk. People poured through the door, pulling on coats, some crying.

Professional instincts kicked in. He needed to check for injured bystanders. Onlookers had circled in the middle of the street, usually a sign of something bad. He shouldered through the gawking throng, parting the crush one determined step at a time.

“Coming through. I’m a medic. Step aside, please.”

The wall of people parted to reveal… a man in massive snow gear lying on the iced road. The individual appeared to be in his thirties, and not likely to get any older. His neck and left leg were twisted at an unnatural angle.

And the corpse’s blue eyes stared sightlessly at the morning sky. Damn. Wade dropped to his knees to check for a pulse, already knowing he wouldn’t find one. No matter how many times he faced death, it still resonated in his gut.

Even CPR couldn’t bring this one back.

Shooting to his feet, he shifted his attention to the vehicle in the diner. Two people were closing in on the teenaged driver already stepping out of the car, one of the individuals wearing a firefighter’s uniform. The firefighter must have been having breakfast before or after her shift. Either way, the gangly teenage driver—who ironically didn’t appear to have a scratch on him—was being taken care of.>Everyone wanted to think they could change the world, reshape history, coerce others into believing the same damn things they did.

Idiots. The smart ones—people like him—figured out which side had the most money and shouted, “All in.”

Not that he had any interest in sharing his own philosophy and diluting the money pot. Let the activists blow up this power plant two days from now to make their statement. It would divert attention from his work, from the package coming through. The big payoff that would make it possible for him to deliver the treatment Andrea needed.

Three days until completion of his mission.

While Alaska was reeling from the explosion of a major power plant, struggling to heat homes, he would smuggle in his largest group of people yet—terrorists making their way into the U.S. across the Russian border. The Aleutian community provided the perfect out-of-the-way place to stash them, giving them a chance to test out their newly acquired American accents and knowledge until such time they could be assimilated into sleeper cells in the lower forty-eight.

Not everyone who left the community died. Just the ones who weren’t on his list of new Americans, international spies blending into the middle-class mainstream. Not that the individual on the other end of the phone knew all of those details, rather just assumed the “newbies” were a part of their own ecoterrorist cause, reaching out across the country.

“Listen, maybe I can make an exception in Misty’s case, because of her medical condition,” he pacified… he lied. Stroking his beard, he spun his chair around to look out the window over the thawing Bristol Bay, past the fishing boats. It was almost as if he could see them on their island mountain as he looked down the Alaska Peninsula that led to the Aleutians.

“All you have to do is make sure Misty doesn’t leave for a little while longer. Just keep things calm for now and we can revisit the subject later. How does that sound?”

“Okay, I can tr—”

The rest of the words got lost as Brett’s office door burst open. Heavy oak creaked the hinges as the secretary he shared with three other employees poked her head inside. “Mr. Livingston?”

His sat up straight fast. Donna knew to interrupt him only if his wife had an emergency.

He covered the mouthpiece of his phone, dread already gelling in his gut. “I assume this is important.”

“It is,” Donna said excitedly, her chin bobbing with agreement and a barely restrained need to speak.

The woman’s helpless, giggly act grated on his last nerve. His wife was so damn strong. Even locked inside her broken body, Andrea never complained, still embracing life head-on.

Brett spoke into the cell phone. “I’ll have to call you back.”

He disconnected and turned his focus back to Donna. He raised an eyebrow, signaling his impatience.

“One of our friends from the police station told me to let you know something on the hush-hush.” Donna was allowed to assume they had an in with the station because of the power plant being a high-value target for attack. “They’re calling in the National Guard, something about a serial killer’s graveyard on a mountain.”