Last Man Standing

by Cindy Gerard

  So here they waited, guns drawn, hearts pounding. She’d lost track of the number of back alleys, side streets, and buildings they’d snaked through. Lost count of the number of times Joe had stumbled, almost gone down, then miraculously dragged another fragment of strength from deep inside him to press on.

  Dalmage. A murderer. A traitor. How could she possibly believe that? Yet, when she saw the raw conviction on Joe’s face, how could she not?

  She dragged the hem of her shirt over her face and wiped the perspiration away, then let her head fall back against the building, and caught her breath. She knew only one thing with certainty. If they didn’t get Joe out of this heat and off his feet soon, he was going to need a hospital.

  The gauze bandage she’d wrapped around the IV site on his arm was soaked with as much sweat as blood. She couldn’t allow herself to worry about blood loss or infection or a hundred other things that could sideline him, so she concentrated on the positive. All things considered, his color was good. And up to a few moments ago, when he’d just sort of fused his back against the building, he’d been lucid.

  She glanced sideways at him. His eyes were closed, his head lolled to the side.

  “Are you still with me?” she whispered.

  He grunted. “Unless I’m having an out-of-body experience, yeah, I’m here.”

  If his voice weren’t so weak, she would have felt better. And if the situation weren’t so dire, she would have pressed him to convince her they hadn’t just shot their best chance of going home all to hell. But that bridge had been blown, so there was really no point.

  Suah came scooting around the corner just then.

  “Come.” He motioned for them to follow him.

  When Joe was slow to push himself away from the wall, she lifted his arm over her shoulder and banded her free arm around his waist. Then she shouldered his AK and started walking.

  “There you go again,” he said on a labored breath, “playing hero.”

  She grunted under his weight as they trudged after Suah. “That really doesn’t set well with you, does it?”

  He pushed out a sound that could have been a groan or a chuckle. “You have no idea.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, relieved when Suah doubled back and moved in on Joe’s other side, helping with some of his weight. “I have no intention of making this part of my daily routine. Now save your breath. No more talking.”

  Five minutes, one block, and one arduous climb up two flights of stairs later, they were once again tucked into an apartment—not nearly as tiny, but just as spartan and worn as the other one. And Joe was passed out cold.

  Stephanie sat forward on a shabby rattan chair across from the small bed, her fingers linked together between her knees, her elbows propped on her thighs, and watched him sleep.

  Just before he’d passed out, he’d grabbed her hand.

  “No drugs. No Dalmage. Promise me.”

  When she’d hesitated, he’d squeezed her fingers until they hurt. “Promise me. On Bryan’s grave . . . promise me.”

  She’d finally nodded. “I promise. On Bryan’s grave.”

  She’d trusted this man with her life once. Why was she having such difficulty now?

  Because if she believed that Dalmage was a murderer, then she accepted Joe’s wild story that Bry’s death was the result of some sort of a conspiracy. And the idea that her brother had died because of a traitor’s duplicity was just too difficult to stomach.

  She was also having trust issues because she had believed in Joe completely at one time. Despite all of his secrets, and the fact that he withheld the parts of himself he’d decided she wasn’t strong enough to handle, she had believed. He’d walked away from her anyway, and it was clear he hadn’t planned on coming back.

  She’d gotten her proof back at the other safe house. Just before the phone rang, she’d screwed up her courage and asked him point blank: “Did you lie about everything that night? About not loving me?”

  She’d seen in his eyes that he had been about to say no, he hadn’t lied. No, he didn’t love her.

  Exhausted, she slumped wearily back in the chair. And thought, with a slow and dawning realization: Oh, he’d lied all right.

  That man loved her. He had always loved her.

  She was certain of that.

  Okay, why? Why was she so certain now?

  The second revelation hit her. She was certain because she could always tell when Joe lied. Whether it was a flat-out lie, like, “I don’t love you,” or a lie of omission, like not letting her into those dark places in his soul that he thought would hurt her—she knew when he lied.

  Because he was a terrible liar. It just wasn’t in his DNA to be deceitful.

  And that’s when the third revelation hit. And oh, God, she’d been so stupid!

  She shot up off the chair, fueled by a burst of restless energy. He was telling her the truth about Dalmage. It wasn’t just true in his head, it was true in actuality. He hadn’t gone over the edge. That had been her little bit of conjecture because she was so hurt and was having trouble dealing with his rejection—which really wasn’t a rejection but his attempt to keep her out of the mix and out of danger.

  Okay, fine. That wasn’t news. She’d already figured that out. But she hadn’t dug deep enough. Not nearly deep enough to realize that a man who loved a woman that much, only saddled that woman with as much as he thought she could handle. And Joe didn’t think she could handle the heat.

  Why would he? What had she ever done to make him believe she was strong enough to carry the weight of the issues he dealt with every day of his life?

  She walked over to a window, shaking her head at her stupidity. And her cowardice.

  You get what you give. You reap what you sow.

  Well, all she’d ever given him was silent understanding. She’d never challenged, never bullied or badgered him to open up to her. Sure, she’d asked him to talk to her, but when he didn’t, she’d accepted it. Never pushed. Never pried. Never prodded him to confide in her or to give her credit for being more than a woman who needed a man to take care of her.

  Self-anger and humiliation added to the flush on her cheeks from the heat. Of course he’d lied to her. She’d invited lies every day with her misguided strategy of letting him pick his time, pick his place, to decide to trust her to handle his baggage.

  Well, that all ended. Right now.

  She’d had more than one self-discovery since she’d lifted off at Dulles four days ago and touched down at Lungi. First and foremost, she’d found out that she could handle herself. She’d lied to the police, manipulated the system with a fake ID, walked into the bowels of that hellhole of a jail, and brokered a weapons deal with a notorious street gang.

  Not only that, she’d helped stage and execute a prison break. She’d harbored a felon. Kept him alive. Was still keeping him alive.

  Talk about defining moments. Talk about revelations. Now that she had a moment to sit back and assess, she was seeing herself in a whole new light literally and figuratively, as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the wavy, dust-streaked windowpane.

  Her hand flew to her throat and she leaned in, looked deeper. It was her, all right, but a high-octane version. Her clothes were rumpled and damp. Her hair was a wild tumble of damp waves around her shoulders. And her face . . . even that seemed to have altered. Her soft, unremarkable features had transformed somehow. She looked . . . edgy. Decisive. Experienced and lean.

  Kick-ass, she thought with a ridiculous little smile, and embraced the idea.

  She looked not like a woman who needed a man like Joe Green to complete her life, but like a woman who could damn well complete his.

  Then and there, she decided that she wasn’t going to let him shut her out anymore. No more demure, retiring spy wannabe sitting quietly in the corner and letting life do unto her. She’d finally earned that decoder ring, and she was going to wear it proudly.

  She looked at the sleeping man who had
turned her life upside down. She was not going to let him get by with shutting her out and playing the protector anymore, and she was not letting him walk away.

  They were getting out of this mess—she was going to make it happen. And when they did, Joe Green was going to find out that Stephanie Tompkins was a force to be reckoned with.

  He didn’t love her?

  What a crock!

  Fired up with resolve, she hurried across the room and opened the door.

  “Suah,” she called out, slipping out into the hallway. “Watch out for him. I’ve got to go out.”

  Even the boy seemed to sense her newfound sense of purpose, because he didn’t warn her to be careful. “When will you be back?”

  “When I’m back.” She headed down the stairs at a fast trot.

  Joe woke to lamplight and soft voices. Stephanie’s. Suah’s. He glanced around and bit back a curse. He was so fucking weary of waking up in rooms that he didn’t recognize. If he was going to pass out and not remember how he’d gotten here, it only seemed fair that it be because he’d had a good time.

  “Where are we?” He forced himself to sit up.

  The effort wasn’t as difficult as he’d anticipated. He was a little light-headed, but he was stronger. He could feel it.

  “Kissy,” Suah said without looking up from the table where he and Stephanie sat with their heads together, talking in soft tones.

  The Kissy ghetto on the east edge of the city had sprung to life around ten years ago as a refugee camp during the bloody RUF-run government. Now it was a dangerous, crime-ridden, gang-infested no man’s land. After thinking it over, he realized it was also a perfect place to hide out. Any police squads venturing into this part of the city did so at their own peril.

  He rose carefully, waited for the slight dizziness to pass, and shuffled over to the window. It was dark but for the lone streetlight that hadn’t yet been shot out. The murky shadows did little to soften the bleak landscape of littered streets and ramshackle buildings scrawled with graffiti and scarred with broken windows.

  “So you’re thinking this is the best route?”

  Stephanie’s words had him turning toward the table.

  Suah nodded. “Less congestion.”

  He walked over to see what they were doing. On a map of the city, Stephanie was tracing street routes with a pencil.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “A map,” Suah said with no attempt to hide his sarcasm.

  Joe pulled out a wooden chair and sank down heavily. “I know it’s a map, smart-ass. What are you charting?”

  Stephanie sat back and finally met his eyes. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I had a head-on with a semi. What are you charting?” he repeated.

  “A potential escape route.”

  “Yeah, about that.” He leaned an elbow on the tabletop, dropped his head heavily into his hand, and closed his eyes. “I need to get to a phone. Talk to Rafe. Get something set up.”

  “I’ve already talked to Rafe,” Stephanie said, “and I’ve got it covered. We’re getting out of here tomorrow.”

  That snapped his eyes open and his head up.

  “Do you want something to eat?” she asked suddenly. “There’s a cooler full of food over there. Or do you need me to get it for you?”

  “No. I can get it,” he said defensively, although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why he felt defensive. Or why he felt a little off-balance at the tone of her voice. Or the look on her face.

  He studied her as she got back to business over the map. He’d always thought of Stephanie as soft. Sexy soft. Welcome-home soft.

  She didn’t look soft tonight. Didn’t sound soft, either. She sounded all business. And . . . distracted, he realized. Maybe a little bothered.

  Because she had to deal with him?

  “Okay, let’s back up,” he said, suddenly feeling a need to assert himself into what should be his arena. “You have a plan? To get out of here tomorrow?”

  She slumped back in the wooden chair, hooked an arm over the finial, and looked up at him. “Since the guys are still out of commo, Rafe reached out to Mike Brown. He’s coming for us in the BOI corporate jet.”

  Mike “Primetime” Brown was a former Navy pilot. He’d been the TFM team’s go-to pilot when they’d needed to infiltrate or extract. Brown was an independent now, ran an air cargo business out of somewhere in Argentina. Most important, he was damn good.

  “Brown’s hauled our asses out of more than one dicey landing zone.”

  “Which was why Nate tagged him for the Sierra Leone mission last year, right?”

  Joe nodded. “Brown choppered us out of the hot zone after we blew up Sesay’s camp.”

  “Well, let’s hope we won’t be drawing fire when we reach the airport tomorrow.”

  He stared at her. “Let’s back up the truck here. Exactly how are we getting to the airport? It’s a five-hour drive, and the bastards will have roadblocks set up at every exit road. We’ll never get past them.”

  “That’s why we’re going by ferry. It’ll cut the time by more than half.”

  “Ferry? Have you been to the docks?” He knew he sounded condescending.

  “Yes, I took a ferry from Lungi to Freetown.”

  “Then you know that the piers are flanked by several square blocks of nothing. Wide-open territory. No trees, no buildings, no alleyways to hide in.”

  “We’re not going to hide. We won’t have to. The docks will be teeming with people.”

  “And you don’t see a problem with us standing out like two pieces of white rice in a sea of black beans?”

  She smiled tightly. “I’ve got it covered, okay?”

  The assertiveness in her voice rattled him to the point that he had a brief “Who is this woman?” moment.

  “You need to concentrate on getting your strength back, Joe. Leave the details to me, okay?”

  There was that impatience again. A clear “I’m in charge here, so back off” tone that he’d never heard from her before. It wasn’t that she was a doormat. She spoke her mind; she had intelligent opinions. And it wasn’t that he didn’t consider her an equal. It was just that . . . hell. He’d never seen her this assertive before.

  As much as it rattled him, he kind of liked it. Not that she’d give a rat’s ass what he liked at this point, but yeah, he liked it.

  “There’s a very small—and I mean very small—bathroom through that door,” she added. “When I checked earlier, there was running water in the shower. No hot water, but still, it’s running water.”

  That was a rare thing in this city, one of the wettest capital cities in the world. Even in the midst of heavy downpours, water taps often ran dry. The city fathers apparently hadn’t had the foresight to plan ahead for the needs of the growing population.

  “And I bought shampoo. You can have first dibs; then I’ll change the dressings on your head and arm. There are clean clothes in the smaller suitcase at the foot of the bed.”

  He glanced toward the bed and for the first time noticed two expensive-looking leather roller board suitcases. He turned back to ask her when she’d gone shopping, but she’d already dismissed him. Honest to God, turned her back to him, huddled back over the map with Suah, and dismissed him.

  Sonofabitch.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t have a clue what he wanted to say—so he shut it again.

  Thoughtful, he turned toward the bed and silently rummaged around in the suitcase until he found a pair of men’s tan walking shorts. No underwear. Good enough. Commando had never been his thing, but in this infernal heat and humidity, it worked fine.

  He headed for the shower, unable to shake an unsettling and oddly satisfying feeling that he was leaving the grown-ups behind to do the heavy thinking.

  13

  Saidu Bangura sat alone in his darkened office. A small, rattling oscillating fan sat on the corner of his desk, doing little more than move hot, muggy air from one side of
the room to the other. It was nearly ten p.m. on a day that had been painfully long and was getting longer.

  With weary forbearance he held the phone to his ear and listened to Dalmage rant, realizing that he hated every American with whom he had ever come in contact. They postured, they demanded, they scorned his country’s culture with words like uncivilized and barbaric and backward to bolster their sense of superiority and to denigrate time-honored Sierra Leone traditions.

  They talked of justice and human rights. Then they sent a man like Greer Dalmage, who professed to educate and enlighten and initiate equality, while in secret, he pursued his personal agenda of exploiting Sierra Leone for his personal gain.

  Dalmage was the true barbarian. Saidu had never been more aware of that fact as Dalmage shouted into the phone, his tirade escalating to the point where Saidu thought the man might have another of those attacks that turned his face red, made him sweat like a pig, and brought him to the brink of passing out. It would not sadden him if that were to happen. No, he would not weep if the American were to shout himself into a heart attack, fall to the ground, and die.

  But Dalmage’s death would result in the loss of regular revenue, which would make Saidu’s wife very unhappy. So he was bound by golden chains to do Dalmage’s bidding. He had fallen in league with the devil, and his penance was Dalmage’s wrath and a very spoiled woman. He had once taken pride in his ability to lavish her with luxuries most women in her position would never see. Now he regretted it. She would never be willing to return to a spartan existence. She liked her baubles, her nice clothes, the girl who came in every morning to cook and clean for her and see to the children—who were also spoiled beyond measure. And yes, it was true, Saidu had grown accustomed to the expensive and beautiful young women who took care of his own special needs.

  He was in a situation of his own making, he thought with a heavy sigh, and endured Dalmage’s rage until the sudden silence told him he was now expected to speak.