by Elle James
“And what was that?” Bull asked.
“You remember at the hotel, when the guards were firing their weapons and people were running and shouting, trying to get out?”
Bull nodded. “I remember.”
“I saw Saka standing up against the wall. He made no move to leave the building. It was as if he didn’t fear being shot, and he was looking to make sure the guards got who they were supposed to.”
“The Minister of Justice,” Bull said.
Layla nodded. “I didn’t realize what he was doing then. But now, it all makes sense. He ordered the attack that killed the Minister of Justice. When I called him on it, he more or less admitted to it because he figured I wouldn’t live long enough to tell anybody.”
“Then he should be running scared since you’ve been freed.” Bull’s brow dipped. “And you’ll be in danger of Hasan Saka targeting you again. He’ll want to shut you up.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m not afraid of Hasan Saka. I think he has a bigger problem. I overheard him talking on his cellphone to someone, telling him that we knew who had set up the attack on the hotel. That someone was ordering him to kill us.”
“You think someone even higher up was responsible for the attack at the hotel that killed the Minister of Justice?” Rucker asked as he joined them.
Layla nodded. “The Turkish president.”
Rucker whistled. “And Hasan Saka let someone go who can tell the truth and expose the president. A president who is already unpopular with the people. When they find out…if you thought that riot downtown was bad…” Rucker whistled.
Layla nodded. “Exactly.”
“I don’t think Hasan Saka will live through the next twenty-four hours,” Bull said.
“The president will have his men take him out,” Rucker said. “And now that he knows that Layla was involved, he might come after her as well.”
“Which means I have to leave the country,” Layla said.
“Layla, sweetheart,” Bull took her hands, “you realize even if you leave the country, they can still get to you.”
“I can change my name. Surely there’s some kind of witness protection program I can join.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. They’d still have a hold over you. One that you would not be able to ignore.”
Layla’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t…” Her eyes widened. “My father. They could take my father hostage to get me. We have to get to my father quickly.” Layla pulled free of Bull’s hands and ran for the door. “We have to warn him.”
Bull caught her before she reached the door of the warehouse. “Hold on. You can’t just run all the way back to the embassy. I sent Dash and Dog back for the vehicles. They should be here in a few minutes.”
Layla paced as they waited in front of the warehouse for the vehicles to appear. She stopped in mid-stride. “I need to contact my father.”
“I have his cellphone,” Bull said, holding the device up. “You’d have to contact the embassy.”
“Give me a phone,” she demanded.
He held it out.
She snatched it from his hands, entered the number for the embassy and waited for the automated system to allow her to key in the extension for her father’s office. Her father would be waiting there since they had his cellphone. She put the phone on speaker.
Her father answered on the first ring.
“Daddy,” she said.
“Layla, baby, tell me you’re all right?” he said, his voice strained. “I was so worried.”
“I’m okay. Bull found me in time. Daddy, I’m worried about you. I need you to get out of the embassy and hide nearby until we can get there. I think my assistant, Pinar Erim, is a mole inside our embassy. You need to avoid her at all cost,” she said. “Have you seen her this evening.”
Her father answered, his tone odd, “As a matter of fact, I have. She’s standing right in front of me with a gun.”
Chapter 13
Layla’s face blanched.
Bull wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close.
“Layla,” her father said. “Don’t come back to the embassy.”
“You will come back to the embassy, or I will kill your father,” Pinar said.
“Don’t do it, Layla,” the ambassador said.
“Daddy,” Layla sobbed, “I can’t leave you to those people.”
“If you do not show up at the embassy in the next thirty minutes,” Pinar said, “my people will burn this building to the ground with your father in it.”
“No,” Layla cried out. The line went dead.
Two vehicles pulled up in front of the warehouse.
“Blade, you and Dawg take Miriam,” Rucker said. “Get her to where she wants to go. She needs to leave this country now. The human traffickers know who she is. She won’t be safe.”
Miriam nodded. “Just get me to my people. They’ll take care of me.”
“Lance, you go with them.” The three men piled into the vehicle with Miriam and took off. Layla and Bull got into the backseat of the other vehicle, along with Mac, Dash and Tank. Rucker took the wheel.
“How long does it take to get to the embassy from here?” Layla asked.
“It took us about thirty minutes to get here,” Bull said.
Her lips firmed, and she leaned over Rucker’s shoulder. “Make it less.”
Rucker nodded and pressed his foot to the accelerator.
Bull held one of Layla’s hands with his M4A1 rifle propped between his knees.
“My father is the only family I have left,” Layla whispered.
Bull squeezed her hand. “I know.” He wanted to tell her that they’d get there on time. That they’d take care of her father, and that he wouldn’t die. But he didn’t want to make any promises he couldn’t keep. “We’ll do the best we can.”
“Do you think Pinar is working for Hasan or the president?” Layla asked.
“How long has Pinar worked for the US embassy?”
“I’m not certain. She was there when we got there. I think that they’d said she’d been there for about six years.”
“About the same amount of time that the president has been in power,” Rucker commented from the front seat.
“How will we get into the embassy?” Layla said.
“You and I will walk through the front,” Bull said. “They’ll be expecting us. The rest of the team can come in through the hidden passageway.”
Thirty minutes might as well have been a lifetime for both Bull and Layla. Each minute could be the last for Layla’s father.
As they neared the embassy, Bull had Rucker drive to the back side of the compound where he pointed out the hidden doorway.
Dash, Tank and Mac jumped out, found the doorway and gave a thumbs up when they did.
Rucker drove the vehicle around to the front of the embassy and dropped Layla and Bull off at the gate.
It felt strange going through the gate like normal when Bull knew what awaited them inside.
After they passed the gate guards, Layla leaned close to Bull. “I wanted to tell them so badly that we needed help inside, but I’m not sure what Pinar will do to my father if she’s cornered. And I don’t know how many more of the staff inside the embassy, or on the gates, are in cahoots with her. They could have my father surrounded. Then what? We’re just walking into a trap.”
“But we have the team making their way inside,” Bull said. “And once the others drop Miriam where she needs to go, they’ll join us here at the embassy, too.”
“What if Pinar knows about the tunnel? What if she has people guarding it?”
“Our guys can handle it.” He tapped his headset. “Comm check,” he whispered.
One by one the men on the grounds reported in.
“Any trouble in the tunnel?” he asked as they approached the embassy’s front door.
“None,” Dash said. “We left Tank at the entrance to guide Rucker in. Right now, Dash and I are in the l
ibrary.”
“Take the stairwell down to the bottom. The ambassador’s office is on the first floor. We’re just coming through the front entrance.” Once again, Bull was without a weapon. He had left his in the vehicle with Rucker since he couldn’t have gotten it past the guards at the front gate.
When they entered the foyer of the embassy, Bull put his hand in front of Layla, using his body to block hers on their way to her father’s office. As they walked through the hallway, several men wearing the uniforms of the Turkish gate guards lined the hallway, each carrying a rifle. Bull counted six total. When they reached her father’s office, the door was closed and a guard stood in front of it. When they approached, he opened the door and stepped back. Inside her father’s office, there were no fewer than four more guards, all dressed as gate guards for the embassy.
Bull instantly sized up his opponents.
All four carried rifles, and the sheer fact that there were four of them gave him pause. He could handle two easily. Four, spread out in the room, was more of a challenge, and one that would put Layla and her father in danger of being hit with the crossfire. Not to mention that he was completely unarmed, except for the knife in his pocket.
Pinar stood beside the ambassador with a small handgun pointed at his head.
Layla tried to dart around Bull to get to her father. “Daddy.”
Bull stuck his hand out and grabbed her arm to keep her from going that direction.
“Let him go,” Layla demanded.
Pinar spoke to the guards in Turkish. “Tie them up.”
When the guards approached Bull, he went into fight mode and threw a sidekick at the first man who reached him. He cocked his arm and hit the other one behind him with an elbow to the larynx. Before he could regroup, the other two were on him.
He fought hard, four against one. Even when they had him pinned to the ground, he twisted and bucked. His earbuds were knocked free of his ears, cutting off radio communications between him and his team. He was on his own.
Bull couldn’t give up. Layla and her father depended on him. He renewed his efforts to fight free of the men holding him down.
“Keep it up, and I’ll put a bullet in her head,” Pinar said.
Bull looked up to find Pinar holding a gun to Layla’s head. The guard with the bloody nose held both of Layla’s arms behind her back. She couldn’t move or duck a bullet.
Bull stopped fighting. He had to buy time. Time for his team to get to them. “Don’t hurt her.”
“You don’t have much say in the matter, do you?” Pinar’s lip curled on one corner.
“What are you going to do to us?” Layla asked.
“It’s not what we’re going to do, it’s what the rioters are going to do.” Pinar tilted her head toward the window. “As we speak, a mob is moving this way. They’re under the impression that the US Ambassador orchestrated the murder of the Minister of Justice at the hotel tonight. They’re angry, and they want the US out of our country.”
The guards tied Bull’s wrists behind his back and trussed his ankles. They did the same with Layla and her father, leaving them lying on their sides in the middle of the ambassador’s office.
“Our president will be happy to know that the rioters have served justice for the death of the minister.” Pinar gave half a smile. “And don’t think that your men will be able to rescue you from this. We trapped them in the library, and the escape tunnel has been closed off for good.”
Pinar nodded to one of the guards.
The man left the room and returned with a five-gallon jug. He poured gasoline all around the inside walls of the office. Bull fought to break free of the rough ropes they’d used to tie his wrists. The more he tugged the tighter they seemed to get.
Pinar left the room and all the guards followed but one. The last guard struck a match and threw it into the gasoline. As the door closed behind the guard, Bull could hear the metallic sound of a key turning in the lock.
Fire erupted around the room, surrounding them in seconds, the flames consuming the fuel on the floor.
They didn’t have much time to get out before the fire and smoke claimed them. But how could they get out when they were tied up?
Then Bull remembered the pocketknife in his pocket. He scooted across the floor toward Layla. “Can you reach into my pocket?”
“I don’t know.” Her hands were tied behind her back just like his were.
“Try,” he said. “Try to get into my pocket. There’s a pocketknife in there. See if you can dig it out.”
She scooted her back toward him and reached as far as she could until she got both her hands into his pocket.
“I think I have it,” she said.
“Can you get it open?”
“I think so,” she said. Layla fumbled with the knife as the fire built and started consuming other things.
Bull counted the seconds, praying they would get out of there alive, not in body bags.
“Got it open,” Layla cried.
He reached behind him, found her hands and guided the knife to the ropes around his wrists. “Saw away,” he said, “And do it quickly. I don’t care if you cut me, just pull hard and take it through that rope.”
She sawed, working at it as best she could.
Once the flames had burned through the gasoline, they ate into the curtains by the windows. Smoke filled the air, rising up against the room’s high ceilings.
The ambassador coughed. “Is there anything I can do? Please, what can I do to help?”
“I’m working on it,” Layla said, tightly. “I’m getting there.” She tugged and pulled.
Bull could feel the strands snap, one at a time. When the blade cut through the last strand, he pulled his hands free, rolled over, took the knife from Layla and cut through the bindings on her wrists and ankles. Then he cut through the rope around his ankles. He handed the knife to Layla. “Free your father while I work on the door, so we can get out of here.”
He crawled on his hands and knees to the door to keep below the layer of smoke. As he suspected, somebody had locked it from the other side. Kicking it would do no good because it opened to the inside. He didn’t have time to work the hinges loose, and he’d need a crowbar to open it otherwise. He crawled across the floor back toward the windows. He yanked down the burning curtains and stomped out the flames. The windows offered no escape. They had iron bars on the outside to keep people from breaking in. Unfortunately, it kept those trapped inside from getting out that route. If he couldn’t get out from the doors or the windows, he had to find another way.
Through the window, he caught sight of a crowd moving their way, carrying flashlights, torches, rifles and machetes. They were chanting and appeared angry.
Bull’s gut knotted. He had to get Layla and her father out of that room quickly. If they didn’t die in the fire soon, they wouldn’t be able to escape the building or the rioters heading their way. The sound of gunfire erupted in the hallway outside the door.
“Stay down!” Bull yelled to Layla and her father. Bull grabbed a rug and beat at the flames, trying to put them out so that they wouldn’t die of smoke inhalation.
The gunfire ceased, and a voice called out. “Bull! Layla!”
Bull ran to the door and banged against the wooden panel. “We’re in here! The door’s locked. We’re trapped!”
Layla had taken over with the rug, beating at the other flames. Her father did the same.
“We’ve got company coming.” Bull yelled. “Rioters just breached the front gate.”
“Stand back from the door,” Rucker called out.
Bull moved away from the door. A moment later a small explosion splintered the doorframe. The door burst open, and Tank stood in the opening.
Rucker poked his head around the side. “Nothing a little C4 and Tank’s sidekick couldn’t handle. Come on, let’s get going.”
They ran to the stairwell and up to the floor where the library was.
“Pinar said that the
tunnel was shut off,” Bull said.
“I believe that was their intent.” Rucker pushed through the stairwell door. “Someone lobbed a grenade at the exit door. Tank happened to see it, picked it up and threw it back. The tunnel remains intact. The man who threw the grenade had a bad day.”
They ran up the staircase and down the hallway to the library. The door had been destroyed.
“She said she locked you guys in the library,” Layla said.
Mac chuckled. “Like the ambassador’s office…nothing a little C4 can’t handle.”
The sound of chanting and shouting was loud enough to reach their ears from down below.
“The embassy has been breached,” Ambassador Grey said.
Bull nodded. “Time to go.”
Rucker led the way, followed by Mac and Tank. The ambassador went next, and then Layla. Bull followed closely behind her. Dash had his back. They kept some space between them in case the tunnel was compromised. When they reached the exterior exit and stepped out into the street, a couple of vans stood waiting. Miriam Rogers poked her head out of the side door of one of them.
“Hurry up! Get in!”
“Where’s the rest of my team?” Rucker asked.
The sliding door on the second van opened, and Blade leaned out and grinned. “All present and accounted for.”
Bull helped Layla and her father into the van, and then got in beside them. Rucker and Mac climbed in, too. Tank and Dash dove into the second van. The driver punched the accelerator before the doors even closed.
Miriam tossed coveralls to each of them. “Put these on. You’re now employees of the Atatürk Oil Company.”
Bull noticed that all the people in the van wore matching coveralls.
“Since we all need a quick ride out of the country, I arranged one,” Miriam said. She handed each of them a ballcap with the same logo on it as the oil company.
Layla stuffed her hair up into the cap and pulled it down low over her forehead. “How did you know to come get us?”
Miriam smiled. “I told you I have a network. I heard there was a riot headed toward the US Embassy. I figured you guys would need a way out.”
Layla frowned. “How did you know where to pick us up?”