by Vanessa Kier
Seth jammed the phone in his pocket, then spun on his heel and stormed back the way he’d come. Bureh had some fucking nerve. Seth’s temporary employment didn’t begin until Saturday. There was nothing in his contract that said his future employers had any right to his time before then.
Yet his blackmailer wouldn’t care. If Bureh called to complain, he’d seize the opportunity and harm Seth’s family, thus binding him closer.
Shit.
There was no way in hell he was turning Kirra over. But these messages made it urgent to get Kirra to safety. Then Seth would backtrack, find the assassin, and end this all before the ones he cared about ended up hurt or dead.
And if the assassin decides to play with you some more?
In that case, he’d put his hand around the assassin’s and force the guy to pull the trigger.
His chest ached at the thought of saying good-bye to Kirra, but that was a small price to pay for her safety.
“Seth!” Kirra’s head poked out from the shelter. Her panicked expression eased when she spotted him. “Oh, thank God. I thought maybe the assassin got you.”
“No. Even if he did somehow manage to find the spot where we left the Range Rover, the storm would have washed away our trail. It would take a miracle for him to find us. We’re safe as long as we stay away from populated areas.”
“Okay.” She crawled outside and stood up. Seth watched the play of her breasts under her shirt as she put her hands behind her, then arched her back.
Glancing quickly away before his body got any ideas, he said, “We should eat, then get moving.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her pause. Yeah, that had come out pretty curt.
Her expression closed off as she raised her arms overhead and interlocked her fingers.
Ignoring the regret that tugged at his heart, Seth ducked down to grab his backpack. While Kirra continued stretching, he pulled out the MREs.
“How’s your headache?” she asked after she’d finished her routine.
“Gone.”
“That’s good.” She entered their shelter and returned carrying the same model water bottle that he had.
He nodded in approval. The advanced filtration system would allow them to refill the bottles from puddles or any other standing water without worrying about diseases or parasites.
Kirra snagged one of the MREs, then walked a few feet away before perching on a rock.
Dammit, he hated the distance between them.
This is for the best. Don’t let her get too attached to you. Not when you’re going to die.
He knew his conscience was right. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.
“You cried out in your sleep last night,” she said.
Shit. “Ah…”
“You kept calling for Michael. Several times you yelled ‘No’ while you punched invisible enemies.”
He took an involuntary step toward her. “Did I hurt you?”
She met his eyes. “No.”
Relief settled over him. He opened an MRE and took a swallow.
“This has something to do with those deaths you mentioned.”
He choked and spit out his food.
Kirra smiled smugly. “You might as well tell me the truth. I know you’re not a murderer.”
He grabbed his water bottle to give himself time to think.
She continued to eat her MRE, watching him expectantly.
“Not here,” he finally said. “Once we’re moving again, I’ll tell you what I can.”
She nodded.
Seth hurriedly ate a couple of MREs. After they’d packed away their trash, he pulled out his satellite phone. He put through another call to Dr. LaSalle, but again it went to voicemail. Seth frowned at the phone. Did he even have the correct number? He shrugged. It didn’t matter. Either the doctor called him back or he didn’t. For now, Seth would continue to escort Kirra north.
He glanced at the phone. Should he return Rick Martin’s call or not?
No. The truth was, he’d rather plead innocence at this point and pretend that he’d never heard the message. He didn’t want anyone interfering with his plans for Kirra.
He held out his phone to Kirra. “I want you to take this.”
“Why?” She tried to hand it back.
“Keep it.” He picked up the solar charger and detached the charging battery. “I’ll set the charger up so the phone will get power whenever the sun hits your backpack. This way, if something happens and we get separated, you can use the phone’s compass and GPS to navigate out of here and call for help.”
“No.” Alarm replaced the detachment on her face. “Seth, we’re not going to be separated.” She shoved the phone toward him.
Yes, they were. As soon as he turned her over to people who could protect her, he would leave. He closed her fingers over the phone. “Kirra, just humor me, okay?”
“Humor you, my ass. I should find another thick tree branch to knock some sense into you. Clearly that blow dislodged any common sense you have.”
“I want you safe.” He let his gaze bore into her, willing her to understand that this mattered, damn it.
After a long, tense staring contest that made him fear she wouldn’t give in, she huffed out a breath and raised her eyes to the sky. “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
She stuck the phone in an outside pocket of her backpack while he rigged up the phone charger.
“You still have my knife?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He checked the GPS coordinates on his watch, then nodded at the trees. “Let’s go.”
“Do you know where we’re going?” Kirra asked after a while.
“Of course. Pilots never get lost.”
Kirra snorted. “You’re in the jungle. Tell me how being a pilot has relevance?”
“We’re hard-wired to always know where we are, sweetheart.”
“Uh-huh. So. You owe me a story.”
Yeah, after she’d bared her soul to him, he supposed he did. She wasn’t going to turn him in to the U.S. military, and he liked the idea of one person knowing his side of the story.
“Okay.” He gathered his thoughts and made sure that his emotions were tightly locked away. “Three years ago, back in Southeast Asia. I flew helicopters for the U.S. Army’s special forces. My team had been assigned to an ancillary base tasked with hitting targets of strategic importance to the drug cartels who’d been threatening the national government’s control over the region.” He motioned to the trees on either side of the path. “Some parts of it weren’t much different from here. Jungle. Humidity. Other parts were totally different. There were mountains everywhere. Too many mountains. It gave the drug runners a lot of hidden valleys in which to hide. And it made flying reconnaissance all that much harder, especially when the rain or the fog came in.”
“You must have been pretty good to be part of such a team.”
“Yeah, I was. Flying helicopters is all I ever wanted to do. It felt like coming home every time I strapped myself into the cockpit. If I could spend all of my time in the air, I would.”
“So what happened?”
Seth swatted at a insect on his neck. He’d revisited that day in his nightmares countless times, reliving the sick horror and what-the-fuck outrage. As Kirra had witnessed, he still occasionally woke up screaming in denial and punching at the empty room. “My team had just destroyed our target. We were headed home when we were attacked by a squad of helicopters from our base.”
“Wait. What?!” Kirra said. “Your own side? Why?”
“We had no idea,” Seth said, feeling his emotions push to get out. He couldn’t let that happen. “They jammed our communications and fired on us without warning.” He pushed a branch out of his way, but it wasn’t this jungle he saw, but the dark jungle in Southeast Asia lit by the fire from Michael’s helicopter as it plummeted to the ground, then exploded. Pain and grief broke out of their prison and gripped him by the throat.
&nbs
p; No! If he let this darkness out, he might hurt Kirra.
He struggled to shove his emotions back into the mental lock box. After a few tries, he succeeded. But the effort left him sweating. And made it more difficult to reach deep inside for the calm detachment he needed to tell the rest of the tale.
“They blew up my squad’s tail helicopter,” he continued.
Michael’s voice screaming over the radio…
No. He had to stay cool. Stay calm. Even if he managed not to physically hurt Kirra, seeing him lose his shit would surely drive her away.
“God, Seth. I’m so sorry.”
“We fought back, even took down a couple of them, but of the four helicopters in my squad, only my helicopter survived. My helicopter was badly damaged. With the attackers in pursuit, I fled to the main base, which was closer.” Fury and fear had driven him to take risks in his flying that even with his reckless streak he wouldn’t have attempted otherwise. “Just before we reached radar range for the main base, the pursuing helicopters veered off and flew away. I thought we were safe.” Unable to completely keep his anger and bitterness under control, he gave a harsh laugh. “Instead, we were met by a team of hostile military police. My co-pilot was critically injured and was whisked off to the infirmary. I never saw him again.” He wished he’d had time to go back and find out what happened to Bobby. Just as he wished he’d been able to go back into the jungle to pull the bodies of his teammates out of the wreckage and give them a proper burial.
“What about you?”
“Since my wounds weren’t as serious, they arrested me.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. I spent a few cold hours bleeding in a cell before the MPs escorted me into an interrogation room. Then the situation took an even nastier turn.” Every time he thought he’d gotten over the betrayal, he remembered his time in that cell and wanted to scream at the injustice of it.
His hands shook. He clenched and unclenched his fists while he ruthlessly tamped down his emotions.
“Long story short, a team from the Criminal Investigation Command were investigating charges of corruption and drug running against the general in charge of the ancillary base.” Sick dread filled his belly, just as it had that day. “The general had told us that our missions undermined the support of the drug cartels, but in reality our targets had been locals who opposed the cartels.”
He swallowed heavily. “My team had wiped out hundreds of innocent people over the course of four months, including women and children. Because we used laser-guided missiles, we’d never actually flown close enough to realize that the targets didn’t fit within our usual parameters.”
“Oh, Seth.” Kirra tugged on his backpack.
He stopped and faced her. The sympathy on her face was so misplaced, he snarled, “Don’t feel sorry for me. It’s my fault those people are dead. I trusted the general. When he offered me a chance to be part of a secret force, I jumped at the opportunity to make a real difference.” He shook his head. “The general knew exactly what to say to me and my teammates. We’d become frustrated with the lack of progress we’d been making in the region. We wanted a chance to change that.”
He grimaced. “Yeah, we changed it all right. We killed innocent people, which not only helped enforce the control of the drug cartels, but undermined the reputation of the U.S. in the region. Some heroes we were.”
“You were manipulated,” Kirra said. “It’s not your fault.”
“We. Killed. People,” Seth ground out. “The very same people we were supposed to be protecting. Do you have any idea how I felt when the special agent in charge of the investigation showed me photos of the burned bodies of my victims? When I realized that it wasn’t an elaborate setup, but that I was truly responsible for killing women and children?” He’d hated himself so much, he’d almost thrown up. “We were supposed to be the good guys.”
“You didn’t know what you were doing was wrong.” Kirra got up in his face. “You believed you were killing bad guys. It’s horrible that you killed the wrong people, and of course you feel badly about it, but it’s not your fault.”
“You don’t fucking know what you’re talking about. It doesn’t fucking matter that no matter how many times I review the situation I can’t recall any clue that pointed to the general’s true intent. Those deaths will remain on my conscience until I die. How can I trust my judgment ever again? How can I count myself on the side of the good guys when so many people have been hurt or have died because of me?” The lid holding back his emotions cracked, threatening to spew out a geyser of guilt and grief, fear and pain. And anger. So much anger.
Anger at himself for being gullible enough to be deceived. Anger at the general for treating Seth and his men as mere pawns. Anger and guilt that Michael had died instead of Seth.
The acid-sharp emotions ate away at his tenuous restraint. His muscles tightened, preparing for violence.
“Seth?”
The look of sympathy in Kirra’s eyes nearly blew away the remaining threads of his control. He spun away from her, terrified that he might lash out. If he hurt her…
Staring blindly at the jungle, he sucked in deep breaths until he no longer felt compelled to do violence.
“It’s not your fault,” Kirra said.
“I’m done with your fucking psychoanalysis. Leave it alone.” Directing all his searing emotions into a fast walk, he attempted to leave her behind.
He had to get them out of this damn jungle to somewhere with not only a clearer line of sight to the telephone satellites, but with electricity he could use to charge the phone. The sporadic patches of light filtering down through the jungle canopy weren’t sufficient, and he needed to call Dr. LaSalle again.
The sun had dipped close to the horizon when Seth and Kirra stepped out of the trees and found themselves at the edge of a bluff overlooking a narrow strip of grass and bushes. The grassy area ran along the top edge of a river canyon. The late afternoon sun glinted off the water at the bottom.
On the other side of the canyon was a small, fenced-in industrial complex.
Seth held his arms out to the side so Kirra couldn’t walk past and nudged her back until the trees hid them.
“What’s wrong?” she murmured.
He lowered his arms and motioned for her to take a look while staying behind the protection of the trees.
After she’d studied the scene, she met his eyes. “Do you think this is a government facility? Or run by someone who might help us?”
“Unlikely, but I’ll check it out.”
He slipped out of his backpack, removed his binoculars, then hid the pack in some bushes. Frowning slightly at him, Kirra did the same with her pack.
He crawled into the line of bushes edging the top of the bluff and raised the binoculars. Kirra settled in beside him.
He estimated that the distance from the top of the bluff to the strip of grass and bushes below was at least twenty-five feet here, more to his right as the bluff rose before ending at the intersection with a second river canyon.
About fifty yards to their left, a one-vehicle trestle bridge spanned the river. A narrow dirt lane on this side of the river led left away from the base of the bridge and disappeared around a bend. Two bare strips of dirt indicated that the lane was used frequently enough to prevent weeds from growing where the tires hit.
At the far end of the bridge, two men guarded a single-armed, wooden gate. The gate wouldn’t stop a determined attacker, but the guards’ AK-47s would.
Beyond the gate, the road led up to a gate in a chainlink fence topped with barbed wire. Anyone passing in or out would have to get approval from the guards standing in front of the wooden guard shack.
On the other side of the fence, the road split to the right and the left. A paved parking lot held two dozen vehicles. Probably for employees who worked in the largest building—a squat, concrete block three stories high. To the left, Seth counted five outbuildings that appeared to mostly be storage she
ds and garages, plus four industrial holding tanks to hold liquids.
Seth cursed softly.
“What’s wrong?” Kirra murmured.
He handed her the binoculars. “Take a look.”
Chapter Eighteen
Kirra focused the binoculars. The setting sun turned the windows of the main building into squares of molten gold and crimson. “Hmm…Is this some sort of military facility?”
“No. See that orange patch on the guard’s uniforms? Those are Sankoh’s men. That’s probably a processing plant for illegal substances. I bet not far from here is a field for cultivating the raw ingredients.”
“I don’t see any foot patrols or dogs,” Kirra said. “We’re too far away for me to tell if they have security cameras.”
Seth chuckled beside her. “That’s my sneaky thief.”
Kirra’s breath caught. While she liked the admiration in his voice, she wasn’t happy about keeping her thief moniker. “I’m a retired thief,” she murmured.
“Okay.” He patted her on the shoulder.
“So, what are we going to do now?”
“We should—”
The chugging of an engine interrupted him. Kirra flattened herself to the ground. Next to her, Seth did the same. Returning her gaze to the binoculars, she watched as a rusted bakkie drove into view on their side of the river. Baskets overflowing with large leaves filled the cargo bed. A man in Sankoh’s uniform sat among the baskets, an AK-47 resting on his knees. The driver and the passenger were dressed in civilian clothing.
Seth grabbed Kirra’s arm and tugged. She glanced at him. He nodded toward the deeper cover of the bushes behind them. Kirra scooted backward. She’d moved only a few inches when the ground shifted beneath her. She threw herself to the right as the earth crumbled, taking Seth with it.
No!
She reached for him, but Seth plummeted down to the road. He landed hard on his back, accompanied by an avalanche of dirt and underbrush.
Kirra slapped her hand over her mouth to stop from screaming his name.
The bakkie shuddered to a stop a few meters from Seth. Kirra eased out of sight, stopping when the ground felt stable beneath her but she still had a view to the road.