Page 38 of Jacking Jill

“Hush,” he whispered, sliding one arm beneath her knees, supporting her back and neck with the other, then carefully lifting her out of the backseat and cradling her against his body. “You’re going to go into shock unless we get you nice and warm soon. Just lean into me, sweetheart. I’ve got you, baby.”

“Hmmm,” came a purring sound from somewhere in Jill’s throat. Her head snuggled into the crook of Jack’s neck as he carried her to Hogan’s car, where the backdoor was already opened all the way and Hogan was standing by to help. “Did you just call me sweetheart and baby again?”

“No, baby, of course not,” Jack murmured into her hair. “Now relax, sweetheart. We’re almost there.”

“Almost where, baby?” Jill mumbled as Jack carefully laid her in the spacious backseat of Hogan’s Jeep. “Almost where, sweetheart?”

“Hospital,” Jack said, standing at the open backdoor, then frowning when he saw Hogan silently shake his head. “We’re going to the hospital, Hogan. I don’t want to take any chances with Jill.”

Hogan peered past Jack into the backseat, where Jill was curled up and shivering, the blood-crusted side of her face exposed. “Shit, did she take a bullet?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s not her blood. But she’s had one hell of a day. And she was just in a car accident. It wasn’t a bad accident—no collision, and nothing’s broken that I can see. But I want her treated for shock and checked for internal bleeding. Hospital, Hogan. Now.”

“Benson says no hospital unless someone’s about to drop dead.” Hogan’s tone was sympathetic but steady. “He wants us back at Darkwater HQ in Virginia ASAP.”

“Fuck that,” Jack growled. “And fuck Benson.”

“Fuck Benson? Where have I heard that before,” came Benson’s sharp voice from both Jack’s and Hogan’s phones at once, like the bastard didn’t want to take any chances that Jack had lost his Darkwater phone in the chaos. “Oh, right. From every damn Darkwater man who thinks he knows better than me. But he doesn’t, and you don’t. Now, get your asses back to HQ before I get really angry. You’ve already messed up twice today, Jack. Don’t make it a third time. Get your head out of your ass and grow the hell up. The cops are eventually going to find Jill’s shot-up car. They’re going to track her down at the hospital—and that’s if the medical staff don’t call the cops the moment they see you drag a bruised, blood-spattered woman into the ER. We have no idea what the hell she’s going to say to the cops about you, about Diego, about what happened. Damn it, this is already a shitshow of a mission. Now, unless this woman is literally bleeding out in the backseat, you will bring her to Darkwater HQ immediately.” He took a sharp breath, exhaled harshly. “Hell, you know what, even if she is bleeding out, bring her to Darkwater HQ anyway. We’re just getting the medical facilities set up, so it’ll be a good test run. And if she does bleed out and die, even better. We can test out our experimental body-disposal system.”

“You son of a bitch,” Jack snarled. “Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it? It’s all fun and games because you have nothing to live for, don’t give a shit about anything or anyone if they don’t serve your purposes. I saw how you turned your back on my brother Ice during that last mission, left him out there on his own, halfway around the world with an assassin hunting him. You were ready to sacrifice my brother and his woman to get Rhett Rodgers, and I haven’t forgotten that, Benson.”

Benson grunted. “Your brother’s a big boy. And I thought you were too, Jack. But I guess not every Delta man is cut from the same cloth. Look, you might not want to follow orders anymore, but Hogan will. So don’t make me order him to put you in handcuffs and lock you in the damn trunk.”

Jack rubbed his eyes and swallowed thickly. The anger was surging with a wildness that was very unlike him. Delta men were trained to get cooler when the heat got turned up, get calmer as the pressure rose. But he was unravelling like a ball of twine at the mercy of a kitten.

“Hey, man,” said Hogan softly from behind Jack’s shoulder. “There’s a blanket in the back, along with some bottled water, energy-bars, and a medical kit. Why don’t you ride in the back with her, Jack. I can be chauffeur tonight.” Hogan paused, and Jack could feel his Darkwater brother’s grin from behind. ‘Get in the car, sweetheart,” Hogan whispered devilishly from behind. “Or do you prefer being called baby?”

The good-natured ribbing broke through Jack’s adrenaline-fueled anger. He turned and grinned at Hogan, then nodded and circled to the back of the Jeep, raising the tailgate and grabbing the blanket and supplies.

Moments later Jack was in the backseat, wrapping Jill in the blanket like a Twinkie. Soon Jill was curled like a Cheeto against his body, chewing the fruit-bar hungrily as Jack carefully cleaned Bobby Carmine’s blood off her face with an alcohol-soaked swab. He waited for her to swallow the last bite of her energy-bar, then held the bottle of water to her lips and helped her drink.

Hogan was already zipping along towards I-95, and Jack sensed that the food and water had staved off the shock from setting into Jill’s worn-out body. He pulled her close to him, then took her hand in his, placing his thumb gently on her wrist to check her pulse. Still elevated, but it had slowed, wasn’t frantic anymore, was well below the danger zone. Jack exhaled, then smiled as Jill leaned her head back against his chest and looked up at him.

“Who was that man on speakerphone earlier?” she murmured with a quizzical frown. “He sounds like an asshole.”

Both Jack and Hogan exploded with laughter, each of them knowing that Benson and the rest of the Darkwater crew at HQ were probably listening in. Jack stroked Jill’s hair, holding her head against his chest and nodding.

“That’s John Benson,” said Jack with a sideways grin which matched Hogan’s. “And the reason John Benson sounds like an asshole is because he is an asshole.”

14

“Your brother’s an asshole.” John Benson narrowed his eyes at Mike “Ice” Wagner, Jack’s older brother, who’d just gotten in after driving down from Upstate New York. Benson had ordered Ice to get his ass down to HQ, making the call in the late afternoon because Benson was already getting a bad feeling that this Jack mission was going to hell in a handbasket. Benson wasn’t sure if he’d called Ice down here to babysit his younger brother or replace him on this mission. “Which usually isn’t a problem for me. I’m an asshole too. But you can’t be an asshole if you’re also a fuck-up. One or the other.”

Ice said nothing. The former Delta interrogator specialized in saying nothing, Benson remembered. Silence always made people nervous, and Benson reminded himself to calm the hell down and take a cue from Ice’s silent coolness.

“Jack is solid and you know it, Benson,” said Ice quietly as he dragged out a swivel chair from behind the long conference table in one of the glass-and-wood-paneled war-rooms with a view of the Virginia woods to one side and a massive projection-screen covering the other wall. “This is the third Darkwater mission that Diego’s been involved with, and he’s still on the loose. From what I hear, you had the entire Darkwater crew on board that cruise ship and Diego still got away. Diego getting away is on all of us, not just Jack.”

Benson grunted, stretching out his leg which had stiffened because it was past midnight and he’d been pacing up and down in this war-room for hours now, getting updates from Paige and Nancy, who were both working different angles to figure out how Romeo Carmine and Kay Steffen fit into the picture.

Because they were most certainly in the damn picture now.

Just like Diego Vargas was once again in the picture—and frustratingly out of it at the same time.

“Fair enough,” grumbled Benson. “Diego got away after the Rivington debacle. And he got away after damn near killing Martin Kaiser and myself outside the Senator’s home.” He glanced up at the stoic Ice Wagner and cracked a grin. “Thanks for that, by the way. You saved our asses outside the Senator’s home.”

Ice shrugged. “Wasn’t trying to save your ass, Benson. My woman was about to get into a car which Diego had rigged with plastic explosive. Saving your ass was just a lucky side-effect.”

Benson chuckled, tapping the rubber tip of his aluminum cane gently against his aching shin-bone which was now partially titanium—which sort of made him a bionic man, didn’t it? Some kind of robot-human hybrid?

---