by Desiree Holt
“Meet Steven Hofler from the Office for State and Local Law Enforcement. He’s our DHS liaison for this little party we’re having.”
Schumacher introduced him to everyone and he took the seat Nikki had been sitting in.
“Good to meet you all,” he told them. “Too bad it’s not under better circumstances, but if it was, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
“Steven and I have worked together once or twice before,” Schumacher said. “Our county is pretty low-key. Mostly ranches and quiet neighborhoods, even the more low-income ones. But once in a while some idiots think because of that they can sneak through here without notice.” He chuckled. “I’d go into details, but then I’d have to kill you.”
Slade nodded once. “No problem. We need to concentrate on this one right now, anyway.”
“Looks like some dangerous assholes have decided to shake things up around here.” Steven looked at Slade. “The brass has determined based on your information that these men are the same ones you and your team were charged with seeking information on in Niger. Convenient of them to show up so we didn’t have to go looking for them.” He looked around the table. “But they’re on a mission that puts several hundred thousand lives at stake.”
“You’ve discovered their goal?” Schumacher asked.
Hofler nodded. “Information was gathered in Washington and confidential informers are still being questioned. Our sources have uncovered information that they plan to set off bombs at the San Antonio Rodeo and Stock Show. Lucky for you, their target seems to be in Bexar County. Unlucky for them. We need to get on top of this.”
“You know we’ll give you whatever help you need,” Schumacher told him.
“I do, and thank you. We don’t know which day yet, but plans have to be made. I’ve set up a meeting for tomorrow morning with Sheriff Vasquez and several of his men. Slade, that meeting includes you and your people, as well as this young lady here.”
“Wait a minute.” Marc leaned forward. “Let’s leave her out of this.”
“I’d like to,” Hofler told him, “and I understand your feelings. But she spent significant time with the men and can give us invaluable information. Maybe by that time we’ll have more feedback, too. Maybe even gotten a hit from the facial recognition software.”
Schumacher quirked an eyebrow. “That fast?”
“Remote,” Hofler said, “but we’re crossing our fingers. In any event, we’re keeping everything in-house, not using any of our confidential sources. We don’t want one hint to leak out that we’re aware of what they have planned. Or, in fact, that the event today had anything to do with it.” He tapped the tablet in front of him. “DHS has given me a rough plan as to how we should handle this based on what we’ve learned so far. Here’s what we know and what we’ll need from all of you.”
* * * *
As Jamal drove into San Antonio, he paid careful attention to traffic and the speed limit, not wanting to attract any attention. He had no idea if the car had been reported stolen yet, but he wasn’t taking any chances on getting pulled over. He followed Interstate 10 all the way to downtown San Antonio, as he’d been directed. He did his best to ignore Malik’s moans in the back seat. Kasim had moved to sit with him, holding the man’s head in his lap and bathing his face.
I am sorry, my friend, that this happened to you. I never should have gotten you into this.
As if he could have stopped him. If anything, Malik was even more fervent than he was, ready to lay down his life for the cause. It made Jamal sick to realize that might be exactly what he was doing, but not in a way that would bring glory to him.
He followed the exact directions to a parking garage, drove in and all the way to the top level as he’d been instructed. A long gray panel van was taking up two parking spaces, but when Jamal approached, it backed up so he could move into one of them.
He had no sooner opened his door than a man in a tan shirt and brown pants was right there next to him, his face set in a rigid expression.
“I am Salman. You are positive you were not followed by anyone? No one came after the car?”
Jamal shook his head. “I was very careful. Besides, whoever the car belongs to was still in the mall.”
“Good. Where is the woman who worked on your friend’s leg? You disposed of her, right?”
Jamal swallowed. “We were not able to do that and still get away. We knew getting to where we could prepare for the mission was most important.”
The man studied him for a long moment, enough so Jamal began to squirm. The man, with him gave them a hard stare.
“You let the woman get away.” His tone was hard and accusatory.
“I tell you, I had no choice.” Jamal’s temper continued to fray. “If we had tried to move her to the car we borrowed, we risked all of us being shot or captured.”
“I am not at all happy with that,” Salman told them. The other man nodded agreement. “Fortunately, she has no idea of who you are.” He sighed. “But I do not like the sound of the man who was with her.”
Jamal shrugged. “What is there to know? Two lovebirds taking a vacation. Lucky for us one of them was a nurse. If you had allowed the driver who picked us up at the border to bring us directly to the apartment waiting for us, none of this would have happened.”
“We had to assure ourselves that you were not being tracked. We could not afford for you to lead anyone to our location. The man who shot your friend. What of him?”
Jamal was getting angry. “Listen. We were lucky to get away at all, after you abandoned us the way you did. I did not expect to have a man so cold and focused with a gun staying next door to me. What do you think he is?”
Salman thought for a moment but then shook his head. “Never mind. This is Texas. Everyone owns a gun and knows how to use it. We have had someone check and there is no police bulletin out for you, so it seems you have managed to get away clean.” He scowled. “But mind you, as soon as they get their shit together, the police will be looking for the two of you. A low profile is mandatory until it is time for the event.”
Jamal refrained from saying again that none of this would have happened if the idiot who’d picked them up hadn’t just dumped them in the middle of nowhere. And if whoever had been on the other end of those phone calls had made plans to get them into the city right away.
The other man, the one who had not bothered to introduce himself, was still giving them a hard, unfriendly look.
“And you are positive no one at all knows of your assignment? There were no slipups?”
“I said no and I meant it,” Jamal snapped.
“That is critical. We cannot do anything to give them advance notice and allow them time to prepare for this. You should have killed both that man and that woman.”
“And you should have brought us into the city at once, despite Malik getting shot. We could have gotten him into whatever place we are staying without alarming anyone, but you refused to adjust for it. We did the best we could under very bad circumstances.”
“Very well.” Salman sighed. “But I don’t like loose threads. We will just have to be extra vigilant. This will be a major statement on our part and nothing must stop it. Come now. We need to move all of you into the van. We’ll leave the car here. It will be days before anyone wonders about it or reports it. Let’s go. We must hurry.”
The other man, whose name they still had not been told, was already helping Kasim move Malik into the van, where a mattress had been placed on the floor. Salman dropped each of the cell phones on the ground and smashed them with his foot, scooping the remnants into a plastic bag he pulled from the van.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Wait.” Jamal held up his hand. “The bag in the car. There is medicine in there for my brother. And more bandages.”
“He won’t need those. We have a doctor we are taking him to. Get in. We have to move at once.”
Jamal wanted to ask him, if they had a doctor, why he hadn’t been
able to bring Malik into the city to be tended to, but the man’s attitude didn’t invite questioning. Instead, once they had Malik settled, Jamal found himself and Kasim scrunched into the back of the van with his brother. At least he could crouch on the floor beside the wounded man and do his best to keep him comfortable in these insane circumstances. Salman and the other man sat in the front.
No one spoke as they left the parking garage and circled through the downtown area. Staring straight ahead through the windshield, Jamal saw signs everywhere promoting the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo. Jamal tried to take in as many of the landmarks as possible to orient himself. He had the sickening feeling that his ‘hosts’ would prefer that he knew little or nothing about his surroundings.
As they left downtown, he managed to see the area they were in through the windshield. They drove through a part of the city that was all small houses and converted buildings, and included a mix of small stores, what the Hispanics called bodegas, as well as neighborhood cantinas, where people were gathered on the sidewalk. He finally got up the nerve to ask a question.
“Are we going to stop at the doctor first? I’d like to be there when he treats my friend.” With Farid dead, he felt an additional responsibility for Malik.
“First we drop you off. People are waiting for you and you need to make sure we have all the materials for you.”
He needed to make sure? He had been told these people knew what they were doing and would have everything required. At the training camp, they had experimented with different types of explosive devices and come to the conclusions that pipe bombs would best serve their purpose. They had a longer target range and more explosive effect. He had received a map of the San Antonio Rodeo and Stock Show grounds, with target areas marked. It was up to him and his group—which now seemed reduced to two—to decide which ones would go where and to place them.
These people had supposedly acquired all the materials and would provide them with housing and transport them to the grounds on the day of the attack. Then they would arrange safe passage out of the city. He was, however, beginning to have a very bad feeling about this whole thing.
When they reached a two-story blue house, Salman pulled up to a chain gate leading to the rear and tapped the horn. At once one of the men sitting on the steps jumped up to unlock the gate and swung it open. Salman drove to the end of the cracked driveway and stopped at a flight of stairs by the rear door. The man who’d opened the gate hurried up to them. Salman leaned over the back of his seat.
“Ashar will show you where everything is and make sure you have food. We will be back shortly.”
“But my friend,” Jamal protested. “I told you I want to go with him to the doctor.”
“And I told you we would take proper care of him. We will deliver him to the doctor, where he has medicine and instruments to take care of him. You do not need to hold his hand. You need to get busy on your assignment.”
“If I needed to get so busy,” Jamal snapped, “then why did you leave us out at that godforsaken place so long? Why did you not come for us sooner?”
“You are here now,” Salman said, ignoring the question. “And you left a mess behind you. You’d better hope it does not interfere with your mission.”
“My mission will be flawless as long as my friend is cared for.”
“Then you’d better get your ass upstairs and get to work and let us get to the doctor.”
Kasim followed Jamal as he reluctantly exited the van but the look he gave his friend echoed Jamal’s thoughts.
Big goatfuck.
Chapter Ten
Nikki leaned against Marc as he unlocked her door and guided her inside. Today felt as if it had been a week long. Her jaw throbbed, her muscles ached and she felt as if she’d just fought her way out of a nightmare. She was proud that she’d kept it together back at the cottage then all that time in the sheriff’s office. And finally getting the rental car, which Marc and Slade handled without her having to do a thing. Now she was more than glad to feel his strong arm around her and the comforting warmth of his presence. She had finally reached the frayed end of her rope.
After Marc dropped the keys on the little table in the foyer, she let him guide her into the bedroom. With a gentle press of his hands, he urged her down onto the edge of the bed.
“Stay right there a minute,” he told her. “Don’t move.”
She managed a weak smile. “I’m not sure I could if I wanted to. By the way, thanks for handling the car rental for me.”
He shrugged. “That was all Slade. He’s the one with all the connections.”
“But you made sure it happened, so big thanks to you.”
He cupped her chin in his warm hand and tilted her head up. “I’ll be sure and find an appropriate way for you to give me those thanks.”
He brushed a soft kiss on her lips, the gentle touch just what she needed to ease the awful tension that had gripped her all day.
“Mmmm. That sounds good to me.” She swallowed. “Do you think those sketches will be of any help? It was so hard to remember what each of them looked like, but I did remember most about the guy who was in charge.”
“And he’s the most important one. Hofler sent it to Washington for them to run through their facial recognition software. I’m sure they have the most extensive program. If his picture was taken anywhere, we might be lucky and get a hit. Plus, we’ve got the headshot they took of the dead man. We hope that will get a hit.”
“God, I hope so. The thought of them running around loose, getting ready to create a disaster, chills my blood.”
“Mine, too, darlin’.” He placed a gentle kiss on the bruise on her cheek. “You’re gonna need a lot of makeup to cover that for a while.”
She shrugged. “I’ll think of it as a badge of honor. Meanwhile I desperately want a shower.”
“I’ve got a better idea. I have a mission to get rid of all that tension and stress that’s got you tighter than a rubber band.”
She gave a ladylike snort. “You know that’s gonna take some doing on your part. I think the whole day, from the time I walked out of the cabin until we got back here just a few minutes ago, is like one nightmare that won’t go away.” She studied his face. “And we have that meeting first thing in the morning, right?”
“I wish I could figure out a way to keep you out of that.”
“I understand and agree, but Steven was right. I spent time with them. I can help. And believe me, after what went down, I truly want to.” She sighed. “A month ago, if someone had told me I’d be involved in stopping a terrorist attack, I’d have asked them what they were drinking. God, Marc. I feel as if we’ve stepped into a nightmare and I can’t wake up.”
He crouched in front of her. “Trust me, darlin’. I have just the cure for you. And, by the way, you have to be one of the bravest women I’ve ever known. Most people would fall apart if they went through what you did, but you kept your head. Didn’t fall apart. Didn’t give them a reason to kill you.”
“Oh, well.” She swallowed back a hysterical giggle. “Believe me, I wasn’t about to give them any reason to turn one of their guns on me. But all joking aside, nursing trains you to be alert in any situation and never show emotion except for sympathy. Can’t fall apart in front of the patient or the family.”
“Then I’m grateful you had good training all those years.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Just sit for a second. I’m working on a plan so you can finally let down. Let it go.”
“What are you doing?” she called, when she heard him moving around in the bathroom.
“Working on my plan,” he shouted back. “Just hold on.”
Nikki lay back on the bed, her arm over her closed eyes, trying to let the images of the day fade from her brain. She’d gone through all the gelpaks of ice and while her jaw wasn’t nearly as swollen, it still throbbed like a bitch. She couldn’t decide if she wanted ibuprofen or wine, but she knew she needed something.
As she la
y there, the day began to fade away and sounds disappeared into the background. She was startled when she felt Marc’s hands at her waist, tugging at her shorts. Her eyes flew open.
“Wait. What—”
“Ssh,” he soothed. “Just relax. It’s all good.”
He unbuttoned her shorts and slid them down her legs then followed them with her panties. She sucked in a breath when he placed a soft kiss at the top of her mound, but then the next instant he was pulling her up to a sitting position. She lifted her arms while he tugged her T-shirt over her head and divested her of her bra. One more little caress, a lick of his tongue on each nipple, before he lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bathroom.
One of the things that had sold her on the apartment, in addition to the large rooms, was the oversized tub in the master bath. Bubbles were frothing in the water and the scent of lavender drifted in the room, soothing her jangled nerves at once.
“I think I did a number on your lavender bubble bath,” Marc told her. “The directions said it’s soothing and I wanted you really relaxed.”
“Mmmm,” she hummed, and leaned back. “I do believe this will do it.”
He propped the little bath pillow behind her neck. “Just keep your eyes closed. Don’t move. I’ll do all the work.”
Nikki was more than happy to accommodate him. She closed her eyes, inhaled the exquisite lavender scent and felt the edge of peace steal over her for the first time all day.
“Keep your eyes shut,” Marc ordered. “No matter what, do not open them.”
In a moment she felt the caress of one of her primo soft washcloths stroking her arm. Her shoulders. Her chin. Then across the upper slope of her breasts. Even in her tense, exhausted state, her nipples hardened into tight little points and the pulse in her sex throbbed with a low, insistent beat. What was it about this man that he only had to touch her now and erotic need coursed through her body?
