Sherri’s face came to mind, and he took the hits. Ignored the pain. Fought on grimly for her. If he could beat these guys off, maybe he could get one of them to tell him where she was stashed.

He became aware that they were herding him toward the narrow end of the valley, stacking themselves in an arc that forced him to fall back from their flurry of fists. Why weren’t they using guns on him? Or at least knives? They must be under orders to grab him and take him alive.

If he could just hold out a few more minutes, Cal and the Hummers full of SEALs would get here and make short work of these jokers.

But then he took a punishing blow to the side of his head and saw stars, dazed.

Shit. He was in trouble now.

* * *

Sherri saw the moment Griffin’s head snapped to one side, and he staggered, half-conscious.

Worse, as she slid along above the fight as it moved to the right, she spotted a cave entrance, or maybe a tunnel of some kind. As she recalled, there used to be silver mines out here. More recently, some of those complexes had been converted to drug operations, mazelike warrens with multiple ingress and egress points.

If those Russians got Griffin underground, all of his fancy tracking devices and video intel feeds would go dead, just as had happened to that DEVGRU team in the Kirdu ambush. No one had heard from them until they dug out of the tunnels two days after the ambush.

She had to keep Griffin outside that cave! It was now or never to help him.

She took off running down the steep slope. It was more of a controlled fall than actual running, and it took all of her strength to stay upright and keep her feet underneath her.

She hoped they wouldn’t notice her coming while they concentrated on Griffin, who was giving them all the fight they could handle. She was all over ambushing these bastards who were beating on her man. Cold fury coursed through her, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt she would have no trouble killing anyone who messed with Griffin. He was more than her lover, more than a mentor and friend. He was her whole blessed world.

She reached the bottom of the slope, letting the momentum carry her forward at full speed. She joined the fracas and slammed the metal bar across the back of the head of the nearest Russian with all her strength.

* * *

Griffin glimpsed a fifth shape coming, this one charging down the slope like a bat out of hell. The apparition came silently, and he braced himself for impact. The fight, already going badly against him, was about to tip over into an outright loss.

He roared in his fury and redoubled his efforts, flailing like crazy as his assailants pummeled him.