Another bullet grazed the top of Maggie’s arm as she spun to take on the attackers. The force of the hit sent her reeling back as the wound burned and sent a searing pain down her firing arm.
“I don’t think we have much of a choice in that matter,” Ashton said, struggling to hold up Leon as he sent a string of rounds into the shooter. “What’s important is that we all get out of here alive. Yasir and his weasel of a wee brother can be dealt with later, and by someone else. It’s not your job to take them out. Not anymore.”
“But—”
More footsteps thundered toward them, interrupting Maggie’s protests.
“You know I’m right. Leon needs you more than his mission does. Sometimes you can’t beat the bad guys.”
Maggie huffed. It wasn’t in her nature to run away, but Ashton was right. They were outnumbered and still in the thick of it with no guaranteed exit strategy. “Fine,” she snapped, taking half of Leon’s weight over her uninjured shoulder.
Leaving the rushing footsteps in their wake, the pair struggled down the opposite end of the compound with Leon and barged into the courtyard. With most of the residents heading to the location of the prior gunshots, the outdoor space was clear of enemies. For now.
Half dragging, half carrying Leon, they made it to the nearest jeep and opened the unlocked door. No need to lock up when the vehicle was inside the heart of a terrorist camp.
“There’s no key,” Ashton swore, checking the ignition, sun visor, and anywhere else someone might have left keys.
“It’s fine, I’ve got it,” Maggie said, nudging him out of the way. “Get Leon in the back.” She then ripped the cover off the side of the ignition and hotwired it.
“I’ll take a look at him,” Ashton announced. Of the two, he was the better medic. Maggie was more into inflicting injuries than healing them.
“Keep an eye out for any visitors, too.” The last thing they needed was to miss an oncoming attack while trapped in the confines of a car.
The engine purred to life, and Maggie tilted her head back in temporary relief.
A blast echoed behind them, and the entire back window collapsed into a thousand pieces.
“We’ve got company,” Ashton said, ducking behind the seat.
“No shit,” Maggie said, suppressing the strange sensation to laugh. She put the jeep into reverse and slammed her foot on the gas.
Catching a glimpse of the terrorists running their way through the courtyard, Maggie turned the wheel and surged back until the rear end of the jeep slammed into them and trampled over their bodies.
Ashton whooped, getting a front-row ticket to the hit-and-run. “Strike!”
“Let’s hope the gate falls just as easily,” Maggie said. She switched gears and carried them forward, full pelt, towards the front gates of the fortress.
In the rearview mirror, Maggie spotted Yasir stomping out into the fray and throwing his arms around while yelling orders, his sniveling little brother following at his ankles. She gripped the wheel, still annoyed at leaving the men behind to carry out more atrocities.
“Hold onto him,” Maggie ordered Ashton as they neared collision point pushing fifty miles an hour. Maggie fumbled with her seat belt, and it clicked into place just as the jeep crashed into the gate.
The force pushed back the metal until it bent and snapped, causing the gates to fly open and the jeep to careen out of the compound and into the open landscape.
“Hey, big man, lie down,” Ashton said, trying to coax Leon onto his back. Leon wasn’t having any of it.
He rasped something unintelligible between hoarse coughs that left blood on the back of his hands.
“What was that?” Maggie asked, trying to concentrate on the road while worrying over the roaring engines that started inside the compound, ready to give chase.
“The detonator,” he repeated, clearer this time, rummaging inside the compartment between the two front seats and bringing out a small remote in his big, tremoring hands. “I wired the whole compound before I tried to take out Yasir.”
Maggie let out an involuntary laugh, a mixture of relief and shock. Talk about beating a terrorist at his own game.
Ashton kissed Leon’s forehead and cheered. “Leon, my man, you are a fucking genius.” He took the remote from Leon’s hands and eyed it with clear, boyish glee that set a flame in his otherwise blue eyes.
Ashton, forever the pyromaniac, pressed the button with a satisfying click. “Boom!”
Boom, indeed.
After a two-second delay, an earth-shattering explosion thundered through the sky as the entire compound erupted in a mushroom cloud of brick, mortar, and most importantly, pieces of Yasir Osman and his fellow terrorists.
Chapter 12
Maggie wasted no time in returning to the airport. There wasn’t much air traffic in Mogadishu, and the pilots were more than eager to leave as soon as possible. Within ten minutes of arriving back on board, they were off without hesitation.
With the help of Ashton and a surprisingly unshaken Craig, Maggie hefted Leon onto the couch behind the seats and got to work. They stripped off his sodden, blood-soaked clothes and examined him for vital injuries requiring immediate attention.
Wiping away the layers of blood and dirt from Leon’s dark skin, Ashton stopped at each wound that required extra care, cleaning out cuts with vodka from the bar and stitching them up with the supplies from the plane’s first-aid kit. Maggie assisted while he worked, efficient but gentle with his friend, checking with Maggie first before examining Leon’s more intimate regions. It wouldn’t be the first time in history torture had turned sexual or sadistic, even if just to break the captive completely so they would tell everything they knew. Thankfully, it had not happened in this case.
Together, they spent the next hour tending Leon’s injuries. Leon tried to brush them off, but Maggie hushed him and ignored the murmured protests as he slipped in and out of consciousness. Maggie could only hope this was from sheer exhaustion and nothing worse.
“If this was left any longer, he could have bled out,” Ashton said, tying the end of his stitch work and snipping off the rest of the thread. The deep knife wound to Leon’s thigh had knicked an artery and was the source of most of the blood. It seemed one of his torturers got a little carried away with his work.
They’d left him to bleed out in the dirt.
Maggie battled with the rage inside her and waited until it settled enough to reply. “He’s alive; they’re dead. They got what was coming to them.”
There was no way of knowing the full extent of the damage caused by Yasir’s splinter cell throughout its short but violent life. No way to heal the hurt of the families of those whose lives they had stolen. Of the hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Somali people who perished by their hands. Or the British soldiers they’d murdered for trying to help. At least now, they couldn’t hurt another living soul. Their personal reign of terror was over.
Maggie’s dark thoughts were interrupted by Leon stirring awake. Once his eyes fluttered open, he shot up on the couch to a sitting position and darted his wild gaze around the jet while he gulped down panicked breaths.
“Hey, hey,” Maggie said, cupping his face. The bristles of his beard were familiar and rough in her palms, longer than she’d ever seen it. “It’s us. You’re safe.”
Sweat beaded across Leon’s forehead and glistened on his exposed skin. “I thought it had been a dream.”
For a moment, Maggie couldn’t speak. She’d come so close to losing him, to one of her most terrifying nightmares becoming a reality. Seeing him there, injured yet alive, hearing his deep, rumbling voice brought her to the brink of losing it. Her arms ached to wrap around his neck and never let go. To never allow him out of her sight again. To protect him and keep him safe with her always.
Leon winced and groaned as he sat up straight, shivering under the blanket they’d put over him. He pulled it up to his chin.
“A dream? You never told me you dr
eam about me,” Ashton teased, lightening the mood as Maggie got herself together. “What was I wearing?”
Leon peered down at his bandaged, stitched, and bruised body. “What’s the damage, Ash?”
“Well, they beat the shit out of you, that’s for certain. The good news is most of your cuts and abrasions are superficial, and nothing appears to be broken.” Ashton took a flashlight and flashed it into Leon’s eyes, his right one bloodshot and surrounded in swelling. “No concussion either, from the looks of it, but I can’t be sure of any internal damage. Best to get you checked out by a doc when we get back on solid ground.”
“Thanks, Ash,” Leon said, words that would never have escaped his lips only a few months ago when they were still estranged. Some rift a few years back when Ashton left the Unit meant my two best friends were no longer on speaking terms.
“Anytime, big chap.” Ashton shook his bottle of pain pills he’d been taking for his broken ribs. “Take some of these. You won’t feel your face, but from the look of you, I’m guessing that’s a positive.”
Maggie wasn’t sure if the drugs were strictly legal, but Leon was in a lot of pain, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. She knelt next to him and handed him a cold bottle of water, taking the cap off first. “And drink this. All of it.”
Leon winced as the liquid slid down his throat, residual pain from whatever torture methods Yasir had used on him.
“I never told him a thing,” he said after draining the bottle.
Maggie took it from him and replaced it with a pack of ice Craig handed her. “I always tell you that you’re stubborn.”
Leon hissed when he placed the ice over the nasty gash in his thigh but kept it there to manage the swelling. “Sometimes it pays off.” He met her eyes, those warm, molten, dark irises boring into her soul like only he could do, seeing past the tough exterior she fought so hard to maintain.
“Sometimes.” Maggie smiled, her heart warming under his attention. Ashton cleared his throat, breaking the moment with a cooling pad to soothe Leon’s forehead.
Leon didn’t like to be fussed over, so the fact he allowed Ashton to place it without complaint said more than his visible wounds did.
“How was I compromised?” he asked. “And how did you both learn about it?”
“All of that can wait until later,” Maggie said. He didn’t need to be troubled with the code red shitshow they were dealing with just yet. His head would be aching enough as it was.
“Please. I need to know. It’s my job.”
Maggie didn’t argue much. She would be the exact same in his position, so she filled him in on what he’d missed with Ivan Dalca, the hack and release of agent names, and her reunion with the Director General.
“Have they released any names other than mine?” Leon asked, gripping the edges of his blanket with clenched fists.
“Jim Hunter,” Maggie replied, thinking of the lost agent’s kind face. “He was murdered before the Unit could pull him from his mission in China.”
Leon’s jaw clenched at the news. “Let me borrow your phone to call Helmsley. We need to stop them.” He tossed his blanket off and attempted to get to his feet.
Maggie intercepted his ascent and pushed him gently back down onto the couch. It wasn’t hard, given his shaky legs and fever. “We do, but right now you need to sleep so you can heal. Try to get some rest. We’ve got a long flight until we’re back home. The rest of it can wait until then.”
Leon’s shoulders slumped. He knew as well as Maggie did that he couldn’t do anything to help right now. Not in his state, and not in the early morning hours while stuck on a plane. Instead, he sprawled across the couch, his bare feet dangling off the end. He reached out with his calloused hand and entwined his fingers with Maggie’s.
“Thank you, Maggie,” he said, quieter now that Ashton had taken his seat up front and was partaking in some flirtatious conversation with Craig, the flight attendant. “I’d be dead if you hadn’t come for me.”
Maggie gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ll always come for you,” she vowed. “No matter what.”
“I feel the same way.”
“I know,” she said, sitting at the edge of the couch and rubbing her thumb over the back of his huge hand. “You believed me when no one else at the Unit did, and I’ll never forget that.”
He directly ignored his orders to hunt her down when Bishop and his cohorts had framed her for murdering the mayor of London. Instead, he’d come to her aid when she needed him most. He needed no explanation from her about what really happened; he required no irrefutable evidence to prove her innocence. He knew her well enough to know she’d never do such a thing, and that was enough for him. Enough to risk not only his job but his life, too.
“When are we going to talk about us?” Leon asked, still as ruggedly handsome as ever, even covered in fresh battle scars.
Maggie loosened her hold, but Leon held her still, his intense gaze imploring her not to shut him out. The way she always did, even after their last brief affair in Venice. After she’d learned she was carrying his child but lost it before she got the chance to tell him.
She should have told him, even after the fact. It wasn’t just her loss, and though she knew it may hurt him to learn the truth, it was their truth. It was the reason why it hurt to get too close to him, and why it hurt not to be near him. It was the thing that held her back—not wanting to be hurt like that again, even though it wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t her fault.
Maggie gave his hand one final squeeze, trying but failing to convey emotions she didn’t have words for yet. “Once this is over and done with. I promise.”
Leon rested his head on the pillow and sighed, but he didn’t push her. “Okay. Wake me up before we land.”
“I will,” Maggie replied, making a vow to herself to tell him everything. Once they were safe.
Chapter 13
New Delhi, India
* * *
Secret Agent Prisha Patel knew something was wrong the minute she arrived to set up the transfer.
She’d memorized the account numbers given to her by the Unit. Had smuggled a gun inside her briefcase, just in case. And made sure she wasn’t followed to the meeting point.
Up until then, her targets had been more or less jovial with her, helped by the fact they were all making a lot of money together. Or so they thought.
Yet when she arrived like always to make the payments, there was a distinct difference in her targets’ attitudes. Their body language spoke volumes, and Prisha wasted no time getting out of there as soon as she could.
Now they were following her.
Prisha kept her pace casual so as not to alert the men she was aware of their presence. They weren’t doing much to conceal their stalking; no slinking behind buildings or keeping a safe distance to stay out of sight. If anything, they were getting closer, their gaits more intent the farther Prisha walked through the city streets.
With the Indian government cracking down on counterfeit money by no longer continuing with high denomination notes, it left the forgers with the conundrum of what to do with their fake currency. It didn’t take them long to come up with the enterprising idea to exchange the Indian rupees to pounds sterling and launder the cash through the UK banks before transferring it back over, effectively robbing Britain right under its nose.
Hence Prisha’s presence in India’s capital.
Things had been going well the last three weeks. Under the guise of a black-market accountant with particular expertise in making money disappear into practically untraceable offshore accounts, it didn’t take long for her to wrangle her way into the fold of the largest counterfeit ring in India. What they didn’t know was that she was transferring the stolen money back to the UK.
Another week at the most and she would have had enough for the Indian government to move in and take down the ring from their end, while the British narrowed in on those at the other side back home on the ring’s payroll.
&nbs
p; Prisha’s phone rang, a temporary one solely for the purpose of her mission. Taking it out of her pocket, she frowned at the name on the caller ID: Dad.
It was a cover name to conceal the true identity of the person at the other end in case the forgers had searched her device, too. Which they had.
In her real life, Prisha had never met her father. He’d abandoned her mother and left them for another woman in India while her mum was pregnant with Prisha back in Britain.
It had been just the two of them Prisha’s whole life, and she was keen to return to her, having been worried sick at the lack of news from the nursing home. Any unnecessary contact was far too dangerous to initiate back home, and though the Alzheimer’s meant her mum wouldn’t miss her, having forgotten Prisha’s face many months before, not being able to visit or call was the toughest part of her work.
If Dad was calling, her suspicions of something being wrong was not a case of paranoia.
“Yes,” Prisha answered.
“You’ve been compromised,” said Director General Grace Helmsley. “Get out. Now.”
Prisha stole a look over her shoulder at the approaching men. “Affirmative.”
Without another word, Prisha hung up and tossed the device down the nearest drain in case the forgers were using it to track her. Rounding the next street, she opened her briefcase and collected her gun, the metal cool and reassuring in her grip. Abandoning the briefcase too, Prisha hurried along the street and took a right, now as familiar with the local area as she was with her own neighborhood back in Soho.
It was early afternoon, and the market was packed. An infusion of spices wafted through the air, reminding her of her mum’s home cooking. Cumin, turmeric, garam masala. It mixed together with the sizzling of spiced meats cooking on open flames and the crisp freshness of new material from rows of clothes and rolls of bright fabric in every color as entrepreneurs peddled their wares.
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