by Rebecca York
People screamed and backed away as Manfred went down and lay unmoving on the floor.
For a moment, chaos reigned in the room, and Ariana thought that the gunman might have lost control of the situation. If all these people rushed their captors, some would be killed. But they would ultimately take the bad guys out.
But this group of captives wasn’t the equal of the passengers on flight ninety-three who had forced their hijacked plane down in a Pennsylvania field. They were too frightened to risk their lives.
When one of the gunmen bellowed, “Settle down, or you’ll all get what he got,” the crowd quieted as though someone had stuffed gags in their mouths.
“Too bad the princess’s bodyguard can’t tell us where she is,” the speaker announced coolly. “But she can’t escape from this room, and we’ll find her.”
Ariana bit down on her knuckles, welcoming the sudden pain. There was nothing she could do for Manfred. Nothing except weep. And she couldn’t even allow herself that outlet for her grief because crying would give her away.
Manfred was dead, but she had to stay alive. For her father. For her country. And for another reason, too. These men had said she was next. If they couldn’t find her, that might save the lives of the others in the room.
At least for a while. If they couldn’t find her, they might start on some of the other guests. Then she’d have a horrible moral dilemma. She’d have to turn herself in or watch more people die in her place.
But for the time being, she was going to stay hidden.
As quietly and as quickly as she could, she started retracing her route to the wall slot, moving backward on her hands and knees.
Before she’d crawled two feet, a hand grabbed her from behind. She started to scream, but her captor pressed his palm firmly over her mouth.
Desperately she tried to twist away, but he held her in his iron grip.
IN A LOCKED STRONGHOLD at the side of the room, President Allan Stack and Vice President Grant Davis listened to the words of the gunman.
President Stack made an angry sound. “It sounds like this operation has been planned down to the last detail.”
Davis nodded. In the light from the flashlights the Secret Service agents were holding, the vice president looked gray and sick. Stack imagined that he didn’t look much better, but he did know his moral obligation.
Two agents were with them. Trusted men. They’d gotten them into a service area with a sturdy door. But now what?
“What do we do?” Davis asked his personal agent, Ty Jones.
Stack answered before Jones could give an opinion. “I think we have to surrender, or people will die.”
“We can’t,” Davis objected.
“Do you have a better plan?” the president asked.
“Send in a rescue team.”
Stack looked at Charlie Mercer, the agent in charge of his safety. “Is that feasible?”
“It would be possible,” the agent answered, his tone making it clear that the strategy was risky.
“But before they could pull us out of here, a lot of people would die when the hostage takers start shooting,” Stack said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do we know who they are?”
Mercer shook his head. “We don’t know who they are, and we don’t know their motivation.”
A shadow flickered across Davis’s face.
“Do you have some information?” Stack demanded.
“No, sir.” He cleared his throat. “I say we wait for a rescue operation.”
“I don’t think so,” Stack answered. “They said they’d already shot three people. And we just heard more gunfire.”
“Can we give it a few minutes?” Davis asked.
“Eight minutes,” Stack answered. “And if I hear more shots out there, we open the door.”
THE CAPTOR WHO HELD ARIANA in viselike arms shifted his grip so he could bring his lips to her ear. When he spoke, she had trouble making sense of the words at first. Then they penetrated her paralyzed brain.
“It’s Shane Peters. I’ll take my hand away if you don’t scream.”
She nodded, then sagged in his arms as he turned her and held her to him.
She wanted to cling to him. She wanted to thank God that he’d found her.
Again his mouth came up against her ear. “What the hell are you doing?”
Nobody had ever spoken to her like that, and she stiffened. But from his point of view, she understood that he thought he had the right to be angry with her.
She turned so that she could whisper in his ear. “There’s a signal device combined with a transmitter in my evening bag. I was trying to turn it on.”
“Too dangerous,” he answered.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“I think you have to trust my judgment for the moment, since I’m the security expert.”
Logic told her he was right. He was the trained operative, and she was only the princess in distress. Even if she didn’t like his methods at the moment, she knew he was trying to save her life.
Just as he started to lead her back the way they’d come, she heard footsteps on the wooden floor coming straight toward them.
When she froze, Peters looked around, then quickly pushed her under the round table closest to them. As he crawled in after her, he pulled the linen cloth down behind him.
The metal legs took up a lot of the floor space underneath, so they had to curl their bodies around each other to fit. There was no room to move, no room to do more than cling to each other.
She pressed her cheek against Shane’s shoulder. Now that she was thinking a little more clearly, she realized that he could have returned to their hiding place any time he’d wanted. But he had chosen to come looking for her.
As the footsteps came close, she clutched his hand, meshing her fingers with his, drawing strength from him because she had almost run out of her own resources. As they huddled together under the table, she understood that she had misjudged him at first, because she had never known anyone like him.
There were men her age in her country who had strength of character. Men who were wise. Men who had physical prowess and daring. But Shane Peters seemed to embody a unique mix of all of these characteristics.
He held her absolutely still, but she felt the tension in his body. If the man stopped beside their table, if he lifted the cloth, Peters was prepared to spring out at him.
She closed her eyes, wishing she could pretend she was somewhere else and this was some other time.
What if she and Shane had taken the brazen step of slipping away earlier in the evening? Or what if she were on a longer trip to the United States and she’d met him at a party at a mansion outside Washington, D.C.?
Yes, that was a lot better than reality.
They’d danced and talked and wandered out into the garden where they could be alone, and Manfred had stayed at a respectful distance. The thought of her bodyguard sent a stab of pain through her, and she instantly turned her focus back to Shane.
What if they’d wandered down a garden path and found a charming little guesthouse with a romantic bedroom? They’d stepped inside and closed the door, and now they were alone together on a wide mattress, where they were lying close.
She let her mind take her further into the dream-world that was so much safer, so much more appealing than the reality of this horror show.
She pressed her cheek against Shane’s, and he returned the pressure. They were still dressed, but he’d do something about that soon. He’d shrug out of his tuxedo jacket, then he’d work the zipper at the back of her dress. Or maybe he’d wait on that awhile.
She imagined herself playing with the stiff fabric of his dress shirt. Then she’d begin opening the studs down the front so that she could explore his wide chest with her fingers.
Was his chest smooth? Or did he have dark hair that matched the hair on his head?
As she wrapped herself in the tempting fantasy, her breath quicken
ed.
Shane turned his head, and she knew his gaze was on her, even if she couldn’t see him in their dark cave. Because she was responding to him, she felt her cheeks heat and was glad he couldn’t see the flush, even if he could feel it.
She had created the fantasy, yet he seemed to be reading her mind. He turned his face so that he could press his lips to her cheek, then slide them slowly, tantalizingly to her mouth.
His touch was light and tender. Like a lover who knew his partner was far less experienced in bed than he was and needed him to go slowly.
Had he guessed that, too? Did he know that the daughter of King Frederick of Beau Pays had very little knowledge of man-woman intimacy?
She hardly knew Shane Peters, yet he reached her in ways no other man had managed before. When he brushed his mouth back and forth against hers, she drew in a quick, shaky breath, entranced by the softness of his lips. She’d admired their shape; now she loved their texture.
In the darkness, she felt him smile, heard him make a small, urgent sound. The tip of his tongue stroked against the seam of her lips, and she opened for him, allowing him an intimacy that few others had ever dared request.
He stroked the sensitive tissue just inside her lips, then swept along the line of her teeth before delving a little deeper, tasting her, sipping from her, sending heat through her body.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was amazed at her own behavior as she gave herself over to the hot arousal he was kindling within her. She found herself craving more of what he could give her.
He shifted a little, moving his mouth away from hers, and she felt disappointment knife through her. But he had only slid his lips back along her cheek, then to her earlobe, where he paused to nibble with the strong white teeth that had earlier flashed at her in a sexy grin.
Then his tongue traced the curve of her ear, stiffened and probed inside, and she shivered with awareness, surprised that the touch of tongue to ear could be so erotic.
She hadn’t known. But then, there was so much she didn’t know about arousing a partner.
His hand moved to the column of her neck, stroking up and down, then playing with her collarbone. When her breath quickened, he let his hand drift lower, to the top of her breast where it swelled above the bodice of her gown.
He stroked her skin there, sending hot currents shooting through her body.
She imagined his hand drifting lower, slipping inside her dress so that he could cup the fullness of her breast, pressing against her beaded nipple.
She wanted him to touch her there, wanted him to ease the ache that he’d kindled inside her.
But the footsteps outside their refuge intruded rudely on the fantasy, and she jerked back, as though she’d been caught listening outside the grand council chamber in the palace.
At the moment, she wasn’t a girl listening outside her father’s door and feeling the delicious thrill of hearing what she thought were state secrets. She was a hostage in a very dangerous situation, and her mind abruptly reengaged with reality.
As she tried to picture the floor outside the table, she remembered her long gown and had to stop herself from gathering the skirt closer around her legs. If she moved a muscle, the stiff Thai silk would rustle and surely give them both away.
But what if a piece of her skirt was sticking out? It would be like the Beau Pays flag lying on the floor.
The footsteps stopped, and she felt Shane prepare for action.
Mon Dieu. She’d tried to put Manfred out of her mind. Now she was afraid Shane was going to get killed, too, and she couldn’t stand it.
When she started to move, Shane grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh, the same fingers that had been so sweetly sensual just a few moments earlier. The harsh grip centered her, and she understood how close she’d come to getting them both shot.
Just then, the man in charge of the whole nightmare started to speak again. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m losing patience. Someone in this room knows where to find Princess Ariana LeBron. You have five minutes to turn her over to us, or I’m going to start the executions with someone else.”
Chapter Six
Ariana went cold all over, expecting the man standing beside the table to reach down, sweep aside the tablecloth and jerk her to her feet. When he had her in his iron grip, he would lead her triumphantly through the crowd to the place of execution.
Instead, he moved rapidly back toward the front of the room, and she let out a small, shaky breath.
In the middle of the room, a woman began to sob. A man cursed. And Peters gathered Ariana closer.
“You’re doing great,” he whispered.
“Hardly.”
His arms were like a safe haven, and she wanted to stay wrapped in his warmth. But she couldn’t allow herself to do that. Not after what she’d just heard. “You have to let me go,” she said in a defeated voice.
His grip on her tightened, and she knew he could hold her here against her will if he wanted to.
“Are you crazy?” he snapped. “If you go out there, you’re committing suicide.”
She could barely speak, but she managed to get the words out. “They’re going to kill innocent people because of me. I can’t let that happen.”
“That’s not your fault.”
“But I can’t live with it.”
THE DEADLY ANNOUNCEMENT also penetrated the service closet where President Allan Stack, Vice President Davis and the two Secret Service men were hiding.
Allan turned to his vice president. “That settles it. We have to go out there.”
Charlie Mercer, the Secret Service agent in charge, weighed in immediately with the line Allan had expected him to deliver. “I wouldn’t advise that, sir.”
Allan turned toward the man. They’d been in some tough spots together. Like the time in Sào Paulo when a hostile crowd had surrounded their car and started pelting them with rocks. They’d managed to drive out of that crisis. But they weren’t in a bulletproof car now.
“I know you wouldn’t advise me to turn myself in,” he said softly to the man who was sworn to protect him with his life. “You got me in here because it’s safe, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. We both thought someone would be able to rescue us before things got hairy. But it hasn’t happened. And if we stay in this closet, innocent people will die.”
“But, sir—”
Allan waved the agent to silence. “We’ll only be postponing the inevitable. Sooner or later, the armed men out there will get through this door. If they have to shoot their way in, they’ll kill us.”
“If we go out there, we could be killed anyway,” Davis muttered, then turned to Ty Jones, the agent who headed his Secret Service detail.
“I agree with Mercer,” Jones answered immediately.
Allan gave the young man a steady look. “Of course you agree with Mercer. That’s your training speaking. But I think if we go out, we have a reasonable chance of survival. The bad guys went to a lot of trouble to set this up. If they’d wanted to kill us, they could have done it as soon as the lights went out.”
Jones answered with a tight nod.
“How are you going to feel if they start shooting innocent people?” Allan asked Grant Davis.
“Horrible.” He cleared his throat. “But they have cyanide gas.”
“Is that worse than machine guns?”
Davis looked as if he still wanted to argue, but he firmed his jaw and straightened his shoulders, because any further protests would brand him as a coward. Allan was sure that the last thing Davis wanted to do was tarnish his image as a war hero.
Allan had picked him partly for his ability to pull in the military vote, since he himself had never been in the armed forces. Almost immediately after the election, however, he’d started regretting his choice. But he was stuck with Davis, until the next election. If they made it to the next election. He was talking a good game in here, but he didn’t really know if they’d come out of this alive.
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“Go ahead and tell them we’re coming out,” Davis said, his voice edged with raw nerves.
“Thank you,” Allan whispered.
WHEN ARIANA STARTED to struggle with Shane, he closed his fingers over her shoulder, holding her in place.
“No,” he growled, then wondered if his harsh word would bring the madmen with the machine guns charging over.
He waited for heart-stopping seconds, wishing he had a weapon more substantial than his damn plastic knife.
So how had the guys out there managed to get guns up here? Bribery? Apparently they’d planned this mission down to the tiniest details.
But Ariana was screwing up their plans by evading them. That must be making them crazy.
She started to speak, then stopped abruptly as an unexpected voice cut through the darkness.
“This is Allan Stack, president of the United States. We’re willing to surrender if you guarantee the safety of the people in this room.”
“That’s not acceptable. I guarantee nothing,” the leader of the assailants shouted back.
“Then why should we surrender?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll kill innocent people. Is that what you and Grant Davis want?”
The way he said Davis’s name sent a shudder down Shane’s spine. The man in charge of this horror show had maintained a civil tone with the president until he’d mentioned Grant Davis. The man who had been on the rescue mission in Barik. Further confirmation, in Shane’s mind, that tonight’s blackout and hostage situation went back to that specific episode.
Shane glanced toward Ariana. He couldn’t see her in the dark under the tablecloth, but he knew she waited tensely for the outcome of the verbal exchange. Knew that what happened in the next few minutes would dictate her fate.
As a patriotic American, it sickened him to think about President Stack and Vice President Davis surrendering to armed hostage takers. It was always the policy of the United States never to negotiate with terrorists. That was fine in the abstract. But in this situation, negotiating sounded like the best alternative.