Page 65 of Dash

Up ahead, at my ten o’clock, several rock intrusions protruded from the earth. The moss-covered rocks were not very tall, but the stone ridge formed an irregular circle. The depression in the center offered a measure of protection.

The swoosh of the flames had the guys accelerating, vaulting over the rocks, and jumping into the bowl. Propelled by a new shot of adrenaline, I picked Thena up, tossed her over to Bozeman, then jumped over the rocks as well. As I hit the groundwith a grunt, I threw myself over her.

The limo exploded.

A ball of fire roared and reached up, consuming the night. Debris flew all around us, turning into lethal projectiles. A scrap of flaming metal hissed over our heads and crashed somewhere behind us. An airborne wheel hub bounced on the rock to my right and rolled out of sight.

“Stay down,” I reminded Thena, my hand plastered over the back of her head.

When I next glanced out from behind the rocks, the fire engulfed the limo’s burning skeleton. Hungry flames snaked all over what had once been a majestic oak and sparks illuminated the night. I got on my knees, sat Thena up, and did a visual and tactile check of her person. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she whispered, even though she was shaking like the land around the San Andrea fault in the middle of an earthquake. Her hair had become undone and hung unevenly around her shoulders. She wiped a chunk of dirt from her face and set her hand on my thigh. “How about you? Your leg?”

My leg was the least of my problems, and perhaps because of that, I didn’t feel an inkling of pain at the moment.

“I’m good,” I rasped, still breathing hard.

My pat-down revealed she had some small nicks and a whole bunch of dirt and pine needles stuck in her hair, but she was not seriously hurt. On the other hand, she was cold, damp, and in danger, and it was all my damn fault.

I took off my tux’s jacket. “Give me your arms.”

“What about you?” she asked as I slid the jacket up and over her delicate shoulders.

“I’ll be fine.” I gave Bozeman and King a quick look over. “Status?”

I got thumbs up from both men, who were already in position, kneeling low to the ground at the edge of the rocks.Eyes to their scopes, they scanned the landscape all around us.

“Sitrep?” I asked.

“Chariot One was ahead of us on the other side of the bridge.” Bozeman’s murmured report made his grave voice a little more than an almost inaudible low frequency signal. “Chariot Two was behind us about to cross over the culvert. The bridge and the culvert blew at the same time, cutting off the vehicles from the limo.”

“The charges were planted ahead of time.”

It pissed me off that even though we’d scouted the backroad twice before I took Thena on it, someone had managed to ambush us. The ballroom had been too difficult to access for my enemy, but somehow, our foe had been able to set up on the backroad. How was that possible? And how did he know the route we would take to our undisclosed destination?

I was gonna find out.

The whole thing made me feel like a damn idiot, especially because I’d implemented precautions against it and still, I’d gotten caught with my pants down, pun fully intended.

So much for being the big badass protector I’d promised Thena I’d be.

On the other hand, the latest developments offered me some new info. I now knew for a fact that Richard Astor’s assassin had accomplices. That these shitheads had succeeded at ambushing us was somewhat of a feat. It got me thinking that they had decent leadership, were experienced in killing, and were watching us closely.

I made a mental note to look into all of that. Richard Astor had been right: I faced a resourceful and extremely dangerous opponent.

I canned the rage. I was an old hand at this. When the rubber hit the road, shit happened. I’d been doing this too long and knew the reality the movies never showed. No strategy everwent according to plan. It was an oxymoron, but as Mina liked to say, sometimes you were the pigeon and sometimes you were the statue. I didn’t intend on being the statue for a second longer than was absolutely necessary.

“Comms?” I asked. I’d taken off my earpiece inside the limo and lost it during the crash.

“No comms.” As if to prove the point, Bozeman pressed on his earpiece. “C One, do you copy?” He waited for a moment. “C Two, do you copy?” He shook his head. “The fuckers are jamming us.”

Damn them. They were no amateurs. I trusted that the rest of my team would hold their own and proceed according to my instructions, but I hated not having access to comms and not knowing their status all the same.

“These ain’t no rookies, but then again, I guess they came at our invitation.” I shifted my gaze to Thena. “Your plan worked.”

“Oh, goodie,” she murmured without enthusiasm. “What now?”

I flashed her a furious smirk. “Now it’s our turn.”

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