by Ronie Kendig
Her heart tripped over the realization of what he’d no doubt seen. “It’s true. I love you.” The words, so sweet and tender, felt like a balm as they crossed her lips.
His brow took a nosedive toward his nose. “Do you know how old I am? What about my favorite dinner? Do you know what I do for a living, Piper?”
Her declaration, weighed against his confrontational tone, seemed silly and irrational. She let her hand slip from his arm.
Colton jerked the big duffel toward himself. Ripped open the zippered pouch.
A bunch of gear gaped at her. Gear that looked like … military
gear. Her throat closed up. She braved a look at him.
Hands on his belt, he glowered. “I seem to remember you having a problem with the military. Isn’t that right?” Colton patted his chest. “That’s what I do for a living. That’s what I am. A Marine.”
“B–but you said you got out.”
“I did.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I get called up. I go. That’s my job. I can’t talk about it or tell you anything.” Leveling a shoulder at her, he narrowed his gaze. “You know nothing about me, yet you dare insult me, expecting me to believe it when you tell me that you love me. I might be a simple cowboy with a lot of land and money, but I’m not a simpleton—”
“I never said that.”
“And clear as the stars above, I know you aren’t being straight with me. If for one second you got it in your pretty head that I’m going to bend when you’re keeping secrets and ready to bail on me and mine, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“I’ll tell you.” Was she out of her mind?
He eyed her.
“Everything.”
DAY TWO
Saudi Arabia, 21:44:01 hours
Objective Terminated.
Through his secure phone, he sent the coded message. Terminated. Yes, he’d fired two bullets into al-Jafari’s brain—the same brain that held the information Azzan wanted—needed. Had defied orders to extract. Though he would like to take credit for the assassination, the man’s sluggish response warned him that the man had been poisoned.
Someone else wanted General al-Jafari dead. But who? The man had as many enemies as mistresses. Azzan could spend from now until eternity considering the prospects. He would not waste his time.
Right now, he needed to make it to the Dead Sea, which felt a lifetime away. Especially with the woman knocked out in the backseat. If he was caught with her, he’d be executed without question, and al-Jafari’s guards would make sure it was a slow, painful death. At the first village, he’d drop her off and be done with it. Her blood would not be on his hands.
An hour into his drive, the veil of clouds lifted, and moonlight skimmed flat rooftops of a cluster of homes wedged into a mountain. He glanced back at the girl. Still unconscious. That served him well.
Pulling off the road, he killed the lights and slowed as he came alongside a dilapidated structure. He rammed the gear into PARK, climbed out, and opened the rear door. Grabbing her ankles, he heard crunching behind him. Quiet, light-footed, but not sneaking. A villager. Not to worry.
As he dragged the girl across the seats, a soft moan emanated from her. She turned her head back and forth.
He tugged.
Her hands flew, grasping, groping for traction as she came awake. Azzan hauled her out of the Hummer. She writhed and yelped—screamed.
Pinning her against the sleek hull, he clamped a hand over her mouth. She gripped his hand with both of hers. Wide eyes sparkled in the moonlight. An angry welt puffed and bled against her pretty face, eliciting a strange feeling in his gut.
He shrugged it off. This had to be done. It was this or kill her. All his training demanded her death—if he didn’t, she could finger him, point him out to authorities.
Azzan held the muzzle of his gun to her temple. “Quiet!” His hand shook, one voice in his head telling him to pull it, and a second voice begging for another way. Pressing her against the side of the vehicle, he searched the dark, crumbling corners of the village. Shadows morphed into scrawny, vacant-eyed bodies. Odd noises pulled at his decision. This wasn’t right.
Panic streaked her beautiful eyes. She wriggled against him. The hijab slid off her head. Dark hair spilled over her shoulder, framing her flawless features. In that instant, Azzan’s stomach cinched tight and froze him. She had the same eyes, the same piercing gaze.
No, it wasn’t possible. His target didn’t have daughters. She was just some rich girl wanting to sneak away.
She used his hesitation to yank his hand from her mouth. “Please—please don’t leave me here.” Desperation clung to her words with a healthy dose of panic. “Take me with you!”
She deserved to be left behind. To let these people—his gaze skimmed the six … no, sev—eight men lingering on the fringe of the road and death—strip her of the expensive silk hijab and dress. Rip the gold rings and necklaces from her fair skin. Sell her off. Maybe she could buy some humility with a few years’ service.
As he pivoted to climb back into the truck, she grabbed at him. “I beg you—”
Behind the wheel, he tried to shut the door.
She wedged herself in the way. “You’re an assassin.”
He glared at her. “Which is exactly why you should get out of the way before I do what I do best.”
“Please … I don’t know why you were at the palace, and I don’t care. But don’t leave me here, please. The Bedouins will sell me. Allah wills it!”
He flashed his eyes at her. “I have no use for you or your god.”
“I can offer you money.”
He sneered.
“I—I …” Her eyes darted, as if searching for something to bargain with. Suddenly, those gorgeous eyes brightened. She flashed them at him. “You’re Palestinian.”
How could she possibly know that?
“I know who you’re looking for. I can help.”
He tried to push her aside, but with her standing and him sitting, she had the advantage in leverage. “Why would I trust you or anything you say?”
“I know. I know where they have him and why you came to the palace.” Confidence overtook the frantic desperation that had tightened her features. “Help me, and I’ll help you.”
With a firm shove, Azzan tried to pull the door close again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“General al-Jafari said everyone was searching for a particular man.”
She couldn’t know why he’d gone to the palace. Al-Jafari told a woman of his plans? Impossible!
But … what if she did know?
When he lunged out of the car, she stumbled back. He caught her and noticed the crowd gathered nearby. “Stupid woman! This is the last time,” he yelled at her and grabbed her arm and shoved her into the car, hoping the theatrics convinced the villagers. After kicking the door for good show, he glanced at the men and tossed up his arms. “Avoid women. They will drain your money and mind!”
The men roared in laughter as Azzan got behind the wheel and pulled out of the village. Back on the highway. Fingers coiled around the wheel, he peered in the mirror again, ignoring the reaction he felt when he saw the whelp on her forehead where he’d hit her.
“Al-Jafari wouldn’t share strategies or information with a woman. Unless you were one of his mistresses.”
She gasped. Then lifted her chin, exposing a long, graceful neck amid that river of dark hair. “My name is Raiyah al-Jafari. My father is Bashar al-Jafari.”
“He didn’t have daughters.”
“That’s what he told me a thousand times, even as he tried this very night to sell me to a fat, balding prince so he could take their oil.” She let out a disgusted sigh. “I will help you get the old man if you will promise to take me to Israel.”
The daughter of the man he just killed. He shouldn’t trust her. The name alone meant she had blood as disloyal and wicked as the devil himself. But something in her gaze, in the hurt coating the words she’d just spo
ken, told him those disloyal tendencies could work to his advantage. That is, if they were talking about the same old man.
CHAPTER 10
Somewhere in the Middle East …
You are lame.”
“Hey,” Colton said as he pointed to the scope. “Eyes on the target.”
The Kid shook his head as he leaned toward the bi-pod-mounted device. “Tell me you’ve kissed her already.”
For the first time, he understood Max pummeling the Kid on the island last year.
“Quiet,” Colton said low and slow. “We didn’t have time to scope this gig, so pay attention.” Irritation skidded up his spine as he stared out over the dilapidated structures. This had once been a small but thriving city. Now a few of the buildings served as shelter for homeless people. For the most part, this location held the desolation of the desert surrounding it.
“Come on, man, you—”
“We don’t have someone on the ground to watch our back, and the team just went in. Now, shut it, and do your job.”
This thing with Piper was bringing out the worst in him. She’d offered to tell him everything, and his response? “I’m outta time.” Hollow words from a coward—he’d run from her. Peeling paint and dirt crunched beneath Colton as he shifted his weight on the top floor of the small warehouse. Lying prone, he used the scope to aim through the ten-centimeter hole in the wall. Sure, the call had escalated the urgency, but he could’ve sacrificed five minutes.
All the same, Colton didn’t want to sit through more lies. The very thought nipped at his conscience. He really didn’t think Piper was like that, but how could he explain the trail of proof?
“With me?”
He ignored the Kid and forced his attention to the small town. “Where d’you think I am?”
“Your big oaf body’s here,” the Kid said, his voice strained as he peered through the Leupold spotter scope, “but your mind is elsewhere. I’ve been taunting you and haven’t gotten punched once.”
Colton grinned. “I’m not Frogman.”
“True, very true—and thank God!”
“I’m monitoring, remember?” Minus a man on the team, he didn’t have his six covered the way he’d like, especially here where unfriendlies didn’t have any compunction about shooting a man in the back, and that put a burr the size of Texas beneath his saddle. With Frogman, Legend, and Midas bounding cover up the stairwell, their one-man-down status rankled him.
“Need another man.”
Hearing the Kid echo his thoughts unsettled him. Was it that obvious they were weakened? His mind flittered to the sensor he’d placed by the main door downstairs. The only “man” covering him and the Kid.
“Piper.” The Kid chuckled. “Pretty name for a pretty—”
When the sentence went unfinished, Colton looked at him, noted the hunched shoulders and rapt attention. “What’s wrong?”
The Kid shook his head. “Nothing, brain’s fried.”
So was Colton. “All the same …” He scooted behind his Remington. Staring through the window a dozen feet from his boot, he saw Midas step inside and close the door. “They’re in.”
“Roger,” the Kid mumbled.
He scanned the town. Nothing seemed irregular.
Unlike Piper. So many things made his instincts ignite.
“I love you. “
He’d heard those thousand-pound words from Meredith. It’d netted him a daughter and a truckload of heartache. So why did hearing those words from Piper make his heart ricochet through his chest?
When she’d said she would tell him everything, curiosity made him want to stay. Fear—and the call escalation—pushed him into his truck. He wanted to bury his heart, bury this whole segment of his life … but he couldn’t. Something was off. It was like not being able to see the forest for the trees. The facts pointed to good cause to be suspicious of her. Yet life had taught him things aren’t always what they seem.
Had he been so ready to cling to her guilt to save himself some pain?
“Hey!” The Kid hissed and swatted his leg.
Colton blinked. Movement in his scope registered. Mind synched, he focused every muscle and firing neuron on the scene before them. Even in his initial assessment twenty minutes ago, he didn’t like that building. Narrow and three-story, it screamed ambush. With the team snaking up the back firewall about now, he should be paying better attention, not worrying about Piper.
If they didn’t get or kill their objective, Bashar al-Jafari, a radical bent on disrupting peace negotiations by forming deadly alliances against many Middle Eastern countries, there could be a lot of heartache.
Colton eased back and grabbed his thermals. He propped his arm and studied what the scope revealed. Quickly, he located the team huddled on the upper portion of the firewall between the second and third levels. Colton moved the reticle to the left. Al-Jafari should be in that room.
“Where’d they go?” Knots formed at the base of his neck. “The room’s empty. Where’s the team?” He dragged the multicolored lens farther left … alley … building … nothing. He keyed his mic. “Alpha One, hold.”
“Roger, holding.”
He shifted, teeth clamped as he studied the small village. How had the mood changed so rapidly? Had he been that distracted? “This isn’t …” Where were all the villagers? Not even a dog or cat trotting the road. “I don’t like it.” He swept right. Left.
“What’s the word, Cowboy?” Max whispered through his coms.
Colton’s skin was crawling as he scoured the streets. “Hold your—” His thermal bled red—and lots of it. Oh God, help us! In a split-second he counted a half-dozen hostiles, high-powered weapons and RPGs in a building behind and two down from where the team sat. And they weren’t there for coffee and donuts.
“Abort!” Colton said with a growl. “Abort, unfriendlies in red four. Objective missing.”
Through the thermals, he watched the team move without
reservation. “Copy that. Aborting,” Max confirmed.
Beside him, the Kid cursed. A second time. A third. “They’re coming—right for the team!”
Beep-beep-beep-beep!
Colton wanted to curse this time—that was the motion sensor he’d set up. “They’re in our building, too.”
“On it.” The Kid punched to his feet.
Listening to him move into the hall behind their position, Colton swung his scope from the team toward the hostiles. A line of rainbow-lit figures streamed out of the building. They traveled across the street and down the alley, right next to the targeted building. As if they knew he’d given the abort.
“Nightshade, ten well-armed tangos headed your way.”
“Copy.”
Thermal stuffed away, and eye trained on the movement through the rifle scope, Colton targeted the tango with the most armament and fired. The guy dropped. Chambering the next round, he then hit the point man.
Pop-pop-pop! Pop!
“Taking fire, taking fire,” the Kid’s voice pierced the coms.
Steeling himself against the Kid’s near scream, Colton focused on protecting the team. Downing two more unfriendlies bought the team the necessary time to clear the building.
“Kid, en route!”
“Negative, negative. It’s hot, too hot. I’ve taken cover.”
“Cowboy, clear out,” Max’s authoritative voice cut through the panicked moment. “Rendezvous at evac point.”
“Copy that.” Colton whipped into action, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and drawing his handgun. Hunching at the door well, he slipped down his NVGs. “Kid,” he whispered. “What’s your twenty?”
“Avoid the stairs.”
“That doesn’t tell me where you are.”
“You always were a geniu—”
Crack!
A grunt punched through the coms. “I’m hit.”
Urgency pushed Colton into the hall. He cleared the right, then swung around and hustled down the dusty corridor. Streams of
light, compliments of bullet-holes, poked the dark space. Sweat dribbled down his temple. He didn’t care. The Kid was down. Had to get to him.
Ears attuned and eyes focused, he sought out his spotter. Where was he?
Colton eased toward a juncture and pressed his back to the wall, listening for movement, voices. He should be at the juncture that led to the main stairs. Which was the perfect place to get ambushed, just like Nightshade had been. With great stealth and care, he lured the thermal scope from his pouch and peered through the wall.
His pulse spiked. Three men stood strategically placed on the steps, aiming their weapons up. At him.
“How ya doin’, Kid?”
No response.
“Kid?” Colton bit through his frustration, knowing his spotter was either down or captured. He pulled back and reconfigured his position. More than half of the back stairs were missing. The drop would break his legs.
Noise from the stairs nudged him backward. He hustled back down to the room where they’d set up and flanked right. Bullet holes had eaten the floorboards. Colton eyed one, mentally plotted what he knew of the building. If he could find one that peeked out onto the main foyer, maybe he could figure out where the Kid was. Finally, he located a hole that went all the way through. He stared through the hole—and ground his teeth.
Four men stood with their weapons aimed at a fifth man, curled up on the ground. There were too many to take them out and not get himself killed, so Colton leaned back on his haunches.
Colton keyed his mic. “Alpha, they’ve got the Kid,” he whispered as he moved toward the hole where the shaft gaped.
“En route.”
But even if they had humped it the way they should’ve toward the extraction point, the team wouldn’t make it back this far. Not in time anyway. On his feet, he stalked the hall, praying for an out. Praying to find a way to get the Kid out alive.
As he passed a massive hole in the wall, he tried to think—Wait! He backed up three paces. An elevator shaft, the dangling cables awash in green, gaped at him. He cocked his head. Peered down the well. A shaft of light at the bottom gave him hope. Maybe he could …