by Bruhns, Nina
No. That was crazy thinking. Gregg would never hurt her. Or let her be hurt. He might walk the line sexually, but under that controlling façade he was a good person. Sure, at times he scared the crap out of her. But at other times he’d held her so lovingly, kissed her so tenderly, her heart had simply melted in her chest.
She was half in love with the man. She was sure he felt the same about her. How could he not?
Oh, jeez. Had she really thought that?
Suddenly, she noticed they were heading in the opposite direction of downtown from her Upper East Side brownstone. In fact, they’d just passed the north end of Central Park and he showed no sign of slowing.
“Where are we going?” she shouted to be heard over the noise of the traffic. “I thought we were meeting your boss.”
“We are.”
“Isn’t the CIA office downtown?”
“There’s more than one.”
Okay.
Fifteen minutes later they were driving through an area that looked like a war zone. Burned-out buildings, vacant lots; derelicts and druggies camped out in cardboard shacks. Would the government really have an office here?
“Gregg, I don’t like this. I want to go back,” she shouted.
He just shook his head.
Nervousness swamped back over her, more powerful than it ever had before. But there was nothing she could do. Jumping off the bike in this neighborhood would be nuts, just asking to be mugged. Or worse.
Suddenly, he turned into an alley. Trash littered the pot-holed pavement and graffiti covered the dirty brick on either side. Straight ahead the solid wall of an abandoned building blocked their path.
“Gregg?”
He didn’t reply, but pressed the bike’s horn in a short pattern. All at once a square section of the wall went up like a garage door, exposing the gaping black expanse of an empty warehouse bay. The motorcycle shot forward into it.
Two men with machine guns came running toward them from either side as he spun the bike around to a halt. They were dressed just like Gregg, black T-shirts, BDUs, and combat boots. She clung tight to him, burying her face in the soft leather of his jacket. It smelled like him, and she desperately needed the reassurance that he was there with her. That this armed greeting was normal in his profession, that she’d be fine, and that they’d both be laughing at her silly fears over dinner tonight. If he finally asked her out.
“Gina,” he said, pulling off his helmet, turning to her. “We’re here. You need to get off.”
Reluctantly, she dismounted the bike, took off her own helmet and handed it to him as he got off, too.
He indicated a door on the far side and started for it. “This way.”
No kiss. No reassuring hug. Not even a smile. It was like he’d become a different person.
She walked next to him with a growing sense of wild unease, down a long hall and into a small, bare room furnished only with a table flanked by two chairs. The guards marched behind them, posting themselves at the door.
“Sit,” Gregg said, indicating one of the chairs.
“Please,” she said, reaching out to touch him. “Tell me what’s going on. Why am I here?”
He didn’t take her hand, letting her fingers slide off his leather-clad arm. “I’m sorry. Colonel Blair will have to tell you that, ma’am.”
Her lips parted. Ma’am?
Pain razored through her heart as another man strode into the room. Posture straight as an arrow, with iron-colored hair and a stern, leathery face that had seen a lot of outdoor action, the man looked like he hadn’t smiled for the five decades since he got his first toy rifle.
“Dr. Cappozi?” he asked.
Obviously Gregg van Traitor wasn’t going to be any help. She was on her own here. Oh, what a shock.
She lifted her chin. “Who wants to know?”
Colonel Dour scrutinized her for a moment with a calculating stare. Then he turned to Gregg, thrusting him a manila envelope. “Van Halen, your team has been mobilized. You’ll join them immediately. Wheels-up in two hours.”
Gregg took the envelope and came to attention. “Yes, sir.” Without another glance at her, he turned to leave.
“Oh, and van Halen?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Good job.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Then he was gone.
Shell-shocked, Gina stared after him. Oh, God. What had he done?
Worse, what had she done?
“Now, then, Dr. Cappozi,” the colonel said with his deep, abrasive voice, no doubt made so from a lifetime of yelling at his men. “I understand you’re the head researcher on Columbia University’s respiratory syncitial virus project. Is that correct?”
She was still so stunned by Gregg’s cold turnabout she didn’t think before answering, “Yes. Why?”
If possible, the colonel’s expression shuttered even more. “I’m afraid there has been a slight change in plan.”
“What plan?” Her alarm heightened even more, bringing her around. She put on her best I-take-no-crap college professor face. “I was told you wanted to see me regarding the kidnapping of my friend, Lorraine Martin.”
He folded his arms behind his back. “I’m afraid Miss Martin is dead, along with the man who kidnapped her.”
Gina swallowed an instinctive gasp. And reminded herself this wasn’t the first time she’d received that same bad news.
“Can you prove it?”
The scrutinizing stare was back. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I was hoping you would identify the body.”
She grabbed the back of the metal chair for support. So it really was true. Oh, Rainie. She couldn’t believe it.
“Yes,” she said, sadness gripping her. “I can do that.” This could still be a mistake. Misidentifications happened all the time. The whole situation had been so surreal from the outset, who knew what was real and what wasn’t.
“Good.” The colonel gave a signal to the two men at the door. “Gentlemen, you know what to do.”
At his clipped order, a shiver went down her spine. For some reason it sounded . . . sinister.
“Ma’am,” one of the men said. “If you’ll follow me.”
With little choice, she did so, noting that the second man fell in behind them. As they marched her single file down the long corridor back to the warehouse bay where they’d arrived, every nerve in her body screamed at her to get out of there.
This was so not good. How could Gregg have just left her with these awful people, in the awful place? And without a word, or even a look good-bye?
They reached the door and went through it to where a black SUV was parked idling.
Suddenly she was surrounded by six men in ski masks, wielding even bigger machine guns than her two escorts. The barrel of one was thrust under her chin, and in the next second her arms were yanked behind her back and her wrists handcuffed.
She tried to scream, but a hand slammed brutally over her mouth, pinching her nose at the same time. She couldn’t breathe. Hands grabbed her arms and held like iron claws. She couldn’t struggle. There were too many of them. They were too strong.
Duct tape replaced the hand, and she sucked in a deep lungful of air. A hood was slipped over her head. And an accented voice growled in her ear.
“Get in the vehicle or you die.”
TWENTY-FOUR
NATE grabbed Rainie and clung fast to regain their balance, sending a shower of stones and pebbles careening down the hill to the wadi. She clapped both her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming and giving away their position.
“What are you doing?” Nate demanded, glancing behind her at the hissing explosives fuse.
Her pulse had gone off the charts. Oh, hell. Friend or foe? She had to choose quickly. But how?
“You first,” she answered, then grasped his arm and started down the hill. “But talk fast because we have to move.”
“Where?”
“Wrong answer,” she said, whipp
ing the KA-BAR from its sheath. She jammed it into his ribs. “Walk. Fast.”
“Jesus, Rainie! I thought you were on my side! I could have sworn you were the one voice of reason in that argument. Innocent until proven guilty? Ring a bell?”
“Yeah, well, that was before Girard Virreau pulled a gun and turned traitor. I’m a bit more suspicious now.”
“Girard?” Nate seemed honestly shocked. “What are you talking about?”
They reached the bottom of the hill where the camel was hobbled. She pointed toward the insurgent camp while raising the KA-BAR so close to his throat that a drop of blood trickled down it. “Virreau’s in league with the terrorists over there. They’re holding Kick prisoner, along with another man. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t tie you up right now and leave you for the jackals.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed past the knife blade, producing another scarlet trickle. “Because I’m not a traitor. I didn’t betray Kick and his team in Afghanistan, and if he’s a prisoner, I’ll do anything you tell me, to help get him out of there.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What about that photo Kick was talking about? The one showing you taking money from abu Bakr.”
“Abbas Tawhid, you mean. Abu Bakr’s right-hand man.”
“So you admit it.”
“It wasn’t money in that packet. It was photos, and a list of names and places.”
“Explain,” she said impatiently. Time was literally ticking away.
“Tawhid’s mother came to the DFP camp with a raging infection. I saved her life. He let me name my reward. I asked for the lives of a group of aid workers who’d been kidnapped a few months earlier. He came through. I turned the information over to STORM Corps, and they were rescued.”
“Why didn’t Kick know about this?”
“Kick doesn’t work for STORM.”
“But Marc does.”
“Not every operator knows about every rescue mission. You have the SATCOM. Radio STORM and confirm my story.”
She pinioned his gaze with hers, searching for any sign of deception. She wasn’t a cop, but in the ER you had to develop a pretty good lie-radar. People were often stupid, preferring to hide the truth about an injury or condition and risk misdiagnosis rather than tell how they really got it.
All she saw in Nathan Daneby’s clear blue eyes was open sincerity.
“No time,” she said, hoping to hell she was right about him. She withdrew the knife and hurried over to the camel. “All right, then. Get on. We’ve got about eight minutes before this whole place blows.”
THE boom of a massive explosion hurled Kick back to consciousness.
At the blast, chaos erupted all around him, tangos running and shouting in staccato Arabic. A nearby gunshot battered his eardrums, dialing down the sounds around him like a dimmer switch.
Kick’s head was spinning and his limbs weaker than they’d been since detox, but he’d been an operator long enough to know when action was needed. Immediately.
Where the hell was he?
He shook his head to clear it, spraying sweat and blood, and realized he was lying down, inside a neat room. Brightly lit. The cement hut.
He tried to sit up. But was jerked to a halt by restraints on his wrists and ankles. WTF. He bit down on a groan. His whole body felt terrible.
A low moan drew his attention. From the floor.
“Alex!” he called. “You all right, man?”
Another moan. “Is . . . this . . .” The words were tinny but at least the gunshot hadn’t taken out Kick’s hearing completely, thank God.
He had no idea what was happening, but they definitely needed to move. Now, in the first flush of confusion. “Can you get free?” he called.
“Not . . . tied,” Alex returned tightly. He sounded in worse pain than Kick.
No time to find out why. “Come get me loose. We gotta go.”
Alex lurched up and nearly collapsed on top of him. Ah, Jesus. Blood was all over his friend’s rag of a shirt, his arm hanging useless. Yet somehow he managed to untie one of Kick’s wrist restraints.
“What the hell did they do to you?” Kick asked as he frantically undid his other wrist and eased out from under Alex’s panting body. By that time he was panting himself.
“Shot,” Alex gasped.
Fuck.
Kick scooted down to free his ankles. “Where? Can you still walk?” Could he?
“Arm. I’m okay.”
A second explosion ripped the air outside, much closer, lifting one of the corrugated metal sheets off the roof and sending it sailing. The sound of the generator sputtered off, and the hut plunged into darkness.
Kick scowled. Please, no. This was feeling way too familiar.
This was his plan being executed. Which meant—
Rainie.
She hadn’t left to go find the Bedouin as he’d made her swear she would do if anything happened to him.
God fucking damn it! What in the freaking hell did she think she was doing?
He had to get to her, and now.
Gritting his teeth, he banded a supportive arm around Alex’s waist and made straight for the door. No guard was there to stop them, so he kept right on plunging on. Muscles screaming, he half carried Alex across the camp and away from the inferno of the burning munitions dump that Rainie—he assumed furiously—had somehow managed to blow up. At the last second he remembered to stumble past their prison hovel and grab the SIG from where, in anticipation, he’d hidden it this morning under a flat rock along the outside wall before his surrender.
“You doin’ okay?” he asked Alex, who mumbled something indecipherable back.
Hell, the man was doing well just to stay on his feet. As was Kick. He was light-headed and it felt like there were a million insects crawling through his veins. They were both stumbling every two or three steps, Alex’s breath coming in sharp gasps of pain and exhaustion. Luckily he didn’t weigh more than a child, so Kick was able to support him as they ducked and zigzagged between the various huts of the training camp, avoiding the tangos. He was making for the opposite side, and the rendezvous spot beyond that, which he and Rainie had decided on yesterday.
He prayed with everything in him that she’d be there, waiting.
They rounded a corner and suddenly crashed headlong into a familiar figure. In his foggy state it took Kick a second to recognize the smarmy count from the DFP camp. “Virreau!” he said, steadying himself and Alex. “Which way out?”
The count backed up a few steps and made the mistake of thinking about it. His second mistake was to raise the pistol clutched in his hand. The pistol a DFP doctor was forbidden to carry.
Suddenly the puzzle pieces clicked into place in Kick’s mind. Holy hell.
Nate wasn’t the traitor; this man was.
“I’ve seen those boots before!” Alex accused in a halting rasp, staring down at them. Confirming Kick’s deduction.
Kick managed to beat Virreau to the draw, drilling the SIG into the skeet-shooting Eurotrash bastard’s forehead. “You’ve got one chance. Tell me who you work for and I’ll let you live,” he growled.
Virreau just laughed. Kick’s arm was so weak it was obvious to both of them he could barely hold up the gun. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, Jackson. Kill me, and they’ll just find someone else to take my place.”
“I guess we’ll see about that,” Kick muttered. Debated whether or not just to shoot him and be done with it.
“You can’t stop these people,” Virreau said. “Besides, you’re already a dead man.” To Kick’s shock, he turned and started running back into the burning camp, toward what was left of the cement hut. What the hell—
The SIG wobbled and he let it drop to his side in disgust.
“So are you, buddy,” he mumbled. He hoped whatever it was the bogus count was going back into the camp for was worth dying over.
Shielding his eyes, Kick turned and started hurrying straight into the eye-stabbing glow of the setting sun. E
arlier, he’d deliberately picked this angle for their escape, to make it harder for the enemy to spot them in the glare. Thank God it seemed to be working. They had no more cover, no rocks or bushes to hide behind. Totally exposed.
With one last surge of energy, he threw Alex over his shoulder, ignoring the man’s cry of pain and his own weakness and woozy head, and ran like hell toward the shelter of a shallow gully that would lead them to the rendezvous spot in a deeper wadi further out in the desert. No time to lose. The diversion had worked, but their captors would soon realize the ruse and discover their prisoners had escaped. Then it would only be a matter of minutes before they’d be on them.
He shot a quick glance up at the sky, hoping to see or hear a STORM aircraft swooping in from the north.
So far, nothing.
Sliding on his backside down into the ravine, he forced himself back to his feet, adjusted Alex, and struggled through the sand. Around one curve, then another, then they were clambering down the steep rocky trail into the wadi.
“Rainie!” he risked calling out. “Baby, where are—”
The words lodged in his throat at the sight that greeted them.
Oh, sweet fucking Jesus.
He lurched to a wobbly halt and let Alex slide down to his unsteady feet. They were both breathing hard, in pain and sweating profusely in the residual heat from the scorcher of a day. Alex landed next to the unconscious body of Nathan Daneby.
Kick slashed his gaze up, meeting Rainie’s pleading eyes.
No!
Abu Bakr had an arm around her throat. And a gun pressed to the pulsing vein in her temple. She looked . . . damn, he couldn’t read her expression.
Kick’s entire being burned with fury. This was not happening.
No. Way. He’d come too far to lose her now. Not like this. Not to this animal.
