by Ronie Kendig
“What ya got, Cowboy?” Max’s voice came through the coms.
“Two bodies. One prostrate. One by the window, watching.”
“Our assassin?”
Not with the shape and location of the heat signatures. “Negative. Female.”
Was the assassin asleep? That’d be too easy, but that’s the way it looked because he certainly wouldn’t leave a hostage alone. But sleeping …? Colton lowered the thermals. It didn’t make a lick of sense.
“Let’s go!”
For cover, the team raced along the sloped surface, giving Colton’s thighs a good workout. When he checked on Piper, he was pleased to find her right behind him. The four of them slithered up to the side of the building and crouched low beside the wall that formed a perimeter to the garden patios. Unfortunately, the bleached wall only came to his shoulders, so he felt like one of those shooting ranges at the fair back home with his head as the target. He inched lower as he moved.
Pausing at the point where the wall ended, they peeked toward the room.
Again, Colton eased his thermals out and peered through the walls, steel, glass, and curtain. The woman still stood near the door, apparently looking out. On watch perhaps? Another figure lay prone on a bed, he guessed. He signaled to Max and Midas what he saw.
Max held up a hand with three fingers.
Two.
One.
They launched around the corner, darted for the private patio. Hopped the iron gate that afforded no privacy. As Colton made the bound, he saw the curtain flutter. He yanked up his weapon and swept an arm around to once again nudge Piper into a secure position out of sight and behind him.
Max shoved a booted foot against the door frame.
The glass door popped open.
A scream stabbed the night.
By the time Colton made it inside with Piper, Max had the girl in a stranglehold, a hand over her mouth. “Don’t say a word,” he hissed in Arabic.
The girl stilled.
Colton and Midas rushed the room. Midas hovered at his elbow and nodded to a door near the main entrance. Together, they scissor-stepped toward what looked like a closet. His partner knelt at the side, gripped the handle, then waited.
Weapon at the ready, Colton gave the signal.
The door flung open. He shuffled forward, sweeping his weapon over the closet—side, side, top … bottom. “Clear,” he whispered.
Immediately, they whirled toward the bathroom. He slid the chain over the main door and flipped the deadbolt, securing it. At the threshold, he stared down the barrel of his M4 and scanned the semidarkened bathroom. The sink with soap and a washcloth. White tile stretched floor to ceiling. The toilet and half-empty roll of the paper. Two towels draped over the rod of the shower curtain that had been pushed back against the wall.
“Clear.” They pivoted back to the main area, and he eyed the form on the bed. The old man. Rosenblum, he recognized from the picture Ben-Haim had provided.
Max had secured the girl to a chair in the far corner using plastic cuffs. “She had a phone. Talking to our assassin, no doubt.” He pointed to the bed, where Piper stood, hand over her mouth as she stared down at the bed. “Midas, check it out.”
Seeing her like that pulled Colton forward. He glanced at the still form on the bed. Bruised and bloodied face, a graying bearded also stained with blood. Bandaged hands. But a steady rise and fall of his chest.
Midas darted to the bed and dropped to his knees. He unloaded a pack as he felt for the man’s carotid artery.
Slowly, Piper knelt. “Baba?”
“No!” the young girl shouted, looking toward the elderly man. “Don’t touch him!” The girl’s brow flickered as she saw Piper beside the bed. “Leave him alone. Don’t hurt him!”
Next to him, Max asked, “What kind of assassin leaves his objectives in a hotel room?”
“One who knew we were coming?” Colton didn’t like the idea, but it was the only one that presented itself.
Glaring, Max joined the scene at the bed. “What’ve you got, Midas?”
“Severe dehydration, obvious damage to the hands, no broken bones as far as I can tell.” He grunted. “I don’t know what else.”
“He make him sleep,” the young girl mumbled in broken English.
They considered the old man.
“Now why would a killer have his victim sleep?” Max shook his head. “This is too weird. Prep him for transport, Midas.”
On her knees, Piper reached with trembling fingers toward the bruised face. Blood mottled the beard that looked plucked out in several spots. “Baba,” she whispered. “Baba, it’s me.” She pressed her lips to his face. “It’s Lily.”
Heart in his throat, Colton ached for her. Ached at the sweet name he’d never known. Ached to ease the pain so clearly gouged into her face. He stood at the foot of the bed, watching. And he had to admit that he’d do just about anything to remove this pain from her.
She smoothed a hand over the tussled hair. “Oh, Baba …”
“Baba?” The girl balked. “It can’t be!”
“Quiet!” Max stuffed something in her mouth.
After swabbing down a swatch of the man’s forearm, Midas slid an IV into his arm, which elicited a soft moan. The former Green Beret medic then carefully unwound the soiled bandages from their objective’s left hand.
Just then, Yitshak Rosenblum’s eyes fluttered open.
Piper hauled in a breath and pushed up on her knees. “Baba, can you hear me? I’m here. Your Lily is here.”
A raspy noise issued from the old man. Then he cleared his throat. “How …?” came his strained question. Then his face screwed into sheer panic. His arms flailed. “No, no! You must … leave.”
Surprise pushed Piper back, but just as quickly, she tried to quiet him. “Shh.” She eased onto the bed beside her father.
Only then did Colton realize how thin and frail Mr. Rosenblum truly was—so much that his body didn’t take up much of the narrow bed. Matter of fact, it sickened Colton when he thought Mickey would’ve filled the same amount of space.
Midas slid another needle into the IV and depressed the plunger.
Aged, bruised, and bloodied fingers wrapped around Piper’s arm. “Bombs … they’re moving them ….”
The words pulled Colton straighter—and he saw Max do the same. A bomb? Nobody mentioned a bomb. Within seconds, Max stood at his side with a scowl that could create its own nuclear blast.
“No tiimmme …” He shook his head. “Get me out of here.” His voice sounded stronger. Clearer. He pushed up.
“Hey!” Midas snapped, and when they looked at him, he tapped
the IV bag. “Relax or you’ll rip this out.”
Max keyed his mic. “Legend, Squirt, we need you in here. Two friendlies. Kid and Scar, watch for the assassin. He is unaccounted for.”
“Roger that,” the Kid’s voice came through unaffected.
Seconds later, Colton unlocked the hall door for Legend and Squirt.
“Give us a hand here,” Max ordered as they shifted the old man onto a stretcher.
“Movement on the lawn!” Legend’s voice snapped through the coms. “It’s the assassin. He’s scoping the room.”
“Take cover!”
The others scrambled as Colton caught Piper’s arm and tugged her toward the closet. He directed her inside, scanned the room—Max behind the Saudi girl, Midas tucked in the corner next to the bed, Legend on his belly, his weapon tucked under the blanket hanging off the empty bed, and the Kid slipping into the bathroom. Colton pulled the door to, leaving just enough of a crack to aim his M4 but not give himself away.
Behind him, he heard Piper’s uneven breathing. He glanced over his shoulder at her, surprised to find her huddling very close.
Those caramel eyes he loved rose to his, streaked with fear … uncertainty. “What if he kills my father?”
Colton peeked into the room again. Satisfied it was clear, he returned his attention to Piper.
“He won’t.”
She inched closer. “How can you be sure?” she whispered.
“Quiet,” he hissed. Even though she’d whispered, he didn’t want to alert the assassin to their presence. But right then, he saw her near-tangible fear. And his heart hitched into his throat. He caught her hand and set it on the drag strap of the flak vest. Then gave a gentle pat as he shifted back to monitoring the room.
As he stood there, his mind reaching for the assassin huddled out in the darkness beyond the hotel, he felt her catch the other side of his vest, too. Soon, her weight pressed against his right shoulder. When he checked, he found her resting her forehead against him. The sight tangled his mind something fierce, but he quickly reminded himself that she sought comfort, that’s all. A normal response to anyone not battle hardened.
But it was Piper. And he liked her being close.
Mentally, he shoved her away, remembering his own father. Hers lay on the bed, here in her homeland—the same homeland where his sister died—and his lay in a coffin awaiting burial.
“I do love you, Colton.”
Colton squeezed his eyes shut.
“Please … please don’t let my father die,” she whispered in a voice hoarse. “I know … I know you’re angry with me because your father died. But please don’t let my father die.”
He glowered at her. How could she think that of him? Did she really think he valued a human life so little he’d do something like that? Hurt spiraled through him like a heady venom. He jerked back to the door.
The curtain fluttered.
Yeshua, I beg You—save my father!
Loving the man hadn’t blinded her. Colton was a skilled, lethal soldier. He knew what he was doing and did it better than anyone, Midas had said on their way to the rendezvous point. Despite that, she didn’t think for a minute he’d just let her father die to get revenge on her. Knowing an assassin stood within killing distance had set her on edge and made her panic, saying things she didn’t mean.
Though it was dark in the closet, she didn’t miss the outrage in Colton’s expression. She’d wounded him with her words. She’d just been so desperate. Her father—less than ten feet separated them, yet she could do nothing to help him.
Even now with his broad shoulders completely blocking her view of the room, Colton stood tensed and ready to engage the enemy. She could feel his rigid stance and hoped it didn’t go all the way to his heart. There had to be a way to mend the rift between them. She couldn’t lose him … or her father.
What if she lost both?
Piper let her head drop against his flak vest again, not for the strength and comfort she felt being close to him, but for the ability to detect the way he tensed. Despite the vest smelling of dirt and sweat, she could detect the faint scent of the man she loved. And would always love.
A second later, he straightened, and she felt his arm come up with the weapon. When Colton slid back to line up the weapon, Piper shifted away to give him room. Her heat skipped a beat as almost simultaneously she heard the change in air pressure—the door had opened.
The assassin had finally come.
CHAPTER 22
Get down! Get down!”
Colton rushed from the closet, his M4 trained on the stout young man with death in his eyes. Weapon almost pressed against the man’s head, Max forced him down.
The guy sprang up and swung a back-handed fist at Max. Though he stumbled, Max never released his weapon.
Griffin lunged into the fray. Both hands grabbed at the man fighting Max. A kick darted up and caught Griffin in the knee. “Aagh!”
Max rammed a hard right into the guy’s face, quickly followed by a swift undercut to the gut. But the assassin seemed unfazed. He rammed Max hard.
Stepping in again, Legend caught a fist—but not the one that nailed his jaw. Flames erupted from the large man’s eyes. He sliced both hands against the assassin’s shoulders.
With the way those three were going at it, Colton couldn’t risk taking a shot. No telling who he’d hit. He glanced back to Piper, relieved to find her hovering in the closet.
Crack! Crash!
“Stop him!”
The noise drew him back around. A tangle of bodies left the door propped open. Squirt and Legend wobbled to their feet. Struggling to extricate himself from a tangle of cords from the overturned TV, Max cursed and jerked free. Unbelievably, the assassin had slipped away and escaped the room. Max scrabbled to his feet and flung open the door.
Sparks flew off the metal frame as Max pushed into the open, but
he ducked and kept moving, followed closely by Griffin. How did that guy take down two of their best?
With a deft move, Azzan landed a punch that dropped the first guy He’d no sooner taken a step than another brick wall slammed into his back. He hit the beach, face first. Grit puffed in his face. He swiveled around, trying to lock his legs around the guy, but the rock-solid abs seemed to be a mile wide.
The guy flipped him over.
Azzan used the man’s over-eagerness and managed to spin out of the man’s grasp and leap to his feet. The big guy was just as fast—and enormous. But what frightened Azzan was the fluid moves that belied his size.
And the guy knew how to fight.
Despite his best technique, the gorilla avoided a lethal strike. He wasn’t even trying to kill him, but to knock him out and get on with things. They’d set a trap, he’d fallen into it, but he wouldn’t get downed again.
Raiyah.
The thought of her spiraled adrenaline through his veins. He had to get back to her and to the old man. Had they already killed him?
The gorilla of a guy shifted and dove in fast.
Azzan came at him from the outside. Slid a hand around his neck. Used the other to swing the guy around in a corkscrew move, then retraced the steps, landing the guy on his back. The gorilla landed with a thud.
Go, now! Azzan launched over the broad chest, but the guy raised a hand, caught Azzan’s foot. He flipped forward. His hands dusted the beach. He used the momentum to roll himself through and bounce upright. Kept moving.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
He made the fatal mistake of looking back. Saw the muzzle aimed at him. The determined gaze behind the scope.
Dressed in black, head to toe, the guy aimed an M4 at him.
Breathing hard, Azzan slowly rose to his full height, wiped the dribble of warmth sliding down his chin. Muscles twitching, firing neurons told him to run. But the look in the man’s face … the way he held the weapon with a relaxed yet determined pose made him hesitate.
“You can run,” he barked, “but you’ll only die tired.” “Go ahead.” With an evil grin, gorilla pushed to his feet. “Run.” He sneered. “Please make my day.”
The wiry guy spoke from behind. “He’s never missed yet.” Rhetoric like that had tricked many of his kind. So had whizzing bullets.
“I just wanted to help the old man and the girl.”
The man was slipperier than a brand new foal, and for that reason, Colton wouldn’t lower his weapon till Max and Legend had the assassin secured. “Help them, what? Die?” He watched as a very ticked off Max came up behind the guy, grabbed his arm, and yanked it back and up, forcing the man to his knees.
“Help them by running?” Max cinched plastic strips around the guy’s arms.
He and Legend hoisted the assassin to his feet. They trudged back to the hotel, and Colton felt the tension knots mount at the half-dozen patrons watching from their patios and windows. He lowered his weapon to the side and held it at an angle that hopefully wouldn’t put anyone into a panic. They had witnesses, and that most likely meant authorities.
Speaking of … that wail in the distance was probably their personal escort to the local prison.
“Short on time,” he mumbled to Max as they crossed the paved entrance to room 166.
Inside, Max and Legend moved the man toward the bed—but he stumbled. Slumped against the bed—and used the moment
um to bounce back up. He thrust a foot into Legend’s gut, doubling him. Then he flung around and did the same to the Kid, who flew back into the TV.
Piper screamed.
With a wicked move, the guy hopped through his arms, bringing his hands to the front. He threaded his fingers, then spun and looped his arms around Piper’s neck. With a thrust, he pulled her into a stranglehold.
Weapon snapped up, Colton felt everything in him go cold. “Let her go!” Colton roared, sighting the guy. He could take him, but the risks were tremendous, especially with a weapon he wasn’t intimately familiar with. He could miss and hit Piper. Or Midas hovering over Piper’s father.
“I want out of here,” the assassin said. “And I don’t want anyone following.”
“Not happening,” Griffin said with a fierce growl as he came to his feet, holding his stomach. “The only place you’re going is six feet under.”
“Stop—stop—stop!” Piper held out her hands to both Colton and Griffin, her stomach arched out as she tried to maintain her balance. Her eyes were wide—but not with the terror he’d expected at being the personal shield of an assassin.
“That’s right,” the assassin said with a sneer. “Listen to the lady.”
Something glinted in Piper’s expression. “Colton, don’t shoot him. Please—I promise, he won’t hurt me.”
“How do you know that?” Yet even as he asked, he couldn’t help but notice the matching eyes.
“He’s… he’s my cousin.”
With the issued Glock trained on the assassin, Colton held firm but still.
So did the assassin. He peeked over Piper’s shoulder. Then shifted. “Lily?” The disbelief pitched his voice. “I don’t … understand.” He released her.
That was all the team needed.
Griffin pounced on him. Rammed his fist into the guy’s face. Immediately, Max was on him, too.
With another scream, Piper shuffled back as the three wrestled. She spun to Colton. “Make them stop. Please!” Tears rimmed her eyes. “You saw what he just did.”
“Azzan, please—tell them you’ll listen, you’ll cooperate.” They pressed his face against the floor as the Kid worked to secure his hands and feet. It looked as chaotic as trying to wrestle a squid. “Okay, okay …”