Cover Me (Elite Force 1)

His two clipped words came through her headset loud and clear.

Jerking back toward Wade, she glared accusingly. “I thought this was a private line.”

He scratched his jaw. “Private for all of us in the back. I tried to tell you.”

“Oh.”

The older guy—McCabe—stood abruptly. “Heads up. All ears cue in. Chopper’s entering the approach pattern to land. We’ll be rolling out right into the parking lot of the power plant. A SWAT team is already on-site. FBI is on their way.”>Her voice cracked for the first time. Her pain stabbed clean through him. A fissure opened wide and kept cracking, his world coming apart of the seams. He dropped to his knees in front of her, desperate to make her understand.

“I love you, Andrea. Anything I’ve done I did for you, to get you the best doctors, the most cutting-edge new treatments. I want to take you to Europe.” He rested his hands on her useless legs, which had once climbed mountains and tackled ski slopes with ease. “Even if you never walk again—and I’m praying you do—with the money I’ve made, we can go back to the way things used to be. We can still travel the world, still have adventures.”

Her face creased with… pity? “You may have fooled yourself that you did this for me, Brett, but you did it for yourself. So you don’t have to give up the ‘adventures’ now that I can no longer go with you.”

After all he’d done, all he’d given up for her, this accusation cut the deepest.

“God, Andrea, don’t say that. Do I want you out of that wheelchair? Of course. Do I wish that awful, awful accident had never happened? Every second of every day. But you have to know that I love you.”

“And I love you for what we once shared,” she answered without hesitation. “But I can’t live with someone who would plan something like this, somebody who would risk so many lives. I can’t spend the rest of my life knowing what you’ve done and living off the money you made from the pain, the suffering, the blood of others. And if you knew me at all, you would realize that.”

She was serious. Dead serious.

However much she’d learned of his plans beyond the power plant, she’d figured out enough to put him in jail. She knew enough to connect him to murders. His pulse nearly pounded out through his eyes. Frustration roared through him, rage, years’ worth. He’d been able to survive this frozen-in-time existence because he had a plan to get himself and Andrea out. He wouldn’t be stuck forever working in a f**king cubicle, told to be grateful because he had a tiny-ass window and two real walls to tack up a picture and some antlers.

Trapped. He felt completely trapped like an animal. He was even panting like a dog. He was losing Andrea. He was losing Europe.

“Andrea”—his voice came out a hoarse croak—“after all I’ve done for you, for our future, you’re going to spit on my devotion to you?”

“Oh God, Brett. You just don’t get it. Because I love you, I’ve arranged it so you have a four-hour window to leave ahead of the police.”

Four hours? It wasn’t much, but maybe he could still pull this off. He sagged with relief. “Then it’s not too late for us to—”

“Oh, no, it’s too late to stop the notifications I’ve sent out to more than one person. I wanted to make damn sure the truth got out. I wasn’t risking the possibility that you may have someone on your payroll that I haven’t uncovered yet.” She touched his hand, her face pulling tight with the first signs of real regret, even tears. “If you turn yourself in to the police, I will stay by your side, without fail. I will support you through the trial, through jail time, and if, Lord willing, you should ever see daylight again, I will be here waiting for you. If you make this right.”

Nothing would ever be right again. He couldn’t even bring himself to speak. He just stared at his wife, absorbing the beauty of her fine features, her ivory complexion, because he would never see her again.

“But if you walk out that door, Brett, if you run, you and I are finished. I will not follow you. And if you are captured, I will not so much as lay eyes on you again.”

He knew without a doubt that she meant every word.

His heart was cleaved in half. She’d offered him two impossible options. Lose her or go to prison. Hell on earth either way. His grief turned to fury over her putting him in this position. Really no choice at all.

He would have to leave. Gamble everything on saving his ass and making it out of the country with what he’d saved. Gamble that maybe time would soothe Andrea’s fury. Because no matter what she said, a strong woman like that would never want a man behind bars. How would she respect him?

Four hours? Once he picked up his stash of cash and thumb drives of data tucked away at the power plant, he would be on a private aircraft out of here in three.

***

The whap, whap, whap of helicopter blades in the distance cut the night.

Standing in the middle of Main Street with the rest of the community, Wade tipped his ear to the wind and listened to the approaching chopper. Yes, an MH-60, just as he expected. And making good time. Less than two hours had passed since Misty and Flynn had rushed out to the hot springs retreat.

Any thoughts of romance and winning Sunny over with tantric sex had been put on hold. Thanks to the senior Everett’s satellite phone, Wade had been able to make contact with his base directly, speaking with both McCabe and their OSI contact who’d first questioned Sunny. Then Misty had forwarded all emails to a secure address via a secure cell phone link provided by the OSI.

The pieces had slid together quickly and neatly.

They were now racing against time to stop an attack on a major power plant on the Alaska Peninsula. Some group in this community was involved in making a statement in a very dangerous manner. Local police had been alerted and a military helicopter would transport them for on-site questioning.

A piercing light from above split through the dark. A searchlight from the approaching helicopter strobed over the crowd of people, some still wearing their pajamas under parkas. The helicopter banked toward the open patch of ground, a park beside the frozen river.