He sprinted down the hall to where Clive Tenny languished in a cell. The asshole had ignored their order to dress for the cold. Which he’d regret.
Eric threw open the door. “Plane’s taking off in one minute, dickwad. With or without you on board.”
The man stood and walked toward the door, too damned slowly. Eric grabbed his arm and pulled him out, down the hall.
They were halfway to the plane when Leo’s voice crackled to life again. “Eric!” she barked. “They’re closing in. Need you back here.Now!”
Shit.
“Faster.” Eric broke into a run, dragging the trembling professor-type across the ice to the plane.
This was the place Fordchoseto come back to every year? Incomprehensible.
“Move!” Von met them twenty yards out and hauled the prisoner on board.
“Need to go wheels up.” The urgency in Leo’s voice told him they had seconds to spare. If that. “Like,yesterday.”
Eric gave the sky a cursory glance as he pulled the door closed behind him. “We’re in.” Time to get the hell out of this hellhole. “Go!” he yelled into his comm device.
They were off, bumping across the ice before they could strap in. The prisoner fell to the floor, rolled. Von got him into a seat, secured his harness, and finally buckled up just as they took to the air. Eric worked his way to the cockpit and settled in beside Leo. He exchanged his earpiece for a headset.
“What the hell?”
“Coming in fast.”
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “Not sticking around to find out.”
They’d just eased into the air, a good distance from the main building, when the first impact sounded—sharp enough to hear through the big headset Eric had put on.
Though she remained expressionless, he couldseethe tension coming off Leo, could feel the airwaves vibrating. Seconds later, the plane dropped, as if it had hit turbulence.
Craning his neck, he could barely make out a dark puff of smoke from the place they’d just left.
Christ. That was close. His heart was thumping fast with adrenaline and a new thing he’d only recently developed on this type of mission—fear. Not for himself, but for his brother, his woman, his friends, and now this group of people who counted on him.
Leo pushed them higher, slowly gaining altitude and distance.
He exchanged a long look with her as she circled the base, giving them a bird’s-eye view of a second impact—a missile hit, shifting the air around them and obliterating the station. When he finally turned back to her, he could see the questions, even through her mirrored sunglasses.
“We safe?”
She swiveled left and right, her movements quick and efficient. “Hell if I know.”
There was no sound but the drone of engines as they rose.
“What the fuck is going on here, Eric?” He’d never heard Leo sound quite so shaken.
“No fucking idea.” He shook his head. “Who the hell has that kind of firepower?”
Whoever it was had just wiped out an entire research station. If his brother’s guess was right and Chronos Corporation—a pharmaceutical company—was behind it, then the face of the world had seriously changed. Or not, depending on what kind of conspiracy theories a person believed.
“Think it was government?”
“Doesn’t make sense, but it has to be.” He nodded slowly, then faster. “We’re dealing with more than just a business decision.”
“Whoever it is, they just created one hell of a diplomatic incident.”
