Zara

by Jade Kerrion

  “I’m listening.”

  “A powerful man believes that constant vigilance is the price of freedom. He fears that, in peace, we have grown complacent.”

  Tension clawed at Zara’s shoulders. Someone wanted to start an American war in the Middle East. Xin had been right; she frequently was. “What does this have to do with me?”

  “Two men stand in the way. I know where one of them is hiding, and you know the other.”

  Chuck and Klah. “So?”

  “I have contracts on their lives.”

  “And what makes you think I’ll accept them?”

  “One of them is holding your friends captive. You’ll never find them unless I give you the information, and I won’t release it until you accept the contract.”

  “So that’s one.”

  “The contracts come together. It’s part of the deal.”

  Zara chuckled. “Everything can be negotiated with the right levers.”

  “Of course.” The man inclined his head. “On behalf of my client, I offer your standard fee and a bonus: the alpha empath’s release.”

  She froze.

  The man’s eyes were penetrating. “This is exactly what I have been instructed to say: I can authorize Danyael Sabre’s release from the maximum-security prison. I can arrange for a full pardon. I can wipe out his criminal record and guarantee his freedom.”

  Klah, for Danyael.

  He searched her face. “What will it be?”

  Memories of Danyael at ADX Florence surged to the fore. His helpless fury as he arched against the steel cuffs binding his wrists to the bed. The plea in his eyes for the mercy of death. His sharp intake of breath before the surge of pain. The screams of agony that emerged as harsh croaks torn from damaged vocal chords. The emotional void that followed—the utter suppression of Danyael’s spirit—was worse than death.

  For the price of Klah’s life, Danyael could be free.

  Zara had made the trade once before, betraying the man she didn’t realize she loved for the man she thought she did. This trade would be even easier; the choice obvious. In the end, it always came down to personal loyalties. And this time, it was her personal loyalty—and this time, she dared call it “love”—for Danyael, the man who deserved it more than any other.

  Klah, for Danyael. What will it be?

  The answer was obvious.

  She met the agent’s steady gaze. “Done.”

  25

  Zara strode away from the gardens, leaving behind the bustle of the park. Before she turned the corner, she glanced around to make sure she had not been followed. She had not been, but two Caucasian men hovered on either side of the agent she had spoken to. Somehow, she did not think they were discussing chess.

  Were they American mercenaries hired by Chuck?

  If the agent had been compromised, her contracts were, too. She straddled her Ducati motorbike before calling Klah over her secure communication line. “Chuck is holed up at number 19, Dar El Fatwa. I’m on the other side of town; you’re less than five minutes from it. I need eyes on the house right now.”

  “I’ll set up a surveillance post—infrared motion scans, remote listening. We’ve got all the tech toys; I know how to make them work.”

  “Chuck’s not alone. It’s a hostage situation.”

  “I know,” Klah said. His quiet, firm voice inspired confidence. “I won’t let your friends get hurt. I’m heading out now.”

  “I’ll join you as soon as I can.” She hung up and made her next call to Nazrol. “I need a favor.” Her voice transformed from its cool, professional tones to a husky lover’s whisper, the prelude to a kill.

  Nazrol, apparently, recognized that tone; his answer was immediate. “Of course. Tell me what you want from me.”

  He listened in silence as she spoke. Several moments passed, and he chuckled, the sound spiked with irony. “I will do as you say,” he promised. “Does Klah know?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t think he’ll like that.”

  “What he likes is the least of my concerns right now. How soon can you get there?”

  Nazrol made a huffing sound. “An hour.”

  “You have thirty minutes. We’re running out of time.” She hung up on Nazrol, revved the handlebars of her motorbike, and swung out from the quiet alley into heavy traffic.

  Zara was five minutes from Dar El Fatwa when her phone rang. Klah’s voice snapped through her earpiece, “I’m on the rooftop across the house. Confirmed five hostages. Six hostiles.”

  “And Chuck?”

  “He’s there. Agitated. They’re getting ready to evacuate.” He paused briefly, as if listening hard, and when he resumed speaking, Zara could hear the frown in his voice. “He says he’s been sold out. A professional assassin just accepted a contract on his life and she—she…you?”

  Zara growled. “The intelligence community here has more leaks than a goddamned sieve.”

  “They know you’re on the way. Damn it, Zara. You accepted a contract on the life of my teammate?”

  “Who murdered your entire team. Perspective, Klah. You need more of it.”

  “It was for me to handle.”

  “Oh, so you want to take him out yourself?”

  “I need to know why…how…he could do what he did to us. We would have died for him.”

  “Friendship’s overrated.” Love, too. “Hold your position. I’m almost there.”

  “Copy that—wait…”

  Silence filled tense seconds. For several moments, the only sound was the rush of blood through her skull. Zara gritted her teeth. What was Klah seeing and hearing on the other end?

  The harsh snap of Klah’s voice suddenly jolted through her. “I’m moving in.”

  “I said hold your position.”

  “Can’t. Your friends are out of time. Chuck’s going to kill them.”

  Zara cursed. She reached Nazrol within seconds. “Where are you?”

  “On my way. Ten minutes out.”

  Not good enough. She leaned sharply to the side, swerving her Ducati through the traffic gridlock of Beirut’s rush hour. Instead of stopping in front of Chuck’s no-longer safe house, she pulled into the alley. A bullet from her handgun took out the lock on the back door. Crouched low to the ground, she silently ran through the kitchen and pressed her back against the wall separating the kitchen from the living room.

  A quick glance into the sparsely furnishing living room confirmed Klah’s count. Three men sprawled unmoving in pools of blood. Two other men huddled behind the couch, their gazes fixed on a vicious knife fight between Klah and Chuck.

  The low growl of a car engine warned her of Nazrol’s approach. Right on time.

  She executed one of the men with a clean shot through the back of his skull. The second she shot through his right arm as he spun to face the new threat. He screamed and dropped his weapon, and his shocked gaze flashed up to her. Perfect. She needed a witness for what she was about to do.

  She raised her gun and aimed it at Klah.

  Tell me who you love and I will tell you who you are.

  For you, Danyael.

  Her finger squeezed on the trigger.

  As Klah fell back, bleeding, she brought the grip of the gun down hard on the back of the injured mercenary’s head. The man slumped unconscious to the tiles.

  Expressionless, Zara raised her handgun at Chuck. He stared wide-eyed at her as he brought up his hands to his chest, perhaps in the start of a defensive move, or as a plea.

  It didn’t matter.

  She fired once more, her assassin’s contract complete.

  Zara released her breath in a quiet sigh when Nazrol turned the car around the corner and merged back into traffic. She glanced at her watch. Less than five minutes had passed since she had leaped off her motorbike and scrambled into the house. She allowed herself a satisfied smile. Couldn’t have done it any faster if I weren’t pregnant. She turned back to the house and stepped around the unconscious man Nazro
l had helped her carry into the backyard.

  Her gun in her hand, she walked up the stairs onto a landing flanked by two closed doors. She tapped lightly on one of the locked doors. “Mahmoud? Fatima?”

  “Zara?” Fatima’s voice trembled. From behind the other door, Mahmoud’s voice called out her name.

  “Step away from the door,” Zara ordered.

  “We are away!” Fatima shouted moments later.

  Zara blew out the lock on the door and pushed the wooden door open. Fatima rushed forward to embrace Zara; her two daughters, Adara and Nadira, were close behind. A quick glance confirmed they were shaken but physically unhurt. Zara studied her friend’s tearful face. “Come, let’s get Mahmoud and Yusri. It’s time for you to go home.”

  She ushered Mahmoud, Fatima, and their children out of the house. They averted their gazes as they hurried past the sprawl of bodies in the living room. Zara smiled faintly; they would not be able to reconstruct the scene or recall the number of bodies.

  “Who is this man?” Mahmoud asked, sparing a single glance at the unconscious man in the backyard.

  “The witness,” Zara said laconically. “Go on. I have to finish up here.”

  The smell of gasoline infused the house by the time she was done. She stood by the door, surveying her handiwork, as she swapped out the normal bullet in her handgun with an incendiary round. She called the fire department on her smartphone. “I want to report a fire at 19 Dar El Fatwa.”

  The operator demanded additional information, but Zara hung up. Good luck getting through rush hour traffic. A final glance at the sway of the leaves on the trees in the courtyard confirmed that the wind would blow the sparks of the fire away from the unconscious mercenary. It would be shame to accidentally kill her witness after all the effort she had gone through to keep him alive.

  Zara glanced at the five gasoline-drenched corpses and a shadow of a smile flicked over her lips. She pulled the trigger. Her bullet, aimed low, skittered along the tiles, sending up a single spark.

  Flames exploded at the point of contact before spreading like a cloak of fire over the bodies. A wave of heat swept toward her, carrying with it the acrid scent of burning flesh.

  And done.

  26

  Ginny Rickard stirred out of her uneasy sleep as the pilot’s voice announced their impending arrival at Geneva Cointrin International Airport. Next to her, the man who had shown up at her door in the middle of the night and introduced himself as Kyle Norwood glanced at her. “We’re almost there,” he assured her. He had been unfailingly polite, but he possessed the unyielding arrogance of a Special Forces man. He had hustled her from her home, permitting her to take nothing, and offering only the vaguest promises that her most important belongings would be delivered to her later.

  She would not have gone with him if not for the mention of Drew Rickard by his SEAL call name, Klah. Apparently, her husband needed her urgently, and Kyle swore he would personally escort her to her husband’s side. The passport and the ticket Kyle had handed her bore her face and a false name. She had turned the passport over in her hand; it looked authentic, which only increased her worry.

  Ginny took a deep breath and ran a hand over her swollen stomach. The baby kicked back. “We’re going to see your daddy,” she murmured. I hope.

  As promised, Kyle did not leave her side as he escorted her through the immigration and customs checkpoints. The swarm of bodies in the arrival hall could not conceal the one person she had been waiting to see. Her breath caught as Drew, his right arm immobilized in a sling, pulled her into a hug. “Oh, God, Ginny. You made it.”

  “And you’re here,” she breathed. “I was so afraid. I didn’t know what was going on.” She glanced over her shoulder as Kyle stepped away to give her privacy with her husband. “What happened?”

  Drew shook his head. “It’s too complicated to talk about here.”

  She knew what avoidance sounded like in Drew’s voice. “Or ever?”

  “Or ever.” Drew grimaced. “But thank God for friends. We’ll have a new life here. Everything’s taken care of.”

  “Everything?” A chill settled over her shoulders. “Are you saying we’ll never be able to go back?”

  Drew’s gaze flashed to someone across the hall. A woman stood some distance away, too far for Ginny to make out her face, but her stance reminded Ginny of a tiger—all graceful predator and calm power. Beside her stood a dark-skinned man, probably of Middle Eastern origin. Kyle walked up to the couple. The two men shook hands with the wary caution of alpha males standing on the boundary separating their territories while the alpha female watched, ready to deliver a smack down at the faintest hint of impertinence from either party.

  “Who is she?” Ginny asked.

  “I owe her my life,” Drew said simply.

  “She saved your life?”

  “She spared it.”

  Ginny inhaled sharply and breathed out her quiet shock. “She spared it? Why?”

  Drew was silent for a long moment. “Because of love.”

  Alarm knotted in the middle of Ginny’s chest. “She loves you?”

  “No.” Drew’s grip around her waist tightened. A faint smile lightened his expression. “She loves someone else. Someone amazing. She did it for him.”

  Zara’s flight on a private jet from Geneva to Washington, D.C., left within the hour. With only Nazrol eavesdropping on her conversation, she made a call to Xin’s private number.

  The NSA analyst’s familiar voice answered the phone. “Hello, Zara.”

  “Did you take care of the medical reports?”

  “Yes. The bodies were charred beyond recognition, but the techs still managed to get some DNA and dental records out of them, so I replaced one of the deceased mercenary’s records with Klah’s genetic signature. The falsified medical report, combined with the eyewitness’s testimony of you shooting Klah, makes his death indisputable. Officially, all members of SEAL Team Three were killed in action.”

  “So Klah is safe.”

  “No one will get through the pack of lies I stuffed into the reports, but some people do know the truth—you, Nazrol, Klah and his wife, Kyle, and me. There’s always the chance of a leak somewhere.”

  “What do you mean?” Zara asked.

  “I can erase the past, but I can’t control the future. Short of extensive plastic surgery and sticking Klah and his wife in the middle of the Kalahari desert with zero chance of human contact, there’s no way to hide the truth in a world of cameras and social media. Eventually, he’s going to find out and there will be hell to pay.”

  “You’re telling me I went through that elaborate play for nothing?”

  “Not nothing. Besides, not many people could have come up with that elaborate a play on the spot, the way you did,” Xin said. “What you did was buy time and create options. You can still play this game out to its logical conclusion—free Danyael and hope that Klah and his wife can stay hidden—but you know what Patrick Seneca is capable of. Do you want Danyael’s freedom on his terms, or on yours?”

  On mine. I’m the only person I trust with Danyael’s life. Zara drummed her fingernails on the leather armrest. But what would Danyael want me to do? “So you’re saying Klah’s not truly safe until I snuff out the fuse.”

  Xin chuckled, the sound low and amused. “I wouldn’t recommend assassinating the U.S. secretary of state.”

  “I had something else in mind. I’ll handle it.” Zara glanced sideways at her traveling partner. “Is Nazrol cleared to enter the U.S.?”

  “Yes. His record is now squeaky clean. I’ll meet you when you arrive and get him through the immigration back doors. Are you hiring him for Three Fates?”

  “Of course. He’s more than earned it. I couldn’t have saved Klah’s life without his help. He got Klah out of the house and on a plane to Geneva. Nazrol’s a good guy to have by your side when life gets frantic.”

  “Sounds great. You’ll keep him out of unofficial trouble, and I’m
sure he’ll be happy to create all kinds of official trouble. Let him know that the State Department would be thrilled to bring in a man of his talents and background if he ever gets tired of working for you.”

  “Not on your life. What about the other thing I asked you for?”

  “Architectural and engineering plans for ADX Florence? I’m still working on it, but in general, I wouldn’t recommend breaking into a super maximum-security prison either. This would rank right up there with the worst decision you ever made—freeing Galahad from Pioneer Labs.”

  “Perhaps it’ll take another bad decision to undo the damage from my worst decision.”

  “Calamity cascading upon a disaster? Yes, that’s your style, but you don’t always have to live up to the hype.”

  “Just get me the plans, Xin. I’ll make a decision later.”

  “All right. I’ll see you in a few hours. Oh, I almost forgot. Alhassan’s men finally finished clearing the rubble out from his Beirut villa. They found Lieutenant Bowden’s body in the house.”

  Grass. Zara drew a deep breath as she disconnected the call. All the members of SEAL Team Three were finally accounted for.

  “Everything’s all right, then?” Nazrol asked.

  “You’re more than all right. You have multiple job offers.”

  Nazrol’s teeth flashed white in a broad grin. “I work only for you, Zara. I like knowing that my boss won’t accept a contract on my life.”

  Zara managed a faint smile, but her thoughts were on Danyael. Not for the first time, she had sacrificed him for someone else. This time, perhaps her reasons were different, but did it matter?

  Tell me who you love and I will tell you who you are.

  For you, Danyael. I’ll do what you would have wanted me to do.

  By midnight, Zara and Nazrol had arrived safely in Washington, D.C., and Nazrol was ensconced in one of the many safe houses Three Fates maintained in the country. His orientation would begin the next day, but in the meantime, Zara had loose ends to handle.

  The house she sought was a Georgian mansion in Fairfax County. She skirted the bright spotlights shining on stately white columns, and entered the house by picking a lock and deactivating the security alarm. Light gleamed and motion rustled on the second floor, but Zara was not concerned; it was only Patrick Seneca’s two young children and the au pair.