Even more disturbing—on a much deeper and more personal level—were his complex reactions to Lili. Part of him had wanted to be there when she woke in the morning, to share breakfast with her, to find out more about who she really was. To hear her infectious laugh again. To see her smiling dark brown eyes.
Which was ridiculous.
And in a spate of foolishness he’d actually returned to her room to leave her flowers. He cursed inwardly.
She’d looked so beautiful, almost vulnerable, sleeping naked under that mosquito net that for a moment guilt had bitten into him.
Omair felt a hot rush of something akin to embarrassment at the thought of it. He argued with himself that leaving flowers had nothing to do with his guilt. Lili clearly brokered in sex. She’d wanted him as much as he her. The flowers were simply a way of saying thanks for the hottest damn night of his life.… Hell, he didn’t know what they said—that’s what ate at him right now.
He just hoped his slip with the bra was not going to somehow cost him this mission.
*
Faith lay flat on her stomach on a rocky knoll about a mile out from the small café. The jungle heat beat down on her, and in the distance thunder rumbled. Wiping sweat from her eyes with the back her wrist, she checked her watch, then put her eye to her long-range rifle scope.
Carefully she panned over the scene below, saw a man lounging at a table outside the café, feet stretched out in front of him.
Santiago?
Her pulse began to race as she scanned over the entire area again. This time Faith picked out Santiago’s rusty truck parked deep in the shadows behind a thick nut tree. A chill washed over her skin.
He had to have found her note—why else would he be here?
Then she swore violently under her breath. He had wanted her for something other than her body and she’d gone and fallen for it like some pathetic ingenue.
But why—who did he work for? Had her mission been compromised?
Before Faith could think further, a plume of red dust rose above the distant trees, heralding the arrival of the weapons truck. Clearing her mind, Faith slowed her breathing and curled her finger softly around the trigger, waiting.
A black SUV emerged from the jungle, followed by a white Mercedes sedan and two trucks covered with military canvas. Another SUV brought up the rear. The convoy came to a halt on the side of the packed-dirt road, kitty-corner from the café. Three seconds ticked by.
Two jeeps appeared, coming from the direction of the river. They stopped under the trees a short distance away, facing the truck convoy.
The door of the Mercedes swung open. Escudero, the big drug lord, got out and straightened the jacket of his pale pink suit. Two bodyguards in dark glasses rushed around to flank him. More men got out of the SUVs. They carried submachine guns.
Faith positioned her crosshairs carefully over Escudero’s face and her high-precision rifle showed an instant biometrics match. Bingo. She breathed in deep, then slowly out, and on the last of her exhalation, began to apply pressure to the trigger.
*
Through the weave in his straw hat, Omair watched Escudero and his close protection detail walk toward the jeeps. As they neared, a very tall and dark-skinned man alighted from the first jeep. Omair pegged him for the North African arms broker. The bodyguard to his immediate right turned to look at the café.
Omair recognized him instantly.
Da’ud’s killer.
His body went dead still. He became aware of every sound, the slightest of movements, even in his peripheral vision…the café owner still languidly wiping down the chipped counter, the chickens pecking under tables, the Spanish news on the television set, the omnipresent hum of beetles in trees above him. Suddenly the voice of the CNB anchor cut into the newscast to say there was breaking news out of New York—a private jet taking off from JFK International had just exploded on the runway.
A chill washed through Omair’s veins.
His brothers and sister were flying out of New York on the Al Arif jet today.
Zakir, the new king of Al Na’Jar, had been in the city for a United Nations address. Tariq, a neurosurgeon in the States, and his fiancée, Julie, were to join Zakir and the royal entourage for the return trip to Al Na’Jar for a holiday. Dalilah, their sister, was going, too—she wanted to be there when Nikki and Zakir’s twins were born, and they were due soon.
Zakir had met Nikki, a doctor and volunteer aid worker on the run from her murderous ex-husband, after Nikki had inadvertently crossed into Al Na’Jar with a band of war orphans she’d been trying to save. Nikki had been a godsend to his brother, because Zakir, at the time, had been struggling to cope with his new duty as king while trying to hide the fact he was going blind.
Nikki had helped Zakir through the process and in turn Zakir had helped her save the orphans. He’d married her, and given her a new life and identity. Nikki had become the guiding light in Zakir’s new world of darkness. And now she was expecting twins. A great joy to them all because Nikki’s ex had caused the death of their children, also twins.
Omair struggled to keep focus on his target approaching Escudero, but at the same time he was unable to tear his attention away from the violent images flashing on the television screen—flames, roiling black smoke, emergency vehicles, people running. He could hear sirens, screams. The camera flashed to a blonde reporter who said it had just been confirmed that it was King Zakir Al Arif’s royal jet that had exploded right before takeoff.
Omair’s throat closed as he was blinded for a moment.
“We’re still awaiting confirmation as to who was on board at the time,” said the reporter, pressing her hand to her earpiece. “There is no word yet about what caused the explosion or whether anyone could have survived. We will continue to bring you updates as the story unfolds—”
His two remaining brothers, his sister. Likely dead.
For a second Omair was rendered immobile. Time stretched.
Escudero was extending his hand toward the approaching North African. Da’ud’s killer was standing back slightly, a smile on his face. And Omair’s brain suddenly snapped, rage mushrooming through his chest as he exploded up from his chair. His hands went for the automatic pistols at his hips.
Feeling as though he was moving in slow motion, Omair extracted his pistols and began to stride toward the group of men across the street, images of the plane explosion searing through his brain, burning into his eyes, consuming his logic. He raised his automatic weapons, one in each hand. The bodyguards saw him coming, tensed, spun around, lifting their guns. Someone yelled. One of Escudero’s bodyguards lunged forward to push Escudero to the ground.
But before the man’s hand could reach Escudero’s shoulders, before Omair could shoot, the top of the drug lord’s skull suddenly blew off in a fine froth of pink that spattered into the North African’s face and onto the front of his shirt.
Everyone froze.
Escudero’s body crumpled slowly down to the dirt, and then flopped forward.
Silence hung thick.
The men suddenly started yelling, shooting at each other in confusion as they scattered for cover from both Omair and the hidden sniper. Omair began to fire. The woman in the café started screaming as bullets blew through her walls, shattering her television set and rows of glasses. A flock of parakeets erupted from a tree in a flurry of red and green feathers as they took off in flight.
Da’ud’s killer froze dead in his tracks as he saw Omair coming directly for him.
The man raised his weapon and fired a burst of bullets. They buzzed like hot hornets past Omair’s head. But Omair kept marching forward, covering his
progress by pressing the triggers on his automatic pistols, the recoil jerking like jackhammers through his body as men scattered in his wake. Omair wanted his target alive, for starters.
The North African arms broker raced for his jeep. Da’ud’s killer, out of ammunition now, dropped his gun and fled after the North Af
rican.
Ferocity and purpose burned through Omair. He would not let his brother’s killer escape, no matter the collateral damage, no matter the cost to himself.
One of Omair’s bullets hit his target’s hand. The man stalled for a second as blood began to darken the soil at his feet. In that time the North African yanked open the driver’s door of the jeep, scrambled behind the wheel, reached for the ignition and hit the gas. Tires spun, kicking up red dirt as the jeep raced off, door open, leaving the bodyguard defenseless.
Omair holstered one of his pistols while aiming the other at Da’ud’s assassin’s forehead. As he reached the man, Omair unsheathed his ceremonial jambiya—an ancient weapon carried by his warrior forebears. Only with this dagger could he mete justice as per the desert code—an eye for an eye, a ceremonial dagger for a ceremonial dagger. Just like the blade that had killed his brother.
Panic burned in the assassin’s eyes and his face dripped sweat as Omair grabbed him, dragging him into the dense jungle foliage and shoving him hard up against a tree.
“Please…don’t kill me,” the man pleaded in Arabic.
Omair had only contempt for the plea of this assassin who made a living killing others. As a broker of death himself, Omair believed an executioner should die
honorably when his time came at the hands of another—and it always did come. That was the nature of this job.
“Is that what my brother said, when you came in the night to slit his throat?” Omair whispered, pressing the jambiya blade against the man’s throat.
He could smell gasoline. He could hear more shooting, more yelling, men rushing into the jungle.
“Who paid you to kill Da’ud?”
The man squirmed, moaned, started to say something. But a crashing sounded in the forest undergrowth, men coming toward them as they chased one another.
Tension strapped across Omair’s chest. “Tell me his name!”
But before Da’ud’s killer could speak, shots were fired through the thick leaves. A stray bullet hit Da’ud’s killer square in the throat. Blood and air gurgled and sputtered from the wound. The man slumped into Omair’s arms. Hot blood soaked through Omair’s shirt.
Omair checked the killer’s pulse and swore violently. He was gone, just seconds before he might have spilled the name of the man who’d ordered him to assassinate Da’ud.
Quickly, he lay the dead man’s body on the ground and rifled through his pockets, finding nothing. Then he caught sight of a small medallion on a gold chain around the man’s neck. Omair lifted the medallion in his fingers. It was the image of a sun superimposed with a dagger.
The mark of the Sun Clan.
A chill washed through him.
The Sun Clan was an ancient tribe of warrior Moors that had once ruled the Atlas Mountains in Western Sahara. They were rumored to have gone to battle with the Al Arif Bedouins hundreds of years ago, clashing over land that now formed the Kingdom of Al Na’Jar. The ancient princes of the Sun Clan had this emblem tattooed onto their skin. Omair frowned.
This was the first time he’d seen this ancient symbol in medallion form around the neck of a MagMo terrorist. It troubled him—there appeared to be more and more MagMo links to the unrest in Al Na’Jar, and now this symbol tying back to an ancient battle with the clan of his forebears.
He yanked the medallion loose, then pocketed it. Crouching low behind thick ferns and leaves, Omair listened for more sounds of the men in the forest. But an explosion suddenly pounded the air, pressure thumping against Omair’s eardrums. He winced as a ball of flames whooshed up from one of the weapons trucks. Fire started to crackle into the forest.
Another explosion ripped through the air as the second truck went up. Through the leaves he could see Escudero’s vehicles had also caught fire and the blaze was spreading across the road. Black smoke roiled above the forest canopy.
Cutting his losses, Omair slipped away into the jungle.
He’d lost his opportunity to get the name of Da’ud’s killer, or find out who’d sent him. He’d lost any chance to follow the arms shipment—the weapons had gone up in smoke. He might also have lost his entire family in the JFK jet blast, which would mean he was the new king of Al Na’Jar—a role he did not want under any circumstance.
Rage and grief seared fiercely through Omair as he aimed directly for the distant knoll from whence he believed the sniper fire had come. That sniper had just cost him everything.
*
Faith watched in disbelief as the carnage unfolded in the distance.
Damn that bastard!
Santiago Cabrero—whoever in hell he really was—had single-handedly blown an international operation. He’d screwed up her hit, and Faith’s handlers were going to have her head in a bag over this.
She’d never seen anyone handle automatic pistols like that. He’d walked into the fray as if on a death quest, denim shirt open to the waist, canvas bag slung across his chest, guns blazing. The fierceness of intent, the lethal focus she’d glimpsed in his oil-black eyes disturbed Faith on some fundamental level. What surprised her most, though, was that he’d seemed to go directly, and solely, after the bodyguard of the North African arms dealer. But whatever his mission was, he’d screwed up hers.
She rapidly dismantled her rifle, hurriedly placing the separate pieces of her weapon into her carrying case. Flicking the lock shut, she slung the heavy equipment over her shoulder. Faith threw one more glance toward the smoking fires before scrambling down the back of the knoll.
She’d seen the way Santiago had glanced toward her hide—she’d bet he was on his way right now.
But as Faith clambered in haste down the rocks, she slipped and her foot rammed into a crevice. Her body weight continued to carry forward, wrenching her ankle. She heard a pop and a searing pain shot up her leg. Faith sucked air in through clenched teeth, her eyes burning as she bent down to dislodge her foot. Her ponytail swung forward, tangling in the dead branches of a bush as she struggled to work herself free.
Once cleared of the rocks, she tried to put weight on her foot but gasped as pain roared up her leg again. Faith closed her eyes for a second, steadying her thoughts. Either her bone was broken or she’d torn a ligament. Which meant she wasn’t going anywhere fast, at least, not until she splinted it.
A flock of birds burst from a tree nearby and she knew Santiago was close. In desperation she looked for somewhere, anywhere, to hide. Because she had no doubt that he was coming to kill her.
Chapter 3
Omair ascended the rocky knoll at a clip, shirt sopping with blood and perspiration, muscles burning. But his blind rage and anguish had finally honed down to a razor-fine focus, and his priority was rapidly shifting from finding the sniper to getting the hell out of Colombia before the cartel came after him.
The sniper was likely cartel, someone wanting to take leadership from Escudero. The hit on the drug lord probably had nothing to do with North Africans, or MagMo. And Omair’s business was not with the cartel. Summiting the knoll, he quickly scanned the area.
This had to be where the sniper had fired from—it was the only place high enough with a vantage of the café in the distance. Omair walked to the edge of the knoll. He could see the burning trucks and smoke about a mile out. Whoever had fired the kill shot to Escudero’s head was one hell of a sharpshooter, especially at this range. Liliana must have passed the note to the shooter.
Omair lowered his gaze to the flat slab of rock upon which the sniper had clearly rested. The shooter had made a hasty effort to dust over his tracks, but Omair could still make out marks left by a long-range rifle bipod. And he could see where the killer’s boots had dug into the dirt, legs splayed. Omair frowned—the person who’d lain here appeared to have been slight.
He crouched down and touched the dusting of granular sand that covered the rock with his fingertips.
It was hot from the sun.
He traced the probable pattern of the body imprint, imagining the form of the sho
oter in his mind. With a little jolt he wondered if the sniper had been female.
Omair got to his feet and circled around the body print, cutting for a track. He found a footprint near the far edge of the knoll. He measured it against his boot and judged it to be a size seven shoe, narrow. More like a female’s shoe.
Lili?
Then he shook the thought.
A glint under a bush caught his eye. Carefully moving leaves aside, Omair picked up a spent shell casing—a .50 caliber. He slipped it into his pocket. But as he was about to get up, he noticed a few strands of long, dark hair snagged on the bush and wafting softly in the hot storm breeze.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
He untangled the strands and an image of Liliana brushing a thick fall of dark hair away from her face shimmered into his mind. His chest tightened. Could it be? Had the woman he’d slept with last night just blown the top off Escudero’s skull? Omair lurched to his feet and swore.
He had not seen this one coming.
A toucan fluttered suddenly out of a tree to his left and he spun around, raising his gun. Omair narrowed his eyes as he scanned the surrounding jungle, gun leading. Nothing more moved, but he could feel a presence, as if something was watching him.…
*
Faith held her breath as Santiago scanned the foliage around her. Sweat dripped from her brow and tickled down between her breasts as she released the safety on her backup 9mm Walther. She aimed it through the leaves at Santiago as he peered into the branches.
She’d managed to drag herself up into the fork of a massive kapok tree but the creeper she’d been holding on to had snapped, spooking a toucan out of the upper branches and almost sending her to the ground. It was the toucan that had alerted him to her presence.
She clung now to a finer vine, the muscles in her left arm burning, her ankle throbbing, her mouth bone-dry as she trained her bead on Santiago.
He was close enough that she could clearly make out his features, and his eyes were aggressive as they scanned the forest. He stilled suddenly, as if sensing something, and looked right at her. Faith curled her finger around the trigger, heart thudding in her ears.
Sheik's Revenge Page 3