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inhaled one long, fortifying breath and opened the door.
    Or, at least, she tried to open the door. The damn thing only gave an inch. In that inch a streak of wet blood seven inches wide and nearly five feet long sliced across the floor, as though a body had been dragged. Khani heaved again, but only gained two inches. One of Tucker’s wingtips showed in the crack, along with the end of a pant leg. She ground her boots into the concrete and shoved with every honed muscle she possessed, knowing that the commander’s body blocked his own rescue.
    A chuckle started and grew into a cackle. She stopped and drew her pistol, but the noise didn’t change position to hide or jump at her. The vest added width to her chest, not allowing her access. So, smart or not, she shucked it and the rifle before slipping through the crack.
    Carlos Ruez sat chained with his balding head glistening under a layer of sweat. The cackle grew louder. “You see what happens…when your great leader…messes with me.”
    Khani cleared the two steps to Ruez and slammed her pistol against the side of his head. The laugh still rang in her ears, and when she saw Tucker’s prone frame laid out on the concrete, it roared. But the bastard no longer made the noise. Her father did, in the cold recesses of her mind.
    “Tucker, it’s Slaughter. If you can hear me, say something.” She slid on her knees to Tucker’s big shoulders. Gun holstered, she went straight to the carotid. She repositioned her hand. Pressed harder. And finally found a pulse. Weak, but there.
    She sat on her heels and looked him over. Blood soaked his lower back and pooled around his torso. The exit wound blew a nice hole in his shirt. She would hate to see what it had done to his flesh, but she’d have to. Looking left, she followed the track of red twenty feet to the far corner. Every two feet the line of blood-covered forearms and smeared handprints showed Tucker’s fight to save himself.
    Now it was her turn to fight for him.
    One hand on the shoulder, another on his hip, she pulled. He rolled like a rag toy, slack and life-less. But there was life left in this bloke.
    “Tucker, if you can hear me, I need your help. Just a little, all right?” She moved as she spoke, standing over him at the tops of his shoulders and securing her grip in the hollows of his armpits. “I’m going to lift your big arse. If you can hear me at all, when I get you up, lock your legs for as long as you can.”
    His lids fluttered. “Yep,” came dulcet between his dry lips.
    “Great job, Commander. Let’s get you out of here.”
    Khani hefted him to a sitting position. A groan rumbled beneath her hands, the most reassuring sign. Pain equaled life. She hugged him close, locked the tips of her fingers around his chest, and drove her legs and all the weight they held toward the sky. “Lock ’em,” she grunted.
    Bracing his back with her body, she grabbed his right wrist with her left hand, and spun around in front of him—like they twirled on the dance floor of a honkey-tonk, as Tucker had called it. She crouched, shouldered his right thigh with her right arm, wrapped his left over her other shoulder, and bore his body mass in a fireman’s carry. Her legs shook under his weight, but held firm. She’d never been so happy to be a member of the 300 Club in squat max.
    “All good, sir. Here we go.”
    “Slaughter,” he whispered, his head lolling beneath her pit.
    “Yes, sir.”
    The door was a bitch and a half, but she made it down the maze of hallways at a swift walk, leaving her vest and rifle by the interrogation room and hoping like hell she didn’t need them. Khani leaned their backs against the double doors and eased through them without a problem. She opted for the elevator to the lower parking garage with all the Base Branch vehicles.
    With another tap of her ten-digit code, she tugged the keys for the ambulance from the box and prayed her quivering legs would hold out long enough to