Black Ops Warrior

by Amelia Autin

  “Hold that thought,” he told her as he kissed her one last time, stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

  “Oh, like you did that when I asked you to,” she called through the bathroom door, and was rewarded by a masculine rumble of laughter. She dressed quickly and was brushing the nighttime tangles from her hair when he emerged.

  “I thought we were going to take up where we left off,” he said mildly.

  But when she replied, “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” he laughed and agreed.

  She continued brushing her hair, watching him dress out of the corner of her eye. She sighed a little when he covered up all his gorgeous muscles with clothes. He still looked mighty tempting, and for just a moment she toyed with the idea of—no! she told herself firmly, brushing so hard her scalp complained. She was not going to turn into a sex maniac just because he was a sex god.

  Don’t try to make up for all the orgasms you missed out on for the past twenty years in one week, she chastised herself, then started chuckling at the thought.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’d never get it.”

  “Try me.”

  So she told him. Before she’d met Niall, she would have been aghast at herself, discussing something so intimate with a man, but it seemed natural to confide in him, even something like this.

  He grinned the grin that took ten years off his face and drawled as he’d done before, “Why thank you, darlin’, you just made my week.”

  She couldn’t help it; she returned his grin. “You’ve accounted for what I missed in my teens,” she admitted. “But you have your work cut out for you now.”

  He had her in his arms so fast he took her breath away. “I’m up to the challenge, Savannah,” he murmured, rocking an impressive bulge against her most sensitive parts. “Try me.”

  “I’ve been trying you.”

  A wicked twinkle appeared in his eyes, and his voice dropped a notch. “Try me again.”

  Chapter 18

  They breakfasted with three new couples, one of which was the Williamses, Tammy and her husband, Martin. Savannah had brought her carry-on bag, knowing Niall would purloin the juice glasses afterward.

  “Are you and Martin going on the Three Gorges Dam excursion this morning?” she asked Tammy, taking a sweet roll from the basket in the center of the table and dividing it into two, then slipping half onto Niall’s plate without conscious thought.

  “I think so. Not much else to do. You?”

  “Of course. It’s a shame in one way so many people had to be displaced and so much beauty was destroyed when it was built—I would have loved seeing the Three Gorges before the dam was constructed. But when you think about what this means in terms of flood control on the lower Yangtze River—why, one flood alone killed more than three hundred thousand people and left roughly forty million homeless! Not to mention the amount of hydroelectric power the dam has generated ever since it became fully operational...” She stopped because Tammy was looking at her blankly, as if this was all news to her. “Well, anyway, the answer is yes, we’re going.”

  She glanced at Niall on her right, sharing an intimate smile with him. Without prompting, he said, “If we have time either before or after, we’ll probably stop off at the Yellow Ox Temple for a few minutes. Another photo op for Savannah.”

  Everyone at the table laughed because she was already famous within their little tour group for the number of pictures she took everywhere they went.

  “This might be a once in a lifetime opportunity,” she protested. “I’m keeping a photo-journal of my travels.”

  “Good for you,” said a distinguished, silver-haired man on the other side of the table. They’d been introduced, but she didn’t remember his name and his name badge was on his jacket, hooked over the back of his chair. “I wish Martha and I had done that. Our kids chipped in to give us this trip for our fiftieth anniversary—first class all the way, mind you, with a Deck Five stateroom. They gave us a digital camera, too, but we haven’t taken many pictures.”

  A nod and a rueful smile from the man’s wife made Savannah volunteer, “I could send you the pictures I’ve taken, if you’d like. I could put them on a thumb drive for you when I get home and mail it to you.”

  “Would you?” the man said. “That would be... Well, that would be so generous of you.” He pulled out a pen and a business card, jotting down something on the back, then handing it across the table to her. “That’s my company card, with our address and phone number on the back. I’m semiretired, but you can reach me at either phone number if you need to.” He patted his wife’s hand. “Just think, Martha, we can show the kids how incredible this trip has been.” He looked up at Savannah and said fervently, “Thank you so much.”

  * * *

  Savannah tried not to let the juice glasses clink against each other as they went back to her stateroom after breakfast to lift the fingerprints. She watched Niall work in silence, and when he was done, she offered, “I can tell you right now it’s not Martha and her husband. I don’t remember his name, but—”

  “Anders. Martha and Anders Mortenson.”

  “Right. It wasn’t him on my balcony. He’s too tall. And besides—”

  “And besides, you can’t see a seventy-something man rappelling down the side of the boat, even if it was just one deck?”

  “Well...yes.”

  He grinned at her. “Men don’t fall apart at forty, you know. Or fifty. Or sixty. Or even seventy. He looks in pretty good shape for his age. I’ll bet Anders and Martha still have a fairly active sex life.”

  “Niall!” She could feel a flush crawling up her neck and into her cheeks.

  “What? You don’t agree?”

  “I don’t go around imagining other people’s sex lives.”

  “No? You should. Imagine Mary Beth and Herb. You think she can stop talking long enough for him to whisper sweet nothings in her ear?”

  She gasped, then laughed so hard she had to bury her face in one of the pillows from the unmade bed. Her eyes were streaming and she was still having trouble controlling her mirth when she raised her head. “Oh my God, Niall, you are so bad!”

  “Yeah,” he chuckled, “but you love me anyway.”

  That sobered her, and she realized she’d never said the words to him. He’d said them to her, but... “I do, Niall,” she whispered. “I love you with all my heart.”

  He went very still. “I know,” he said slowly. “I know you do. I didn’t want you to, because I didn’t want to hurt you. That’s all loving me will give you—pain.”

  An ache began in the region of her heart at the desolate expression on his face, and she breathed, “How can you know that?”

  “Trust me, I know.”

  “I won’t accept that.”

  “You have no choice.”

  * * *

  If Savannah had been a different kind of woman, she would have given up when Niall said, You have no choice. But people had been saying the same thing or something similar to her all her life, from her earliest teachers to her high school guidance counselor to her doctoral advisor. Even when she’d gotten out into the real world, even in a company that actively encouraged women in the STEM fields—Science, Technology, Engineering and Math—she’d still encountered far too many people who’d told her, You can’t do that.

  She’d proven them wrong, all the way down the line.

  She hadn’t risen to the top of her profession by being faint of heart. If you can fight in one arena, you can fight in another, she reminded herself fiercely as the bus she and Niall were riding on took the hill turn that led to the Three Gorges Dam’s visitors’ center.

  A tiny voice of doubt raised its ugly head. Yes, but in the past you always had your parents in your corner, believing in you.
Your mom, leading by example. Proving that a woman could accomplish anything she wanted if she was willing to fight for it. And your dad, always letting you cry on his shoulder and then challenging you to prove the naysayers wrong. Encouraging you to push yourself further. To excel.

  Her parents were gone. They would never again tell her to stand tall, to put one foot in front of the other and keep going, even if it was only an inch at a time.

  But they were still with her in spirit.

  That realization silenced the voice of doubt. She didn’t need the cheers from the sidelines; her cheerleaders were embedded in her heart, her soul. Her memories. She could do this. She and Niall had something worth fighting for, and she wasn’t giving up. Ever.

  * * *

  Niall was propped against the wall in the visitors’ center, waiting for Savannah to exit the ladies’ room, keeping a watchful eye on the crowd milling around the diorama of the dam that took up much of the space.

  He spotted Tammy and Martin, who’d been on the bus with Savannah and him, heading out the door, and mentally catalogued that fact as automatically as breathing. At the checkout stood Mary Beth and Herb, buying several of the overpriced souvenirs the visitors’ center offered the gullible foreigners, and an expression his mother often quoted came to mind: A fool and his money are soon parted. He stifled a chuckle, thinking, Truer words were never spoken.

  He was also thanking his lucky stars Mary Beth and Herb had not been on their bus here. Thinking of the Thompsons made him think of Savannah, however, which led right into the memory of her face this morning when he’d told her he knew she loved him...but she had to accept they had no future. She hadn’t argued with him, but her very calmness told him she was angry. Angry and determined. He hadn’t been exactly sure what that determination meant, but he’d had a pretty good idea.

  She’d seemed normal on the bus here, though. Well, normal for a woman forced to process a truth she didn’t want to accept. And her sudden animation as they approached the gates of the dam, the way she whipped her camera out to take pictures, made him hope she’d finally come to terms with the absolute finality of their relationship.

  Problem was, he was the one having difficulty accepting it.

  “Michael’s Family, please assemble outside by my sign,” came the voice of their tour guide through Niall’s earpiece. “We are leaving in five minutes. Five minutes, Michael’s Family. Finish your purchases, please, and assemble outside by my sign.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Come on, Savannah,” he muttered. “Why do women take so long in the bathroom?”

  He raised his eyes just in time to see the flash of a knife in the hands of a total stranger aimed straight at his abdomen. He reacted without thinking, parrying the thrust with such force he felt and heard a bone crack. He didn’t need to hear the man’s sudden howl of pain to know he’d broken something—wrist, forearm, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that the knife fell from the man’s suddenly useless hand before he bolted through the crowd, though not before Niall memorized the stranger’s face.

  He gave chase. “Stop that man!” he yelled in English, then repeated it in Mandarin. But the crowd merely responded by gawking, then scattering as the man forced his way through them. With his good hand, the assailant shoved an elderly Chinese woman toward Niall, who was barely able to catch her before she hit the ground. The man burst through the door and was gone. By the time Niall set the woman on her feet and dashed after him, it was too late. The would-be assassin had disappeared.

  * * *

  Savannah heard the announcement through her earpiece and finished washing her hands. She’d just decided her hair didn’t need brushing when the muffled sound of some kind of a commotion reached her. She hurried outside expecting to find Niall waiting for her, but he wasn’t there. She craned her neck to look over the top of the unusually animated crowd, but she still couldn’t spot him.

  She’d just screwed up her courage to make her way alone through the chattering sea of humanity when the door opened and Niall walked in, heading right for her. “Oh thank God,” she whispered fervently. Could she have done it on her own? Yes. But now she didn’t have to.

  Niall bent down just before he reached her, and used his hankie to pick something up off the ground. When he stood, she saw it was a wicked-looking knife with what appeared to be a six-inch blade.

  “What...?”

  His face was grim. “Someone definitely wants me out of the way. And this time they did have murder in mind.”

  * * *

  The man moved away from the tour group to take the call he’d been eagerly awaiting, unable to keep the anticipation out of his voice. “Yes?”

  “Unsuccessful.”

  Anger and disappointment made his voice harsh. “What the hell happened? No,” he said quickly. “Not over the phone. Meet me at the...” He glanced around, looking for the largest concentration of visitors. “The fountain. We’ll find somewhere private after that.”

  “I cannot. I am on the way to the hospital.”

  “What? Why? No,” he repeated, “don’t tell me over the phone. Too dangerous. Send me an encrypted text the way I showed you.”

  There was a hesitation at the other end. Then a reluctant, “That might be a problem. I cannot use my right hand.”

  He cursed under his breath and considered the risk of having their conversation electronically intercepted against his need to know what had gone wrong. “Then tell me,” he barked.

  “He saw me. I do not think I betrayed my intentions until the moment of attack, but somehow he was faster. He broke my arm. I barely managed to escape.”

  “Did he see your face?”

  “I am sure he did. I will lay low for a while, and not just because of my broken arm.”

  There weren’t enough curse words in the English language to encompass a monumental fubar like this, the man thought. But all he said was, “You do that.”

  He disconnected, then sought out his supposed wife, who was pretending to take pictures of one of the locks below. “Unsuccessful.”

  She looked at him, and for a fraction of a second he thought he saw relief in her eyes. “What happened?”

  He told her in clipped tones. Then, because he was furious at the failed attempt and still angry over the other night, he said, “I’m beginning to think you’re a jinx.”

  * * *

  Niall made a police report, of course. Not that it’ll do much good, he thought but didn’t say as he recited the details of the assault to his third set of...well, not interrogators, exactly, but their questions certainly came across like an interrogation. He couldn’t tell them his near-certainty of the real reason behind the attack. That was out unless he wanted to bring unwanted attention on both Savannah and himself. Unless he wanted them to be detained indefinitely.

  So he didn’t volunteer anything other than the facts as they’d occurred and a thorough description of the perpetrator, then agreed with the policemen when they theorized it was merely an attempted robbery of a wealthy American.

  Not exactly wealthy, he thought with a flash of amusement he didn’t allow to show on his face. He wasn’t hurting. He was the best there was at what he did, and his government recognized and rewarded it with a decent salary, which he rarely had time to spend. He could have made a hell of a lot more money in the private sector, he mused, but that wasn’t who he was.

  And he’d made a few good investments over the years. Comfortable was a better word to describe his financial position, he figured. He could afford his little luxuries without worrying about breaking the bank, but he wouldn’t call himself wealthy.

  The local police finally let Niall go, with profuse apologies for the inconvenience and an offer to take him back to the Three Gorges Dam. An offer he declined after a quick check of his watch. “I’m afraid there isn’t time,” he told
the policemen. “Our riverboat is supposed to depart at noon.”

  “We could take you and your companion to the dock,” one of the officers said in his precise English. “It is the least we can do by way of apology for this unfortunate incident. We hope this will not be a blight on your visit, and that you will not hold it against all of China for one man’s greed.”

  “I’ll take you up on the ride,” he replied, “but don’t worry. The same thing could have happened in any major city in the US. I don’t blame China.” Especially since if I’m right, this has nothing to do with China at all, he thought privately.

  The three men walked out of the interrogation room and found Savannah waiting for Niall in the front hall. She’d insisted on accompanying him to the police station even before he could tell her she had to; he couldn’t risk her being left unguarded in his absence. But he was touched her concern for him overrode her desire to visit the dam, one of the highlights of this tour.

  He hadn’t been worried about her being on her own, either, while he was being questioned. He couldn’t imagine any place safer from kidnapping than under the watchful eye of the front desk sergeant in a Chinese police station.

  “Are you okay?” she asked anxiously.

  Conscious of the eyes all around them, he kissed her cheek, whispering in her ear at the same time, “Follow my lead.” Then he stepped back and said, “Not a scratch, honey, I already told you. Sorry you had to miss out on seeing the dam. I’ll make it up to you.”

  “No big deal,” she assured him. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  * * *

  The trip back to the riverboat got them there ahead of the buses. With plenty of time before departure, they strolled through the bazaar between the boat dock and the bus lot, with its aggressive shopkeepers touting things they could have bought anywhere, but buying nothing. Although, Niall noted with an internal smile, Savannah was a sucker for the children tugging at her sleeve trying to sell her useless items. He had a sneaking suspicion she would have purchased something from each one if he hadn’t been with her.