Under Fire

“Can I do anything to help you?”

Ava touched his arm again, this time lightly, brushing her fingertips across the slick material of his jacket.

The human contact and the emotion behind it made him shiver. Max clenched his teeth. “You can’t do anything to help. You’ve done enough.”

She grabbed the door handle and swung open the door before the car even stopped.

“Hold on. I’ll walk you up.”

“I thought you were anxious to get rid of me.”

He didn’t want to leave Ava, but he had to—for her own safety. “I was anxious to get you away from the lab and back home. The police can pick it up from here.”

He followed her to the front door. She dragged her keys from her purse and slid one into the dead bolt. It clicked and she opened the door.

Apprehension slithered down his spine and he held out a hand. “Wait.”

But it was too late. Ava had stepped across the threshold and now faced two men training weapons on her.

And this time she wasn’t behind bulletproof glass.

Under Fire

Carol Ericson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAROL ERICSON lives with her husband and two sons in Southern California, home of state-of-the-art cosmetic surgery, wild freeway chases and a million amazing stories. These stories, along with hordes of virile men and feisty women, clamor for release from Carol’s head. It makes for some interesting headaches until she sets them free to fulfill their destinies and her readers’ fantasies. To learn more about Carol, please visit her website, www.carolericson.com, “Where romance flirts with danger.”

To Marilyn, for all that you do.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

The shell casings from the bullets pinged off the metal file cabinets. One landed inches from her nose and rolled one way and then the other, its gold plating winking at her under the fluorescent lights. The acrid smell of gunpowder tickled her nostrils. She smashed her nose against the linoleum to halt the sneeze threatening to explode and give away her position.

Someone grunted. Someone screamed. Again.

Ava held her breath as the rubber sole of a black shoe squeaked past her face. She followed its path until her gaze collided with Dr. Arnoff’s.

From beneath the desk across from her, he put his finger to his lips. His thick glasses, one lens crushed, lay just out of his reach between the two desks. With his other finger, he pointed past her toward the lab.

Afraid to move even a centimeter, Ava blinked her eyes to indicate her understanding. If they could make their way to the lab behind the bulletproof glass and industrial-strength locks they might have a chance to survive this lunacy.

The shooter moved past the desks, firing another round from his automatic weapon. Glass shattered—not the bulletproof kind. A loud bump, followed by a crack and the door to the clinic, her domain, crashed open.

Greg bellowed, “No, no, no!”

Another round of fire and Greg’s life ended in a thump and a gurgle.

Ava squeezed her eyes closed, and her lips mumbled silent words. Keep going. Keep going.

If the shooter kept walking through the clinic, he’d wind up on the other side in the waiting room. At this time of night, nobody was in the waiting room, which led to a door and a set of stairs to the outside.

Keep going.

He returned. His boots crunched through the glass. Then he howled like a wounded animal, and the hair on the back of Ava’s neck stood at attention and quivered.

The footsteps stopped on the other side of the desk—her pathetic hiding place. In the sudden silence of the room, her heartbeat thundered. Surely he could hear it, too.

He kicked at a shard of glass, which skittered between the two desks.

Ava turned widened eyes on Dr. Arnoff and swallowed. She harbored no hopes that the doctor could take down the shooter. Although a big man, his fighting days were behind him. Their best hope was to make it to the lab and wait for help.

The black-booted foot stepped between the desks, smashing the other lens of Dr. Arnoff’s glasses. A second later the shooter lifted the desk by one edge and hurled it against the wall as if it were a piece of furniture in a dollhouse.

Exposed, Dr. Arnoff scrambled for cover, his army crawl no match for the lethal weapon pointed at him. The bullets hit his body, making it jump and twitch.

Ava dug a fist against her mouth, and her teeth cut into her lips. The metallic taste of her blood mimicked the smell permeating the air.

Then her own cover disappeared, snatched away by some towering hulk. She didn’t scream. She didn’t beg. The gunman existed in a haze behind the weapon that he now had aimed at her head.

His gloved finger on the trigger of the assault rifle mesmerized her. She mumbled a prayer with parched lips. Click. She sucked in a breath. Click. She gritted her teeth.

Click. He’d run out of ammo.

He reached into the pocket of his fatigues, and adrenaline surged through her body. She clambered over the discarded desk and launched herself at the lab door. With shaking hands she scrabbled for the badge around her neck and pressed it to the reader. The red light mocked her.

Her badge didn’t allow her access to this lab. Her exclusion from the lab had been a source of irritation to her for almost two years. How could she forget that now?

She dropped to her knees and crawled to Dr. Arnoff’s dead body. Her fingers trembled as she unclipped the badge from the pocket of his white coat.

Amid the clicking and clacking behind her, the gunman muttered to himself.

Expecting another round of shots at any second, Ava swiped Dr. Arnoff’s badge across the reader. The green lights blinked in a row as if she’d just won a jackpot. She had.

She yanked open the heavy door and shoved it closed just as the shooter looked up from his task. Five seconds later, a volley of bullets thwacked the glass.

Knowing the gunman could lift a badge from any of the dead bodies around him just as she had, Ava slid three dead bolts across the door and took two steps back.

This windowless room, clicking and buzzing with machinery, computers and refrigeration, offered no escape, but it did contain a landline telephone. Maybe someone had been able to make a call to the police when the mayhem started, but no cavalry had arrived to the rescue yet.

After his first round, the crazed man outside her sanctuary had stopped shooting. He seemed to be searching the bodies of her fallen coworkers—looking for a badge, no doubt. He wouldn’t find Dr. Arnoff’s.

Ava pounced on the receiver of the telephone on the wall beside the door. Her heart skipped a beat. No dial tone. She tapped the phone over and over, but it remained dead.

Even if she had her cell phone, which remained in the pocket of her lab coat hanging on a hook in the clinic, it wouldn’t do any good. Nobody could get reception in this underground building in the middle of the desert.

The lock clicked and she spun around. The shooter was leaning against the door, pressing a badge up to the reader. The lock on the handle responded, but the dead bolts held the door securely in place.

She’d resented being locked out of this lab, but now she couldn’t be happier about those extra reinforcements.

He grabbed the handle and shook it while releasing another roar.

Ava covered her galloping heart with one hand as she studied the glittering eyes visible from the slits in the ski mask. What did he want? Drugs? Why murder all these people for drugs? Why come all the way out here to a high-level security facility to steal meds?

He gave up on the door and shook his head once. Then he reached up and yanked the ski mask from his head.

Ava gasped and stumbled back. She knew him. Simon. He was one of her patients, one of the covert agents the lab treated and monitored.

Guess they hadn’t monitored him closely enough.

“Simon?” She flattened her palm against the glass of the window. “Simon, put down your weapon. The police are on their way.”

She had no idea if the police were on their way or not. The lab used its own security force, so she and her coworkers never had a reason to call in the police from the small town ten miles away in this New Mexico desert. Since the lab’s security guards had made no attempt to stop Simon, she had a sick feeling Simon had already dealt with them.

“You need help, Simon. I can help you.” She licked her lips. “Whatever you need me to say to the authorities, I’ll say it. We can tell them it was your job, the stress.”

His mouth twisted and he lunged at the window, jabbing the butt of his gun against the glass, which shivered under the assault.

Ava blinked and jerked back. She made a half turn and scanned the lab. If he somehow made it through the door and she got close enough to him, she could stick him with a needle full of tranquilizer that would drop him in his tracks. She could throw boiling water or a chemical mixture in his face.

He’d never let her get that close. He’d come through shooting, and she wouldn’t have a chance against those bullets. None of the others had. She gulped back a sob.

The bullets started again. Simon had stepped away from the door and continued spraying bullets at the glass. That window hadn’t been designed to withstand this kind of relentless barrage. She knew. She’d asked when she started working here, curious about the extra security of this room.

He knew it, too. Sweat beaded on Simon’s ruddy face as he took a breather. He didn’t even need to reload. He rolled his shoulders as if preparing for the long haul.

Then he resumed firing at the window.

Again, Ava searched the room, tilting her head back to examine the ceiling. Unfortunately, the ceiling was solid, except for one vent. She eyed the rectangular cover. Could she squeeze through there?

Simon took another break to examine the battered window, placing his weapon on the floor beside him.

She tried to catch his gaze, tried to make some human contact, but this person was just a shell of the Simon she had known. The sarcastic redhead who did killer impressions had disappeared, replaced by this creature with dead eyes.

Ava’s breath hitched in her throat. Beyond Simon, a figure decked out in black riot gear loomed in the doorway of the clinic. Was it someone from security? The police?

Not wanting to alert Simon, she inched farther away from the window and kept her gaze glued to Simon’s face.

The man at the door yelled, “Simon!”

How did he know who the shooter was? Had someone from the lab seen Simon before the rampage started and reported him?

Simon turned slowly.

“Give it up, Simon.” The man raised his weapon. “We can get help, together.”

Simon growled and swayed from side to side.

Would he go for his gun on the floor?

Taking a single step into the room, the man tried again. “Step away from your weapon, Simon. We’ll figure this out.”

Simon shouted, “They have to pay!”

Ava hugged herself as a chill snaked up her spine. His animalistic sounds had frightened her, but his words struck cold fear into her heart. Pay for what? He’d gone insane, and they’d been responsible for him, for his well-being.

“Not Dr. Whitman. It’s not her fault.”

Ava threw out a hand and grasped the edge of a counter to steady herself. Her rescuer knew her name? His voice, bellowing from across the room, muffled by the mask on his face, still held a note of familiarity to her. He must be one of the security guards.

“It is.” Simon stopped swaying. “It is her fault.”

He dropped to the floor and jumped up, clutching his weapon. He raised it to his shoulder but it didn’t get that far.

The man from across the room fired. Simon spun around and fell against the window, which finally cracked.

Ava clapped a hand over her mouth as she met Simon’s blue stare. The film over his eyes cleared. They widened for a second and he gasped. Blood gurgled from his gaping mouth. He slid to the floor, out of her sight.

Every muscle in her body seized up and she couldn’t move.

The security guard kept his weapon at his shoulder as he stalked across the room. When he reached the window of the lab, he pointed his gun at the floor, presumably at Simon.

Ava covered her ears, but the gunfire had finally ceased.

Slinging his weapon over his shoulder, the man gestured to the door. “Open up. It’s okay now.”

Would it ever be okay? She’d just watched a crazed gunman, one of her patients, mow down her coworkers and had barely escaped death herself.

She stumbled toward the door and reached for the first lock with stiff hands. It took her several tries before she could slide all the dead bolts. Then she pressed down on the handle to open the door.

The man, smelling of gunpowder and leather and power, stepped into the lab. “Are you okay, Dr. Whitman?”

She knew that voice but couldn’t place it. Tilting her head, she cleared her throat. “I—I’m not physically hurt.”

“Good.” His head swiveled back and forth, taking in the small lab. “Are there any blue pills in this room?”

She took a step back from his overpowering presence. “Blue pills? What are you talking about?”

“The blue pills.” He stepped around her and yanked open a drawer. “I need as many blue pills as you have in here—all of them.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She blinked and edged toward the door. Had she just gone from one kind of crazy to another? Maybe this man was Simon’s accomplice and they were both after drugs.

He continued his search through the lab, repeating his request for blue pills, pulling out drawers and banging cupboard doors open.

A crash from another area of the building made them both jump, and he swore.

Taking her arm in his gloved hand, he said, “We need to get out of here unless you can tell me where to find some blue pills.”

“I told you, I don’t know about any blue pills, and there’s no serum on hand either.” Maybe he was after the vitamin boost the agents received quarterly.

He grunted. “Then let’s go.”

“Wait a minute.” She shook him off. “H-he’s dead, right? Simon’s dead?”

The man nodded once.

“Then why do we have to leave? Maybe that noise was the police breaking in here.” Cold fear flooded her veins and she hugged her body. “Are there more? Is there another gunman?”

“He’s the only one.”

“Then I’d rather stay here and wait for the rest of your—” she waved a hand at him “—security force or the cops or whoever is on the way. That could be them.”

He adjusted his bulletproof vest and took her arm again. “We don’t want to wait for anyone.”

Confusion clashed with anger at his peremptory tone and the way he kept grabbing her. She jerked her arm away from him and dug her heels into the floor. “Hold on. My entire department has just been murdered. I was almost killed. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

“Sure you do.” He reached up with one hand and yanked the ski mask from his head.

Her eyebrows shot up. Max Duvall. Another one of her patients, another agent—just like Simon.

“Y-you, you’re...”

“That’s right, and you’re coming with me. Now.” He scooped her up with one arm and threw her over his shoulder. “Whether you want to or not.”

Chapter Two

“Let me go!” She struggled and kicked her legs, but Dr. Ava Whitman was a tiny thing.

He could get her to go with him willingly if he sat down and explained the whole situation, but they didn’t have time for that. That could be Tempest at the door right now. He couldn’t even risk doing a more thorough search for the blue pills. He’d have to just take her at her word that there were none at the lab.

Maybe Dr. Whitman already knew the whole situation. Knew why Simon had gone postal. He couldn’t trust anyone...not even pretty Dr. Whitman.

Clamping her thighs against his shoulder, he stepped over the dead bodies littering the floor. When he navigated around the final murder victim in his path at the door of the clinic, Dr. Whitman stopped struggling and slumped against his back. If she’d had her eyes open the whole way, she probably just got her fill of blood and guts.

He crossed through the waiting room and kicked open the door to the stairwell. He slid Dr. Whitman down his body so that she was facing him, his arm cinched around her waist.

“Will you come with me now? I need you to walk up these stairs and out the side door. I have a car waiting there.”

Through his vest, he could feel the wild beat of her heart as it banged against her chest. “Where are we going? Why can’t we wait here for the police?”

“It’s not safe.” He grabbed her shoulders and squeezed. “Do you believe me?”

Her green eyes grew round, taking up half her face. She glanced past him at the clinic door and nodded. Then she grabbed the straps on his bulletproof vest. “My purse, my phone.”

“Are they in the clinic?”

“Yes.”

He shoved back through the door and pulled her along with him. He didn’t quite trust that she wouldn’t go running all over the lab searching for the security guards. Wouldn’t do her any good anyway—Simon had killed them all.

She broke away from him and yanked her purse from a rack two feet from the body of a coworker. She dipped her hand in the pocket of her lab coat hanging on the rack and pulled out a phone.

Another crash erupted from somewhere in the building, and Dr. Whitman dropped her phone. It skittered and twirled across the floor, coming to a stop at the edge of a puddle of blood.

She gasped and hugged her purse to her chest.

The noise, closer than the previous one, sent a new wave of adrenaline coursing through his veins. “Let’s go!”

Her feet seemed rooted to the floor, so he crossed the room in two steps and curled his fingers around her wrist, tugging her forward. “We need to leave.”

Still holding on to Dr. Whitman, Max plucked her phone from the floor and headed toward the stairwell again. He half prodded, half carried Dr. Whitman upstairs, and when they reached the door to the outside, he inched it open, pressing his eye to the crack.

The car he’d stolen waited in the darkness. He pushed open the door of the building and a blast of air peppered with sand needled his face. He ducked and put an arm around Dr. Whitman as he hustled her to the vehicle.

She hesitated when he opened the passenger door. The wind whipped her hair across her face, hiding her expression.

It was probably one of shock. Or was it fear? “Get in, Dr. Whitman. They’re here.”

This time she didn’t even ask for clarification. His words had her scrambling into the passenger seat.

He blew out a breath and lifted the bulletproof vest over his head. Would Simon have turned the gun on him after everything they’d gone through together? Sure he would’ve. That man in there who’d just committed mass murder bore no resemblance to the Simon he knew.

He threw the vest in the backseat and cranked on the engine. He floored the accelerator and went out the way he came in—through a downed chain-link fence.

He hit the desert highway and ten minutes later blew past the small town that served the needs of the lab. The lab didn’t have any needs now.

After several minutes of silence, Dr. Whitman cleared her throat. “Are we going to the police now? Calling the CIA?”

“Neither.”

Her fingers curled around the edge of the seat. “Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“Home?” She blinked her long lashes. “Whose home?”

Without turning his head, he raised one eyebrow. “Your home. You have one, don’t you? I know you don’t live at the lab—at least not full-time.”

“Albuquerque. I live in Albuquerque.”

“I figured that. Once I drop you off, you’re free to call whomever you like.”

“But not now?”

“Not as long as I’m with you.”

She bolted upright and wedged her hands against the dashboard. “Why? Don’t you want to meet with the CIA? Your own agency? Tell them what happened back there?”

“What do you think happened back there?” He squinted into the blackness and hit his high beams.

“Simon Skinner lost it. He went on a murderous rampage and killed my coworkers, my friends.” She stifled a sob with the back of her hand.

She showed real grief, but was the shock feigned? Extending his arms, he gripped the steering wheel. “How much do you know about the work you do at the lab?”

“That’s a crazy question. It’s my workplace. I’ve been there for almost two years.”

“Your job is to treat and monitor a special set of patients, correct?”

“Since you’re one of those patients, you should know.” She dragged her fingers through her wavy, dark hair and clasped it at the nape of her neck.

One soft strand curled against her pale cheek. Whenever he’d seen her for appointments, her hair had been confined to a bun or ponytail. Now loosened and wild, it was as pretty as he’d imagined it would be.

“And the injections you gave us, the vitamin boost? Did you work on that formula?”

She jerked her head toward him and the rest of her curls tumbled across her shoulder. “No. Dr. Arnoff developed that before I arrived.”

“Did he tell you what was in it?”

“Of course he did. I wouldn’t inject my patients with some mystery substance.”

“Were you allowed to test it yourself? Did you work in that lab?”

“N-no.” She clasped her hands between her bouncing knees. “I wasn’t allowed in the lab.”

“Why not? You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

“I...I’m... The lab requires top secret clearance. I have secret clearance only, but Dr. Arnoff showed me the formula, showed me the tests.”

He slid a glance at her stiff frame and pale face. Was she still in shock over the events at the lab or was she lying?

“Now it’s your turn.”

His eyes locked onto hers in the darkness of the car. “What do you mean?”

“It’s your turn to answer my questions. What were you doing at the lab? You weren’t scheduled for another month or so. Why can’t we call the police or the CIA, or Prospero, the agency you work for?”

“Prospero?”

She flicked her fingers in the air. “You don’t have to pretend with me. Nobody ever told me the name of the covert ops agency we were supporting, but I heard whispers.”

“What other whispers did you hear?” A muscle twitched in his jaw.

“Wait a minute.” She smacked the dashboard with her palms. “I thought it was your turn to answer the questions. What were you doing there? Why can’t we call the police?”