“Ryder can?—”
“Grant’s right. We got this!” Jamie shouted, making a U-turn and heading back toward them as a spray of bullets crossed his path before the others could even catch up.
No. Fuck no! Not Jamie. Not again. His mind working through the problem lightning-quick, the solution came to Jay with complete clarity. “Take her!” he shouted, shoving Becca toward Cody.
“No!” she cried, her arms squeezing tight around his neck.
“Jay—” Cody started.
“Do it,” he ordered, cutting off both their protests. If a sniper had them in the crosshairs, there was only one reason they were still alive. “They’re trying to separate us because it’s me they want. I’ll draw their attention. You get Becca to the helicopter.”
With his heart pounding, he transferred his whole life into Cody’s waiting arms, knowing he’d do the right thing and finish the job they’d started. “I spotted a dirt bike from the air. Give me a ten-minute head start, then meet me at the top of the eastern ridge for an exfil. Got it?”
“Got it,” Cody said, understanding the plan despite the minimal use of words.
Then with a final look into Becca’s terror-filled eyes, Jay turned and ran, aiming straight for the weathered shed he’d seen from the helicopter. Parked off to the side of the decrepit outbuilding, and partially concealed by a faded blue tarp, the metal-studded wheels of a KTM 450 had caught his attention.
He had one chance to make it out of here.
One chance to get off the island and back to his girl.
And he hoped like hell the old four-stroke dirt bike had some gas left in the tank.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
With Rebecca’s broken-hearted pleas filling the air around them, Cody stood rooted to the spot, stunned by Jay’s full-on charge toward the assholes they were trying to get away from. Yeah, he fucking understood the plan. Didn’t make it any easier to watch his buddy’s retreating back.
“Let me go! Let me go!” she cried, bucking wildly, her panicked attempt to break free of his hold barely registering. “Let. Me. Go!” Nails sharper than a cat’s dug into his face, leaving a trail of scratches across his cheek, and snapping him from his stupor as his runaway teammate disappeared around the side of the building.
“Jay!” Her gut-wrenching scream damn near busted his eardrums as she struggled to get free. “Let me down. Please, I’m begging you!”
Nope. His arms tightened. Fuck that. No way in hell he’d let her go. Not now. Not ever. Not after that motherfucker had entrusted him with his ferocious feline. She was the key to stopping a global Armageddon for fuck’s sake.
He wouldn’t let her go. Couldn’t let her go. Even if he wanted to.
“Turn around,” he shouted to Jamie, who looked ready to follow in Jay’s footsteps at the cost of his own life.
“We can’t leave him,” he barked back, taking another step in the wrong direction.
“We’re not leaving him, asshole, so turn the fuck around. That’s an order.”
“No! No! Please,” Becca wailed. “Don’t leave him!”
“He has an exfil plan,” Cody hollered, doing his best to reassure them both.
“Move. Move. Move.” Arriving in the nick of time, Grant grabbed Jamie by the vest and shoved him toward the helicopter.
“Rockets! Coming your way. Nine o’clock high,” Shadow warned as they ran. “Can’t get a clean shot.”
“On it!” Zander executed a one-eighty before he took a knee, and aiming at the roof of the building on their left, he let loose with the lead, dropping the soldier carrying the ground-to-air missile as Jamie hefted himself into the helo.
Cody tossed Rebecca in behind him. “Secure her,” he ordered before she could throw herself back out the door.
“Target on board,” Chase said from the cockpit.
“Wheels up in ten,” Ryder added, powering up the turbo engines and starting the countdown. “Nine, eight…”
Cody scrambled on board next, quick clipping himself into the door gunner position behind the pilot seat. Then with a fast rack of the charging handle, he readied the side-mounted machine gun. One push of the trigger, and he provided cover fire in controlled multiple-round bursts, gun barrel swinging in a wide arc across the courtyard.
