by Kaylea Cross
“How you doin’, Hunt?”
How do you think I’m doing? “Good,” he said, because what else was there to say? “What can I do for you?” No sense wasting time on pleasantries. Tom Webster wouldn’t be calling just to bullshit. Hunter went back to sit on the couch and picked up the pen he’d been using, fiddling with it to keep his free hand busy.
“You ready for tomorrow?” Tom asked without preamble. The owner and president of Titanium Security didn’t believe in pussy footing around, which was just as well because Hunter didn’t either.
In the reflection of the sliding glass door, Hunter could see his travel bag hanging near the back door. Inside it was his freshly pressed black suit. “Yeah,” he lied, glancing down at the pad of paper on the coffee table and all the scratched out lines that filled the first half of the page. “So, what do you need?”
“You.”
That was the last thing he wanted to hear right now. Hunter closed his eyes briefly and fought back a weary sigh, not even bothering to pretend he misunderstood. “Why?”
“I’m short on guys and I need someone over here who knows the area, knows how things work with the locals and officials. You’re one of my best, Hunt. This is a big one. I want you to be team leader this time.”
Because Scottie was gone.
The familiar hollow sensation started up in his gut at the reminder. He tipped his head back to rest it against the couch and considered what his boss was asking. “Who’ve you got for me?”
“Gage.”
The Tarheeler’s name set off a pang inside him, dredged up those horrific few hours when his team had spontaneously rushed to the ministry building to try and save the diplomats trapped inside. “Who else?”
“Two newer guys. Marines. One ex-Force Recon and the other a Scout/Sniper. Both came highly recommended.”
He considered the logistics of it, prepared to hear Tom out and then turn him down. “What’s the job?”
“Personal security detail.” His boss paused. “John Patterson’s daughter.”
Hunter’s fingers clenched around the phone so tight they went numb. “What?” It came out a croak.
“She’s coming here to pick up where her old man left off. Gets in two days from now.”
Fuck. Did that whole family have a death wish? Hunter ran a hand over his face. John Patterson had just been killed over there in a very barbaric way because of his beliefs. And the anti-American sentiment wasn’t any better over there now than it had been at the time of the murder. “Stupid timing.” Smack at the end of Ramadan, which would only make the radicals bolder if they wanted to try anything. As if they needed more incentive to carry out attacks on Americans, he thought with a disgusted shake of his head.
“Yeah, well, the new school John’s foundation financed opens next week. Daughter’s coming for the grand opening. You know I wouldn’t ask you to take this on if it wasn’t important. I lost four of my more experienced guys, including Scottie, in the days following Patterson’s murder. After what happened to him, Al Collins contacted me. He wants Titanium to take care of the daughter’s security while she’s here.”
Hunter rubbed at the ache that was beginning to form between his eyes. Al was an influential politician and had been a close friend of Patterson’s. He and Tom went way back, had served in the first Gulf War when they were in the SEAL Teams together. Made sense that he’d reach out to Tom to protect Patterson’s daughter. “Where’s the school?”
Tom didn’t answer right away and Hunter knew the answer wasn’t going to be good. “Swat Valley.”
Of course it was. He let out a humorless laugh. “She oblivious or something?” Maybe she never watched the news or read the newspaper.
“Not at all. Sounded to me like she’s carrying out his final wishes, outlined in his will. Figured you could relate to that.”
Hunter’s eyes slid to the pad laid out on the table in front of him. Yeah, he knew all about carrying out the final wishes of someone you loved.
“This contract’s real important to me, Hunt, so I’m calling in a favor. I want you to head this detail, no one else.”
Calling in a favor for this was a low blow, but the fact was, Hunter did owe Tom. Owed him the greatest debt a man could owe another—his life. Unclenching his fingers from around the phone, he sighed and relented. “I can fly out of Jacksonville tomorrow night after the service. Text me the flight details.”
Tom’s exhalation was full of relief. “Thanks, brother. I appreciate this.”
Don’t thank me yet. “Yeah. See you in a couple days.”
“You know it. Give my best to Scottie’s family.”
“Will do.”
Disconnecting, he tossed his phone aside and picked up the scribbled-on pad. Every single line on there was crossed out. He’d already spent three hours at this without being any closer to knowing what to write. Words just didn’t seem adequate. His gaze strayed to the framed picture of him and Scottie hanging on the wall across the room. They were out on a fishing boat together off Myrtle Beach, arms across each other’s bare shoulders, huge grins on their faces. A heavy ball of grief settled in his gut. No matter how much he hated it, it was his duty to eulogize his best friend tomorrow, then see him put into the ground.
Whatever words he put to paper would never do Scottie justice. Nothing could. Except maybe sending him off with the giant fucking party they’d promised each other should one of them die before the other.
And maybe, if Hunter got real lucky in Pakistan over the coming days, he might just get the chance to hunt down the same militants who were ultimately responsible for Scottie’s death. If he did, he wouldn’t hesitate to send them to hell where they belonged.
Chapter Two
Bent over his keyboard in his third floor office, Youssef Khan inspected the latest schematic in his AUTOCAD program. He was concentrating so hard that he jolted a little in his chair when his computer signaled an instant message with a loud ding. He frowned. He never got instant messages at work. Only at home when he was communicating with one person in particular.
His heart rate kicked up a notch. When he read the username along with the message, written in Pashto, his insides tightened.
Is she here?
It was him. Youssef almost couldn’t believe it.
They’d never attempted to contact him here at work before, but IM was his contact’s preferred method of communication. The man was paranoid about phones being tapped and e-mails being traced, so he was always sending messages via different usernames and accounts to avoid detection and tracking. Youssef straightened and considered his reply. Whatever the contact’s network wanted, it must be important for them to take the risk of contacting him here. Still, the possibility of being caught in communication with them made his heart thud and his palms turn clammy.
Casting a surreptitious look around him to ensure his coworkers at the engineering firm weren’t close enough to see what was on his screen, he hunched over his keyboard and typed out a brief answer.
I don’t know.
A few seconds later, the terse reply came back.
Find out and contact me immediately. The man signed off.
Youssef blinked. That was it? No further information about why they wanted him to do the checking—though he suspected they were planning an operation of some sort—or what they planned to do with the information when he reported back to them. Probably just as well. The less he was privy to about their plans, the easier it would be to claim his innocence if he got caught later on. He wanted to help the cause, not become a martyr for it.
Quickly clearing his screen, Youssef got busy doing whatever he could think of to erase the evidence of the conversation from the computer’s hard drive. He wasn’t stupid. Couldn’t be too careful these days and he didn’t want anything pointing to him in case his Taliban contact tried to implicate his involvement later. While he worked, his mind spun with the things he had to check on to find the woman in question.
Khalia Patterson. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan had already managed to kidnap and kill her father, so it made sense that they’d want to eliminate her as well when she arrived. She was either very stupid for doing so, or very brave. Youssef had been shocked to learn she was coming to Pakistan in the article he’d read a few days ago. Apparently she had designs to take up where her father had left off in his misguided efforts to build schools for girls in the volatile tribal region. If Youssef could find Ms. Patterson’s location when she arrived in the city, he would gladly give it to his TTP contact and help prevent her foundation’s efforts.
Soft footfalls behind him sent a wave of alarm through him. He scrambled to clear the screen back to his desktop by the time Faatin, his supervisor and boss, reached him. She stopped next to his chair and gave him a suspicious look down her long nose.
“What are you doing?” she asked, more demand than question.
“Nothing.” He kept his attention on the monitor as he moved items around on the desktop, though he could see her in the screen’s reflection against the black background. “Just cleaning up some files.”
She frowned, her mouth pulling into a thin line of disapproval that marred her otherwise attractive face. Her long dark hair fell down her back in thick waves, uncovered by a hijab or even a scarf. That was only one of the things he found offensive about her. A woman should always cover her hair in the presence of men, especially those outside her family. If Pakistan properly followed the teachings of Allah and adopted a stricter interpretation of the Quran, a cleric would order a fatwa for it. Instead, his country was run by American loving liberals too afraid of doing the proper thing for fear of losing US funding. It made him sick.
“I asked you to finish up that schematic by noon,” she reminded him sharply, making him feel like a boy being scolded. And right out in the open where everyone could see. He could feel the stares aimed in their direction from around the large open room where the desks were organized into tidy rows.
Jaw tight, he turned in his seat to look up at her, brimming with resentment. “I’ll have it to you by the end of the day.”
Faatin sighed and folded her arms across her chest, unintentionally dragging his gaze to her breasts that strained against the fabric of her pale pink shirt. He hated his body’s automatic sexual reaction to her. Another reason he wished women had to wear robes rather than western style clothing that made them look so indecent. “I said by noon,” she reiterated.
“I’m doing it as fast as I can.” It was hard not to choke on the measured response when he secretly longed to put her in her place. It had taken him two years to get hired at this prestigious engineering firm. He wasn’t going to blow his chance at advancement because of friction with his boss. He was smarter than that. Far smarter than anyone here gave him credit for, he thought with a surge of smugness.
Faatin’s gaze flicked to his desktop screen, then back to him, her tight expression telling him just how annoyed she was with his performance. “Perhaps you need to manage your time better then.”
Meaning, stop playing around organizing things that didn’t matter and get your work done.
Youssef battled to keep his contempt of her from showing. Faatin was not only his boss, she was head of the design group at the firm. She was a stickler for deadlines and had no problem calling a worker to task if she didn’t think he or she was working hard enough. If he had any desire to be promoted, he had to impress her. That also offended his male pride.
“Have it to me by the end of the day or I’ll find someone else to finish the project for you.” With that unexpected reprieve and added threat she turned on the point of her high heel and walked away, those spiky heels clicking against the tiled floor.
Seething inside, Youssef tamped down his frustration and pulled open the design program in question.
If she only knew how much he resented her, he fumed. He’d be fired from the firm within a week if anyone found out exactly what he thought of her and all the women like her—overeducated feminists who took up coveted spots at the top companies in the country and precious seats in the university applied sciences programs so that he and other men were turned away. He’d barely gotten into his program on the third try because of women like her, despite his perfect GPA and references. It was wrong. It had to stop.
Educating women was a sin against Allah. True believers like him understood that.
Not that he’d always been so radical in his thinking, of course. His mother was a college educated woman after all, and taught English to elementary school children. The difference was, his mother knew her place and didn’t act superior to men. She was a good Muslim woman. A lot of the Pakistani women in his generation were not.
The stricter interpretation of Islam he’d been exposed to at university had opened his eyes, and seeing so many male classmates turned away from their chosen program in favor of a female student had made him realize that adopting Sharia law was needed—even if it had to be implemented by force by groups like the TTP. Now that knowledge was a fire burning bright inside him. Others knew it was the right path but were too afraid to act, for fear of reprisal from society or the government.
Not him. Not anymore.
At a click of the mouse the diagram he needed came on screen, but his mind wasn’t on work. As he typed in commands he mentally compiled a list of things he needed to do, including places to check once he got home where he could safely continue his most important work.
Find Khalia Patterson and bring his country one step closer to eradicating western feminist beliefs and values.
* * *
“He’s here.”
Khalia blinked and looked up from her laptop at Ray Dunlop, the fifty-eight-year-old co-founder of Fair Start Foundation, standing in the hotel room doorway. “What? Who?”
“Your team leader.”
Huh? Was her jetlag so bad that she’d screwed up the date somehow? A quick check of her calendar assured her she hadn’t. “He’s a day early.”
“Yeah, how about that.” Ray’s sun-weathered features gave nothing away about what he thought of the head of her newly arrived security detail. She knew nothing about the man in question except that he’d been handpicked by Tom, the owner of Titanium Security. Normally she would have at least read a file on the men in her detail before arriving here in Pakistan but in light of recent events, Tom had been left scrambling to find replacement contractors for the job.
“Downstairs?” she asked, a little nervous about meeting the man who would be responsible for her safety for the duration of her visit.
Ray nodded. “In the lobby.”
Okay then, apparently for some reason Ray wanted her to see this guy for herself before forming an opinion. She hit save on her list of talking points for the upcoming meeting with the Education Minister and closed the laptop, giving Ray her full attention. “So, did you meet him?”
“No, just saw him talking to one of the guys on my detail. Thought I’d come up and let you know, so you can meet him and help put your mind at ease.”
Given what had happened to her father here a few weeks ago? Not likely. But meeting the man might make her feel a little better about things.
Or not.
“I’ll come down right now.” She grabbed her black lightweight sweater and threw it over her shoulders on her way to the door. Ray followed her into the hallway and to the elevator without a word. As the digital numbers on the panel in front of them ticked off the decreasing floor numbers, she cast Ray a sideways glance. He stood near the mirrored side wall without looking at her, face serene, hands clasped in front of him. His silence was really starting to annoy her. He knew how wound up she was—why couldn’t he say something to reassure her? She was jittery enough at the moment without having any more unpleasant surprises to deal with. The last few weeks had been full of them.
She tried again. “So what’s he like?”
A little smile this time. “You’ll see.”
Khalia blinked in surp
rise. “You’re not going to tell me anything about him?” If he was keeping something from her to spare her, she’d prefer to know ahead of time so she could prepare herself.
“Nope.”
Classic Ray. Either he had nothing to report, or there was a reason he was looking forward to watching her reaction to meeting her bodyguard. That didn’t ease the anxiety grinding in her belly, but she’d find out soon enough who Titanium had assigned to protect her. “Is he American or British?”
“American.”
“Former military, or law enforcement?”
“Military.”
Ray had managed to find out all that without meeting him? “What branch did he serve in?”
A telling pause. Then, “SEALs.”
An answering pang of dread ricocheted around her suddenly hollow stomach. She struggled to keep the spike in anxiety from showing on her face, and hoped she managed it well enough. “Really? Well that’s impressive.” If it was true. God, she prayed this guy was legit. “How long ago?”
He shrugged as though it wasn’t important. “My guy didn’t say.”
“Lot of help you are,” she muttered as she exited the elevator and reached the lobby door. True to form, Ray grinned and reached past her to press down on the metal bar, swinging the door open for her. The heels of her nude-toned pumps clicked on the highly polished marble tile as she crossed to the foyer of the lavish hotel. Tom had booked them here. It was supposedly one of the safest hotels in the city because of its solid security presence due to all the diplomats and foreign contractors who stayed here.
Despite knowing that, Khalia had barely slept at all since they’d checked in two nights ago. She probably wouldn’t get a full night’s sleep again until she made it home safely, far away from this part of the world where armed militants would kill her simply because of what she represented.
The modern sparkling glass and tile lobby was busy, filled with wealthy tourists and businessmen dressed in suits. A far cry from the places where she’d be staying in a few days once they entered the mountainous tribal region bordering Afghanistan. In light of the circumstances she’d have felt a hell of a lot better if Tom would guard her personally, but that wasn’t going to happen and she had to accept it. In their last conversation before she’d flown here he’d told her he was working on finding a solid team for her and promised to find someone he trusted. That would have to be good enough.
