Nico and Kadan both carried large, solid briefcases, clearly housing their sniper rifles. Neither tried to hide the fact as they slipped inside. Sam kept his eyes locked with Azami’s. She didn’t even turn her head or flick a glance toward the two men as they entered—and that was more the mark of a professional than anything else could have been. She was too sure of herself. Sam swore to himself. They were in real trouble, but he couldn’t figure out how or why.
These were businesspeople. They were known throughout the international community as well as having been vetted by every separate military, CIA, and Homeland Security committee that could possibly investigate them. They were under intense scrutiny, just by the fact that they produced and sold high-resolution satellites. Their software and their satellites were considered the best in the world. How could every agency have made such a mistake?
Sam wanted to doubt himself, he really did. The woman was the first one who had really intrigued him, both mentally and physically. Maybe it was the challenge, but deep down, he knew this woman’s destiny was tangled with his. Good or bad, they were somehow intertwined. He’d rather their relationship was positive, but that nagging radar of his wouldn’t shut up. Something was very off about all three visitors.
“Kadan Montague and Nicolas Trevane,” he offered by way of introduction after he’d identified their guests.
All three gave a slight head bow toward the newcomers. Azami continued to look at Sam through the mirror, her eyes like that of a cat, tilted and wide, fringed with feathery black lashes that swept down demurely when her brother turned his head to look at her. Sam wasn’t buying the act. He started the SUV, sending up a silent prayer that Nico and Kadan wouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security by Lily’s positive IDs. The back of his neck itched. Azami Yoshiie was more than a damned bodyguard, and it was going to require a fair amount of discipline to keep his mind on his driving.
The mountain road was hazardous, the switchbacks tight and the road narrow once they were away from the small town. Sam set his teeth and drove. He could feel his heart beating in his chest and he did a little slow breathing. It made sense that Daiki Yoshiie would travel with bodyguards who could protect him as well as teach clients the installation and use of the necessary software for their products. Being bodyguards explained the way they all three moved, and if half of the rumors circulating about Mamoru Yoshiie were true, he would have taught his children to defend themselves. So if it all made sense, then why was he so uneasy?
“Would you like music?” he asked Daiki politely. Making casual conversation was usually quite easy for him, but he felt he had the proverbial sword poised at his neck, making it a little more difficult to think up topics of interest.
“It is not necessary,” Daiki replied with equal politeness. “I do not require music or conversation to be comfortable. I enjoy the surroundings, and your mountains are quite beautiful.”
“And remote,” Eiji added. “This road does not appear as if it gets much traffic.”
Sam had veered off the main road leading to the Lolo National Forest, to take a private road most of those residing in the complex of homes within the fortress used. The road was a little steeper than the other one, but it cut through the thicker forest, the canopy of trees forming a natural ceiling above them, hiding them from possible eyes in the sky.
“The compound is remote,” Sam said. “It affords us privacy. The research is very delicate and security is tight.”
“I understand Dr. Miller resides on the premises of her research center,” Daiki continued.
Sam sent him a sharp glance and looked in the rearview mirror. Both Kadan and Nico looked as if they were lounging lazily in the far backseats, but he knew their expressions very well. The moment Lily was mentioned in conjunction with her residence, both had gone to full alert. At all costs, Lily’s son needed to be protected from any outsiders. He had been born with exceptional qualities, and everyone knew her father, Peter Whitney, would do anything to get his hands on the boy or at least gather evidence that the child was different.
“Have you met Lily?” Sam asked, knowing the answer. He’d been in Pakistan hunting high-profile al-Qaeda targets when the four GhostWalker teams had made the decision to acquire a high-resolution satellite of their own.
The money in the GhostWalker fund allowed the astonishingly expensive but necessary purchase, but it was the security that concerned all four teams. They had known someone from Samurai Telecommunications would have to spend time at both compounds while they learned to handle the satellite.
“She came in with her husband to our DC office several times,” Daiki said. “An extremely brilliant woman.”
Why the hell did he feel so damned edgy? That was Lily. Anyone meeting her nearly always used that adjective to describe her, yet Sam’s radar wouldn’t stop shrieking at him. If anything, it was in full-blown alarm mode. He glanced in the mirror again, then to his right and left. If someone had been behind him, he should have seen dust. Still . . .
“Do you have someone following us?” Sam asked simultaneously with Azami.
His breath caught in his throat as his eyes met hers in the mirror. He saw the same shock and surprise in her eyes that were in his. She felt that same wariness and wrongly had put it down to his crew. If the threat wasn’t emanating from her or her men, then where the hell was it coming from?
CHAPTER 3
Sam instantly threw the SUV into four-wheel drive and was off the road, rushing into deeper forest. Nico and Kadan shifted position, weapons fitting into their hands easily.
“The windows are bulletproof,” Sam informed the three visitors. “Keep them up. Who knew you were coming here today?”
“I filed a flight plan,” Azami answered.
Sam thought it significant that she sounded very calm. He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Her facial muscles were relaxed. The woman knew there was trouble, but she remained unfazed. Bodyguard, like hell. She was far more than that. She didn’t even show tension. He found himself breathing out rather than in. Every time he took in a lungful of air in the close confines of the SUV, he found himself breathing her into his lungs. She seemed to permeate his body, slipping past his guard and lodging herself deep.
“We also leave our itinerary with my secretary in case one of us is needed,” Daiki added. “She’s been my secretary for many years and would never betray us.”
Sam wasn’t all too sure about that. As far as he was concerned, everyone who wasn’t part of his team was a potential enemy. It was strange to find himself so divided. He’d always been a decisive person. He had great confidence in his intellect and his physical abilities. He’d trained with nearly every weapon known to man, circled the globe training in every terrain, and he’d been involved in hundreds of missions. He’d never been this damned tense.
The SUV bumped over rotting logs and splashed through rocky creek beds filled with running water. There was the faintest of tracks on the pitted, uneven very narrow trail. Tamarack, fir, western red cedar, and white bark pine trees grew in abundance, a thick, lush forest surrounding them, sentinels providing intertwining canopy to shelter them.
“Bandit, three o’clock,” Nico said. “Slow down and let me bail.”
“We can’t stay inside this vehicle and fight,” Azami said. “I want Daiki under cover.”
“Hold on, Nico.” Sam still wasn’t convinced they could trust any of the Yoshiies, but he was tasked with their safety. “I’m getting us there.” He zigzagged through the trees, missing wide trunks by inches, knowing the helicopter coming after them would have a much more difficult time in the heavier canopy.
“Incoming,” Kadan reported.
Sam jerked the wheel in the only direction he could, scraping the bark from a western red cedar tree and spinning the SUV nearly onto its side He reversed his direction and took the trail that would bring them closest to the bunkers they’d scattered through the hills. Each bunker was hidden by fallen trees. Brush was en
couraged to grow around the entrances so that from air or even on the ground, they were impossible to detect.
The explosion was loud, trees splintering as smoke and debris erupted into the sky and rained down, blanketing the area. Clearly the helicopter was trying to drive them out of cover.
“Bail, now,” Sam said. “I’ll lead them away.”
It was another point in his argument that all three of the visitors were seasoned warriors when neither Daiki nor Eiji hesitated, leaping from the vehicle along with Nico and Kadan. Sam slammed his foot on the gas and spun the SUV, the doors slamming closed. The back refused to latch, swinging open again, but Azami caught the handle and closed it fast before they briefly showed themselves to the helicopter and once again disappeared in a blast of dust and debris under the forest canopy.
“You have to get out,” Sam ordered. “Kadan and Nico can protect you three while I draw them away.”
Azami climbed into the front seat, dragging her case with her. “Eiji can protect my brother. Don’t worry about me.”
Confidence permeated her voice. In any case, he didn’t have time to argue. Another explosion rocked the ground in front of them and smoke reduced visibility to zero. The helicopter was attempting to herd them, and that meant they had ground forces.
“Get out now,” Sam said, as he slammed on the brakes and shut down the vehicle. He was already leaping out, not waiting to look to see if she followed him. She was far too calm and experienced not to realize the vehicle was a liability to them.
He raced through the smoke away from the others, Azami on his heels. As soon as he got to the edge of the swirling smoke, he held up his hand and dropped low into the thick vegetation. Azami dropped with him. The sound of an engine firing up off to their left was loud. A second engine joined the first, from the right. Sam swore aloud.
The trap was a neat little box, and that told Sam this plan had been in the works awhile. Someone had come into the forest and scouted alternate trails the GhostWalkers took and set their ambush. This was no sudden decision hastily put together the moment Azami had filed her flight plan. Well thought out and carefully executed meant experienced warriors. The helicopter and multiple Jeeps manned with soldiers of some sort meant money.
“Get the hell out of here, stay on your belly, and crawl away from me. Try to make your way back to the others. Identify yourself or Kadan or Nico might shoot you when you come up on them. They’ve got us boxed in and it’s going to get ugly fast.”
“I’m familiar with ugly,” Azami said. “Lead the way.”
Sam turned his head. She had a bow and arrows slung over one shoulder and a very sharp knife hanging from her belt. He caught a glimpse of a gun when she slipped closer to him, using her toes and elbows. Yeah, she was no sweet businesswoman needing protection. He didn’t mind being right about her at all. He flashed a quick grin and slithered over the top of the small mound of leaves to slide down the slope into the ravine below.
“Someone knew you were coming,” he said as he led the way into an animal maze inside deep brush.
“Or they’re after one of you,” Azami pointed out. “I don’t allow my brother into a situation I haven’t checked out thoroughly, and your own government seems to have people who want you all dead.”
He didn’t turn his head to look at her. What was the use? Her expression gave nothing away. “That’s classified and you shouldn’t have that information.”
“You’re not the only people who investigate thoroughly before they walk into the lion’s den. I take my brother’s protection very seriously.”
Sam liked the soft, melodic quality to her voice, and it sucked big-time that he even noticed it, let alone allowed it to affect him when they were surrounded by danger. Maybe that was the problem—wasn’t danger supposed to heighten attraction?
He dug his toes into soft dirt and propelled himself up the slope, signaling her to stay quiet. The first vehicle was just ahead. He could hear their voices, hushed but clear, traveling through the forest. Moving slightly, he caught a brief look at the enemy through the heavy foliage. They were partially hidden by heavy brush, and he’d have to go down a slope and up another to reach them.
“Wait for the spotter, Tony, he’s swinging back around,” a man standing behind the Jeep advised.
“Where the hell are they?” Tony, the driver, tapped out his impatience while the other three soldiers surrounding the Jeep exchanged a quick, annoyed look. Clearly they were far more experienced than their driver and had more patience.
Sam knew his biggest problem was the eye in the sky. Most likely they could see the heat from their bodies, otherwise the copter would be useless in the thick canopy. Azami must have realized the same thing. She rolled out to the edge of the open, coming up on one knee as she strung an arrow into her bow, aiming up toward the empty sky. She went perfectly still, leaves and twigs caught in her hair and papering her very expensive pin-striped suit so that she nearly blended in with her surroundings.
Sam took advantage of her change of position. All he needed was to get his enemy in clear sight, and he preferred to do so without an audience. He dug his elbows into the soft dirt and leaves, scuttling up the slope like a lizard until he was able to look over a rotting log. Three men, armed with automatic weapons, stood beside a Jeep. They were dressed like hunters, but their weapons were for killing men. The driver sat at the wheel, looking up toward the sky, eager to get on his way.
The wash from the helicopter struck Sam before the overgrown dragonfly came dancing through the sky. The door was open and a man crouched just inside, an automatic weapon cradled in his arms. The pilot was skilled, maneuvering through the heavy canopy to give his gunner the best advantage.
Azami calmly let her arrow fly, sending it on its way and instantly following with a second so fast the two shots were nearly simultaneous. The first arrow went through the throat of the gunner, and the second took the pilot through his eye. At once the helicopter lurched like a giant wounded bird.
Sam wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Teleportation was something he’d studied and tried to understand on an intellectual level. He had taken part in the research and knew there were several studies under way—including at Samurai Telecommunications—that were on the verge of discovering just how it all could be done, but not with a human being. In theory, the person teleporting would be reproduced and then destroyed while his copy ended up somewhere else. He knew how it worked on things, transporting particles, but not how he was able to do it so smoothly. He no longer cared about the how—maybe he could really move faster than light and he simply appeared to teleport.
Sam projected his body to that spot directly behind the man at the rear of the vehicle. The mercenary’s attention was directed to the sky, his eyes wide with shock, his fingers around his gun without a real understanding of what just happened. Sam gripped the mercenary’s head in two very large, strong hands and wrenched, dropping him onto the ground, neck broken. Another burst of speed had him behind the man who had stepped out on the passenger side. Sam used a knife, dragging him backward, lowering him to the ground, and moving once more.
To move numerous times with that burst of speed was dangerous, causing his stomach to churn and his mind to go fuzzy around the edges. He’d made two kills before the helicopter had even begun to spin out of control. He came up behind the third soldier fast, grasping his head and giving him a quick, decisive jerk. He had always been abnormally strong, and the enhancements as well as his physical training had added to his natural strength. He dropped the dead man and crouched low just as Azami’s third arrow took the driver straight through his neck. The Jeep rocketed forward as the dead man’s foot stomped down hard, slamming into the tree ahead.
The chopper came down with the sound of metal grinding and men screaming. Still in a crouch, Sam looked down the slope to Azami. His vision was blurred and his head screaming at him.
“You’re damned good with that bow.”
She
bowed slightly. “A little known fact—samurai were renowned with bows and arrows long before the sword. And there were female samurai, some very famous.”
“I have your father to thank,” he guessed.
“That you do.” Her eyebrow rose slightly. “You’re pretty fast. I didn’t even see you make your move on them and that’s unusual for me.”
“You were fairly occupied making certain you took out the helicopter—and thank you for that.”
She nodded solemnly. “You’re very welcome.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said. A second vehicle was close.
“That’s stating the obvious,” Azami flashed a small smile and deliberately looked around at the thick forest of trees.
He found himself smiling to himself with grudging respect in spite of the situation as he crouched down beside the last man he’d killed. She was a woman to stand and fight with a man, not run when there was adversity or danger. And why the hell had that thought crossed his mind? Her scent was driving him crazy, even there, out in the open.
“I don’t recognize any of them,” he said. “No IDs on them, but they look like typical mercs to me. Guns for hire. Have you seen them before?”
Thorn made her way to Sam’s side, careful to stay in the brush as much as possible. She studied each face of the fallen men carefully as Sam quickly searched for any means of identification. She noted that he passed the face of his watch over the bodies but also the vehicle and license plate.
“I don’t recognize them either. If they were looking to kidnap my brother, they certainly went about it wrong.”
“Have there been threats?”
“There are always threats against Daiki and the company,” Thorn said.
Each time Sam’s eyes met hers, she felt a peculiar brushing of butterfly wings in her stomach. Very light, but the sensation made it difficult to breathe. She loved his dark eyes and the way his gaze drifted over her almost like the lightest touch of fingers. “Nothing stood out lately that made either Eiji or me become more concerned than usual. Perhaps the threat was to you.”
GW10 Samurai Game Page 5