He clenched one fist to his massive chest, imagining her slender fingers fluttering over him. She’d never hesitated once she’d decided she’d wanted him. Not once. Just reached out and snagged him like one of her ancient treasures. Like she meant to save him, too.
And she had...
He flexed his fingers and scrubbed a wide palm over the ache in his heart, needing her out of there. He had a hard job to do. He needed to be a focused precision sniper, not some lovesick teenage boy. Hell, he needed to be the hand of God tonight, and, if Turik hadn’t already taken care of business with Nizari like he should have, Lee needed to wipe Nizari’s filthy stain off the face of the earth.
Lee’s fingers brushed over the crucifix around his neck. Tess’s crucifix. He’d hung it there when he’d found it in Nizari’s torture chamber—that night. Shit. Last night. He’d meant to give it back, but feeling it there under his shirt brought the audacious energy of that crazy woman back to him. A hint of coconut and lime came out of nowhere.
Suddenly, she was there. Walking with him. Teasing him. Revealing yet another secret to her wild and daring nature. Her free spirit. That was the difference between them. Lee still walked in shadow, perhaps because he’d spent more time with the Devil. But Tess Culver, the audacious cat burglar of Kabul, had risen above her pain. She’d put her near-death experience behind her, and she’d gone on to steal back from dishonorable men and despicable thieves the treasures of the country she loved. Better yet, she’d cracked the code to one tough-as-nails former Marine when she sang to him.
The words bubbled up from deep within. “The Lord has promised good to me... As long as life endures...” How many times had he sung it? Hummed it? Mentally prayed it? He honestly didn’t know, but its message rang crystal clear tonight. Lee believed. There was a God who answered prayers, and tonight He’d sent Lee to be that answer.
He drew in a deep, soul-cleansing breath, then exhaled slowly, the weight lifting from his shoulders and away from his heart. He might not be the romantic hero of Tess’s legends, but by the time the morning sun kissed the highest crest of the Hindu Kush, Tess and the rest of this country would be free of Nizari. She could live her impossible dreams and run her crazy schemes. Lee couldn’t change who he was. He’d still be gone, but he could do this one thing before he left. He could prove he loved her enough to let her go. To let her live.
A light glimmered ahead. Nizari’s compound. The infamous rows of torture cells stood a respectable distance to the east, bleak and dark. They looked more like a row of sheds lined up side-by-side. Respectable nothing. Vile. Wretched. Fifty shades of pure evil.
Hunkered low, Lee crept steadily toward the lighted window, needing to see inside. All five senses ranged far and wide to pull in the slightest sound from the distance, the hint of skulk within the shadows, or the scent and stink of the unwashed enemy he’d come to end.
He swung his AR off his shoulder and clenched the grip, his itchy finger on the trigger. Sideways at the window, he peered inside at the plush room where just hours earlier he’d found Tess stripped bare. The room had been cleared except for the whipping post. Her blood still marred the gold rug. Boxes stood stacked along one side of the room, scrolls, pictures, and larger boxes along the other.
What the hell? Nizari was still alive? Didn’t it figure? Turik had given Lee false hope that he’d deal with Nizari. What’d he do—give the bastard a good talking to instead of putting a bullet in his head? Rage ignited an inferno in Lee’s veins. Nizari first. Then the liar, Mohammed Turik.
Ducking out of sight, Lee circled the lavish home to the cells out back. All the doors stood ajar. No noises. No screams. Better yet, no American soldiers dangling from chains like sides of beef inside those cells. His heart settled to its normal rhythm. He meant to torch those cells before he left, but first...
He moved past the three trucks backed up to the concrete patio to the east and south of the house. Men’s voices drifted to him. Maybe three. He closed in for the kill, needing it. Yearning for it. He came upon two—one loading the truck, the other handing up boxes. Both with their backs to him. It didn’t take long. That was why the pistol. That was why the silencer. Two men down. Hopefully, just one more to go.
Lee scanned the quiet yard to his right, sensing another presence in the universe of wicked men, another like him who killed for his country. It had to be Turik out there laying for him. Well, hell. Lee ducked inside Nizari’s southern door, the one he’d walked out of last night with Tess in his arms. Only one man would exit this building alive tonight. It wouldn’t be Nizari, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be Turik.
Lee was two-rooms deep into the house by the time he found who he was looking for. Nizari looked up from his packing. He shoved the gilded books in his hands hurriedly into a box and folded the flaps closed. Hiding more stolen artifacts. More deceit. The man just wouldn’t quit.
“Going somewhere?” Lee taunted, the reticle of his AR on the lying bastard in the room. Ah, muscle memory. You’ve got to love the advantage it gave a guy. He’d trained for hours to become the steady, cool hand he was today. Course, he’d also gone through Nizari’s brutal training camp, too. That had to count for something.
Lee rolled the righteous twinge out of his shoulder. A previously banked spike of self-righteousness slithered up his spine like a snake to take its place. It hissed for the kill. Demanded the blood of it. And somewhere down deep in Lee’s gut, he needed it, too. He needed Nizari’s screaming death to be able to lift his own head high again. Needed an end to this monster who’d delighted in torture to finally balance the universe. To make things right for Tess and all the women and children like her.
“You,” Nizari hissed, but Lee caught the lie. Nizari might want to project contempt, but his trembling fingers gave him away.
“Me,” Lee grunted, his scope on target—not that he needed the scope at this distance.
Nizari lifted his chin. He was still in dress slacks, the two top buttons on his cream-colored shirt open, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. The outline of the bandage on his upper-left chest covered the knife wound. It had to hurt what with all the packing. The pale tone of his shirt resonated against the deathly pallor of his normally dusky skin, no longer mocha so much as the hue of the belly of a desert lizard.
“You have no rights in my country,” he declared, his voice tight. “You can’t kill me. You’re an American soldier. Your country operates on strict rules of engagement.”
“Marine,” Lee corrected the man at the business end of his weapon. “I’m not a soldier, I’m a Marine. Get it right. I do know the rules, but I doubt your Quran promotes the shit you’ve been doing.”
“I’ve committed no crimes,” he had the nerve to lie. “I merely ask for and then take what is offered, and eventually, everything is offered. Like you.”
Lee tamped down his angst. He edged closer, the scent of sandalwood bringing every abhorrent crime committed against his body and soul back to the surface. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Nizari’s gaze narrowed. “Tell me you did not enjoy our time together. Tell me you are not a better man for the fire I put you through. Tell me you are not a god!”
A god? There were no words for the revulsion creeping up Lee’s throat at Nizari’s incredible gall to declare that his works of evil in any way resembled creative genius. Nizari had nothing to do with God, certainly not betterment. Unblinking, ice-cold insanity stared back at him, and Lee was done. His temper lifted its cloven wings, furled with deep, dark fury that his soul had suppressed for too long. It ached to be unleashed, to fill the sky now void of stars with the fire of revenge and justice.
“How?”
A nervous glitter raked Nizari’s eyes. “How what?”
Lee shrugged as if he didn’t care. “How do you want to die? Headshot? Gut shot? Cock shot? Trust me. I can’t make you a god, but I can send you back to Hell where you belong.”
When Nizari’s nostrils flared, Lee added anot
her option for good measure. “Or maybe you’d prefer your own brand of, what’d you call it? Taking what is offered? Yeah. Let’s head out to your playhouse and see what you’ve got to offer when you’re dangling by a hook. When you’re the guy being sliced up like a deli tray.” He let his gaze drift down to the man’s zipper. “Not like I expect much from a little squirt like you.”
Lee had the bastard good as gone, but damned if that crazy song didn’t slide into the moment and throw him off balance. “I once was lost, but now I’m found.” He blinked at the real message of the song. Forgiveness. Shit. Not why he was there.
Nizari, the perceptive snake that he was, must’ve picked up on the slight change in the universe. His tongue slithered over his lower lip. “I can make you rich.”
Lee held perfectly still, struggling with his conscience, not the temptation of Nizari’s offer. Thinking of Tess and the vile whipping at Nizari’s hand. “Was blind, but now I see...” Shit.
That was the thing. Lee could see. He loved Tess and he always would. She’d saved him from himself just as he’d hoped he’d saved her from herself. The eternal yin and yang. The perfect balance of two hearts. The godawful rule that opposites attract. She deserved better than him, and he meant to see that she got it.
Nizari shifted his feet, his fingers nervously tapping the books, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “There’s more where these came from,” he wheedled. “Gold. Jewels. Tell me what you want. I can make your dreams come true.”
The final straw…
Lee fired one shot for every previously named target. Head. Gut. Cock. He put three in the man’s balls for how Nizari used his manhood against women. For all those little girls and boys he’d molested. For the women he’d raped.
In twitching slow motion, Nizari crumpled to the floor, and hell yeah! The avenging angel in Lee lifted its glorious, purpled black wings and filled the room with righteous justice, damn it. With honor. With pride in a job well done. The bastard of Kabul was finally dead and accounted for. Game fucking over.
Lee knelt on one knee at the man’s side, his darker nature released. For that single adrenaline-charged moment, he understood depraved indifference and the need to behead one’s enemy. Every last filament of his warrior’s soul begged to shout victory over evil to the world. To scream, “Homerun! Touchdown! Amen!” To raise Nizari’s head so all could see the monster was no more.
But honor prevailed. Lee Hart was not Hasim Nizari. They’d never lived in the same universe, and that beastly evidence would only prove Lee’s undoing at the most elemental level of a man. It was evidence. It was sin. He left the body intact. Collected his brass. Curled his nose at the job well done. And meant to fly out on the first available flight.
Too late, his sixth sense tingled up his spine. He jumped to his feet, his weapon instantly on target. On the Taliban assassin with his pistol dead center of Lee’s head. Lee stilled his breathing. Focused his soul. This was the liar who’d kissed Tess only that morning. Now Turik could join Nizari in death.
Turik’s gaze flitted to the dead body between them. “I see you have killed an important member of the Taliban leadership, Agent Hart. My Imam will not be pleased.”
Lee nodded one slow affirmative. “I did,” he growled, lest there be any mistake who’d ended Nizari’s reign of terror. It should’ve been Turik, the coward. “Not like I give a damn what you or your Imam thinks. I thought you were going to take care of him last night. What the hell happened? He talk his way out of that one, too? Or are you the one who’s been covering up for him all these years?”
The assassin of Kabul’s gaze narrowed, his pistol never wavering, and that cocky British accent annoying as hell. “Why on earth do you think I’m here today, my good man?”
I’m not your good man. Lee had no answer for that, but his rifle did. Even then, he planned it. Measured the distance between Turik and him. He knew he could do it. The guy was Hollywood perfect, one of those natural-born handsome guys who got all the women. Not. This. Time.
“Why are you here?” Lee asked, his tone flat and deadly. Implacable. Turik was nothing but the enemy. He wasn’t at home. There were no ROEs to stop Lee from fulfilling the contract Alex had signed. No wife or son in the immediate area. He could end this here and now.
Turik pursed his lips, not lowering his weapon. “If you must know, I needed Nizari to believe I trusted him, that he had time.”
Damn, the guy almost sounded sincere, and Lee almost wanted to believe him. “Time for what?” Spell it out, smart guy. Lee took a sideways step toward the center of the room. Turik matched him, both predators sizing each other up, still dancing the slow tango of two assassins who could end each other and neither walk away. Caught in an Afghan version of a Mexican standoff.
“Time to think he could merely pack up his tent and fade into the desert. I needed him to disclose every last artifact and treasure he has stolen. I’ve been here since this morning watching him do just that. Drop your weapon, Agent Hart,” Turik urged. “Tess deserves more than your dead body on her doorstep.”
“Drop yours,” Lee muttered, “and leave Tess out of this.”
“Why the bloody hell do you think I’m here?”
Lee cocked his head, not understanding. “Don’t know. Don’t care. Lay your piece on the table and step away or so help me...”
Turik’s lips thinned below that immaculately trimmed moustache. His dark eyes narrowed. “You really don’t know, do you?”
There was no reason to answer, because Lee hadn’t a clue what Turik was talking about, and he wasn’t about to ask. His left eyelid narrowed, pushing more visual acuity to his right. His good eye. His strong eye. His right index finger stoked one miniscule loving caress to the curve of the metal trigger and—
“Okay. You win.” Damned if Turik didn’t lift his pistol to the ceiling, expelling a deep breath as he surrendered the moment. “You’re not John Wayne, you know,” he breathed, the weapon still in his hand, “and you’re not taking my piece, as you so cleverly called it. You Americans. Do you all think you’re cowboys?”
Lee kept his rifle on target, not trusting this trained assassin for one second. “Leave this place,” he ordered. “Run back to your bloodthirsty friends, but don’t think for one second I won’t kill you the next time I see you.”
Turik actually smirked while he stuck his pistol inside the folds of his flowing robe, a mix of brown, caramel, and vanilla-colored stripes with an intermittent slash of ruby red. God, the guy was arrogant. Well-dressed, but downright calm for a man about to die.
Turik extended an open palm in friendship. “Please, Agent Hart. I’m not here to kill you. I’m not even here to exact revenge for you ending Nizari, though my Imam will expect that of me. I’m simply here as an old friend of the woman you love.”
Lee gritted his jaw, his back teeth grinding up a storm. He wasn’t going to shake this guy’s hand for anything. “I said leave Tess out of this.”
“So you admit you love her?” Turik stated, amusement dancing over his face as he withdrew his hand. “I knew it the moment I saw you ride off in Clint Culver’s truck that night. You really thought you were saving her, didn’t you?” He allowed a small smile, his chin cupped in his hand. He winked. “How’d that work out for you? I’ll wager Tess wasn’t happy with the whole white-knight-in-shining-armor thing, was she?”
Lee refused to answer. His gaze drifted to Nizari’s blood-soaked corpse.
“He deserved to die, Agent Hart,” Turik muttered, his voice a guttural declaration without one speck of remorse. “A point in your favor. You got here first, but I do say, you went too easy on him. I would’ve tied him to his whipping post and used that tongue of Satan on him. I would’ve fed him that filthy male organ he has so callously used against the innocents of my country, and I would’ve made certain he choked on it.”
Lee finally lowered his rifle, not exactly trusting the assassin in the crosshairs, but willing to listen. Anyone who hated Nizari as much as he
did, couldn’t be all bad.
Turik hadn’t taken his eyes off the body, disgust simmering in his tone. “I would’ve cut out his lying eyes, Agent Hart. His ears. His fingers, knuckle by knuckle, and if his heart still beat after that feast, I would’ve cut it out of his chest and fed it to him as well. You showed extreme prejudice, but you Americans are all the same. You’re too nice. Your military-style, pinpoint precision strikes offer more mercy than animals like Nizari deserve. I wouldn’t have exercised that degree of gentlemanly restraint. To simply end a man’s life does not exact adequate revenge. By the time I was done with him, Hasim would’ve begged for bloody mercy, and the world would’ve known a Taliban assassin ended him. But now...” He nodded toward the exit door behind him, “for this night only, we are not enemies. Let us talk.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lee shouldered his rifle and followed Turik, more to keep the guy within sight and range if this gambit proved to be another trick. He eyed the two dead men outside the door. His palm moved to the weapon at his hip, daring Turik to call him on those murders.
Turik said nothing, just cleared the concrete patio with an easy gait, and together they walked westward toward the gravel road, then crossed it. Lee came to a full stop at the nearest granite outcropping where the smell of blood and death didn’t reach. “This is far enough. Talk.”
Turik turned around to face him, one brow raised. “Yes. This is a sufficient distance for our needs. We are two reasonable men. Please. Sit.” He squatted to his haunches in the manner of his people, an uncomfortable position Lee never intended to master.
Lee crouched to one knee, his pistol within reach. Kabul didn’t glimmer with the brilliance of affluent cities in America, the United Arab Emirates, or Singapore. Its lights were fewer, limited to storefronts, streets, and those necessary for traffic. Only the airport, Camp Eggers, the presidential palace, and the important places were well lit, and not a hovel in between.
Lee (In the Company of Snipers Book 12) Page 33