by Fiona Brand
He frowned, deliberately shutting the thought from his mind. One fact was inescapable; it hadn't changed for seven years and it wouldn't change until he had Harper under wraps: this was his damn mess, and it was his responsibility to clean it up.
Blade finally picked up, answering with a terse, "Yo."
Gray supplied his location.
Blade swore. "I've just finished talking to West. We're en route. Wait for us."
"Have you got clearance?"
"Not yet."
Gray let go of a breath. The operation was a joint one with the police, which worked smoothly as long as it was just surveillance, but for the SAS to operate as a counter-terrorist force on home soil, they needed an actual transfer of authority. Without a positive ID on Harper, the bureaucratic decision making would take time he couldn't afford. If they'd spotted Harper on any of their surveillance cameras, there would be no problem. "I can't wait for you."
"Dammit, Gray. Don't do this."
Gray spotted the off-ramp sign and signalled the turn. "There's no time, and I'm armed. If they've got her, I have to try."
Chapter 15
A heavy hand landed on Sam's shoulder. She was hauled to her feet, her arms wrenched behind her back, and something cold and hard was pressed against the side of her neck.
A gun, she thought with an odd sense of inevitability as a second man stepped into view.
"Very touching," he said.
Sam stared into blue eyes as bland as that light, cultured voice and shuddered. She had no doubt that this was Egan Harper. He wasn't a big man, barely making average height, but with the sinewy leanness of a striking snake. "Harper."
"Ah. I see you know who I am. How excellent. I recognised you immediately. You photograph extremely well, Miss Munro. I should know. I've taken several over the last few days. May I say that none of the photographs do you justice. But then, Lombard always did have good taste in women."
A third man came into sight, and Sam's stomach sank. Even without the gun, the odds were heavily against her. She lifted her chin and glared at Harper. "Why are you doing this?"
The man holding her stroked the gun coldly along the curve of her throat.
Harper smiled. "I don't believe you're that naive. Lombard and I are old adversaries, but, as entertaining as the game has been, it had to end sometime."
She pulled at her captor's hold on her wrists, and he replied by exerting enough pressure to make her cry out.
Harper lifted a hand, and despite her resolve not to show fear, she flinched. But he didn't hit her; he stroked her cheek. "Such lovely skin. A pity to damage you, but I will if I have to. Think about it, Miss Munro. Now, shall we proceed to the church? Not for a wedding, of course." He chuckled at his joke, then checked his watch. "We don't have much time to waste. According to my sources, Lombard should be here in approximately five minutes."
Sam was pushed across the lawn, up the steps and into the dim interior of the church. Harper issued terse instructions, not bothering to glance at her as he did so. One man was going to watch the car park, Harper would position himself in the cemetery and she was to be kept in the church with the third man as a guard.
One of the men had an accent; he was lean and dark with bad acne scars, and it was a good bet that he was South American. The man guarding her was a New Zealander. Compared to Harper and the man with the accent, he was solidly built, his arms and shoulders brawny. Evidently he was at the bottom of this particular power pyramid – hired muscle, as opposed to the hardened professional that the Latin man appeared to be. It also appeared that he didn't like being left out of the action. His movements were edgy, his muddy hazel eyes simmering with resentment.
The enormity of what was happening hit her. Up until now, she had been too shocked to do much more than react to instructions. She didn't doubt she was behaving exactly as they expected her to do. They were all armed, and she had never even handled a gun.
Within seconds, Harper and his man had melted away and Sam was left with Hazel Eyes.
He gestured with the gun while craning to look out the small window. "Into that room," he ordered tersely.
Sam walked into the dim little side room he indicated, taking note of the contents. It smelled musty and appeared to be a storage place for hymn books and odds and ends of furniture. Light struck through a narrow window, catching swirling dust motes.
A meaty hand shoved her between her shoulder blades, sending her stumbling against the wall at the rear of the room. Sam spun to face him. Her captor, evidently convinced that she was completely cowed, slipped the gun in the waistband of his jeans and pulled some kind of cotton wadding and adhesive tape from his pocket.
Sam settled her back firmly against the wall and mentally counted off the seconds as rough hands stuffed her mouth with the wadding.
She knew what these men were going to do to her, that they wouldn't let her live. This was her own stupid fault. She had slipped away from Gray's security and in doing so had exposed him to risk. Harper was counting on Gray coming to her rescue, as he'd done seven years ago, and Gray would do it. He would risk himself for her again, walk into the trap, and she couldn't allow that to happen.
Grimly she eyed her Neanderthal captor, mentally calculating his weight, the quickness of his reflexes.
When he peeled a length of tape from the roll, she took a deep breath through her nose, grabbed handfuls of his shirt and jerked downward with all her strength as she dropped to the floor.
He grunted, his head smacked into the wall, and he crumpled. Sam crawled from beneath his buckling frame, spitting out wadding as she went, but his dead weight sprawled sideways and back, and he ended up slumped across her legs. Panic spiralled through her when she tried to scramble free and couldn't. She strained, and finally, with a twist of her hips, she managed to drag first one leg free, then the other, but she'd wasted valuable seconds and he was already groaning, stirring.
Sam staggered to her feet, reeling to one side, sending a three-legged chair crashing to the floor. Her hip caught on the corner of a table. Hot pain burst up one side as she stumbled to the door.
A roar sounded behind her. Adrenaline slammed through her system, anaesthetising the pain in her hip as she ran from the dim shadow of the church into blazing daylight. She could hear Hazel Eyes coming after her, the heavy pounding of his boots on the wooden floor. Her spine crawled, and her skin tightened with anticipation and dread; she expected to feel a bullet ripping into her flesh at any moment.
Time seemed to alter, slow, as she ran, almost as if she was an actor in a movie and somehow reality had shifted and she had got caught up in a slow motion sequence. No matter how fast she ran, it wouldn't be fast enough. Her breath was coming in choking pants. The residue of the wadding caught in her throat, making her cough, depriving her of precious oxygen.
"Gray!" she cried out, her voice husky and hollow with panic, not caring who heard her or if she was caught again.
She opened her mouth to call again. Her gaze skimmed the vehicles in the car park as she ran, and the cry died in her throat. Gray's truck wasn't there.
A sense of futility gripped her. She had failed. She was too early. Gray wasn't here yet.
Something heavy hit her on the back of the head, sending her crashing to the ground in a shocked daze.
"Don't kill her, idiot!" a voice rapped out.
Hard hands hauled her into a sitting position. Her head spun sickeningly.
Harper swore virulently. "Help me get her back inside. Lombard's not here yet."
"Get your hands off her and drop your gun," a low voice commanded. Gray stepped into view, legs spread, both hands curled around the grip of a handgun.
Cold metal jabbed into the sensitive flesh just below her ear. An arm whipped around her neck, jerking her head back so that pain jagged through her skull again.
"What's she worth to you, my friend?" Harper said softly. "If you shoot me, she dies. There's also the little matter of Nico."
"
That would be the dark, lean guy with the acne scars."
"Ah," Harper said. "A pity. He was a good man. We seem to be at an impasse. What's it going to be, Lombard? Me or the woman?"
Gray didn't take his eyes off Harper. "Let her go, Egan."
"Five seconds, or I'll make the choice for you."
"You know it's me you want, and alive. That won't happen if she's harmed any further. Take her into the church and leave her there, and I'll lay down my weapon."
Harper smiled. "Nice try, but you're a lousy liar. You're obsessed with the lovely Miss Munro. You always have been. I'm only sorry it took me so long to realise that fact. We could have got around to this charming little scene so much more quickly. Drop the weapon, or I'll blow her brains out."
Silence stretched, taut and loaded with menace.
Harper began to count.
With a blank look on his face, Gray tossed his weapon on the ground.
Harper's henchman retrieved the gun. Sam was pulled to her feet and half dragged, half herded toward a dark van. For the second time she found her mouth full of the foul, moisture-sapping wadding. Tape was strapped across her mouth, and her hands were tied with cord.
Gray's jacket was stripped from him, his gun removed along with the holster. He was searched, his pockets emptied, and the contents, including his phone, tossed on the ground. His hands were tied behind his back. As soon as Gray was vulnerable, Hazel Eyes stepped forward and punched him in the stomach.
He drew his arm back for another punch, and fury boiled up in Sam. She launched herself at Gray's attacker, only to be summarily jerked back by Harper. Gray grunted as the punch landed. His head lifted and their eyes met – his calm and remote. He shook his head, an infinitesimal movement, and Sam had to swallow her rage and anguish.
Gray had walked into this trap of his own accord, to save her. He was being beaten, yet still he was trying to give her reassurance.
"We don't have time for this," Harper snapped. "Lombard has people following. Get them into the van."
They were pushed in to sprawl on the bare metal floor of the van. The doors were slammed and secured, and the two men climbed in the front. Hazel Eyes, or Billy, as Harper called him, was driving.
The van moved off with a jerk that threw her against Gray. For several minutes the van careened along city streets, and Sam had to brace herself as best she could.
Harper said something soft, his voice laden with threat. Billy slammed on the brakes, and the van fish-tailed, tyres squealing, before he reduced his speed.
They travelled for what seemed like hours, but it couldn't have been more than three or four in the afternoon. There was only one stop, so the driver could relieve himself at the side of the road. By late afternoon they were winding their way through steep hill country. The sealed surface ran out, and they bumped along on a dirt road.
Billy uttered an oath and swerved, swearing about livestock on the road and the wet, muddy conditions. He accelerated, swore again and braked.
The van slewed violently, almost righted itself as Billy corrected, then hit a pothole and went sideways across the road and onto the grass verge. Gray flung himself over her, the heavy weight of his body anchoring her in place as the van bumped, lurched, hit a ditch and careened over.
They rolled, tumbled, then everything went black.
When Sam came to, she was lying on the grass, still bound and gagged. Every bone in her body was aching, and she could taste blood in her mouth. Her head was pounding; one arm and a shoulder throbbed. She turned her head. Gray was propped against a tree, watching her. The van was only metres away, teetering on the edge of a drop-off, its roof and the side that she could see crumpled in. There was no sign of Billy. Harper was seated directly opposite, a gun trained on the both of them, a knapsack slung on his back. He didn't seem to have a scratch on him.
"Ah, you're awake," he said as smoothly, as if she had just risen from an afternoon nap.
He noticed the direction of her gaze. "Billy ran away. He was bright enough to realise his usefulness had just come to an end. It seems I overestimated his driving ability and underestimated his cunning."
He came to stand over her, and she tensed, certain he was going to hurt her in some way, perhaps shoot her. He did neither. He bent and tore the gag from her mouth.
"Sit up," he commanded.
Sam gasped at the burning sensation and spat the sodden wadding from her mouth, coughing and choking as she drew a startled breath of air. Harper jerked her into a sitting position, and she felt the cold kiss of a blade against her skin. Alarm punched through her again, successfully clearing the dizziness the abrupt movement had caused, but he hadn't cut her, he had cut the cord binding her wrists.
For long moments she couldn't move her arms. They had been kept in the same position for so long that they were frozen in place. Inch by inch, she first straightened them, then brought them to her side, working her protesting shoulder and elbow joints.
The sight of her hands shocked her. They were swollen, a reddish purple, and her wrists were ringed with dark bruises. She clenched her jaw as the pain burning in her joints speared down her arms and into her hands, a hot rain of needles through her veins, as circulation reasserted itself.
"Take Lombard's gag off."
Sam's head jerked up at the order.
She shuffled on her knees to where Gray sat. She lifted her hands to Gray's face, trying to ignore the excruciating sting of pins and needles. Her fingers felt useless, weighted, too clumsy to accomplish the task of grasping a corner of the tape and tearing it loose from his mouth. She caught the end of the tape. The very act of squeezing her fingertips together made sweat break out on her brow. She gritted her teeth and pulled, trying to be as gentle as she could.
Eventually the tape was off, and she turned to glare at Harper. "Are you going to free his hands?"
Harper smiled mirthlessly. "Why would I want to do that? Get up. Thanks to my friend's poor driving skills, we're going to have to walk the rest of the way."
Harper gestured toward the dark, impenetrable rain forest edging the road. "Not exactly the kind of exercise you're used to Lombard – the going is a little rougher than a golf course." He smiled in apparent delight at his quip, but Sam noticed he walked a wide circle around Gray as if, even bound and gagged, he feared the bigger man. He brandished his weapon. "Oh, and if you're thinking of playing hero, the Sig has fifteen rounds, as I'm sure you must remember from your time with the military. The first round has your charming fiancée's name on it."
Gray tracked Harper's every movement, fury burning with a cold flame deep in the pit of his stomach. Harper jerked his head at the bush line, indicating that Gray was to go first.
Gray hadn't been knocked out when the van rolled. He had seen Billy grab a black briefcase and run. Harper had almost gone crazy, but he had been dazed by the crash and slow to react. Billy had got away. Evidently there had been something in the briefcase that was either valuable or that Harper needed badly, because he was still agitated.
Cold satisfaction put an icy lid on Gray's temper as he eased to his feet, wincing at the pounding in his head. The bastard was savvy enough to make him break the track through the bush, while he strolled behind Sam with his gun at her back, using Sam as insurance to keep him in line. Gray would have to expend double the effort that Harper did, but he would get his chance.
Harper had made two mistakes.
The first was an error that Gray himself had fallen headlong into – that of underestimating the opposition.
The second was in not killing him outright.
Gray caught Sam's gaze, holding it until she was out of sight behind him, trying to infuse her with some level of comfort, instead, she gave it to him. She smiled. The smile was shaky and incredible. She was pale and bruised, probably suffering from shock, but her chin was up, and her heart was in her eyes.
She loved him.
The simple truth of her love hit Gray hard, triggering a moment of disorien
tation so great he actually stumbled. She loved him, and for the first time he allowed himself to feel the depth and completeness of that love, let the soft flames lick at the darkest corners of his soul. It brought something inside him to painful life – a part of himself he'd thought had died with Jake. The agony was sweet and complete, complicated by the threat of imminent death that Harper carried with him like a second, darker shadow.
They could die. Sam could die, and Gray wouldn't allow that to happen. He couldn't.
He loved her.
The magnitude of the deceit he had practiced on himself stunned him. He had always loved Sam.
A shudder coursed through him. The sweetness of the simple act of breathing had never seemed so wondrous, or so threatened.
For years he had lived on the edge, risked himself time and again, evaded death by a hairsbreadth. He had even worried Blade, who spent more than a little time on the edge himself. Now he wanted life with a fierceness that poured like hot lava through his veins. And he would have it. With Sam.
He moved his hands experimentally. Billy hadn't tied him as tightly as he could have done, but the knots he'd used were good; he would have difficulty freeing himself. His hands were swelling, but with judicious flexing he was able to assist the flow of blood, staving off complete numbness. His face was caked with dried blood from a cut over his forehead. The cut was little more than a scratch, but he could imagine how bad he looked. He was banking on it.
For the past half hour he'd hung his head and not responded to Harper's taunts in an effort to project defeat and a half-dazed state. It had worked, probably because Harper had made the basic mistake of discounting his military service, writing him off as a commissioned officer in some cushy desk job.
SAS Command used "plausible deniability" to its fullest extent. Their covert people couldn't be traced through any available official records. That shadowy secrecy was now Gray's best asset. He'd fought in more hellholes than he could comfortably remember, his specialty was jungle warfare. Harper couldn't have chosen a better arena for this final showdown, because final it would be. Gray's last active codename had been a little dramatic for his tastes – he would have been happy with a letter from the Greek alphabet and a number – but that kind of call sign was recognisably SAS. Perhaps the code name some deskbound career officer had given him was prophetic: Jaguar.
