Guardian Knight

by Aarti V Raman

  Oh God, what had he told them?

  “Alone.” Brand spoke through lips that almost wouldn’t open.

  “Fucking her now is not the right choice, Brandon.” He turned to look at Brand contemptuously.

  “Alone,” he repeated, seeing only her. Making sure she saw only him.

  The leader shrugged. One of the men tried to say something in the local Spanish dialect and he silenced him with a look. The man shut up.

  “Fifteen minutes, Rice. Then her hour is up.” He exited the room. Taking his army with him.

  ~~~~~

  Before Akira could open her mouth, Brand shook his head. She pressed her lips together, and swallowed the sheen of tears he could see forming in her beautiful, brown eyes.

  His anger was a live, snarling beast when he saw her battered cheek. At the blood pooling under her jaw.

  He took one step towards her, and she ran the rest of them and would have barreled into him, except he looked barely capable of standing.

  “You’re hurt,” he whispered, holding out his hands.

  She untied his now loosely tied wrists, seeing the blood on his wrists and the scratched, dirty palms.

  “I asked and asked about you. That man.” She shuddered hard, once. “That man wouldn’t say a word about you. He talked about torturing me before killing me.” Her voice broke, but she swallowed again.

  She wouldn’t cry. Dammit, she wouldn’t.

  He lifted his bloody palms to gather her in his arms. “In ten minutes, someone is coming to help us. There are only ten people to get through.”

  He inhaled in her scent. Through that beautiful, wild hair.

  “Who?” Her hands tightened around his back.

  His kicked in back. He winced but held on. “Does it matter?”

  She shook her head. “I was so afraid. I was so afraid they’d hurt you. Or...” She didn’t complete her sentence.

  “How do you know someone is coming to help us in ten minutes?” she mumbled to his left nipple. The one she could see clearly. The one with the scar.

  “Because, I did tell someone where we are going, Akira. Because I am not a complete idiot.” He was exasperated with her again.

  “They destroyed our hotel, Brand. He’s ruthless. Even more ruthless than you. He scares me out of my mind.”

  She finally raised drenched eyes to look at him. But not one tear fell. She dashed a shaking hand across her eyes and looked straight at him. “Who’d you tell? And why would they help us?”

  “Because I promised something important to them,” he murmured. Then his left leg gave out, and he sank down with a groan.

  Akira squatted beside him. “Oh, lord. What did they do to you? Is your leg broken? Are you okay?” She was running her hands down his leg, checking for any broken bones inexpertly when he grasped her wrist.

  “Much as I like you touching me, now is really not the time for that.”

  Her eyes widened. And he saw, through the vivid moonlight slashing down on them, how livid she was. Her nostrils flared, and her mouth thinned.

  “You bastard.” She spat at him before scrambling away to the wall. “They should have hurt you more.”

  He grinned, barely. “Give me five more minutes and I’ll start bawling like a baby. That should give you some satisfaction. Unless you really wanted that man to kill me.”

  She stared at him. “Much as the thought crossed my mind one time, no, I didn’t want him to kill you. I want to do that myself. You jerk, why’d you say that?”

  “Because men who most certainly have one useless leg shouldn’t be thinking about making love to beautiful women,” he answered, stretching himself next to her.

  In a gesture that stunned him, she laid her head on his shoulder, the slightly good one and murmured, “Alright then. Wake me up when the cavalry gets here.”

  “Will do.”

  The minutes ticked by, one, two, three, four. Then suddenly, there was a clatter of two helicopters.

  Bright lights spun in their direction through the high window, while outside the door opened and three men ran in. The leader ran in behind them, toting a shotgun himself. It was an odd choice of weapon, but he was an odd man.

  But this time, this time Brand was ready.

  ~~~~~

  This time, he shoved Akira down under the table, stood up in one fluid, shadow-like movement that made Akira gasp again.

  And the leader swore. Brand kicked out the legs from the man nearest him, and his weapon fell to Brand. He pointed it at the leader and said, “Akira, sweetheart. Please take the guns away from the bad men.”

  She crawled out and went to the man who’d guarded her for the last hour.

  He moved to strike her, but she was ready too. She blocked his strike with her right hand and kicked him smartly in the balls. He groaned while he went down and his weapon clattered to the floor.

  She picked it up and butted his head twice with it.

  The leader snarled, while the last man just handed his weapon quietly over to Brand. The leader’s hand tightened on his shotgun.

  “You can put a hole in me, but I can guarantee you, you’d be dead before I hit the floor,” Brand told him softly.

  The man swore again. And Brand understood, in full, this time. The language, the dialect the man was speaking. He casually shot the man next to the leader on his thigh and the man went down with a scream.

  Akira’s eyes bulged as she saw him pull the trigger.

  He beckoned with his gun and, in a reversal of roles, the leader kneeled down.

  “Who are you working for?” he asked softly in the man’s own dialect.

  Akira’s eyes widened as she heard Brand speak in an Arab dialect she wasn’t even sure existed. She could only make out the word who in the question.

  Plus, there was chaos outside. Bursts of gunfire. She could barely concentrate on Brand and his hostage.

  “Go to hell,” he replied in English.

  Brand butted him on the cheek, twice. Blood poured from the wound. “How do you know Geraldo De La Hoya is out of the country?”

  “My master will hunt you like a rabid dog on a sunny afternoon. And he will take that woman and turn her into a market slave.” The leader grinned.

  Brand fired at his right shoulder. Blood bloomed on the man’s sleeve, but he didn’t bow down. He didn’t back down.

  “Where is Geraldo De La Hoya?” Brand asked.

  “Planning this country’s downfall. That’s where he is.” He answered then waited for Brand’s blow, but it didn’t come.

  Because Brand was now pointing his gun at the man whom Akira had knocked out. The man was slowly coming around, groaning and becoming painfully aware of his situation. “Where is Geraldo De La Hoya?” He demanded roughly of the man, shooting a centimeter on the ground near the man’s thigh.

  “La Reine De La Mer,” the man answered, curling into a fetal position and crying quietly. The next instant he jerked once, his eyes wide in shock, while half his brains blew out behind him.

  “Tarbiyat.” Traitor. The leader snarled at him, his shot gun still smoking.

  And then he jerked too, once, twice, and then fell down. Right at Brand’s feet. Brand and Akira both looked up, to the door, from where the shots had come.

  At the opened door Miguel Cortez and two other men stood, holding weapons of a similar kind and looking at Brand like they were going to kill him.

  Thirty-Three

  “I have orders.” Miguel Cortez, dressed like a fisherman and carrying an automatic firearm competently, told them fifteen minutes later when the explosions stopped.

  The Jeep that they’d stolen from the leader’s army ground to a halt at the edge of a dark and dangerous-looking forest trail, with a signboard placed precariously.

  No Tresspassing. Private Property. Akira could make out these words in Spanish and she guessed that this stronghold was one of Mantisse Corp’s., or one of its subsidiaries. The moon looked particularly white against a completely black sky with
a forest of green to blanket it.

  “Miguel, please,” Brand said looking at the other man.

  Akira sat wedged between the two men in the front seat and looked at Brand in surprise. In all the time that she’d known him, he’d never begged. He’d never come close to begging.

  But right now, it sounded remarkably like begging.

  “Miguel, he’s hurt. Badly,” Akira said hurriedly, before Miguel could open his mouth.

  He shut it as he looked at the various wounds bleeding Brandon dry right now. There was dried blood on his torn black tee shirt. And his head looked like it had taken a kick or two, but there was a dark black stain on his right thigh that Miguel knew could mean a broken bone. Or worse.

  “Shut up, Akira,” Brand told her quietly, while he squeezed her shoulder in warning.

  “I have orders, Brandon. I am to bring the woman with me. We have use for her too. A few days in real San Magellan country is what she really needs. Then her stories will have, what’s that word, local color.” Miguel smiled thoughtfully at Akira.

  “Oh, sweet fuck. Really, where do you find them, Brandon?” Akira muttered as she considered shooting him with Miguel’s firearm and just being done with it.

  “What do you mean?” he said carefully.

  “Some friends you have. Wanting me, threatening to shoot you, making tiger eyes at us to let us know who’s boss,” she grumbled while she shrugged his hand away.

  Brand struggled to reply and Miguel laughed. It sounded louder in the still silence around them, and had her looking around for anacondas and other such predators. She’d never gotten around to that stint in the jungles of South America documenting Pygmy tribes.

  “I understand why you followed her back here, Rice.” Miguel told the now-glaring man.

  “We’ll need supplies and a GPS nav-system. Maybe a satellite phone if they are to contact us,” Brand said, while he hopped out of the vehicle.

  “It’s there in the back-pack.” Miguel handed a huge mountaineer’s backpack to Brand who shouldered it with a minimum of grunts.

  Akira got out beside him and tugged on the straps.

  “What?” He was irritable, more so since he knew Akira had been making fun of him in his weakened condition.

  “You’re hurt. I’ll carry this for now,” she said simply, while she tugged at the straps again.

  He stared at her with a mingled expression of anger and defeat. But, his back wasn’t up to the task right now and even he knew it.

  Besides, they just had half a day’s trek if his guess wasn’t off, and then his team could come and rescue them. Not that he was going to tell her that. But he did shrug off the backpack and gave it to her, and Miguel Cortez who’d witnessed the entire exchange, was amazed at the way the petite woman handled Brand.

  She didn’t look too good herself, with the blood congealing on her cheek but she seemed to have grit and vinegar.

  Maybe, there was such a thing as a true match, Miguel mused, while Brand fussed over the placement of straps on her shoulders, and placed the last of the locks in place, under her waist.

  “Uh, Brand, my friend. Much as I will regret it, there is one other thing that we have to do before you to trek the Amazon.” Miguel said, getting out of the vehicle himself and looked at Brand with real regret and a grimace.

  Akira frowned, and then gasped as Brand’s fist flashed out in a lightning movement and connected with Miguel’s nose. Blood poured out, staining the other man’s blue tee shirt and she whirled on Brand.

  “You’re crazy.” She was indignant, and really, really wanted to kick him.

  “It’s so his group thinks that we escaped by hitting him. And he doesn’t get killed. He has his orders, remember?” Brand said calmly.

  She processed it and then nodded. Once.

  Miguel got back in the Jeep letting some more of his blood pour over the floor and the seat, and then started plugging it. Then he waved weakly at them, muttering in guttural Spanish that made Akira giggle. Brand gave him a last nod.

  Then he did the sweetest thing that Akira had ever seen him do.

  He took her hand in his, twined their fingers together and led her in to the mountains of Santa Boronia.

  ~~~~~~

  Kharaan did not feel things, ever.

  Men who ruled did not have the luxury of feeling. They had to make cold, calculated decisions based on nothing but ruthless logic and fact. Collateral damage was a phrase all rulers were intimately acquainted with.

  Collateral damage was defined by the amount of acceptable loss that could be incurred in any given situation – political, economic, and social. It especially applied when it came to war time. Collateral damage during war time was estimated as that number of life and property that could be destroyed and still counted toward ultimate victory.

  Kharaan had collateral damage drummed into him since the tender age of five when he’d seen heinous things happen from the non-safety of his nursery bed.

  But, it was never easy, never pleasant to tell a dear cherished friend, a comrade in war, and more, someone who was closer than his own brother that his son had died as collateral damage in this Great War they were fighting for their very survival.

  Castle stood immobile in front of Kharaan, his green eyes, so at odds with his Mediterranean coloring, unreadable.

  “You called for me?” Castle asked.

  Kharaan nodded. He indicated the other man to take a seat. But Castle wouldn’t do so. He was a man of honor, of protocol. And a soldier did not take a seat in front of his king, his liege. Once upon a time, he’d been in the French Foreign Legion until he’d been sent to commit an atrocity that would have taken the life of an innocent child.

  Instead, he’d pledged his life and his skills to ensuring the child and its people did not suffer any more than they already had.

  One couldn’t ask for a better general than Castle, really.

  “How are the men holding up?” Kharaan asked, testing the waters.

  Castle lifted one massive shoulder. “Impatient. Struggling with waiting.” He permitted himself one small smile. “They didn’t like it that my son, that Cameron was allowed to infiltrate San Magellan a second time after the debacle of the first time.”

  Kharaan smiled. “But it wasn’t a debacle. Sebastian Delgado is dead and the country is in utter chaos.”

  “It could be argued that leaving Tony Romero in charge is as foolhardy,” Castle countered.

  “Antony Romero is a party man. He’d never do anything to endanger his position in the party. Tony is not a big problem for us.” Kharaan toyed with a brass paperweight, in the shape of his country’s stamp. It had been given to him by a beloved minister when he’d turned twenty-one who’d died in a mine explosion ten days later.

  Collateral damage.

  “How do you say that?”

  Kharaan answered coolly, “Tony will hand wring and lament the two militia factions tearing the country apart, while doing nothing concrete to actually launch peace talks. It is in his favor to have the democratic public focused on civil riots while he does what he does best.”

  “Which would be?”

  “Negotiate the best possible deal for the crude oil deposits found in his country. Money,” Kharaan said silkily. “To put it in the simplest possible terms, my dear Castle.”

  “I see.”

  Kharaan narrowed his eyes. “They can’t be allowed to strike a deal with anyone but us.”

  “I know.” Castle nodded. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”

  Kharaan ran a hand over his immaculately set hair. “You’ve heard haven’t you?”

  Castle’s mouth thinned. “Of what, Kharaan?”

  Kharaan stood up and held his hands out. “Of Cameron’s untimely demise. At the hands of that gun for hire Brandon Rice.”

  Castle went even more still, if that was possible. “Yes.”

  Kharaan rounded his study table. And forcibly clasped Castle’s rigid hands. “No words of a
pology will suffice so I will offer none, old friend.”

  “Thank you,” Castle said stiffly, his stony eyes gleaming with repressed emotion. He mourned the loss of his offspring. “But Cameron knew what he was doing. The only way that pig scum Rice would have been able to best him was through trickery. And help.”

  Kharaan nodded. “He did have outside help from the FLIR images we were able to hack into. Miguel Cortez, one of the rebel faction leaders.”