Page 27 of Touchdown

Unfortunately, I could see the guy's logic. “Immunity from prosecution isn't worth much if he thinks he can't be prosecuted.”

“You still there?” the voice called. Was he getting closer? I hadn't realized he'd started moving again.

“We're here,” I said. “Why don't you just tell us what you want, and we'll tell you if we can get it?”

“Unh-uh,” said the voice. “You tell me what you got to offer, and I'll decide if you're serious.”

My heart sank. We weren't offering this guy a bribe. We were offering to stick ourselves in his trap.

He was trying to talk some information out of us that they hadn't been able to get at with their drugs. The trouble was we didn't have any information to trade.

Or I didn't.

And if Noah did, they surely extracted it already.

Chapter 18

It wasn't safe for me to keep talking. They were better at this than I was. It was their day job, after all.

When I fell silent, the enemy did too.

My ears strained to pick up any useful bit of noise. Nothing.

How many men was I up against? One or two?

I wanted to believe it was only one, but I still wasn't sure of our next move. A lot depended on what the weather decided to do.

If the rain stopped before dawn, he'd move in fast. On a heavily overcast night with no moon, the overwhelming advantage shifted back to him. He'd be able to move invisibly in the dark with the help of his goggles. Only one team would be playing blind—ours.

That scenario was bad enough. But what if he'd called in reinforcements?

Then we'd face hopeless odds.

My heart sped up. I did a deep-breathing exercise to slow it the fuck back down.

Our re-capture was only a matter of time.

Maybe more time than you think.

Even if he had phoned home, reinforcements wouldn't arrive for hours, maybe days—the time needed to realize the first team couldn't take care of business alone plus the time needed to scramble a follow-up.

One guy wouldn't want to wait all that time beneath a tree. He'd have to sleep sometime—and if we were quick enough, quiet enough, we might even be able to get away and cause him even more trouble.

No. He wouldn't wait. He was bringing the war to us.

The rain hovered at that halfway place between mist and drizzle. Thanks to the heavy cloud cover, we hadn't seen the moon, much less the stars. Noah was so close that I tingled from my keen awareness of his body heat. Yet the darkness was so deep I couldn't see the expression on his face.

“You might as well make it easy for yourself.” The voice was much closer now. “Come on down from that tree. We'll talk face to face.”

“We can talk just fine from here,” I said.

“You're going to have to come down sometime.”

“Make me.”

He sighed noisily. A fake put-upon sigh. “A man could begin to lose patience. Listen, kid. You can't win this war. We have tranquilizer guns. I was willing to give you a little time to see sense, but you've injured two of my men. One more aggressive action, and I'm shooting you down.”

“Oh, come on. Make it a little believable.” I could belly laugh too. “You don't want to explain to the boss why their prize quarterback is dead.”

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