As he went through the myriad levels of security to get into the base, he coordinated with Kane to find out where his team had set up camp.
“Max has coordinated a closet for us to meet in. You’ll like it. Hot, humid, and it smells.”
Leo laughed.
He found the meeting room that was the size of a motel room. One of those motel rooms that you found on the side of the road at three a.m. when you couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore. And it smelled even worse than one of those seedy pay-by-the-hour motel rooms. It could’ve just been him, though, after almost two hours in the heat on his motorcycle.
“How were the suits?” Max, his lieutenant, asked. “Anybody worth a damn?”
“Tom Ludlum was there. He has a little runt who’s an absolute asshole working there at the embassy. I figure Tom’s going to put him on the first plane home.”
“Did you get a chance to coordinate with him?” Max queried.
“No. What’s more, I’m not sure he has much to add to the story. There were six men, which included the ambassador, all coming at our hostage’s daughter. They were demanding to know if she had any idea if her father associated with terrorists. They were asking shallow questions, not getting to any real depth. It was a clusterfuck.”
“What did she say?” Max wanted to know.
“She said exactly what his associate in Pakistan had told everybody, that he had been flaunting the rules, and if anything had been pissing off the locals—and as such, probably pissing off the terrorist cells.”
“Why would they want to know if he was working with terrorists if he was kidnapped by terrorists? That doesn’t make sense,” Nic, the youngest of their team asked.
“Good question. Because they’re idiots. But that wasn’t what they were really after. They wanted her to stop all of the ruckus her family was causing in the States to get her father freed. It wasn’t looking good for the government or for the officials in Afghanistan. She refused. Boy, did she refuse.”
“What do you mean?” Raiden, their team medic asked in his normal thoughtful way. He had a gleam in his eye. Leo could tell he wanted in on the joke.
“They had no idea who Daisy was. None. Nada. They thought she was just the youngest child of the Squires clan, coming to ask the ambassador for help. She put up with their bullshit for only so long, then she stood up and slapped the desk and started growling at them.”
Raiden’s lip twitched. “Growling?”
“Honest-to-God growling. She stared them down, told them who she was, what she accomplished, and told them to basically get their shit together. It was a beautiful sight to behold.”
Kane McNamara was the first man who started laughing, Cullen Lyons wasn’t far behind. Of course, Kane started laughing first; his woman was quite the ballbuster. After they started laughing the whole team joined in. Even Max Hogan, their leader chuckled, which was rare for him; he was a pretty serious guy.
“But you ended up getting a sit-down with her, right?” Kane asked.
“Absolutely.”
“How?” Cullen asked. “If she was such a ballbuster, why would she be willing to sit down and talk to you?”
“All I know is she left all those guys eating her dust, but as she was leaving the conference room, she winked at me.”
Every man in the tiny room groaned. “Heartthrob does it again,” Asher Thorne said with disgust.
“And don’t you forget it. I know you all think it’s the Italian Stallion with his curly hair and soulful eyes, but it’s me. They love us Latin Lover types.” Leo buffed his nails against his dusty T-shirt.
Again the men groaned, all except Ezio. “What, Ezio, you’re not going to disagree?” Leo looked over at his Italian teammate. “You don’t want to fight for your Italian Lothario status?”
“Hell no. I have Samantha, I already know I’ve won,” Ezio smirked.
“Okay, boys, can it. I want to hear the real stuff. What did you find out when you got Daisy alone?” Max asked.
“She told me that if her old man has been in countries where it’s been necessary to deal with the local terrorist organizations to get the people the care they needed, he wouldn’t have batted an eye. The problem here is that a lot of the clerics aren’t real down with his approach, which riles up the terrorists, so it makes him a target. She knows this. She’s not wearing rose-colored glasses where her father is concerned.”
“So he’s all about the medicine. How do you think he’s interacting with his captors? Did you get a read on that from her?” Max nodded.
“He’d be a stubborn asshole. There’d be no give,” Leo answered.
“Great, just great. So that means the Haqqani Network will be chomping at the bit to kill him as soon as Siraj gets back from Pakistan,” Kane said disgustedly. “The man doesn’t have the sense God gave a gnat.”
“That about sums it up,” Leo agreed. “I worry what Daisy’s next move is going to be.”
Max’s head shot up and his eyes pinned him. “What do you mean by that? She did her thing. She went to the embassy and demanded they act. What other play does she have?”
“I don’t know. She’s smart and determined. She couldn’t have built up her charity the way she has without being willing to go over, under, and around any and all obstacles to get what she wants. She’s not going to let the ambassador stop her from trying to get to her father.”
“But she knows there is a rescue being planned, doesn’t she?” young Nic asked. “I mean, it’s kind of obvious that you’re special forces.”
“It better not have been,” Max growled.
“Nic’s right, it was to her. I told you, she’s smart. She put it together by the time she was done shaking my hand. I didn’t confirm nor deny any of her questions. She was adamant about knowing what our timeline was. That’s what worries me. She’s going to do something.”
“Fuck,” Max said as he ran his hand through his dark hair. “We don’t need this. Kane, call Tom and have someone put a tail on her, in case they haven’t already. I want her watched in case she does something stupid. Okay, onto our next order of business.” Max motioned for Kane to open up his field-grade laptop. That thing could withstand bullets and some minor explosions. And one time it had withstood Kane throwing it thirty yards in frustration.
“Hold on.” Leo looked over at Raiden and grinned. They watched as Kane went into his duffel and pulled out a bulky sack. He loosened the draw string and took out a bunch of bubble wrap, which he carefully unwrapped until he got to his mini-projector. He might be brutal with his laptop, but his projector was dealt with like fine bone china.
He plugged it into his laptop, and images appeared on the far wall.
“Lights, Nic,” Kane said.
Nic gave out a long-suffering sigh. Again Raiden and Leo grinned at one another. Even though Nic was closest to the light switch, in his opinion he was told to turn out the lights because he was the youngest. Max was going to have to pound some sense into the kid pretty soon and get rid of that chip on his shoulder.
“Aw fuck, caves.” Cullen groaned.
“Oh for God’s sake, Lyons, what else did you expect?” Asher demanded to know. “We’re in Afghanistan. Of course, the terrorists would be hiding out in caves.”
“They have bugs,” he whined.
Everybody in the tiny room laughed, which is what Cullen had intended. Leo saw Max rubbing the back of his neck.
Shit, this was worse than he thought. Usually, Max didn’t give away the game like this.
“Cut the crap, guys,” Leo commanded. “What are we up against?” he asked Kane.
“Right now we know he’s in the Pushtun Region of Afghanistan, we can extrapolate that their bases are in caves, which means the Hindu Kush mountain range,” Kane explained. He used his laser pointer to show the most likely area.
“It’s not going to be easy for Siraj Haqqani to get from Pakistan over to some cave in the Afghan side of the Hindu Kush mountains,” Leo noted.
; “There’s always helicopters,” Nic said. “But how often do they use them?”
“Not often, Nic,” Kane answered. “But we can’t rule it out.”
“Nope, don’t think so,” Max said decisively. “Haqqani’s going to know we’re going to be carefully monitoring airspace because of the good doctor’s kidnapping. He won’t want to risk it.”
“That’s good news,” Leo said. “Gives us three or four days to find and rescue Dr. Squires.”
“Bad weather,” Kane said. “So closer to four or five days. It gives us more time.”
“Leo,” Max pointed at him. “Go call Tom Ludlum, make sure that the daughter is being watched immediately. We don’t need any problems on this side, we’ll have enough to deal with on the mission.”
Leo nodded and stepped out of the cramped office. He didn’t have Tom Ludlum’s number, but he wasn’t worried. He pulled out his cell phone and waited. It took less than a minute and a text message from Kane came through with the man’s number. Yep, their computer/communications guy sure could multitask.
He placed the call and got Tom’s voicemail.
“Tom, this is Leo Perez, I’m with the Night Storm team, under Max Hogan. We’ve met before in Virginia and I was in the ambassador’s office today during the poorly handled interview of Daisy Squires. I went to lunch with her this afternoon, I’m worried she’s going to try to get involved. We don’t need that. Can you make sure you have someone sit on her, to make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble? Call me if you need details.”
He hung up and went back into the conference room.
“—been reports of activity here.” Kane was using his pointer at a specific spot on a close-up shot on the mountain range. He flipped to another slide which showed some drone footage. “This is what the camp looked like two weeks ago. Three men and two dogs. Now, look at it two days ago.”
Leo did. There were two covered trucks and a jeep with netting over it, but it was easy to surmise that it had an anti-aircraft gun on the top of it. Leo also counted ten men, four dogs, and God knew how many were in the cave. They were taking their security seriously. Yep, something big was going on.
“We’re going to set down here,” Kane pointed to a spot a lot closer than any of the terrorists would ever expect.
Gotta love a Blackhawk helicopter.
“We don’t have any diversion or specific timetable, so we’re going to go in as soon as we can,” Max explained.
“We’re not going to make a play for Siraj?” Cullen asked. “Why not?”
“There’s a reliable source close to him that says he’ll be coming with an entourage of at least twenty. Yeah, it would be nice to take him out, but our number one mission is to get the doctor, and hopefully the reporter.”
“Does the reliable source say if the reporter is with the doctor?” Leo asked.
Max shook his head. “All we got is the fact that Siraj is coming with a group of people. The higher-ups are not giving me anything as to who the source is, which is fine by me. So it could be coming from someone unrelated to the Haqqani Network in Pakistan, who just observed Siraj moving out, or it could be someone embedded in Siraj’s organization. Either way, the brass is sure of the info.”
Everybody nodded.
“Tonight?” Asher asked.
“Nope,” Kane said. “The Blackhawks aren’t available tonight, it’s going to be tomorrow night. Raiden’s sorted out where we’re eating and sleeping, so get with him.”
5
“I’ve been waiting for your call for hours,” Daisy complained into the phone.
“Calm down, Sweetheart. It took me a little while to get you the information you asked for. Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Daisy felt herself relax at the sound of her stepdad’s voice. “Nothing’s wrong, Dad, just a little tired.”
“How about trying to pull the other leg, and tell me everything. I can’t be of help if I don’t know what’s really going on.”
Daisy sighed. The man was right. “I don’t know where to start.”
“You told me about the meeting with the ambassador and his men on the drive back to the hotel. You didn’t sound so upset then, you sounded riled. Now you’re sounding desperate. What has changed?”
“Remember the military man I told you about in the room?” Daisy asked. “He followed me to the hotel. He’s special forces. I’ll give you his info and I’d like you to get his details. In the meantime, he gave me enough broad strokes to let me know it’s pretty grim for Ethan. I’d say they’re setting him up for an execution.”
“You can’t know that for sure, Daisy.”
“This guy is special forces. My gut is telling me that he and his team have been sent here to rescue him. You and the rest of the family are doing the right thing in the States by causing such a big stir, there is no way they would have sent in a team unless you were. They don’t like to have their record blemished. Plus it’s an election year. Can’t have problems during an election year.”
Daisy knew she was sounding bitter, but she couldn’t help it.
“Provide me with the information on this man, and I’ll tell you the source I have in Afghanistan for you. I believe he will be able to tell you what you need to know. Rayi is one of the few journalists who is still brave enough to send out reporting from inside Afghanistan. He would be killed if he were caught. He has agreed to meet you at a set time and place tonight. You only have one chance to meet him. He is very good and will know if you are followed, and if you are, he will leave the rendezvous.”
“I am being followed, but it was amateur hour. It won’t be a problem to get rid of them.”
“Are you sure? They might have changed things up a bit after you’ve met with your special operations man.”
Daisy thought about that. She pushed at the to-go container on her nightstand. “Okay, I’ll do a trial run with my driver and see if anything’s changed. Where and when am I supposed to meet this reporter?”
“You’ll share a private car to the airport. You’ll both be picked up from the Intercontinental Hotel at seven p.m. tonight and driven to the airport. That will give you plenty of time to talk. Rayi will have luggage for you at the hotel so that you can put it into the car.”
“Got it.”
“Now, tell me what has you so riled up. Obviously, it is the conversation you had with the soldier.”
“SEAL. I’d bet my last dollar that he’s a SEAL. Do you have something to write down his information?”
“Always,” Alistair replied.
“Leo Perez, Chief Petty Officer. He’s part of a team that’s here.” She paused and sucked in a deep breath. “Dad, I have the feeling that Ethan is going to be executed.”
“Dammit. So he’s been angering some locals,” Alistair bit out.
“Yes. But don’t tell the family. It will just upset them.”
“I wouldn’t, Honey. There isn’t any point. I hate you having to know.”
“I’m fine.” And she was. She could handle it. That’s what she did, put her feelings away and handled things.
“I’ll have the information on your man very quickly, Daisy. I love you.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
She hung up.
It was four-seventeen. She called Malek. His wife had briefly worked for W.A.N.T.; that was the only reason Daisy had chosen him as her driver. She prayed that he was trustworthy.
“Malek,” Daisy started the call with a smile in her voice.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied in Dari.
“I need your help. I think we’re going to need another driver as well.”
“I’m listening.”
“I need to get rid of the people who are following me.”
“That should be simple. They were already having trouble keeping up in our traffic.”
“I think they might have someone better trying to follow us tonight. I have a plan I want to discuss with you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” This time she h
eard the excitement in his voice. All over the world, every man wanted to be James Bond.
Alistair had been right. Two cars were following them, and between them, Malek wasn’t able to lose them, no matter how fast he drove, or how he wove in and out of traffic.
I’m not going to die. It will be all right.
She held on tightly to the St. Christopher medal that a nun had given her a couple of years ago. He was the patron saint of travelers and was supposed to keep you safe. At this point, she’d take any and all help she could get.
Daisy looked at her watch. It was five-ten. “Malek, it’s time to go to plan B.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ten more minutes of Formula One driving and Malek screeched to a stop in front of the Golbahar Center Bank Mall.
“Will your nephew be ready for me?”
“Yes, he will.”
“I’ll look different,” she warned again.
“It’s okay, as long as you hold up your purse, he will come and get you.”
She looked down at her bright red purse. Yep, it stood out. She was going to have to do something about that.
“They’re here, ma’am.”
Dammit!
Daisy bolted out of Malek’s old car and strutted into the mall entrance. At this point, she wanted to be followed. She was immediately hit with the smell of perfume. She turned and saw the perfume store to the right. Next came a bigger shoe store. Neither of those would do. She needed a huge department store.
She meandered slowly down the walkway until she turned a corner and used the glass window of a rug shop to get a look at the man who was following her. Light blue windbreaker, chino pants, blond hair, and glasses. Nobody she recognized from the embassy.
She kept walking until she got to a rather large women’s clothing store. It had both traditional Afghan clothes and Western clothing. Now it was time to see if she had any acting ability.
She slowly walked to the back of the store, stopping occasionally to look at different items on tables, but continuing to take note that the man in the windbreaker was just keeping watch outside the storefront.
Her Sensual Protector: A Navy SEAL Romance (Night Storm Book 5) Page 4
