by Lori Ryan
And it sucked that he was so damn transparent that clearly Eleanor’s team could see through him with no trouble at all.
Fantastic. He hoped like hell they didn’t look down on her or see her as anything less than professional because of him.
Duff stepped closer to Marcus. “Sometimes you can like a person, but still be willing to take a little extra cash if you were assured that person wouldn’t really be hurt. Maybe somebody told you they were just trying to scare Eleanor and you thought, what could it hurt to make a little money on the side if she’s not going to get hurt?”
Marcus turned an even darker shade of green. He continued shaking his head and seemed to be looking at Heath for help.
Heath blew out a long breath. He was more and more convinced that whoever had leaked the information about Eleanor’s flight wasn’t on this team. Wasn’t in country with them.
Eleanor had assured them that she was close to making an agreement happen with Demir. She was pretty sure they would have the release of the hostages within the next 24 hours, and she and Demir would be signing off on terms that would get the US one step closer to ridding the region of ISIS and Al Qaeda. Or at least hamstringing the organizations enough that they weren’t able to do the kind of damage they had in past years.
They all wanted to see that happen. They all wanted to see the terrorist bastards who had done so much harm and spread so much of their sick twisted message go down.
The secure sat phone lit up and he and his teammates shared a look that said they agreed this questioning was going nowhere.
“Okay Marcus,” Merlin said, standing, “we’ll let you head on back to the rest of the group. We’ll be going back to the compound soon.”
Duff walked Marcus back to the room where Eleanor and her team were waiting with Jangles and Zip watching them.
Merlin picked up the sat phone and answered while Heath tried to calm the frustration coursing through him. He hated thinking that the closer they got to an agreement with Demir the more likely it was that the attacks on Eleanor would increase.
“Yes, sir. Understood.” Merlin switched off the phone and set it down, turning to look at Heath.
“What is it?” Heath had a sinking feeling in his gut.
“State Department is putting a backup plan in place. They aren’t convinced the talks are going to get them where they need to be on this and there’s pressure from a lot of people to get those doctors and nurses out of there.”
“And?” Heath asked, knowing there was more. Eleanor would be pissed if they pulled the plug on her talks.
Merlin continued. “They’ve pulled in Delta Team Two. They’d been doing recon on the bunker for the last twelve hours. They’re ready to move with us backing them if the talks don’t pan out.”
He was talking about a team they were good friends with and had done a lot of work with in the past, Delta Team Two. Trigger, Lefty, Brain, Oz, Lucky, Doc, and Grover were damned good men.
Men Heath would want beside him on any mission. Still, he knew this conversation wasn’t headed in a direction he was going to like.
Heath wanted to rail about them not knowing this was happening all this time, but the military was like that. If they wanted shit compartmentalized they did it and no one got to tell them to fuck off for it. You didn’t get to tell Uncle Sam to fuck off.
He thought of all Eleanor had put into these talks. She’d put her life on the line for them. And it was all about to fall to shit.
Chapter 24
Eleanor was on the phone with her boss when Heath entered the room. Her team was watching her from the table and she could tell they’d picked up on the fact something was wrong.
Which was putting it mildly.
“You can’t talk them out of this?” She asked Cheryl, knowing Cheryl would have already done all she could.
“Deputy Director Hughes is pushing hard. He’s got enough support from the Joint Chiefs at this point to back the raid.”
“When is it going to happen?”
“All I know is that it will be in the next twenty-four hours. It’s up to the Delta team on the ground to decide when they move in.”
Eleanor turned away from Heath. “Then I need to go back in there. If I don’t, Demir will know something’s up and he’ll put more people on the hostages.”
She could hear Cheryl’s sigh on the other end so she pressed her point.
“Besides, if I can get an agreement in place, we don’t need to put anyone at risk going in. I’m close, Cheryl. It’s not too late to salvage this.”
Eleanor heard Heath’s curse behind her. She didn’t dare look at him. She would battle this out with her boss.
“You know I’m right Cheryl. It’s the right thing to do. We need this agreement to stop the chain of weapons heading into terrorist hands. If we can make this work, we need to do it.”
“Alright. But you listen to the team that’s in place with you. If they think it’s too risky or you’re in danger, if they say bail, you bail.”
Eleanor finished the call knowing full well she wouldn’t convey that last bit of information to her handlers. If Heath knew her boss said he was in charge, he’d find a way to call off the talks now. She wasn’t an idiot. If they said they needed to pull her when the hostage raid began, she’d listen to them. But she was going back in to try to make this agreement happen and free those hostages without bloodshed.
Chapter 25
“Not fucking happening,” were Heath’s first words. “You’re essentially talking about making yourself a decoy while we get those hostages out. That’s too fucking dangerous, Eleanor.”
Eleanor looked past Heath to her team who were watching, riveted, as thought they were enjoying the latest episode in their favorite soap opera.
“Guys, can you give us a minute to talk?” She asked and then waited while they shuffled out of the room.
When she looked back to Heath, his arms were crossed, muscles bulging and eyes glowering in a stance that said “no way in hell” in no uncertain terms.
She wanted to say “you’re not the boss of me,” but caught herself in time.
“This is my job, Heath. And I’m good at it. You need to back off and let me do it.”
His eyes flashed darker, if that was even possible. “You weren’t sent here to be a diversion for a rescue operation. You could be killed doing that.”
She leveled him with a look and crossed her own arms. She didn’t have the advantage of that bolstering up her arm muscles to the point of distraction the way he did but she didn’t care.
“If we pull me from the talks now, he’ll know exactly what’s happening. And you can pull me out at the last minute, when it’s too late for him to do anything about it. You’ll be right outside the room when we meet and you know there’s only one exit to that room. What is he going to do?”
Heath seemed to seethe and she could see he was clenching his teeth. He unhinged them long enough to yell. “What is he going to do? How about kill you? How about that?”
His team came in behind him but she ignored them. She had faith in Heath’s ability to take care of her. This was a man who’d grown so much from the boy she once knew. He was sharp and strong and so damned capable. There was none of the wild kid who used to bluster his way through shit.
This man knew how to keep her safe. She was sure of that.
Now she had to convince him. “He’ll have no reason to do that if you don’t give him a reason to. We can keep my team here if you want. Beth can come with us but I can send her back to the hotel for something so they don’t suspect anything. Then you’ll just interrupt and pull me out saying there’s been an emergency at the last minute.”
Her hands clenched in frustration. Why was he treating her like this? She had a job to do. She thought he’d have her back at that.
Merlin spoke from behind her. “We just got the call, Woof. She’s going in. She gets one more shot at this agreement. Team Two will be watching the bunker. If they see t
he chance to go in, they’ll take it and we’ll pull Eleanor.”
The curses that came from Heath’s mouth weren’t pretty.
That was okay. She didn’t need him to be happy. She just needed him to let her do her job.
Chapter 26
“Then I believe we have an agreement, Ms. Bonham. I will release the hostages 24 hours from now and your government will give me the agreed-upon satellite images,” Demir said.
He stood with several of his advisors behind him. His brother sat in the corner texting. It was where he’d been for the entirety of the talks. It was good because that meant he wasn’t over at the bunker. As one of Demir’s main fighters and the leader of his military forces, it helped to know he wasn’t where the raid would take place if it had to happen.
Eleanor hesitated a beat at his insistence on the 24 hours, but she supposed that he wanted time to set up the exchange for the images. She wouldn’t be involved in that. That handover would happen through a military team, maybe even Heath’s team, after she went back to the US.
Her job was done. There would be no written document between her government and Demir. Nothing that anybody could trace back to show what the US government was doing in the region. But she’d done it. Thanks to this agreement, they would get the support they needed to shut off the weapons trade and they’d get the hostages out without anyone having to put their lives on the line.
Heath and Duff were outside the door here and Merlin had taken Beth back to the hotel, so they wouldn’t be in the line of fire, but Zip and Jangles were with Delta Team Two at the bunker. She felt better knowing they would be safe now instead of headed into a situation where they could be hurt or even killed.
She nodded and held out her hand. “We have an agreement.”
The watch on Demir’s arm vibrated and he glanced at it before tapping something to dismiss the alert.
He grinned as he shook her hand. “Will you do me the honor of joining my brother and I for dinner before you leave?”
“I would be honored, but first I need to let my people know we have an agreement in place.” If she didn’t the raid might go ahead and that couldn’t happen.
They stood and Farid’s brother came forward. He leaned in as if he were going to speak to Demir as he’d done so many times in the last week. But this time, he turned at the last minute and grabbed her. He covered her mouth, his hand hard and unforgiving as he clamped down on her. And then she felt the bite of something in her arm.
A syringe. She wanted to kick out knowing if she could just make a sound, Heath would be in the room in a heartbeat. But someone had her lower body. She felt instantly heavy like any movement was too much. She was slogging through mud. Or cement.
She fought to move, to do anything to let Heath know something was wrong. He and Duff were right outside the door. All she needed to do was to make a noise. To knock over something.
Her body was numb and unresponsive. She watched in horror through bleary eyes as two of Demir’s advisors moved the chairs they’d been sitting in moments ago and lifted a trap door in the floor.
The rug was attached to the door. Once it was closed from the inside, no one would be able to tell how she’d been taken from the room or where she’d gone.
There was no time for her to do anything to stop what was happening. She tried to fight whatever they’d injected her with but it was like fighting against a tidal wave as blackness crashed over her.
Chapter 27
Heath was nowhere near as calm as he needed to be for this op. He and Duff were outside the door to the room where the talks were taking place, just as they had been countless times this week. But his whole body physically ached to go in and pull Eleanor out of there.
She’d been right that if they stopped the talks, Demir would have been suspicious, but still, it didn’t mean she should be in there putting herself at risk.
Fuck, he hated this.
Still, Zip and Jangles were with Trigger and Lefty and the guys at the bunker. They’d tip them off the minute they made the decision to move and they’d give them time to get Eleanor out. He trusted them. Team Two was a good team.
He tried to relax his muscles. His arm was nearly fully healed and the little pinches of pain he felt from time to time were easy to ignore. Which was good. He needed to be ready for anything right now if he was going to keep Eleanor safe.
Their comms crackled as the channel opened and he heard Zips’ voice in his ear.
“Something went wrong. We’re taking fire from inside the bunker. Get Eleanor out of there. Get her out, now!”
Heath didn’t need to be told twice. He and Duff turned and Duff got them into the room with a boot to the door.
The empty room.
Heath moved in, weapon raised, heart slamming out a panicked rhythm in his chest.
She was gone. Fuck, she was gone! How the hell was this happening?
Zip spoke again. “We’re taking the bunker. Clear out of there.”
Heath was cursing up a blue streak as Duff answered. “Eleanor is missing. Going after her.”
The words gutted Heath. The room had no windows and no other door. He knew they didn’t have much time before the fighting broke out here, too. Demir’s soldiers were all over the compound. They’d be coming for them as soon as they found out about the raid at the bunker.
“Watch our six,” he said to Duff as he lowered his weapon and started scanning the room for the way out.
There. The chairs that had been in one corner earlier now stood in front of the large desk on the other side of the room.
He went to where they had been and checked the rug. “Trap door,” he said to Duff who came to provide cover as he lifted the door.
They looked down into a tunnel that was dimly lit. At the bottom, he could make out a shoe. Eleanor’s shoe.
His mind screamed as he tried to figure out how long ago they could have taken her. Had he heard anything from inside the room? Maybe something his mind had automatically dismissed as normal, but that might have been her trying to call out for him.
His gut churned and nausea hit as he thought of her trying to call to him and not getting the help she needed.
Duff gave him a nod and Heath lowered himself into the tunnel, raising his weapon. Duff dropped down after him, pulling the trap door shut. With any luck, Demir’s men would think they’d left and wouldn’t follow them down the tunnel. They needed to find Eleanor and get her out safe.
They had to. He couldn’t begin to think about any other ending than that.
“I’m coming for you, Nori,” he said under his breath as he moved. “Hang on. I’m coming.”
Chapter 28
Eleanor groaned as someone slapped her again.
She was surprised to see it was Demir. Her mind was fuzzy and she wasn’t seeing straight, but she’d expected Farid to be the one hitting her not Demir.
“Traitorous American whore. Were the talks even real or was this all your government’s distraction?”
Eleanor tried to speak but couldn’t. Besides, he was partially right. She had been sent in as a distraction. But she’d genuinely hoped she could end this without any gunfire.
What had happened to make him take her like this? And would he release her?
A sob tore from her chest at the thought that she might never get out of here. Heath would come for her. Of that she had no doubt. But would he get killed in the process?
They were in an underground tunnel. It was carved out from the rock and only caged bulbs lit the area, not doing a very good job of it.
She was tied to a chair in an alcove along the tunnel. Would they wait here? Is this where she would be held while they negotiated her release? Would they negotiate?
Her mind was quick to provide memories of terrifying videos of hostages being beheaded. She felt sick.
But they hadn’t hurt the doctors and they had been ready to release them. Surely they would negotiate for her.
But the rage in Demir’
s eyes was undeniable. Whatever was happening, it was bad. He looked wild with anger. And not at all like he was thinking clearly.
Terror coursed through Eleanor and she watched as Farid and Demir’s advisors tried to pull him back from her.
He shook them off. He held a gun in one hand but he reached out and slapped her hard again. “She’s going to tell us all she knows.”
Farid was there pulling on his brother’s arm again. “We need her alive if she’s going to be any use to us. If they breach the bunker and get Asil, we need to have a bargaining chip to get him back.”
Eleanor tried to focus her mind. How far had they taken her? Would Heath be able to track her or had she been out for hours?
“I will get my son back!” Demir raged.
What was he talking about? Eleanor knew Demir had a son named Asil and another named Vadik. She hadn’t seen either at the compound and had assumed they weren’t there.
The drugs pulled at her mind, threatening to pull her under again.
Then time slowed as Farid looked at his phone, his face going white at whatever he’d read there.
“What is it?” Demir demanded, turning away from her. Eleanor’s head lolled and she tried to straighten up. To look around. That was what she should be doing, right? Looking for a way out.
She couldn’t lift her head.
The cry she heard next was guttural and raw. The sound of heartache.
It came from Demir. She opened her eyes in time to see him spin as he raised his gun.
Time slowed and she knew there was no getting away from this. There was no way for her to stop what was about to happen. Still, her instincts screamed at her to move. To try to live. To do all she could to get out of the way of those bullets.
She shoved herself to the side, trying to throw herself over and out of his way. It didn’t work. She felt the chair tip but she was too late.
He shot her. Once, twice. Pain seared her stomach. It spread. It was everywhere and all encompassing. And it drowned her, swamping her in pain so strong she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.