Last Man Standing

by Cindy Gerard

  “Fine. No more,” she said, looking wounded.

  He looked away, overcome by emotions that ran the gamut from guilt to humility to gratitude to absolute astonishment, before ending with a frustrated sense of failure. He was the protector. He was the caretaker. Right now he couldn’t take care of a paper clip.

  “Joe. Look at me.”

  The softness in her eyes told him she’d read his mind. “You don’t always get to be the hero. Some of us lesser beings need to get a shot at it every now and then, okay?”

  No, it was not okay. And there was nothing about her that fell in the lesser category. “How did you pull this off?”

  She looked relieved that he’d settled down, reminding him with a fresh wave of guilt that so far, he’d acted like a real asshole. “I had help. You can thank Suah.”

  “Suah?”

  “A very resourceful young man.”

  There had never been any question about that. “Tell me.”

  “He rounded up some of his friends,” she said with a shrug. “They planned it all. The place. The time. The diversions.”

  “The burning tires blocking the road.” The image of billowing black smoke and red-hot flames came back to him.

  “Among other things. The only thing we hadn’t planned on was the transport truck tipping over. I thought we’d lost you then.”

  So had he. More images and sounds came back to him. “The boys had some heavy firepower.”

  She looked a little uncomfortable. “Yeah . . . we had to make a little deal with the locals.”

  Good God. Exposing herself to that criminal element could have gotten her killed.

  Which was redundant as hell. Just being here could get her killed. And he was zoned out on drugs.

  “Where are we? What part of the city?”

  “North, in the hills. Suah arranged for the safe house. And for the doctor who treated you.”

  He gave her a measuring look. “All provided out of the goodness of their hearts?”

  When she looked away, he knew she’d bankrolled not only the escape, but also the hideout and his medical treatment.

  “If I had the strength, I’d yell at you.”

  “So let’s work on that strength thing. Do you think you can handle some broth?”

  “Yeah. Help me sit up.”

  He was breathing hard and wet with sweat by the time they managed to get him upright and scooted back so he could lean against the wall.

  A wave of dizziness hit him again and he had to hang on to her arm to keep from tipping over.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” She looked troubled.

  “I’m okay,” he insisted.

  He would be okay. He had to be okay. Because neither of them would get out of this alive if he wasn’t.

  9

  Joe looked around, taking in his new digs. It wasn’t much but it was one hundred steps up from his jail cell. The room was small and spartan, its peeling walls a faded blue. A single window—no glass, no screen, no blinds—faced the street. The level of the noise from outside told him they were not on the ground floor; second or third, probably. The only door faced him. On one side of the door were a couple of hooks hung with several items of clothing.

  On the other side was a small apartment-size refrigerator, dented and scratched and rusted around the edges, its hum adding another layer of white noise to the street sounds. A card table sat in another corner with two beat-up wooden chairs, one facing the door. On top of the table were several boxes of ammo.

  Whoever had set things up was playing heads-up ball. If someone who wasn’t welcome came through that door, they weren’t going to get far. An older model AK-47 leaned, barrel up, in the corner next to the table. Closer to him, another AK was propped within reach. A well-used Glock 17, a full extra clip, and a KA-Bar lay on the floor by the bed.

  He glanced back at Stephanie, hating it times ten that she was in neck deep, when the whole reason he’d walked away from her was to keep her out of the mix.

  She handed him a toothbrush that she’d loaded with toothpaste. He’d never been so grateful for anything in his life, planning to brush until his gums bled. He didn’t get far before the damn weakness made him quit.

  “Where’s Suah now?” he asked after rinsing his mouth.

  “I don’t know. He leaves sometimes.” A hint of frustration in her voice told him Suah’s absences were worrisome to her.

  “But the boys are on lookout. We’ll get plenty of notice if anyone suspicious gets too close.”

  His thoughts were still disjointed and fuzzy, but it finally occurred to him to ask “How did you two hook up, anyway?”

  She brought a cup of cool broth from the mini-fridge, knelt beside him, and extended a spoonful. Another direct hit to his ego, but the simple act of brushing his teeth had worn him out, so he let her feed him. The broth was thin and a little salty and tasted slightly of beef. He had to will it to stay down.

  “Suah found me, actually,” she said. “The day I came to the jail, he was waiting outside. From what I’ve gathered he’d been holding vigil for the past month, trying to figure out a way to get you out of there.”

  He grunted, then wished he hadn’t when fire shot through his ribs. He gingerly ran his fingers over them.

  “The doctor says they’re bruised. Possibly cracked, but not broken,” she said, correctly interpreting the question in his eyes.

  “Suah says he owes you. What’s that about?” she backtracked after feeding him another spoonful. This one went down easier.

  “Long story.”

  “Since you’re not going anywhere anytime soon, I think we have time. Unless you don’t feel up to talking.”

  “No, I’m good,” he said, willing strength back into his body. “Last year, when we shut down the North Korean’s arms deal?”

  She nodded, well aware of the BOI op that had ferreted out an international gun smuggling network run by Jeong Ryang, and had also destroyed Augustine Sesay’s hopes of resurrecting the brutal Revolutionary United Front movement in Sierra Leone.

  “Sesay sent Suah and several other boy soldiers to pick up the gun shipment. We confiscated the weapons and captured Suah and the others. Kept the guns, but we let the boys go.”

  “Instead of turning them over to the authorities?”

  “Instead of killing them.”

  Her face paled. “You would have killed children?”

  “We would have killed soldiers,” he said flatly, “armed with automatic weapons and the skills to use them.

  “But no,” he added, looking off into space as he remembered how close he’d come to pulling the trigger. Where he’d been in his head and his heart that day, it wasn’t a place he was proud of. “In the end, we could not have killed them.”

  Because that constituted the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. If he had pulled that trigger, he would have been no better than the Sesays and the Ryangs of this world.

  “Suah apparently felt that he owed me for that.”

  She didn’t say anything as she spooned up another mouthful of broth and held it out to him. He watched her face as he let her feed it to him like he was a child. But his body didn’t react like a child’s as his gaze strayed from her face and trailed slowly down the rest of her.

  God, she was beautiful. Every soft, lush curve was accentuated beneath her slim khaki pants and tan tank top. Her sandals were brown and appeared to be local. She wore small gold hoops in her ears, a fine gold chain around her neck. Sometime between the water and the broth, she’d gathered her hair at her nape with a wide gold clip. Random curls had sprung free, framing her face, clinging to her neck in damp wisps caused by the heat. She was fresh faced, sweet smelling, and stunning. She was also the single sexiest woman he’d ever known, although everything from the way she dressed to the way she wore her hair was designed to undercut that sex appeal.

  Only the red polish on her toes suggested that she ever indulged in a little bit of whimsy, o
r that she gave herself over completely to that sexy siren who lost her inhibitions when her clothes came off and she took him to her bed. The memory of her hands on him, of her mouth on his, shot another cloud of fog through his head.

  It cleared as he zeroed in on the compact Glock 19 tucked into the waistband of her pants at the small of her back.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion.

  She lowered her lashes, then looked directly at him. “I wouldn’t be, if you hadn’t walked away.”

  The words were softly spoken but the look in her eyes gave him a hint of the hurt and anger she was feeling. All justified.

  “Why didn’t you let me rot?” He didn’t bother to ask how she’d found him—she had the resources of the NSA at her disposal. The bigger question was why she’d bothered.

  A long silence told him that maybe she might be wondering the same thing.

  “Because I was the only one available to make sure that didn’t happen,” she said finally.

  And how was that for brutal honesty? What had he expected? That she’d tell him she came because she loved him? After what he’d done to her? Not a prayer.

  “And because no matter what the news report said, I know you didn’t kill that priest,” she added, humbling him again with her trust.

  “No. I didn’t kill him. But he’s still dead. And that’s on me.”

  Her brows pinched together. “I don’t understand.”

  “I was asking questions, Steph. Questions someone didn’t want asked or answered.”

  Wariness filled her eyes. “What kind of questions?”

  “You’re not going to want to hear it.”

  “Oh, I think I need to hear it.”

  He tightened his mouth, then let out a long breath. “Questions about Bryan’s death,” he said and waited for the fallout.

  She looked very tired suddenly. This was an old and sore subject. And despite the softness that was first, second, and third nature to her, the anger that had been simmering beneath the surface finally bubbled to the top.

  “I’d hoped that you’d let that go. Bry died in combat, in an ambush. The investigation was conclusive. As far as I’m concerned, there are no more questions about his death.”

  “And you’re wrong. There are too many questions, starting with why there was an ambush in the first place,” he countered with more bite than he’d intended.

  “What happened has never been in dispute.” The frustration in her voice made it clear that she was trying to make some sense of where he was going with this. “Someone at Cent Com screwed up. Someone botched the satellite read. You walked into a trap. It was a bad call.”

  “It was more than a bad call. Someone wanted all of us dead that night. We weren’t supposed to come out of Sierra Leone alive. The RUF attack was just the vehicle to make it happen. Their mistake had been thinking they could kill us all.”

  “Joe,” she said gently, “I know how difficult it was to lose him. It was difficult for all of us. But this is insane. For God’s sake, you ended up in prison, could have ended up dead, because you’re trying to turn Bry’s death into . . . what? A calculated murder?”

  “That’s exactly what it was. And the man responsible also had the priest murdered and me framed.”

  “But why kill a priest? If he was after you, why not just kill you?”

  “Because the priest could confirm what I’d finally figured out. And outright killing me would have raised more than a little suspicion, don’t you think?”

  She shook her head, still doubting. He got it. The possibility that Bryan’s death hadn’t been a mistake at all, that it was deliberate, was too much for her to process.

  Tears filled her eyes. “Look,” she said carefully, “let’s . . . let’s not talk about this right now, okay? Whether you think so or not, you still need recovery time. Your fever is down but you’ve still got a low-grade infection.”

  She sat back on her heels, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “Give yourself a little more time, okay? We’ll get you on your feet and you’ll start thinking more clearly.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my thinking.” But there was something wrong with him trying to force her to accept a truth she wasn’t prepared to handle. “But fine, I’ll drop it. For now.”

  Her shoulders sagged with relief.

  Neither of them spoke as she fed him the rest of the broth. And when she encouraged him to lie down again, he didn’t argue. He was a total disaster in the strength department.

  But not for long. Just a little more rest, a lot more fluid and antibiotics, and some protein when his gut could handle it, and he’d be back on his feet.

  Right now he was already drifting back toward LaLa Land.

  Fucking weakness. Fucking jail.

  Fucking bastard who was responsible for putting him here, for putting Steph in danger, and most of all for taking the life of a brother in arms who’d died way before his time.

  “Stephanie.” He grabbed her wrist just before he drifted off. “Thank you.”

  Stephanie hurried along the busy street, head down and covered with a long, mango-colored scarf. Bekah—one of the boys in Suah’s little army—kept pace behind her as she wove through the crowd, her arms full of groceries. Had anyone been watching, they would have assumed she was alone, just a woman returning home from market. But Bekah was there for her protection. So was the boy walking point a couple yards ahead of her.

  Both were Suah’s boys. All of them were just boys. Orphans. It made her heart hurt to know what they’d seen in their young lives, what they’d been forced to do. None of them had much to say, but it was clear that they shared a common bond. They’d all been stolen from the streets and forced to become soldiers in a madman’s army. They were free now and on their own, literally living a dog-eat-dog existence. No stability. No support. No love.

  They had no reason to help her, yet these boys stood for her and for Joe when she couldn’t even get a meeting with the one American who might be able to help them.

  It made her so angry. Before her last stop at the market she’d made contact with Rhonda, who had given her an address where Dalmage set up shop when he was in Freetown. Ironically, the government office the United States leased for Dalmage and any other dignitaries who needed quarters was only a few blocks from the safe house. She’d found the building an hour ago, only to be met by attitude from the self-important, fifty-something American receptionist who sat behind a polished mahogany desk and guarded Dalmage’s inner sanctum door with the fierceness of a pit bull.

  “Please, if you can’t let me in to see him, please, just give this to Liaison Dalmage,” she’d implored, extending the sealed envelope containing the note she’d written. “There are lives on the line,” she’d insisted when the woman sat in pinch-lipped silence. “American lives.”

  “I will tell you again, miss, this is a matter for the American embassy. Mr. Dalmage’s duties do not extend—”

  “The embassy can’t help me,” she snapped, weary of going over the same ground yet again. She’d already tried. There would be paperwork, and a lag time of a few days, possibly more before she would obtain a duplicate passport for an American citizen without identification. And even if they obtained the passport, he’d never get past security. They’d immediately haul him back to prison.

  She needed someone who would bend and maybe even break some rules to help one of their own. Based on everything she’d heard about Dalmage, she was betting he was that man.

  At the woman’s continued scowl, Stephanie had taken a deep breath and settled herself down. “Look, Ms.”—she glanced at the engraved desk plate—“Foster, I regret if I’ve been impudent. I understand that it’s your job to protect Mr. Dalmage’s time and position. But as I’ve told you, this is a critical issue. Please—just give him the envelope.”

  Ms. Foster glared for another long moment, then sighed heavily. “Give it to me,” she said stiffly. “I’ll see what I can do
. Who shall I say it’s from?”

  “It’s all in there,” Stephanie had said, feeling a small measure of relief. “Thank you.”

  She’d left before the woman changed her mind—and before she could ask any more questions. There was no way she was going to reveal her identity or Joe’s name. Not until she knew if her carefully worded note—which included the number for the disposable phone she’d just bought so Dalmage could call her—would net Dalmage’s help. He could turn out to be a “by the books” diplomat and turn them in.

  In the meantime, she was hedging her bets. She’d talked to Rafe again right after leaving Dalmage’s office. He was working on transport to get them out of the country. A dicey proposition at best, but if Dalmage didn’t come through . . . She couldn’t think about that now.

  Just like she couldn’t think about the state of Joe’s health—physical or mental—right now. It made her heartsick to hear him talk about Bryan’s death as a murder.

  Had the heavy weight of misplaced guilt finally broken him? All of his talk of murder, his leaving her, leaving the BOIs . . . were they all variations on the same theme? Was Joe searching for a way to deal with his demons?

  She didn’t know. But now she had some questions, too. Why had the priest been killed? Why had Joe been framed and thrown in jail? Could there actually be some truth to his conspiracy theory?

  “Miss. We must hurry.”

  She hadn’t even noticed that Bekah had walked up beside her.

  “This is not a good time to be in this part of the city.”

  She’d been so lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t been paying attention. She looked around and felt a shiver of unease. The hollow-eyed stares from a dozen different places reminded her that people died here every day for less than the cost of a loaf of bread, and that the sacks she was carrying were full of food.

  She put her head down again and started walking faster, wishing the BOIs were here to help her get Joe home. And wondering if she had what it took to do it on her own, if Dalmage or Rafe didn’t come through.

  10