Full Throttle

by Julie Ann Walker

  Yes, he missed Rosa like crazy. And there wasn’t a day that went by when he didn’t think of her and wish she was still by his side, still giving him shit, and still holding the fact that she was a full two minutes older than him over his head. But he’d managed to move on with his life, move past his sorrow to a place where he could look back with laughter and love on the time he’d spent with her.

  Why hadn’t Abby done the same?

  “Seriously.” She ran a hand under her nose. “Don’t mind me. It’s just been a really long day, and I’m feeling—”

  “There it is!” Yonus called back to them. He pointed up the road. And though the jungle did its best to obscure their view, faint red taillight covers and the silver glint of a back bumper were visible.

  “If that isn’t a sight for sore eyes”—Steady slung an arm around Abby’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze—“I don’t know what is. Can I get an amen?”

  “A-frickin’-men,” she replied, forcing a smile to her lips, and lengthening her stride. She seemed content to drop their conversation, and he didn’t dare push her to finish whatever it was she’d been about to say.

  They joined Yonus and were barely thirty yards from the truck when the familiar crack of igniting gunpowder sounded a second before a round bit into the ground near their feet. The hairs on Steady’s scalp lifted so fast and high it was a wonder they didn’t jettison off his head. He reached for his Beretta as another loud, malicious crack echoed through the jungle at the same time a bullet nicked his upper arm. Pain bit into him with sharp, jagged teeth, but he gave it barely a fleeting thought.

  “Get down!” he yelled to Yonus who was standing beside the road, eyes wide, face slack in shock. “Stay low and make for the tree line!”

  And then, wrapping both arms around Abby, keeping her in front of him so that his body was between her and the shooter, he heeded his own advice. Two bounding steps brought them to the relative safety of the jungle’s edge. After securing her behind the huge trunk of a tree—and after a quick look assured him she was unharmed—he thumbed off his safety and prepared to let the bullets fly…

  * * *

  “Okay, so this should be the place.” Penni leaned against the front bumper of one of the big, black SUVs the Secret Service had rented to use as transport to and from the airport. Dan was propped beside her, arms crossed, watching as she glanced down at the piece of paper on which the hotel manager had scrawled the security director’s address. When she looked over at him, she pulled a face. “I mean, this has to be the place.”

  “You sure?” he asked as she folded the slip and tucked it into the front pocket of her austere black slacks before pushing away from the vehicle to stand on the side of the street. Until today, until seeing how the material draped around her long, slim legs while delicately cupping her heart-shaped derriere, he would’ve sworn there was no way a pair of pants like that could ever be made to look sexy. But, man, he did not mind in the least that Penelope DePaul had proved him wrong. Ozzie called her a tall drink of Secret Service agent, and he couldn’t disagree.

  “Considering I thought the other two houses we checked were the right ones,” she frowned, “the answer to your question is no. I’m not sure. But if your friend Vanessa translated what that lady at the last place said, the address we’re looking for is the blue house at the end of Jalan Putra. This should be Jalan Putra and that is definitely a blue house.”

  She pointed to a bright-azure structure built atop a crumbling gray slab. The tiny house had a rusting tin roof and three poured cement steps leading up to a scratched wooden door. Bright-green curtains fluttered in its two open windows and a clothesline with an array of apparel flapping in the gentle breeze was strung from the side of the structure to a nearby light pole. A multi-hued rooster strutted his stuff in the front yard, shaking his tail feathers at the drab-colored hen who ignored him as she pecked in the dirt. Typical.

  All in all, to call the place decidedly low-tech would be an understatement. Which was why it was weird to glance over the roofline and see the incredibly high-tech, almost futuristic-looking Petronas Towers looming in the near distance.

  “But seeing as how there aren’t any house numbers anywhere and half the street signs are missing,” she continued, rubbing an impatient finger down the bridge of her nose, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we find ourselves zero for three.”

  Her frustration was palpable, and Dan couldn’t blame her. They’d driven around in circles through this neighborhood only to knock on two wrong doors. And since no one spoke English, he’d had to call back to HQ to elicit Vanessa’s help in translating their questions to the locals so that they could try to figure out where the hell they were and where the hell they should be.

  It had eaten up a lot of time. And every minute that ticked by was one more minute the hotel’s security director could use to make his escape. Even so, it was good to see Penni focused on something other than simply trying her damndest to keep from falling apart. Because, quite honestly, watching her struggle to do that had been…well…awful. And then when she had finally broken, when she pulled him into the bathroom and went up on tiptoe to claim his mouth, when she asked him to make love to her despite the fact he didn’t have a condom, when she—

  “Hey.” Penni grabbed his elbow, pulling him from his thoughts. “Isn’t that the guy we’re looking for?”

  He followed the line of her extended finger to see a man with a plastic grocery bag in each hand meandering down the road toward them. The guy’s eyes were focused on his footing on the uneven pavement, and Dan agreed. He looked remarkably similar the employee photo the hotel manager had showed them earlier.

  “Could be,” he murmured, putting his hand behind his waist to grab the butt of his Ruger P90. It sat nestled at the small of his back, so familiar he sometimes forgot it was there and fell asleep wearing it. “This guy coming has the same face-shape. The same tall, skinny build. Same black hair and skin tone. Then again, that describes the majority of the population.”

  As the man ambled closer, a little spurt of adrenaline zipped through Dan’s veins, heightening his senses, coaxing to life the hard-hitting Navy SEAL who still lived inside him even though he’d spent a year doing his best to drown the fucker. Suddenly the sound of the hen’s gentle clucks were amplified, and the humid air pressing against the exposed skin along his arms and face was like a wet, silken sheet.

  Jesus, he’d missed this feeling when he’d been nose-first in a bottle. This feeling of awareness. Of anticipation. Of…readiness.

  “That’s him for sure,” Penni whispered at the exact same moment he came to a similar conclusion.

  “Rajen Musa!” he called the man’s name.

  Startled, Rajen skidded to a stop in the middle of the rutted street. And then—holy fuck!—he dropped his bags, turned on his heels, and straight-up bolted.

  “Christ!” Penni hissed as that spurt of adrenaline turned into a full-on fireman’s hose.

  His weapon was out in an instant, aimed, and ready to fire. “Stop!” he yelled as he beat feet after the scumbag with Penni hot on his heels. The soles of her flat dress shoes slapped against the pavement with a rhythmic thwack, thwack. “Stop! Or I’ll shoot you dead!”

  Not really. He needed to ask the asswipe some questions first. But a round to the knee wasn’t out of the question. His finger tightened on his trigger as he poured more effort into eating up the distance Rajen was trying to put between them. Too bad for Rajen that once he’d gotten through the hell of detox, he’d stuck himself on a treadmill, working his way up from a slow, one-mile jog to a fast, five-mile sprint. There were still some things he was struggling to get back after his year of drunken self-destruction, but speed and agility weren’t on the list.

  “I’ll do it!” he warned again, pulling away from Penni and halving the distance to his target. “And I know you understand me, motherfucker! Your boss told me you speak English!” But it was obvious the bastard wasn’t going to heed h
is threat, and up ahead the city grew dense, a rabbit’s warren of alleyways and cramped buildings vying for space. Taking aim, his legs still pumping and closing the gap, he pulled the trigger. Bam! The Ruger belched out a .45 caliber bullet at over a thousand feet per second. And down went the security director.

  From the bloom of blood Dan glimpsed on the lower half of the guy’s khaki-colored trousers, he’d missed Rajen’s knee by two or three inches, nicking the side of his calf. But it was enough. The dude wasn’t going anywhere.

  Five more thundering steps brought him to the man’s side. Rajen was now sitting in the middle of the street, grabbing his injured leg and wailing. Like, seriously, wailing. He could give Irdina some stiff competition in terms of tear production and loud, hiccupping cries. “Rajen Musa,” he said, his chest rising and falling with the effort to suck in the dense, wet air. The smoky smell of spent gunpowder filled his nose and mouth, its taste tart on his tongue. Pointing the Ruger at the security director’s head, he continued, “You shoulda left the country when you had the chance.”

  “No!” Rajen cried, rocking slightly. Deep crimson blood coated his hands as he squeezed his leg. “No! I know nothing! I am innocent!”

  “Innocent men don’t…” Penni—who’d just caught up to them—bent at the waist, blowing hard. “Run,” she finished.

  “No, no, no.” Rajen shook his head, his face shiny with tears. “Whatever they did, I had no part. I-I just gave them room numbers th-they ask for and…and access key to s-s-stairwell. Nothing more. Nothing more!” he wailed, his accent so thick it was difficult to make out his words. “I swear.”

  Dan glanced at Penni as she straightened, still trying to catch her breath. “You believe him?” he asked.

  He could tell by her expression that she wasn’t sure, but she was a bright bulb. And she’d read his intention correctly. “Not for an instant.” She shook her head vehemently.

  “I swear,” Rajen insisted again, grabbing the leg of Dan’s jeans with a bloody hand. “They found me and—”

  “Who found you?” he demanded, not allowing the barrel of his weapon to waiver from its position an inch from the man’s temple.

  “I do not know name,” Rajen insisted, and Dan tilted his head, making sure his expression hardened further. Rajen’s voice fell to a terrified, pain-filled whimper. “I promise I do not know. I only know he Jemaah Islamiyah. He offer me much money to give him room numbers of Americans coming to…uh…uh”—Dan watched the man’s desperate expression edge toward panic as he searched for the correct word—“flower assembly.” Flower assembly? Oh, horticultural convention. Yeah, close enough. “He no tell me his plans. Just tell me find room numbers and give access key.” He shook Dan’s pant leg as a small puddle of blood formed on the ground beneath his injured calf. “Please, I speak truth.”

  “How did this man, this Jemaah Islamiyah militant,” he snarled the words, “know where to find the agents on duty? The one on the balcony and the one across the street on the roof of the shopping mall? That had nothing to do with room numbers or—”

  “I know not what you say!” Rajen screamed, more tears welling in his eyes, and was that? Yeah, the dude had a serious amount of snot running over his lips. Dan’s own lips curled. “I know nothing of—”

  “How did they know about the transmitters in Abby’s clothes!” he bellowed, pressing the barrel of his weapon tight against Rajen’s head.

  “I know not!” the security director’s voice screeched loud and high enough to send a flock of pigeons that had alighted on one of the gazillion overhead wires strung across the city, into noisy flight.

  “Then why did you—”

  But that’s all he managed because Penni interrupted him by yelling, “Go back inside your homes!” He found her gripping her service weapon with both hands and turning in a slow circle, keeping her eyes trained on the people who had begun slipping from their houses to investigate the commotion. “We are American authorities!” She shifted her Glock to one hand so she could reach for her Secret Service badge with the other, flashing her credentials to the growing crowd. “This man is a terrorist!”

  “No! No terrorist!” Rajen cried, hiccupping and releasing Dan to once again place both hands around his injured leg.

  A few murmurs rippled through those gathered even as more people slowly emerged from homes, backyards, and the narrow alleys running between the houses.

  “I don’t think they understand you,” Dan whispered. “And even if they do, I don’t think that badge of yours holds much water with ’em.” The twanging hairs on the back of his neck told him they might be about to find themselves in a world of trouble. The kind that happened when a crowd turned into a mob. Tension vibrated through the air, and he was reminded of the time he accidently stumbled into a notoriously gang-violent neighborhood back in good ol’ Detroit Rock City. Just like back then, he thought, This could get real bad, real quick. “Penni, get the car.”

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded, swallowing. “I think you’re right.”

  He watched her break into a run toward the SUV, keeping an eye on one particular guy who was stalking up the street toward them. To say the dude’s expression was unfriendly would be like calling a great white shark unfriendly.

  “No. Fuck, no,” he whispered to himself, well versed in how quickly things could turn violent in a situation like this. “If you didn’t know what their plans were, if you’re so innocent,” he continued to question Rajen because, holy shit, if Penni didn’t get that vehicle back to him PDQ he might be fighting off half the population of Kuala Lumpur and miss his chance to ask the man anything else, “then why did you run when you saw us? Why did you call in sick to work today?”

  Rajen, too frightened and too preoccupied by his own pain to recognize the volatility of his environment—and just how close he might be to obtaining his freedom—answered tearfully, “I call in sick because the man, he tell me to. When I say I the only one to know how to get footage from hotel cameras, he say that good. That may help slow authorities down. And then he offer me more money to stay home today.”

  Shit ten thousand bricks! This was turning into a CCF. A classic clusterfuck. “And you ran when you saw us because?” he prompted, narrowing his eyes at the man who was still advancing in their direction. He shook his head, the universal signal for you want no part of this, buddy. Unfortunately, the guy didn’t agree. He just kept on coming. And the crowd…it was beginning to vibrate, to hum with disapproval. In short: the natives were growing restless. Dan’s heart beat out a rapid lub-dub, his every cell focusing as he readied himself to take his Ruger away from Rajen’s head so he could point it elsewhere. He figured he’d start with Mr. Looking for a Fight.

  “B-because you look like Americans. I gave room numbers of Americans to Jemaah Islamiyah. I scared! I in trouble!”

  “Sure, sure.” Dan nodded, the hairs on his arms alerting him to the fact that he was sitting in the middle of a lit powder keg, and things were about tens second away from blowing the hell up. “So not so innocent are you, Rajen? You knew the JI wouldn’t use that information you gave ’em for anything good.”

  “But I—”

  Whatever Rajen was about to say was drowned out by the sound of the big engine on the SUV roaring to life up the street. The squeal of tires followed a half second later.

  “Come on, Mr. Musa,” he said, bending to grab the security director’s collar in one hand—careful to simultaneously keep hold of his P90; yeah, you better believe it—while wrapping the other around the guy’s waistband. “You’re coming with us.”

  “No!” Rajen yelled, struggling in his grip. And that’s all it took for the crowd to ignite. All at once, two dozen individuals, tall, short, fat, small, young, and old began advancing in Dan’s direction. But Penni, bless her, was quicker than the mob. The SUV lurched to a stop beside him, the rear passenger-side door swinging open. With a heave and a toss, he lobbed Rajen into the bucket seat, diving in after the guy and yelling, “Get
us outta here!”

  Penni didn’t hesitate. She stepped on the gas, working through the gears like a classic Motown speed racer as the big vehicle fishtailed its way down the block.

  “You get anything more from him?” she called over her shoulder after a bit.

  “Only that you were right. He’s just as much of a dupe as Irdina. He’ll be useless in helping us found out who the mole is.”

  “Mother-flippin’ hell!” she hissed, taking the next corner on two wheels and proving she was skilled at far more than just kissing.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “What the frickin’ sticks?” Abby breathed, her heart trying to beat through her rib cage. “Who’s shooting at us?”

  “I told that sorry cara pincha I would kill him if he tried to come after you again,” he growled, his upper lip curled back in a snarl. “Fucker obviously has a death wish.”

  Fucker, aka Shadow Man…

  She swallowed. How had the JI leader possibly managed to forge the river with the bridge down? The current was too fast to swim across, and surely there hadn’t been a handy-dandy motorboat lying around the jungle. Then again, given the ingenuity he’d displayed in carrying out her abduction, he’d proved himself nothing if not resourceful. “Are you sure it’s him?” she wheezed.

  Carlos paused while pushing the clip back into his weapon after checking to make sure it was full. “Who else would it be?”

  “Good point,” she admitted, turning to see Yonus standing between two of the huge brown roots of the jungle giant growing next to the one she and Carlos were hiding behind. He was flattened face-first against the mammoth trunk, his arms spread, his fingers desperately gripping the bark like he was afraid the thing might suddenly decide to fly away.

  “What is h-happening?” he asked, his voice low and raspy, yet perfectly audible given the two loud, obnoxious gun blasts had resulted in an eerie, almost malevolent silence descending over the jungle. The buzzing insects, chirping birds, and calling monkeys were quiet, as if they knew lives were hanging in the balance and waited breathlessly to see what the outcome would be.