by Vanessa Kier
The attack against the festival had been carried out by members of his corps of private troops. He did not consider that attack the failure that everyone else labeled it. Without the appearance of the men from WAR, his men would have succeeded in killing all of their primary targets. However, to ensure future successes, he’d arranged for his men to receive additional military training. The other attacks had been farmed out to various rebel factions in order to test which groups truly had the skills necessary to assist him with his future plans, and which groups bragged about their battle prowess but fell apart under opposition.
It was clear that in striking against smaller targets, such as the offices of Layla’s Foundation, regular rebel troops would not suffice, particularly not when an agent of WAR was involved. The regular rebels were better suited to the wholesale annihilation of a target, such as the attack on the villages.
Despite the negative effect on his reputation, he had no intention of sending his private troops against Dr. Kirk, the regional governor, and the surviving villagers. His troops must complete their training in order to be ready for the next large demonstration of his power. For he fully intended that one day, all of West Africa would bow to his whims.
Until that time, he would continue to throw local rebel groups at Dr. Kirk and the others in hopes that one of the attacks would succeed.
“I apologize,” he said calmly, although he no longer cared what his sponsor thought of him. “The competency of the men I assigned to the task was misrepresented to me.”
“As leader, the failure belongs to you. I no longer trust that you can assist me with my goals.”
“I regret that I have not lived up to your expectations.” He laced his words with emotions he did not feel. But he had learned that this man expected to be treated with the deference due a king. “What may I do to restore myself to your good graces?”
The man did not answer immediately. For a moment Natchaba wondered if he had taken his acting too far. But then the voice said, “You must succeed in eliminating the targets you have set. No more failures will be tolerated. Unless I hear that you have regained the respect among the greater rebellion, I will have to end our acquaintance.”
“I understand, sir.” But he was speaking to dead air.
He shrugged and placed the phone on the top of his desk. The man’s threat no longer worried him. First, it had become clear that while his sponsor enjoyed manipulating those around him, he himself did not have the power to carry out attacks on the ground. He needed Natchaba and the other rebel leaders to do the work for him.
Second, Natchaba no longer saw any advantage to taking this man’s orders. True, the few contracts the man had sent his way at the beginning of their relationship had increased his financial strength at a critical time. Since then, however, he had successfully built on those funds until income from his donor base and from the businesses he had set up provided more than enough money to meet his needs.
Third, his growing network of informants provided him access to information beyond that which his sponsor chose to feed him. It was his own men who had discovered that another shipment of miniaturized explosives were en route to his father. A shipment his sponsor had failed to mention. That mistake proved that it was nearing time for Natchaba to dissolve their relationship. Oh, for now he would continue to pay lip service to the man. After all, he was aware that his sponsor was rumored to have arranged for Heinrich Dietrich’s death and he had no desire to die.
But once his troops were both skilled enough and plentiful enough to destroy all his opponents, Natchaba would no longer need to worry about interference from his sponsor, his father, or WAR. He and his loyal supporters would be the only ones left alive.
He sat down in front of his computer and entered a note on the chart he kept regarding which tactics and which combination of troops proved to be successful. Pleased with the success of the two rebel factions that had destroyed the villages and Dr. Kirk’s clinic, he had already offered them positions within his growing army. Not that he intended to allow them to mingle with his elite troops. No, these new allies were the blunt instrument to the surgical precision of his personal troops. Yet as the attack against the villages had proven, in order to make a point on a grander scale, these two groups were exactly what was needed.
Of the would-be rebels who had been used in the most recent attacks against Layla’s Foundation and the hospital in the capital, there was only one man who had survived and escaped arrest. He had been responsible for killing the government’s guard outside the office building, then shooting out the conference room window and throwing the Molotov cocktail inside. Natchaba tapped his fingers over the keyboard. He would recommend that the young man be included in the next group run through the initiate program.
In the meantime, he had received requests from several small cells of rebel sympathizers who wished to be of use. He would choose the most experienced of them to eliminate those attackers taken into custody by the police. While he had made certain only the leader of each attacking group knew who they were working for, it didn’t pay to leave loose ends. The other petitioning groups would be allowed to show their potential by carrying out additional attacks on the hospital, the regional governor’s office, and by locating and killing Dr. Kirk.
He was a patient man. His reputation might be suffer in the short term due to perceived failures of these recent attacks, but eventually his opponents and everyone who might be able to provide information on him would be dead. After his largest attacks took place, no one would remember his failures. Only his successes.
They would respect him and they would fear him as they never had his father.
And that’s when he would know that he had won.
New Accra
The Republic of the Volta
West Africa
HELEN WOKE BEFORE Lachlan. She listened to the steady beat of his heart and fought the urge to jump out of bed and run far away. As if somehow distance would erase what had happened between them in the night.
She bit her lip. From the moment she’d met Lachlan her physical attraction to him had been strong, so that they’d had sex wasn’t a surprise. But the fragile bond that had formed between them after Sisi’s death had turned into something far more dangerous last night.
Their connection made no sense.
She shivered under a wave of vulnerability. It was too much. She couldn’t handle this complication. Not on top of everything else she was dealing with. She had to put distance between them before she fell any deeper under his physical spell. Before the objectivity she relied on for her work abandoned her completely. Last night could never happen again. If it did, she’d be lost.
Okay, then. She’d pretend as if nothing special had happened. Her work came first and she was already holding on to her composure by a thread.
Holding her breath, she tried to slip free of the bed without waking Lachlan.
His satellite phone rang and Lachlan came awake instantly. He glanced at her, then rolled over and answered the phone.
“What?” he barked.
She couldn’t tell from his expression if the news he received was good or bad, but he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, presenting her with his bare back.
Helen gasped. In between the healing shrapnel wounds, myriad old, white scars marred his skin from shoulders to hip.
Lachlan turned his head, then froze when he saw where she was looking. His expression shuttered. Calmly returning his attention to his conversation, he stood, stepping away from the bed.
The scars were varied and extended all the way down to his ankles. Some stripes might have been made by a belt or a whip. A series of precise lines suggested the use of a sharp knife. Thick, badly healed surgical scars were interspersed with divots where flesh had been carved away. What turned her stomach was that most of the damage appeared to have been inflicted years ago. Probably while he was still a child.
“All right. Give me five.” Lachlan en
ded the call and tossed the phone on the night table.
“My God, Lachlan, what happened?”
His shoulders tensed, then he gave a fierce shake of his head. “The lads will be here shortly.” He snatched up his clothes and disappeared out the door.
Helen stared at the space where he’d stood. A horrible suspicion began to form in her mind. If she was right, so much about his behavior made sense.
Worse, if she’d guessed correctly, even if she had wanted a future with Lachlan, it might not be possible.
Hearing male voices, she dressed quickly. If there’d been developments, she had no intention of letting Lachlan and his team shut her out. She opened the door and strode down the hallway, but a jolt of fear stopped her at the end of the hallway. The tiny living area was filled with men. Big, muscular men with the same aura of danger that hung around Lachlan.
There’s no reason to be afraid. These are Lachlan’s teammates. You’re safe.
Still, it took a moment for her heartbeat to calm down.
Lachlan hadn’t yet emerged from the shower so she glanced around for a familiar face and spotted one of the men who’d been guarding her at the hospital yesterday. The dark-haired one, JC. He was leaning on the half-wall separating the living area and the kitchen. Catching his eye, she motioned toward the kitchen.
“Hey, mates!” he yelled. “Let Dr. Kirk through to the kitchen.”
With murmured apologies, the men stepped out of her way. She made it to the kitchen, only to find a stranger there. “Coffee’s already on,” he said in American English. “We brought bofrot—” he nodded toward a plate filled with golden brown balls of fried dough “—and I just started cutting up the fruit.” He indicated a pile of mangoes, bananas, and papayas.
“I can help.”
“Yeah, I hear you’re pretty handy with a knife.” He wiped his hand off on a towel. “I’m Levine.”
“Just Levine,” JC added from behind her. “He kills people who use his first name.”
“Er…” Helen said.
Levine rolled his eyes and flung a piece of mango at JC.
JC caught it, then popped it into his mouth. “Thanks, cousin,” he said, pronouncing the word as the French did. He gave Helen a wink.
She raised her brows and glanced between JC and Levine. “You’re cousins?” They both had dark hair, but otherwise she saw no resemblance.
Twin expressions of horror passed over their faces.
“God, no.”
“Lord forbid.” JC stole a piece of banana from Levine’s pile. “Cousin is just a thing Cajuns say. It’s kinda like buddy or mate.”
“You say it because most of you are related,” Levine muttered.
“Watch it, city boy. You’re the one too afraid of your mother to legally change your given name.”
Levine glared at JC, then laughed and shook his head. “I’d tell you to ignore Cajun boy, but unfortunately, he’s right. I only use my last name.” He held out his hand. “We’ve met before, but you probably don’t recognize me because I was wearing my aviator helmet and goggles. I was the co-pilot in the helicopter that evacuated you.”
“Oh. Right.” She shook his hand. Remembering how she’d made fun of the pilot, she glanced around uneasily. “Er…”
Levine laughed. “Don’t worry. Marcus, our pilot, isn’t here right now. He and his usual co-pilot are working.”
“Yeah, no rest for the wicked,” someone behind her chimed in.
“Then how come you’re here, goober?” another man demanded. She recognized the voice as Hoss, the other guard at the hospital. Glancing at the clock, she saw that she had an hour before she’d promised to return to the surgical ward. Letting the men’s banter flow around her, she helped Levine cut up the fruit. She doubted it would do much to satisfy these fit, muscular men if they were truly hungry. They would need a lot of protein, but in a region where the meat in the open air markets was often covered in flies or had started to go rancid, she wondered what kind of diet they ate. Maybe their MREs were a necessary dietary supplement.
“I think that papaya has had enough,” Lachlan’s dry voice commented right behind her.
Helen startled. Her hand twitched and if Lachlan hadn’t been fast enough to grab her, she would have sliced her finger.
“Careful, doctor. You don’t want to damage those valuable hands.”
Annoyed by the edge to his voice, Helen pulled out a plate, slid the cut fruit onto it, then shoved the plate at Lachlan. “Put this on the table, please.”
Not that there was room at the two-person kitchen table for all of these men. “I assume you’re not really here for breakfast,” she told the group. With so many strangers present, she decided that she’d press Lachlan later for any update on the situation. Right now, she just wanted some privacy. “Go ahead and start your meeting. Once I’m done eating I’ll shower, then catch a taxi to the hospital.” Taking the banana she’d set aside and a couple of bofrot, she turned around, intending to return to the bedroom.
The men had fallen silent and the air hummed with sudden tension. Those men who weren’t staring at the floor or ceiling were looking at Lachlan. “What?” she demanded. Their expressions were so somber, that her pulse spiked. “Has there been another attack?”
The plate in her hands wobbled. The man nearest to her reached out and steadied it as Lachlan hurriedly reassured, “No. Nothing like that. But there was a large article in today’s newspaper about yesterday’s attack. It highlighted Layla’s Foundation success in improving the accessibility and standard of medical care in this country. They even interviewed some of the survivors from the festival day attack. Natchaba’s reputation has taken a hit because he’s failed to eliminate you and the villagers. You’re in even more danger now than before.”
“Okay. So?”
“So, until Natchaba is caught, it’s even more important that you have bodyguards at all times,” Lachlan continued.
Relieved that he wasn’t trying to stop her from going out, she tightened her grip on her plate. “I’m due at the hospital at ten. I don’t want to take you or your teammates away if you have important matters to discuss.”
“I’ll take first shift,” Levine offered. “You can update me as needed.”
“I’ll assist Dr. Kirk, if the hospital will allow it.” Helen recognized the speaker as the medic who’d worked on Jacobs on the helicopter. “That way we’ll have someone on the inside as well as in the hall.”
“I think the hospital administrator will be okay with that,” Helen said. “They’re pretty understaffed. Any word on whether they’ve reopened the other hospital?”
“Not yet,” Lachlan said. “So. We have the bodyguard assignments set for first watch.”
Helen noticed that Lachlan hadn’t volunteered for a shift. Good. She needed distance from him.
“Transport?” Lachlan asked.
“I’ll drive them over,” said a man with the accent, dark skin, and narrow features of one of the northern tribes. “I have contacts I should meet with.” He glanced at a newspaper sitting on the table.
“Take Dev with you,” Lachlan ordered. “None of us are to go out alone until further notice.”
With her part finished, Helen left the men to figure out their next steps and took her food into the bedroom. Shoving thoughts of her nighttime activities out of her mind, she focused on centering herself. It didn’t work. Her mind bounced from yesterday’s attacks to that amazing sex to Lachlan’s scars and back again.
So it was with relief that she answered Lachlan’s soft knock at her door.
“Doctor, before you leave, we need you to confirm that the photos we’ve identified are the same man you know as Natchaba.”
His cool, professional tone was precisely what she needed to help her keep her emotional distance. “Oh. Okay.” After dropping her empty plate off in the kitchen sink, she joined the group gathered around a man with Nordic blond hair working on a laptop.
“The facial recognition syst
em finally completed its search for faces matching the police sketch,” the man at the computer said. Helen wasn’t good at distinguishing the nuances of non-African accents, but she thought his sounded Scandinavian. “Based on those results, and confirmed where possible by the few positive IDs we’ve received via our informants, these are the suspected aliases of our guy.”
He glanced over at Helen. “I’m Lars Eriksson, by the way. Swede extraordinaire.”
“He’s our communications and computer guru,” Lachlan explained.
“Pleased to meet you,” Helen murmured. Then she chuckled. “Okay, what’s the deal here with the letter L? Lachlan, Levine, Lars. And your name starts with an L as well, right?” she asked, turning to the medic.
“Correct. I’m Lance Fitzgerald.”
She raised her brows. “Is this some sort of secret military recruiting trick? To confuse your enemies by referring to each other as L?”
The men laughed.
“No,” JC said. “Just coincidence. But that’s a great idea.”
“They couldn’t come up with snappy nicknames like mine, so they decided to just limit themselves to one segment of the alphabet,” Hoss said, shaking his head mournfully. “It’s a poor reflection on their creativity, I know.”
“We all know that you got the name Hoss because you couldn’t say your full last name, Hoffsteader,” Levine countered.
“No, no,” JC said. “He got the nickname because he’s a horse’s—”
Lance slapped his hand over JC’s mouth. “Don’t say it.”
“You are all just jealous that you don’t have such a beautiful name as mine.” The quiet, somber African man held out his hand to shake. “I am Obidawah Dapaah, at your service, Dr. Kirk.”
She greeted him in the predominant language of the northern region and was rewarded by what she suspected was a rare smile.
“All, right, lads. Play time’s over,” Lachlan said. “Let the doctor see the photos so she’s not late for her shift.”