“No. Two nuns. Did you know—?”
Tess crashed back into his arms, the breath knocked out of her and her heart broken. The strong man wrapped around her couldn’t diminish the weight of the world burying her now. Sister Alison had a friend visiting from the states. She’d told Tess this friend might be joining her to work at the orphanage.
“Sister Alison. My friends,” she groaned. “What have I done? I’ve been so busy stealing the crown, and now they’re all gone.”
“I’m sorry,” Lee murmured into the top of her head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Please,” she sobbed, the pain in her gut relentless. “Tell me the children at the orphanage are safe. Mina? Jamaal? They’re still alive, aren’t they?”
“No one’s hit the orphanage,” he assured her. “The kids are safe.”
That much was good, but all Tess could do was hold on tight to Lee and cry.
Mother called to confirm what Lee already knew to be true. Tess did part-time work at the local orphanage when she wasn’t running across rooftops spitting in the face of the Taliban and their adept assassin. Jamaal had lost both legs, and his sister Mina was blinded, both hurt by the same IED left by a rabid, fanatical countryman. Their father was sick and elderly.
The orphanage was in disarray since the administrator, Sister Alison of the Maryknoll order out of New York, had been killed, along with another nun. Another aid-worker had stepped in to handle the needs of the children. Sweet little Mina cried for her missing friend Tess, but Lee couldn’t bear to tell Tess that.
“I did a little more research into your client,” Mother announced brightly.
Lee gazed into the sad face of said client. Tess had cried herself to sleep. The pizza and two beers hadn’t hurt, but all those unexpected deaths were more than she’d seemed able to bear. She lay in the crook of his arm, her face splotched with red, and her poor eyes swollen. When she moaned in her sleep, he felt useless. There was no way to shield her from this tragedy. She blamed herself while he planned a hundred different ways to kill Turik.
“What did you find out?” he asked quietly.
“The Taliban made an example of her four years ago.”
“Already know that. They roughed her up pretty good. What else?”
“Well, did you know she’s been in contact with the French—?”
“Yes. Monsieur Favreau and Tess were working together before he was killed.”
Mother huffed through the phone. “Then I guess you know her brother flies a helicopter. He’s been back and forth between Kabul and the high Hindu Kush the past three months. I’ve got him on a satellite-recon photo meeting with a fellow named Iskandar Kadir.”
“Who’s that?” Lee asked, keeping his voice low.
“You tell me,” Mother said. “You’re the one who already knows everything.”
Lee waited. Mother might get her dander up, but it wouldn’t take long before she’d spill the beans. She was OCD that way. Knowledge was her power base. She had to know more than the next guy, but thankfully, she was also compelled to share.
“He’s an arms dealer,” she said, right on cue. “Meets with Clint Culver every month.”
“Clint buying or selling?” This news surprised Lee. Clint hadn’t struck him as a fully functional member of the human race the one and only time he’d met him. The idea of a doped-up punk behind the stick on any aircraft was just plain scary.
“Doesn’t always look like Clint Culver’s gunrunning though, Lee. He’s not always unloading. Sometimes he’s picking up.”
“Picking up what?”
“Guess you’re going to have to find out, aren’t you?” she came back at him.
“Thanks, Mother.” Lee signed off, ignoring her jab.
He’d already intended to do just that.
Chapter Thirteen
Alex looked grim. “I’m cancelling the op.”
“Why?” Lee asked. “What’s going on now?”
After a long, sad night, Alex had summoned Lee and Tess to the hotel’s main level restaurant. They’d dressed in a hurry and now sat at a comfortable circular booth waiting for their server to bring coffee and breakfast.
Tess sat stone-faced and solemn. Her eyes were puffy and red, her pretty face drawn and pale this morning. She’d slipped back into her black cat burglar get-up. The woman beneath the stoic demeanor was doing all she could to keep it together.
Lee could only hope he and Tess didn’t look too chummy. That whole fraternization-with-clients rule could cause a problem if his boss caught wind of it, more so if Alex turned confrontational. It wouldn’t take much to push Tess over the edge, not as tightly strung as she was.
“The news isn’t good.” Alex sipped his coffee, boiling hot and black as always. He turned to Tess. “How did you get the videos and pictures on that USB drive?”
Her chin came up, surprising Lee. Instead of sorrow, she’d chosen to lead with anger. Impressive. “People talk. I listen.”
A hint of annoyance crossed Alex’s brows at her evasive answer. “Do you know everyone on that video and in those still shots?”
“Sherazi. Nizari. Why? Who else should I care about?” Again, she radiated insolence instead of grief.
Alex pulled several photos from his inner pocket and handed them to Lee. “Anyone look familiar to you?”
Lee looked at the black-and-white four-by-six photos. Tess had caught several transactions taking place between the assistant museum curator, Abdul Sherazi, and Hasim Nizari. Some of the parcels passed to Nizari were large enough to require both hands, but many appeared quite small. It was the man in the background shadows on two of the shots that caught Lee’s attention. Mohammed Turik.
“He’s a busy guy,” Lee muttered, debating how much he should let Alex know about the Taliban assassin and their unwilling client. Tess seemed to understand that Alex expected insolence from her. Lee reached for her hand under the table to let her know she wasn’t alone. She spared a quick dismissive glance in his direction, nothing more.
“Or he’s targeting professionals who’ve caught onto the museum thefts.” Alex already had a full head of steam. Talking to him would take some finesse. “Think about it. Turik killed the French ambassador, an expert in Bactrian artifacts who was only in Kabul to offer his government’s protection and assistance to anyone willing to work the archeological digs. And those two assistant curators Turik offed would’ve known if any artifacts had gone missing from the museum. This contract is not what I was led to believe. I don’t like it. Something else is going on.”
“Who are you talking about?” Tess asked, craning to see the photos. “Oh. That’s Mohammed. He used to be one of my sources, before... yes. I knew he was there. I just...” She turned away, biting her lip.
Lee caught the desolation in her tone. Alex noticed too, his brows furrowed with scrutiny. Not much evaded this apex predator. He turned to Lee, his nose already out of joint. “What the hell is going on with you two?”
Lee met his boss’s hard blue eyes, giving nothing away. “We think Turik is hunting everyone involved with the disappearance of a certain artifact from the museum. All those people he’s killed in the last two days were Tess’s friends. The problem is that Turik was also her friend, at least she thought he was. Only now, she could be the link between the murders.”
“We think?” Alex’s eyes narrowed. “What artifact?”
“Turik also took a shot at Tess last night just before I snagged her. Eric’s got it on video.”
“I saw the video. What artifact?” Alex demanded again, his tone tighter.
“I thought Mohammed was my friend,” Tess said sadly, “but he was just using me.”
“What son-of-a-bitchin’ artifact, damn it!” Alex slammed his palm to the table, his demand ground out between clenched teeth.
Tess startled and jumped. Lee grabbed her wrist. A whisper of caution flitted across his neck, pinging his sniper sense and causing him to look twice at the breakfast crowd. None of them
looked out of the ordinary. There were a lot of US military faces scattered through the restaurant, some booths full of other uniforms. Some men sat alone. Some with families. Nothing looked out of place. A knot of dread had settled in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t Alex he had to fear. Someone else was watching.
Lee faced his boss, a man not known for patience or understanding, then turned to Tess. “Boss, Tess is in possession of a priceless—”
A tiny red laser dot danced over her face.
“Shooter!” Alex roared. “Everybody down!”
Lee didn’t think, just body-slammed Tess full force to her side onto the padded bench. His weapon automatically in his palm. Turik had to get through him first. Not satisfied with the bench, he went to the floor with her and shielded her with his body. The table post was hard in his back, but he needed all the cover he could give her. He lowered his head and peered once more into that now terrorized breakfast crowd.
Chaos erupted. Men’s voices rose angrily around them. Women screamed. Dishes crashed to the floor. A baby cried. But no gunshots sounded. After the initial frenzy, the dining room had grown oddly silent. Everyone seemed to be holding their breaths. Lee glanced across the bench for Alex, but the man was gone.
“You’re not leaving too, are you?” Tess asked, her voice shaking as much as her fingers on his chest. “Don’t go, okay?”
“You know better than that. I’d never leave you, Tess.” Lee relaxed in order to instill calm in her. “Alex will be right back. He’s scouting the perimeter. Maybe someone saw the shooter. He’s a sniper too, remember? Maybe he can end this before someone gets killed.”
Her heart pounded against him, flattened to each other the way they were. He could feel it clearly through her shirt. And that lacy black bra.
Lee shook the distracting thought from his head. They could make love later. Right then and there, they needed to survive, because they weren’t dealing with just a shooter anymore. He tucked her head closer as the air rippled and vibrated. A familiar whoosh headed their way. That only meant one thing—a rocket-launched grenade was in transit. People were going to die. Not Tess.
Lee hunkered over her with his whole body, bound to protect her if it meant his life. The rocket skimmed across their booth and blasted the opposite wall directly over the breakfast buffet, tearing through tables and people on its way through infrastructure and onto detonation. The explosion threw debris, fire, and smoke on impact. Sirens went off along with the sprinkler system. The cries of the wounded and terrified melted into one shrieking lament.
“Lee!” Suddenly, Alex gripped Lee’s shoulder, pulling him and Tess from the floor. “There’s a damn Taliban army outside. Move it.”
That must have been the chatter Eric was concerned about. No further encouragement was needed. Lee dragged Tess with him, scrambling in the direction of anywhere but where they were. Another explosion slammed the outside wall of the hotel, shaking the walls with its vibration. Rat-a-tat-a-tat automatic fire sounded too close and personal.
“Where to?” Lee asked.
“Eric and Seth are—” Alex paused, leveled his pistol, and shot the AK-47-wielding man who’d just rounded the column at the restaurant’s elegant entrance. The idiot dropped dead to his knees, and they pressed forward.
Lee followed with Tess sandwiched safely between Alex and him, his hand in the middle of her back to keep contact as much as to offer assurance. They ran as a single unit into the hall. When Alex flattened his back to the wall outside the maître d’s abandoned post, so did Lee and Tess, with Lee closest to the entrance.
Another rocket shook the floor beneath them. The walls rattled. That blast was closer. Sirens screeched out front of the building. The local authorities were responding to this brazen assault and no doubt hotel security was fighting back, too. A group of five heavily armed and tactically protected Marines stormed by on their way out the door.
“Eric and Seth are across the street,” Alex yelled above the noise. “So’s the U.S. Army.”
BLAM! The front entry exploded. Lee ducked, grabbing Tess, his hand pressing her face into his chest. He looked over his shoulder, his heart pounding and his ears ringing. The Marines who’d run past him were gone. Nothing remained of those poor men and women but—nothing.
Tess looked up at him, her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear. She reached up to the back of his head and pulled her hand away to show him. Blood covered her fingers. Damn. He’d been hit. He felt his scalp. Sure enough, he had a good-sized divot just behind his right ear. No pain yet, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t dying, and they needed better cover. Right damned now.
He pushed her away from the hellish scene, and once again they followed Alex. Moving swiftly through the hall, they passed the front desk to the elevator and stairs. Only emergency personnel and military first respondents scurried past them.
At the stairwell, Alex opened the door and peered upward, while Lee instinctively took the lower-level view. He shook his head to clear the persistent ringing in his ears. Alex looked angry, his jaw working and probably swearing, if Lee knew his boss. The man could curse more than most, and his lips were moving plenty, but Lee couldn’t hear a damned thing. He pointed to his ears to let his boss know he’d been compromised. “Can’t hear. What?”
Alex pointed up, so Lee nodded an affirmative to move in that direction. Like most stairs in large buildings, these scissored back on themselves with a small landing between each level. Alex led quickly, but they only moved to the interim landing between ground level and second floor. He crouched to one knee and gestured for Lee to let him check his wound. Lee bowed his head. He’d been hit, but he wasn’t worried. Head wounds tended to bleed profusely. He just didn’t want anything else going on back there—like his brains falling out.
Alex thumped his shoulder, giving him a thumbs-up. Good enough. He returned the sign.
It looked like Alex was talking into his earpiece again, so Lee kept a lookout below. He didn’t need hearing to take out any enemy soldiers coming through that fire door on the first level. Tess leaned into him, shaking.
Gradually, Lee’s hearing returned enough that Alex’s voice became audible. He still sounded like he was talking underwater.
“Say again?” Alex cocked his head. “Pull back. We’re in the stairwell, center of the building. Between the first and second floors.”
Tess hadn’t asked, just reached her hands to the side of Lee’s neck and pulled him down to her level. She worked quickly to compress the bleeding with the heel of her hand. Lee caught the frightened shadow in her eyes, but there was a lot of determination, too. She was lovely to watch, her concern for him a nice touch in the middle of mayhem. And face it, a man liked a woman’s hands on him over a guy’s any day.
“Am I going to live?” he teased to lighten the mood. She still looked so sad.
“I’ve seen worse,” she whispered, biting her lower lip as she dabbed at his head. Her fingers were drenched in red by then, but he wasn’t worried. The hole in his head didn’t hurt. “I’ll clean it better when we get back to your room. You’ll need ice. There’s a big bump back here.”
“Negative,” Alex interrupted. “We’re moving to a safer place. Anything in your room you can’t live without?”
“My gear bag would be nice,” Lee answered. “It’s got all my ammo and weapons in it.” He took over holding the makeshift compress at the back of his head.
“He needs ice and a wet towel,” Tess added. “Can you do that?”
Alex lifted a brow at that question, but got to his feet and headed up. “Eric and Seth are on their way in. Soon as I’m back, we move out. Keep our girl safe.”
The noise from the battle at the front of the hotel seemed to have died down, so Lee relaxed. Other people staying at the hotel came and went in an anxious rush, but he and Tess maintained their position on the landing. She’d planted herself against him, her hip rubbing his.
“This is crazy,” she muttered. “Why is Mohammed a
fter me? Just because of a two-century-old artifact?”
Lee grunted. “You’ve tossed the ultimate challenge, Tess. You’re a woman, and you’re stealing from the Taliban. I don’t guess they like that very much.”
“But you don’t understand. Mohammed’s always helped Sister Alison and me. He’s brought food and medicine when supplies were low. The kids all love him. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Tess, you saw the video. He tried to kill you.”
She bit her lip, still not believing what she’d seen with her own eyes.
Lee looked away. She was right. It didn’t make sense that Turik had tried to kill her, not unless he’d been using her for information the same way she’d used him. That smacked of a closer relationship between her and the Taliban’s best man than Lee wanted to think about. Something was going on between Tess and this Turik guy.
Lee understood that she’d been on her own for a while, a damned dangerous position for a single woman in Afghanistan working as a foreign-aid worker. None of those humanitarian organizations offered much security, and her brother was no help. Had Turik been the reason she’d come to Afghanistan? How on earth had she met up with a man the likes of him? Better question, was it only the kids who loved him?
She reached to dab at his head again, but Lee shrugged her away, his nerves on edge. They’d just shared something incredibly good and wonderful. He’d felt an intensely intimate connection with Tess that rattled him to his core. Hell, he’d even thought he loved her, and not just because she’d gotten to him, either. No. Their lovemaking felt right at every level. Had he just made the ultimate fool of himself?
He’d only said that word once before. Veronica’s perky smile taunted him. She’d been another strong-willed woman, the curse and bane of his life before the Corps. Only Veronica was one of those love-the-one-you’re-with gals. When he’d gone to boot camp, she’d quickly moved on despite the five-thousand-dollar engagement ring on her finger. That was his first real lesson in how cheap talk was. Was it just as cheap with Tess? Was she in love with a Taliban assassin, the damned jerk who’d tried to kill her?
Lee (In the Company of Snipers Book 12) Page 16
