Page 79 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

And made the hit.

The sound was unlike anything she’d ever heard. A crunch, followed by a wheezing, whining groan as the bird wobbled, spun, then dipped nose first and plummeted the rest of the way to the river.

Chest heaving, she raked the hair back from her eyes, squinted through the grit then sucked in a breath in horror and triumph and a little bit of despair. The chopper crashed onto the edge of the sandbar and rolled to its side, the rotor blades snapping to a skidding halt in the sand. Fire shot out of the engine cowling as the bird totally upended and lodged upside down, the cockpit half submerged in the river.

She’d done it! She’d dropped the chopper.

And in the process, she’d taken a life.

Two lives.

No reminders that the men in the helicopter had intended to kill her and Seth could stall the sudden nausea that hit her like a roundhouse punch.

She dropped to her knees—just as a bullet whizzed by her head and ricocheted with a sharp, twanging ping off the rock face above her.

“Jesus. Jesus,” she muttered, ducking for cover. Someone was shooting at her.

She chanced lifting her head—and saw two figures running along the cliff fifty feet above the opposite riverbank.

Fire flashed from the barrel of the pistol as Jake shot at her again, his aim wild as he half limped, half ran down the uneven path toward the riverbed trying to get to the downed bird.

Survival, not guilt, suddenly jumped to the top of her priority list again.

Seth. Seth was down there. Unarmed. Much less than one hundred percent. She’d noticed. Chosen

not to mention how pale he looked, or that his eyes looked a little glazed.

No food, the burning sun and consuming heat and, conversely, the icy dip they’d taken in the river had all taken a toll on him. He’d wanted her to forget that he was dealing with a concussion, though, so she’d let him think she had.

Only now, she couldn’t forget it. Now, he was down there trying to face off against two really bad men with really big guns.

She had to get to him, but knew she was as good as dead if she started down the cliff. She’d stand out like a stripper in church if she tried to scale the rock wall now. Jake or Benny would pick her off like one of those little metal ducks in a shooting gallery.

Frustrated, afraid for Seth, all she could do was hug the earth and wait. And hope and pray that maybe their luck would hold out just a little bit longer.

TEN

ONE SECOND SETH WAS certain the bird was going to make it down without a scratch and he was going to be facing not two but four men and the next the bird jerked, spun, belched out smoke and dropped from the sky like a meteor gone wild.

“Gawd damn,” he uttered under his breath and watched it fall, felt the earth shake and the spray of water as the blades chopped and slashed into the river and spat liquid ice in twenty directions.

She did it. Sonofabitch, she did it!

He wasn’t more than ten yards from the crash site, hiding in the brush, waiting and ready to spring his deadfall trap on the off chance Jake and Benny stumbled into it.

He rose from a crouch, fought a crippling wave of dizziness and steadied himself before heading for the downed bird to see if he could find a weapon when an M-16 rifle floated out of the upturned and half-submerged cockpit.

He didn’t think. He just reacted. He wanted that weapon and there was only one way to get it before it drifted downstream and their best chance of getting a jump on Jake and Benny ended up in Lake Mead.

No more than a second, maybe two had passed since the bird dropped when, on a shallow dive, he cut into the river.

The icy shock on his system cleared his head. He rocketed a good ten yards underwater before his head broke the surface and the current started washing him after the rifle.

It took another moment to get his bearings—then he spotted the weapon ahead of him, and thank the fates, the shoulder strap had snagged on a tree root bleached bone white and winter gray by time and sun. He snagged the same root as he floated past, and, fighting the current, freed the M-16. Then he dragged himself along the length of the tree to the shallows along the bank.

He figured no more than fifteen seconds had passed as, shaking from the physical effort, he slogged out of the river, panting and swaying … then frantically ducked for cover when he heard a gunshot.

He rolled to his back. Cradling the rifle over his chest, he checked the magazine and found it full. Then he fumbled with cold fingers to pour the water out of the gas system. It took a couple more minutes than he had to spare, but it couldn’t be helped. As confident as he could be that the rifle was functional, he rolled back to his stomach.

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