Page 101 of Storm Warning

“I’m just glad Whitman didn’t get you or take you,” he whispered against her cheek, then released her. “I left Cole behind to come and find you. Now I need you to stay safe while I go face Whitman and end this.”

The red sports car raced away.

“He’s getting away!” Remi started toward the parking lot.

They’d been distracted for only a few moments, during which he’d made his move. The sports car headed north past the cabins.

“He’s going for the choppers,” Hawk said. “I need a ride.” He looked around the parking lot.

“Here, take my truck.” Dylan jogged from the lodge overto them and tossed Hawk keys. “Mine’s the old junker there. I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop Whitman. He slipped by me and was in the car, speeding away before I knew it.”

“Thanks, Dylan. We’re not going to let him get away to try to kill us on another day,” she said.

Hawk hiked toward the truck. “You’re right.We’renot. You’re not coming.”

“You’re not stopping me.”

She climbed in on the passenger side while Hawk got into the driver’s seat of the old beat-up truck. The engine rumbled to life, then he raced down the road, steering toward one of two helicopters.

“Jo said Cole didn’t abduct her. That it was all Erika. Anytime someone had that mask, that was her. And Hawk, get this, Erika was there in Zarovia. I put all the puzzle pieces together, and the image was one I took of the church, Sergei, and Erika. I hadn’t remembered that. I think Cole sent that to me to help me remember. To help me to realize that I was working with someone who was watching me every moment.”

“Because he knew that danger was closing in. He said he didn’t shoot John, so I’m not sure who did. I’m sorry he abducted you and took you away on the boat. It’s hard to swallow all of it.”

“He thought I was in danger,” Remi said. “He was trying to protect me, to get me away from you, knowing I would fight him because I didn’t understand the danger I was in trusting you. That’s why it seemed so weird that he was concerned that I was cold. He seemed caring and it didn’t fit with his actions. But I get it now.”

Hawk filled her in on what happened to the special ops extraction team and that someone had shot the helicopter down with a rocket launcher. The covert operation had been doomed from the start.

What was happening to John? Was he secretly escaping the hospital and getting away? Going into hiding with all his intelligence connections? These thoughts filled her mind as Hawk steered the truck along the rutted two-lane road through the dense forest. The thrum of helicopter rotors resounded through the trees, letting them know that Charles Whitman was getting away.

Hawk accelerated, but the old truck wasn’t going much faster. Besides, the road was so bumpy she was going to get knocked out if he kept this up. Finally, the helipad where he’d landed earlier came into view.

The truck slid across the mud when he stopped.

“Oh no!” Hawk growled. He pounded the steering wheel. “Gordo’s going to kill me. Does Whitman even have the skills to fly in this storm?”

Gordo’s helicopter lifted above them and started moving away over the trees and then out over the ocean. The wind was blowing so hard, and even Remi could see the chopper was struggling.

She and Hawk got out and ran toward the cliff to watch, rain and wind thrashing them where they stood. A sound drew her attention around in time to see a rocket racing toward the helicopter.

Remi screamed as that day from her past collided with this catastrophic moment.

Instantly, the bird exploded. Flashes of orange and yellow flames filled the sky. The blast boomed over the roar of the storm. The wind drove debris and the body of the broken helicopter toward the cliffside.

Instinctively, Remi ducked as though her action could have protected her, but what remained of the destroyed chopper crashed into the ocean, swallowed up as if it never happened. The jagged edge of a rotor lodged into a sea stack as if to stake a claim, but violent breakers snatched itaway. All of it happening within a few seconds, leaving her stunned. Heart pounding, she glanced toward the woods from where the rocket had been launched. Remi caught a glimpse of a masked figure watching.

“Erika? Is that her?” Just because the person had on a mask didn’t mean it was Erika, or Latasha.

Then the mask came off. Erika-Latasha saluted Remi, then disappeared into the woods.

Remi sucked in a gulp of air. “I thought she wanted me dead.”

“Looks like she had it out for Whitman more.”

“Could she have learned that he had made a deal with someone within her own government?” Remi shrugged, confused. “He made it sound like he’d ended her. So obviously he tried but got it wrong. She escaped.”

Remi didn’t know if she was safe or not since Erika had tried to kill her while pretending to be part of the staff at the lodge, her cover and her alibi working to keep her from suspicion. “Whitman said she was an operative for Zarovia. I guess her mission was to watch me, and if she thought I was starting to remember, then she was supposed to take me out.”

“Except just now, she took out someone else,” Hawk said.

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