by Diana Palmer
He wondered how Brianne was, and what they were doing to her. He'd never been so angry or felt so helpless. He couldn't bear the thought of her being hurt, but he had no way to prevent it. His eyes flashed as he remembered the things he'd heard about Sabon. If the man hurt Brianne, he'd pay for it. Pierce would hunt him down if it took the rest of his life!
He heard a noise outside the door and then the sound of voices. He moved closer, putting his ear to the thick, heavy surface.
He recognized the voice, even though he'd heard it infrequently. It was Sabon!
"Can't afford to let them go, not yet," he was telling someone.
''You don't mean to kill the child!'' one man exclaimed in English.
''Good God, no?" came the sharp reply. "I mean to kill no one. But we cannot risk letting them free before we achieve our goal. The Americans must come to protect us. It would not endear us to them to find that we had kidnapped one of their citizens, regardless of the reason!"
"That is so, but can we not move her to a better place?"
There was a pause. "We will take her, and the bodyguard, to the mainland and place them
in the old fortress. It is not so modern as this, but they will have more room. You have heard nothing of Hutton?"
"Nothing. Apparently he is still in the western United States."
"Then let us hope he remains there until Kurt has concluded our business in Washington. Damn their media, it will be all over the news and Hutton will know then. But perhaps it will be too late for him to prevent it. He is surely in the country on a limited basis. Besides, he has enemies there, and he is no more an American citizen than I am. Kurt has joint German and American citizenship. That is to work to our advantage, I think. Come, let us see if Kurt's well-armed friends have arrived."
Pierce scowled, reflecting on what he'd heard. Sabon hadn't sounded like a man obsessed with a young woman at all. There had been some alarming hints of aggression in that quick rhetoric, and if Kurt was in the States, why was he there? What plan was unfolding? Pierce cursed silently at his helplessness. Something big was brewing here and he was as helpless as a cat in a sack. Be only hoped that Winthrop noticed his absence and came after him in time. Be had it in him to feel sorry for these poor men when his security chief arrived. Winthrop wouldn't be gentle with them.
In the hours that followed, there was a lot of movement outside Brianne's door. She didn't see her captors again, but she heard all sorts of noises. Marching feet. Mechanical sounds, like guns being cocked. Loud voices. There were a lot of men in the corridor for several minutes, and then they were marching away. Outside, she heard sounds like those of aircraft. Not airplanes. Helicopters, perhaps?
She remembered what Philippe Sabon had told her about his plans to garner American intervention, and she shivered. Be really meant to attack his own people and blame it on a neighboring country. Did Kurt know that? Was he part of it? And what about Brianne's mother and little Nicholas, where did they fit into this insanity? Kurt couldn't be so desperate that he'd help Sabon start a war!
Incensed by her lack of sight in here, she popped the chair upside down on the bed-springs and stood on it, trying to get high enough to see out the window. But all she could manage to see was the blades of a helicopter go by. This was interesting. Surely it was part of the assault, and it was ready to start. She couldn't warn anybody. She couldn't even help herself. Surely Sabon wouldn't kill his own people. He must mean to fake an attack, for the benefit of any foreigners who might be in residence.
The mainland was several miles away. But the sound of bombs and missiles carried a fair distance, so when Brianne heard explosions a few minutes later, she knew what they must be. It was too late to prevent this. If only she could get out of here in time to warn someone back home, before Kurt spoke to his senator.
She stood, frozen, as she put the pieces of the puzzle together. Kurt was already in the States, Sabon had said. He knew the attack was coming. He was going to be "conveniently" in Washington when he was informed of it. He'd tell his senator friend, who'd tell some colleagues, and
No, wait! They'd have to have a hearing and appoint a committee, just as they always did before sending troops anywhere. She breathed a sigh of relief. There wasn't going to be any danger. What was she thinking! The Americans weren't like some other nations. They deliberated before they acted. Poor Kurt! And poor Mr. Sabon, too. This was all for nothing.
She got off the bed, turned the chair back over and sat down on it. She didn't need to worry about a war. Her own situation, and Pierce's, seemed of paramount importance now. She only hoped they hadn't discovered his identity. His situation was a lot more precarious than her own.
She wondered if he was thinking about her, after their torrid interlude. She didn't dare tell him the truth about Sabon just yet. When he found out that Sabon was incapable, he'd be furious that he'd gone to such lengths to protect Brianne. Worse, if he found out that she hadn't taken her birth control pills for two days, he'd be livid. The threat of pregnancy was a very real one, because she was halfway between her month lies the best time for it to happen. She let herself dream about a little boy with Pierce's dark, wavy hair and black eyes. But it was a sad dream, because he'd hate both of them. He was still in love with his dead wife. She winced as she recalled something from their intimacy that she hadn't wanted to remember. Just as he began to relax from the strain and delight of satisfaction, he'd whispered a name. But it hadn't been Brianne's. She heard the words echo over and over in her mind. "Margo, darling."
She closed her eyes, trying to blot out the memory of all that passion she'd thought they were sharing. She'd only been a substitute for his beautiful ghost, and she hadn't known it until it was all over, and she was about to whisper how much she loved him. She was glad she hadn't. It would only have made a bad situation worse. He didn't love her.
She wrapped her arms protectively around her chest and refused to think about it anymore, for fear of going quietly mad in the lonely room. She'd face all the unpleasantness later, when she had the time. Right now, she had to think up some way to get out of here! Even if Sabon hadn't a chance of attracting American troops here, his mercenaries could miss their target and accidentally bomb the house she and Pierce were held in. Or some of his countrymen, unaware of the real identity of their attackers, might fight back and cause a greater tragedy. While she sympathized with Sabon's position, she thought his approach to a solution was dead wrong. He had tunnel vision. He only saw his own role in this, not the greater picture.
World War in could easily start over such a misguided attempt to protect a small, poor nation. He wasn't considering any other country except his own. Perhaps he had good intentions, but they were being lost in his mania. Presumably the elderly sheikh who ruled this country was being kept in the dark about Philippe's plans. Poor old man. Perhaps he was being held captive, just as she was.
She heard a sound at the window. It came again. The room was viciously hot as the sun came up and spilled down, making shadowy bar patterns on the tiled floor. There was no glass at the window, only those iron bars. Suddenly a small projectile whizzed down and landed at her feet. She bent over the paper-wrapped stone and opened what appeared to be part of an envelope.
"Distract them" was printed in block letters, in English.
She crumpled the paper in her hand and stood up, pursing her lips as she considered the meaning of the note and the intent behind the words. Her eyes began to twinkle. Well, well, rescue was at hand and needed a helping hand, hmmm?
She took a deep breath, started worrying her hair and looking as if she couldn't get her breath at all. She grabbed her throat, contracting it a little to make her face look very red.
"Oh...!" she cried out hoarsely. "Oh...I can't...breathe...my heart!"
She clutched her chest and fell to the floor, giving a very good impression of someone having a heart attack. At her age it would have been unusual, to say the least, but the guard had been told specifically by Mons
ieur Sabon himself to keep her safe. So when he heard her he went running down the hall to her room, key in hand.
He almost made it. A shadow stepped out from the wall and put a steely arm to his throat He went down instantly and was helped to stay there by another sharp punch.
The keys were extracted. A hand motioned to two other shadowy figures in totally black garb, right down to the face masks and combat boots. The other invaders went methodically down the hall, guns in hand, checking each door along the way.
Brianne was standing when the door opened. All she could see was a pair of black eyes in a face mask, but in a leaner face than Pierce's.
"Are you the cavalry?" she asked hopefully.
"Yes, and I don't mean Custer's," he replied, giving a smug grin at his little joke and showing a flash of his perfect white teeth. "Miss Martin, I presume."
"Mrs. Hutton, actually, but I'm sure he'll find a solution for that momentarily. Do you know where he is? Is he all right?" she asked.
Stunned by the news of his boss's marriage but not showing it, Tate Winthrop took her arm impersonally and drew her out the door. "We're about to find out. Stay just behind me, please."
"Roger, wilco," she said with an extended thumb.
He showed another flash of perfect teeth before he turned back, automatic weapon in hand, to advance down the wide corridor.
A soft birdcall came around the corner and Tate stopped, listening. He made a similar call back. He started walking again.
Just as they rounded the corner, three men came running at them, men in camouflage dress with weapons firing.
Brianne's breath stopped in her throat. She'd never expected this sort of danger, but apparently the man in front of her had. He fired two short bursts from the weapon in his hand.
"Don't look at them," he said in a soft, deep voice as he herded her beside him down the hall.
She tried not to look at the bodies on the floor, but she couldn't help it. One glimpse was enough to make her stomach heave. She swallowed, and swallowed again, giving way to silent tears. Those men hadn't been Arabs. They were fair. Some of Sabon's invaders, no doubt, and bloodthirsty enough to kill anything that moved. Her opinion of her host changed at once. Men like that weren't going to fake any invasion; they were going to do it for real, casualties and innocent victims and all.
Tate felt her arm tense in his grasp, but he couldn't stop to reassure her. He kept walking, his eyes everywhere. It had been .crazy to do this with only two men. Even so, they stood a better chance than a large armed force did of breaching the security here. He hoped they could grab Pierce and get out without any more gunplay. It attracted unwanted attention.
"I wish I could tell you where they've taken Pierce. I don't know," she said, shaken but moving right along beside him. "My men have found him," he assured her.
"The door is giving some trouble. The lock's rusted."
"Can't they just shoot it open?"
He glanced at her with another flash of white teeth. "A steel door? West German manufacture, just like old Saddam's bomb shelters. Choice engineering, except for the iron lock's rust."
"Oh, dear."
"One of my men once served time for bank robbery," he murmured. "There isn't a lock made, rusty or otherwise, that he can't crack, given time." He looked around them with keen scrutiny. "We're lucky those gunshots didn't bring company. They're too busy on the mainland to bother with us right now, but that won't last long. Sabon will be on his way back any minute, once he's assured himself that things are going according to plan."
"He said he only wanted to protect his country's oil fields from a poor neighbor, that his people are starving and he wants to make life better for them,"
"And you believed him." He sighed. "What a Utopia we'd have if everyone told the truth." He rounded another corner, tensed, and then relaxed. Two men were hurrying toward him with Pierce right alongside.
Brianne started to go toward him, but her rescuer held her back.
"Hurry!" he called to the others. "We've got about two minutes to clear the building before the communications center goes up!"
"What?" Brianne gasped.
"I mined the communications equipment." He drew her along.
"We've got to get back to the States, pronto," Pierce called, falling into a dead run beside them. "Brauer's already there."
"Yes, he is," Brianne panted as she ran, "and this attack is being made by Kurt's hired mercenaries, not the neighboring country! They're going to blame it on the neighbor to give Kurt an excuse to draw American troops in here."
"Good God!" Pierce exploded.
"Well, maybe we have time to stop Kurt from getting to his senator friend," Brianne added breathlessly. "There'll have to be committee meetings and congressional hearings and public hearings before they even think of sending troops..."
"What planet did you say she came from?" Tate asked Pierce.
"What in the world do you mean?" she exclaimed as she gasped for breath at the pace they were going toward the front entrance.
"You do know that covert operations in several secret government departments act immediately in case of aggression that affects American interests?" he persisted. "In other words, ground troops can be here and in the thick of battle by morning, without congressional knowledge or approval."
Her heart jumped, and not due to the speed of her legs. ''You're kidding!''
"I'm not." He went out the door just behind her. A huge helicopter was waiting for them, military-looking and armed to the teeth. It looked as if a dozen people could sit in it without crowding one another. "Inside!" Tate yelled.
Pierce caught Brianne's arms to lift her in beside him. The other men followed suit. Tate tapped the pilot on the helmet, and they took off. Seconds later, they were being subjected to a veritable hail of bullets.
"I believe Sabon's people have just discovered that you're missing." Tate looked at his watch. "Six, five, four..."
"Why is he counting?" Brianne asked Pierce.
The answer came in an explosion of impressive proportions.
"He won't be calling for reinforcements right away," Tate murmured with a grin.
"Where did you leave the plane?" Pierce asked.
"Not at the airport" came the dry reply. "I knew it would be a primary target. I left it" He broke off, and his good mood vanished as he looked over the pilot's shoulder and listened to a sudden burst of Arabic that even Pierce couldn't grasp.
The pilot murmured something grimly.
"We have to put down at the next port and hope for a miracle, I'm afraid," Tate told them somberly. "Sabon's hired guerrillas blew up the airport and didn't stop there. They found the strip where I left the plane and blew it up, too."
"Smart boys," Pierce murmured.
"They should be, I helped train at least two of them," Tate said grimly. "We all started out in government service together." He looked down at the land below. "Sometimes I'm sorry that I left it. Like right now." He rapped on the pilot's helmet and gave him a sharp command in Arabic before he turned back to his companions. "We've got to get out of this chopper before we cost Hamid his life. He can fly it over the border and he'll be safe, since he's a citizen. We won't be," he added with a rueful grin. "They don't like foreigners."
Brianne couldn't blame them now. She'd learned a lot about this part of the world in a very short time. •
"How do we get home?" Pierce asked easily.
"We hop on a freighter," Tate replied. "Most of them will take passengers if the price is right."
"I hid my wallet in the jet coming over here, so they wouldn't find out who I was right away. It will turn up one day, but not in time to help us," Pierce said.
"No problem," Tate said. "I brought of cash." He leaned across the seat and stuffed a wad of bills into the man's flight suit. He did the same with the two uniformed men beside him. None of the three had taken off their masks.
"Since they're masked and they haven't spoken, you won't know them again," T
ate said, explaining the masks.
"Would we know them if they weren't masked?" Brianne had to ask.
"That depends on how much attention you pay to the pictures on the walls in the post office," Tate returned dryly.
Brianne looked at the men with new interest, wide-eyed. "Really?" she asked.
"Now, don't do that," Pierce murmured disgustedly. "You're supposed to look scared."
"I am?" She sat back in her seat and contorted her features. "Is that better?" she asked politely.
They both started laughing.