by Dana Marton
A caravan of Humvees sped down the street, armed men hanging out of the windows, people and livestock scattering from their way as they didn’t look like they would stop for anything. The XO-ST was back in town.
His muscles tightened. Last time he’d met up with an XO-ST team, in Venice, Italy, they’d tried their best to kill him. And they’d nearly succeeded.
This time he wasn’t injured and half-starved. This time he didn’t have his sisters with him to worry about. He checked his gun, pocketed some extra ammo then headed for the door. Plenty of time to do a little recon while Allison slept safely in her room.
On his way down to his car in the parking garage he called Troy and told him about Mitch Wharton, asking him to pass the news on to Gabe. Maybe they finally had something here.
He was going to bring Congressman Wharton down. And somehow he was going to keep Allison from harm in the process.
* * *
Allison’s room expanded back to its original size, the air returning, once Jake had walked out the door. He made her feel comforted and self-conscious at the same time, made her aware of everything about him: his sharp gaze, the solid strength of his body, his masculine lips, his—
She stood and walked across the room to get a drink, but the mini bar didn’t have any more water, and the hotel didn’t offer room service. She’d have to go down to the lobby to get a few bottles, but not before she changed into the proper attire for a public appearance and hid her hair. She’d learned her lesson.
A cold shiver ran down her spine when she thought of what might have happened if Jake hadn’t shown up when he had, if those thugs had caught up with her.
Lahedeh was supposed to be a peaceful, out of the place town. What fighting had occurred here had ended long ago. She hadn’t expected to face any danger. But she found the people to be suspicious of foreigners and the place treacherous.
She definitely needed to find Kenneth and help him, if he was in trouble. They needed to get out of here as soon as possible and go back to their lives at home.
But not back to the engagement. Even beyond the other woman…
She’d known that she wasn’t in love with Kenneth before she’d come here. But the way her body had responded to Jake a few minutes ago drove the point home. She’d never felt this alive with anyone before. And it wasn’t just the danger, the adrenaline rush as they’d run for their lives. She felt that breathless, spine tingling feeling even stronger when it’d been just the two of them in her room.
But he was the exact wrong type of guy, at the exactly the worst time.
She was in so much trouble here.
* * *
He couldn’t observe the men from the roof, since they had sentries there. More men stood guard at the gaps in the outer wall of the compound. Jake had to sneak in through the back. He kicked a few rusty bars out of a window, stole out into the hallway and slipped into a room with a view of the courtyard.
In addition to the mercenaries, a couple of locals stood around with their pack animals, the same bunch that’d come earlier when he’d been here with Allison. They were back with the food and firewood, and some fires had already been started. The woman Allison had given money to hadn’t returned.
Now that had been a strange scene.
If his sister Jasmine would have been in the same situation over Gabe, she would have scratched the other woman’s eyes out. Then again, Jasmine was madly in love with Gabe. And, luckily for everyone, Gabe was madly in love with her. Those two almost made Jake believe in happily ever after.
He counted the men in the courtyard. Less than a dozen. Which meant all of them weren’t here yet. A full XO-ST unit usually consisted of anywhere from twenty to two dozen mercenaries. The rest of them were probably out on patrol somewhere.
He needed to keep an eye out for their arrival. When everyone was here and asleep, he’d search through their belongings. Until then, he had to content himself with eavesdropping.
Most of the men talked and moved like commandos, obviously a team who knew each other well. Unfortunately, they talked about cars and weapons and, every once in a while, girlfriends. Long minutes passed before Jake noticed two who didn’t fit in at all if you looked beyond the camouflage outfits.
The two guys in their twenties clearly weren’t part of the camaraderie. They looked half-excited, half-scared. Could have been new team members, except, they didn’t look like battle-hardened men, the only kind outfits like this hired. Private commando units didn’t exactly recruit through the classified ads. They searched out military or ex-military people with a reputation.
One of the misfits kept loading his gun over and over, not nearly fast enough, practicing. The other looked like he was giving himself silent pep-talks. They tried to join in the general conversation now and then, and the rest of the team let them, but seemed to be only humoring them.
Jake pulled away from the open window, moved to the far corner of the room and grabbed his phone to call Gabe.
“Can you recheck those XO-ST files we have? How often do they take on new men? I need to know if anything looks funny in their recruiting,” he said in a low whisper, hanging up before someone could discover him.
He moved back to the window to continue his surveillance of the courtyard where the men were now eating and drinking. A few played poker on the hood of one of the Humvees. The last of the locals unloaded his donkey and was leaving.
A little more time and everyone would settle into their sleeping quarters. Jake had his eye on their leader and the laptop the guy had with him. The man stood up, shoving the thing under his arm, and began to walk toward the building.
Jake shifted so he could follow the man’s progress. He definitely wanted to know where that one would be sleeping.
Someone called out from the shadows. “Yo, Maddox!”
The team leader stopped.
The sentry who’d called after him lumbered forward, a second figure following behind him. They walked in the shadows, away from the light of the fires, their faces veiled in darkness.
“There’s a woman here with some questions,” the sentry said.
The men around the fires threw curious glances in their direction.
Probably Kenneth’s girlfriend, the local woman, Jake thought.
But as Maddox gestured to her to step forward, she moved into the circle of light at last.
Allison.
She pulled a picture from her purse and held it up. “I’m looking for Kenneth Hatch. I really hope you can help me. Do you think you could maybe just look at this, please?”
The men around the fire tensed. All conversation ended. Only the two greenhorns went on with their business, yapping as if nothing had happened. And in the sudden silence, Jake could make out the words “combat tourism,” or something like that.
Maybe XO-ST didn’t like tourists coming here. They wanted to keep the place wild and dangerous so they could keep their fat contracts. Maddox sent the two a withering look to shut them up, before refocusing on Allison and gesturing toward the building. “Why don’t we go inside.”
His voice seemed neutral, but Jake caught plenty of underlying menace in his body language. A couple of his men drew closer. They were all on full battle alert suddenly, the reaction nothing like it had been to the locals.
Allison, trusting and oblivious to the change of mood around her, walked forward—a lamb to the slaughter.
~~~***~~~
Chapter Five
When the PI she’d hired to come with her to Afghanistan quit at the last second, she’d thought about postponing the trip until a new one could be hired. But all those media jabs about her not being able to do anything on her own had echoed in her head.
It’d been insinuated for years that she couldn’t tie her shoes without her board of directors, let alone run her father’s business. Allison had wanted to prove, even if only to herself, that she didn’t need to have her hand held in everything she did.
Pride goes before the fal
l. It might have been nice to have remembered the old adage a little earlier.
She’d been sure Kenneth was in trouble, and she was traveling to a country under U.S. military control. How much trouble could she get into?
More than she could handle, she had to admit as the man herded her into a small upstairs room and divested her of her phone and purse.
“For security reasons,” he explained. He seemed to be the team leader.
The guard had called him Maddox out there. She’d introduced herself on their way in, but he hadn’t reciprocated. In any case, his lack of courtesy was the least of her problems.
“I don’t understand why Kenneth was here. He works in irrigation.” She scanned the room, empty except for an old carpet on the floor and a moth-eaten blanket in the corner.
His eyes shifted. “We hired him to do a study on a new irrigation system for the town,” he said after a moment. “As long as we’re here, we’d like to contribute. We can always use some good PR.”
“Could you tell me where is he now?”
“North. We’ll take you to him in the morning.”
Relief flooded her, erasing the misgivings that had assailed her just a minute ago.
“If you could be so kind as to give me the name of the town, I can get there by myself. I’m sure you have other things to do. I wouldn’t want to be any trouble.” She preferred Jake taking her. The way Maddox’s smile didn’t reach his eyes made her wary.
But she was glad she’d come here. When she’d gone down to the lobby for an extra bottle of water and heard talk of the XO-ST team’s return, she’d run up to Jake’s room to ask him to bring her over, but he’d been out.
Impatient for news, she couldn’t wait. For all she knew, the team could be just pulling in for the night and moving on early in the morning. She’d slipped a note under Jake’s door explaining everything.
“So where is Kenneth?” she asked again.
“Up in the mountains,” the man said vaguely.
“Why doesn’t he call?”
“Cell phone coverage is spotty up there. And he’s been pretty sick.” The man pulled away from her. “We’ll leave at first light.”
That sounded good, but something about this place and the mercenaries gave her a bad feeling. “I should go back to my hotel until then.” And ask Jake to go with her.
“Couldn’t let you back out this time of the night.” He flashed another one of his cold smiles. “Not safe. You’ll be fine with us.”
“I took a cab here.”
“It’ll be sent back. You can’t trust the local cab drivers. Half of them are thieves,” he said, leaving the room, taking her belongings with him.
The key turned in the lock from the outside.
She might not have had the kind of training these men had, but she did have survival instincts. Every one of those said she’d be better off away from this place. She tried the door just in case, but no amount of wiggling the knob made it budge.
The window had iron bars.
Jake will come, a little voice said in her head. When he found her note, he would come for her.
He might have been adventurous and impulsive, but he seemed dependable in one thing: showing up when she needed him. He’d saved her on the street from those thugs and got her back to the hotel. He’d gone with her to her meeting with the police commissioner and somehow defused the situation there.
Oh, God. She froze. Maybe her corporate enemies were right. She did seem to need help every other minute. Okay. What would Jake do?
He wouldn’t sit around, waiting to be rescued, that was for sure. While she couldn’t picture Kenneth in some camouflage outfit and combat boots in a million years, she could definitely picture Jake.
He had a way about him as he moved, a certain self-assurance as he talked, as if he knew he could handle whatever came his way. She would have been willing to bet half her inheritance that his self-confidence hadn’t come from business training seminars.
She made her feel safe and—
She caught herself. He made her feel safe. Period. No and. A pang of guilt cut through her that she was thinking about him and not Kenneth who was sick somewhere up north in the mountains.
Jake handled whatever came his way. She would have to do the same. Allison scanned the room, her gaze settling on the window. She moved closer to investigate and rattled the rusty bars. The mud brick was as hard as cement, nearly a foot thick, and didn’t give.
Whatever Maddox had said, it sure didn’t feel like she was being held here for her own safety. The room felt a lot like a prison. Was it? Panic bubbled to life inside her.
Okay. Calm down. Maddox hadn’t threatened her, just the opposite. He’d promised to help.
But no matter how many times she told herself that, she couldn’t dispel the foreboding that settled on her. Something was wrong with this place. Something was wrong with these people. Despite the heat, a chill ran up her spine. She grabbed the bars again and pulled them with all her strength.
The sound of the doorknob turning made her spin around. Her heart leaped to her throat as she pulled back into the farthest corner. When, instead of Maddox, Jake appeared in the doorway, relief sent her flying across the room and into his arms.
She caught herself the next second. Heat flooded her cheeks as she moved back, trying not to notice his hard chest and massive biceps. She’d been trying not to notice them since they’d met.
He held her in place, concern in his eyes. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m sorry. I—”
“You shouldn’t have come here without me. What were you thinking?” The concern switched to anger in a split second. His eyes flashed. His jaw muscles tightened, as did his arms around her.
Instead of indignation, heat flooded her out of nowhere.
“I went to your room. You weren’t there. I left you a note.” She had to work to catch her breath.
His gaze held hers as his jaw worked in silence. A long second passed before he let her go and stepped back. “I probably left by then.”
“Why did you come without me?”
“To avoid this.” He glared. Then drew a slow breath. “All right. Fine. You’re okay and that’s the most important thing. We’d better get out of here before the rest of the mercenaries arrive. That’s only half the team out there.” He stepped out into the hallway, keeping her in the cover of his wide shoulders.
She hesitated. As much as she didn’t like or trust Maddox, he was her only connection to Kenneth. “Kenneth is alive. Up north, in the mountains. They’re taking me to him in the morning.”
“About Kenneth…” A muscle jumped in Jake’s cheek. “We’ll find him on our own. You’re not going anywhere with these men.”
Part of her bristled at his taking control, part of her felt grateful for it. Bottom line—she trusted him more than she trusted Maddox. So she followed him out into the hallway.
He pulled his weapon, then bent and pulled a smaller handgun from an ankle holster and handed it to her.
She held the thing with two fingers. “I can’t handle a gun.”
“My kid sister can handle a gun,” he said with patience as he took it back. But before she could relax, he said, “This is how you take the safety off. Then you point and squeeze the trigger.”
He seemed to have more faith in her than she had in herself. The truth was, when they were together, she did feel like she could do just about anything.
Handle whatever comes your way. When he handed the weapon back to her, she grabbed it more firmly. “Fine.”
He nodded then stole down the hallway, and she followed closely. A man was sprawled on the floor at the top of the stairs, bloodstains at his temple. Looked like Jake had hit him hard. She turned her head from the blood.
“They took my purse and phone.” She remembered suddenly.
“Tell me your passport is at the hotel.”
“In the room safe.”
“Okay.” He gave a crisp nod then s
tarted forward.
Instead of operating from a stance of fear, do what has to be done. “The team leader has a laptop. Do you think there might be something about Kenneth’s location on it?”
He stopped to look back at her, then rubbed his hand over his face, and for a second looked worn out—and something else, some emotion she couldn’t identify—before he schooled his features. “The laptop would be good.”
He stashed his gun and picked up the downed mercenary, dragging the man back to the room they’d just left. He didn’t even strain.
She closed the door behind them once they were inside then moved to the window to look out. Half a dozen men sat around the fires. The rest had probably gone to sleep, taking rooms somewhere in the building. Maddox sat apart from the rest, his back resting against the well in the middle.
“The team leader is still out there,” she whispered. “He’s got the laptop with him.”
Jake tugged off the unconscious man’s boots. “See if you can get his attention. Get him up here.”
How? “I have to go to the bathroom,” she called out, blurting the first thing that came to mind.
Maddox looked up. She couldn’t make out his expression in the semi-darkness.
“I can’t wait. I’m sorry to be so much trouble,” she tried to sound as apologetic as she possibly could.
The man put the laptop down. Seriously? He couldn’t bring it like before? Then he stood up and lumbered toward the building. As he walked by one of the fires, the flames lit the dark scowl on his face.
“He’s not bringing the laptop.”
Jake acknowledged her words with a nod, showing none of the despair she felt. He finished with the boots and began working on the man’s pants. “Get his shirt.”
While she worked on that, he put the man’s pants on over his own. They fit with room to spare.
She undid the shirt buttons as fast as she could. Then she had the shirt at last, and a few seconds later Jake had on the full commando outfit. He grabbed the guy’s hat as the finishing touch.