“Oh, love.” Sunday knelt down, clasped her in a hug, and held her until the crying jag faded into hiccups. Then she pulled back and clasped Claire’s face in her palms. “You need some palm wine, yeah? We’ll get pished like the good old days and forget everything for a while.”
Claire sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “No, I can’t. I have to—”
“Take a break. Please,” Sunday said. “For my sake if not for your own.”
The mess tent was quiet, everyone else having already retired to their own tents for the night. Sunday helped herself to a jug of palm wine and brought it over to one of the tables, snagging two glasses on the way. She poured them each a healthy dose, then left the bottle open.
Claire sat down and reluctantly picked up the glass her friend nudged toward her.
“Cheers,” Sunday said, clinking their rims before downing the drink like a shot. Claire took a breath, then also knocked it back.
“I’m sorry I lost it out there,” she said as she replaced the glass on the table.
Sunday immediately refilled it. “Don’t be, love. We’re all entitled to a breakdown now and again. Especially in these conditions.” She sighed and rested her chin in her palm. “We’re too far behind. We’re running this race with our legs tied and the virus is winning. The WHO team found another decimated village today, but the Nigerian government wants to go on pretending this isn’t happening.”
“It’s the oil,” Claire said softly, rubbing one finger along the top edge of her glass. It made a hollow ringing sound. “If they cordon this area, declare the outbreak, oil production stops and they lose money.”
“It always comes down to bloody money doesn’t it?” Sunday brooded into her drink, then took another large gulp. “Enough of that. Tell me about this Jean-Luc. How did you meet him?”
Claire took a smaller sip of the sweet, foamy wine then set her glass down. She knew from experience palm wine could be deceptive. Because it didn’t taste alcoholic, it was easy to get drunk and as tempting as the idea was, she wanted a clear head tonight in case Jean-Luc needed her. She stared down into the milk-colored liquid.
“He hit on me.” She smiled a little, remembering his swagger. He’d been so sure of himself, and she figured he saw himself as God’s gift to womankind. “I turned him down flat.”
Sunday gave her a dry look. “Now I know he didn’t follow you all the way to Nigeria for a second chance.”
“No, he didn’t. We met again, later that night at the hotel bar, and talked for a bit. I liked him. He was funny and charming and—”
“Sexy?” A devilish gleam lit Sunday’s eyes. “So did you shag him?”
“I might have.” She lifted her shoulder in a half shrug. “Honestly considered it, but we didn’t have the opportunity.” She hesitated, wondering if she should say more. Probably not, but she was already warm from the wine and it loosened her tongue. “We were at the Trinity Sands Resort in Martinique.”
Sunday jolted, spilling some of her drink. “Oh my God. You were there when terrorists took over the hotel?”
They hadn’t been terrorists. There had been no political or religious motivation behind their actions—only greed. And they had been after her and Tiffany for their research, but she left all that out in her retelling. Telling Sunday would only make her friend a target. Or could possibly even get her killed like Tiffany.
“I wasn’t there for long,” she told Sunday instead. “Because of Jean-Luc. He got me out when the hostage situation first started.” Then he’d gone back in to try to rescue Tiffany. Every preconceived notion she’d had of him had vanished when he’d done that. Sure, he was cocky and arrogant, but he’d had no reason to risk his life for Tiffany other than Claire had asked him to. Under all the snark and bravado, he had a good heart.
One that was currently failing him as she sat here getting drunk.
She realized tears had started pouring again and set her glass down with a thunk. “I can’t let him die. I won’t.” She stood up. She’d promised she’d do everything in her power to help him beat the virus, but there was one thing she wasn’t doing. The one thing she knew with all her heart would save him. “I need to go to Lagos.”
“What?” Sunday also stood. “When?”
“Right now.” She hadn’t been completely idle while running for her life. She’d purposely traveled to places she knew she’d be able to continue her research on Akeso. Tiffany had died because the wrong people found out it worked on human cells in the lab. With the tweaks Claire had made since, it would work on Jean-Luc. It had to.
It had to.
…
It was dawn before the plane Claire chartered made it out to the field hospital. The pilots were too afraid of the virus to stay on the ground long—they’d barely touched down on the muddy runway before they were itching to take off again—but it was long enough for Claire and Sunday to load some broken equipment and samples from Ebiere and the other infected patients. The equipment would be either fixed or replaced. A lab would run tests on the samples and start working on an effective treatment using Ebiere’s antibodies—if she indeed had them.
At last, Claire climbed into the cargo hold.
“Let’s go. Let’s go,” the pilot said.
“In a moment.” She turned in the doorway and met Sunday’s gaze. “You’ll look after him?”
“You know I will.”
“I’ll be back by sunset.”
Dayo walked up holding a duffle bag on his shoulder. He paused long enough to give Sunday a light kiss, then joined Claire in the plane.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“You’re not going alone,” he said and secured the door. He tapped twice on the back of the pilot’s seat and said something in the local language. The pilot didn’t need to be told twice, and soon had the small plane airborne again.
Claire watched out the window as the ground fell away and hoped to God she was doing the right thing.
The flight was only a bit over an hour long, but it seemed like the longest of her life. The pilots were much more relaxed landing at the busy Lagos airport. They even offered to help unload, apparently forgetting they were carrying the very thing that had so frightened them back at the field hospital. A rental van already waited for them. Claire didn’t know where it had come from and could only marvel at Dayo’s efficiency. The man knew how to get things done.
“Where to?” Dayo asked, sliding in behind the wheel.
“We’ll take the samples in first. Then the equipment.” And while he was distracted, she’d slip away on her own errand. As efficient as he was, and as much as Sunday trusted him, Claire wasn’t sure she was ready to tell him all of her secrets.
Besides, her secrets got people killed and she liked him too much to risk that.
Chapter Ten
Lagos, Nigeria
Mercedes Raya couldn’t sleep. For the past week, she’d lain awake every night, staring at the cracked ceiling while an overworked floor fan pushed muggy air around her shitty one-bedroom flat. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw one of three faces. Dr. Claire Oliver, the puta who had managed to evade her for weeks. Jerome Briggs, the man who had failed to obtain the doctor in Martinique last month and had paid for his mistakes with his life. And Harrison Stead, who was the only father figure Mercedes cared to remember and also the head honcho at Defion. More than the others, it was his face—lips pulled into a tight frown under his gray mustache, dark eyes condemning—that kept her from sleep. Despite their close relationship, if she didn’t start producing results, Harrison would send someone to give her the pink slip.
And you didn’t walk away from one of Harrison’s firings. Just ask Jerome Briggs.
She couldn’t fail this mission like he had.
Mercedes gave up on sleep and swung her legs out of bed. Her lover was still out cold, snoring softly, face buried in his pillow, the sheets twisted around his legs. After months apart, they’d finally met up and spent the entire night drin
king and fucking. Any sane person would be asleep after that.
Naked, she crossed the one-room apartment to the groaning old fridge and took out a bottle of water. The place was dismal, but it came furnished and cheap at less than three thousand dollars a year. She’d paid for the whole year up front, mostly to keep away any nosy landlords, but she hoped to God she wouldn’t be here that long.
Sebastian lifted his head from the pillow. “What are you doing?”
“Needed water. Hot as hades here.”
“What time is it?” He fumbled for his phone on the rickety table beside the bed and squinted at it with one eye. “Shit. Did you even sleep?”
“Some.” She finished the water in one long gulp, then tossed the bottle aside and walked past the wall covered with photos of Dr. Claire Oliver and all of her known colleagues. She stopped next to the window and stared out at the garbage-strewn alley below. The other reason she’d chosen this apartment over some of the nicer ones was right across the street—a blocky gray building that housed the research laboratory of a known associate. If Dr. Oliver was indeed here in Nigeria, and if she’d continued her research since Martinique, then she’d need a lab. It was the best shot at finding her, but the waiting was going to drive Mercedes mad.
Sebastian groaned and rolled to his back, shielding his eyes with one muscular arm. “Mercy, you need to stop worrying.”
She whirled on him. “You wouldn’t be saying that if it was your head on the line. Briggs—”
“Was an idiot. You’re not.” He dropped his arm and sat up. “And my head is on the line here, too. In case you’ve forgotten.”
She had. She was in a woe-is-me mood and had completely forgotten about his problems. She sighed and turned away from the window. “I’m sorry. Is Harrison still angry?”
“Pissed as hell. He’s started calling the mission in Martinique ‘The Great Fuck-up.’ I killed the wrong guy, and he doesn’t trust me anymore.”
“You’ll win him back.”
He shook his head. He’d let his dark hair grow out from the high and tight it’d been in last time she’d seen him, and the strands, damp with sweat from the heat, stuck to his forehead. He drew his knees up, rested his elbows on them, and delved his hands into that tousled hair. “Honestly? I’m not sure I want to.”
She strode over and sat down beside him, placing one hand on his knee. “Don’t start talking like that or you will end up just like Briggs.”
He scoffed. There was the cocky man with attitude for days that she’d fallen in love with. “I’m not afraid of Harrison.”
The words sent ice surging through her veins. “You should be.” The thought of losing him turned her stomach. And she would lose him if he kept talking defection. Defion was like the mafia. Once you were in, you didn’t get out. “Please, don’t start down this road.”
He pulled away from her touch and stood, grabbing his jeans from the floor. “Merce, I killed an innocent man for him. Daniel Giancarelli. FBI agent. Wife, three young kids.”
Yes, she’d figured that had still been eating him up inside after all these weeks. Sebastian was a killer, but he wasn’t cold blooded. He lived by a code, and she loved that about him. “You couldn’t have known your target would duck just as you pulled the trigger. Besides, Giancarelli wasn’t innocent. He was with HORNET, and they’re the enemy. They’re dangerous.”
“Toeing the company line. Ah, that’s so like you, Mercedes.” He shook out his jeans and stepped into the legs, covering his gorgeous ass with denim. He left the button undone as he searched for his shirt. “Ask me, Harrison’s hard-on for HORNET has more to do with his jealousy of Tucker Quentin than anything else. Quentin has the empire, the kind of power that Harrison’ll only ever see in his dreams.”
“That’s not true. Harrison has a government contract to dismantle HORNET. They’re considered a threat to—”
Sebastian snapped his shirt off a nearby chair and pulled it on without buttoning it. “To the good old U.S. of A.? Bullshit. It’s all bullshit. Open your eyes, baby. Your love for Harrison is blinding you to his faults. And he has many.”
With that, he picked up his boots and stormed out.
Mercedes sat there in stunned silence for several seconds, then scrambled to find clothes and chased him out. He was already at the lower floor. She leaned over the bannister. “What are you saying? You’re not going to complete your mission?”
He gazed up. “I’ll complete the mission because as long as Marcus Deangelo is still alive, I’m not the best goddamn sniper in the world. I haven’t fulfilled the contract and can’t have that blemish on my record. But then I’m outta here. I’m done doing Harrison’s dirty work.”
“Seb, you can’t—”
He held up a hand to stop her protest and his blue-green eyes softened like they did right before he kissed her. “I can. It’s already in the works. The only question left is will you go with me?”
He didn’t wait for an answer and left through the creaking front door of the building. Mercedes stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. And that pissed her off because she always knew what to do, always knew her next step. How dare he twist her up like this?
God. She’d known the FBI agent’s death on Martinique had shaken Sebastian. He’d been sullen and distant ever since pulling the trigger. It wasn’t like him to have second thoughts after a kill. Wasn’t like him to even think about a previous kill. And the way he was talking now? This was more than just a crisis of faith.
She wasn’t leaving Defion. And he was suicidal for considering it. And that terrified her.
He’d come around, she decided and walked back to her apartment. He’d get over this mood, complete his mission, and everything would settle into normalcy again. But until then, she also had a job to do. She returned to the window, stopping for another bottle of water on the way.
She hated the tedium of stakeout duty, day in and day out watching the same street corner. She could almost set her watch by the comings and goings below. She was familiar with every face, every cab, every bus. As mind-numbing as it was, without knowing Dr. Oliver’s exact whereabouts in Nigeria, watching the woman’s one known associate in the country was the most solid plan. She wasn’t about to go busting in somewhere with guns blazing like Briggs had. That macho attitude was what got him killed.
She pulled up a chair, rested her crossed ankles on the windowsill, and checked the time on her phone. It was after nine a.m., so she’d already missed Dr. Toby Yevgeny’s arrival. The Canadian WHO doctor was as punctual as the morning buses were late.
She twisted open the cap of her water and raised the bottle to her lips, but froze at the flash of blond hair on the street below. That was not normal. Water forgotten, she sat up and grabbed her binoculars. She focused on the blonde—a woman!—with a growing sense of exhilaration. The woman paused as she exited the building and clasped hands with the gray-haired Dr. Yevgeny. She carried a cooler in one hand and a bag on her shoulder.
This was it. The watch-and-wait paid off.
Claire Oliver had come for her research. Finally.
Mercedes pumped a fist in the air, then happy-danced over to her clothes on the floor. As she dragged them on, she went back to the window and again experienced a jolt of adrenaline.
“No. Fucking. Way.”
Down below, a man had stepped out of the shadows and into Dr. Oliver’s path. Mercedes fumbled for her phone with tingling fingers and nearly dropped it.
“Seb, you need to come back,” she said when he picked up the other line.
“I have work to do.” He sounded grumpy.
“No. You really need to come back.”
A suspicious pause. “Why?”
“Because my target just met with yours.”
Chapter Eleven
At the front door of the lab, Claire said a heartfelt goodbye and thank you to Toby Yevgeny. The man had been a mentor to her at the start of her career and she’d known he’d keep her secrets for her. She�
�d been reluctant to get him involved at first, knowing it’d put him in danger, but she’d needed help, and he’d always had all the answers while she was in med school. Once he’d heard her predicament, he’d refused to let her walk away without help.
She had Akeso.
And now she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had a target on her back. The little hairs on her neck and arms stood at attention. She’d been very careful to make sure she wasn’t followed here, but she swore she felt eyes on her, tracking her every move.
She hurried down the alley between the lab and the apartment complex next door. She had a cab waiting one street over, but even so, she was cutting it close. Dayo would be back at the local MSF facility in less than a half hour, expecting her to be there.
A man with a leering yellow smile catcalled from one of the first-floor apartments. She picked up her pace and adjusted the bag on her shoulder. It was full of all the research she and Tiffany had done before Tiffany’s death and the strap dug in painfully.
She should have told Dayo where she was going. Better yet, she should have let him come with her. He was a big guy. If nothing else, he’d deter the catcalls.
Up ahead, a man stepped out of the shadowed alcove of the apartment building and blocked her path. At first she thought he was just another catcaller, but he wasn’t a local. Olive skinned with curly dark hair that was too long and unkempt, he looked a bit wild. His dark brown eyes focused on her with an intensity that was beyond startling. Definitely not someone she wanted to run into in a dark alleyway back home, not to mention one in the middle of Lagos, Nigeria.
Oh, God. What if he was with Defion?
Her heart kicked and she stopped in her tracks, then took a step backward as he continued to approach. She risked a glance behind her. Would she be able to run fast enough with the heavy bag to get back to the safety of Toby’s locked lab? She certainly couldn’t leave the bag behind.
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