by Jodi Henley
Hot Contract
By
Jodi Henley
Copyright 2012 Jodi Henley
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places and characters are products of the author's imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Prologue
Samoy Independent States, South Pacific
The storm sweeping in off the South China Sea carried the remnants of the typhoon that had battered Malaysia two days ago. The barometer was falling. Their window of opportunity was small.
Keegan threw the kid into the dilapidated Huey and followed, shoving him toward the far seat. “Sit down and strap in! Connor—"
His brother kicked at the slide door. “It's fucking stuck—”
“Then Jesus goddamned leave it! You speak Mandarin; tell the kid we’re from Daddy.”
The boy skittered back, hit the far wall and cried out, eyes white all the way around.
Fallon shoved through from the cockpit, cutting off light from the instrument panel behind him. “Samoy on our three.”
Connor knotted his fist in a hang-strap and braced himself, weapon pointed at the trees surrounding their landing zone. “ETA in five!”
Keegan pounded the wall beside his sister. “Lift!”
Corlis was a flash of silver hair and camouflage as she tried to get the chopper started, hands flying over the switches. The Huey screamed, rotors shrieking out a high-pitched whine.
“We're at a dead stop! I’m trying—”
“Try harder!” Keegan glanced at his brother and Fallon on each side of the opening.
A deep bass thump rattled the floor.
“Hold on!” screamed Corlis.
The chopper boiled up in a cloud of debris and banked. The boy lost his balance and shot across the bare metal floor, arms flailing.
“Jiu min" the boy screamed. Help me.
Keegan lunged for him. “Connor!”
Connor caught the boy, one arm locked around his scrawny waist. The ceiling groaned over the thumping wail of the rotors and burst, rivets flying as the hang strap tore loose.
Keegan lurched to his feet. “No!” A bullet punched into his shoulder and flipped him ass-backwards, head cracking against the floor. He staggered to one knee in time to see Fallon swing his feet out on the skids.
“Liss! Drop this thing—”
A bullet hit the struts and ricocheted into the night. The left side of the island was lit up like a Christmas tree and a thick pall of white smoke rose over the distant camp. The typhoon was on them, spatters of rain hitting the Huey louder than shrapnel. Light stabbed out of the darkness while the kidnappers tried to get close enough to take Connor down without hurting their meal ticket.
Fallon launched into a roll and zigzagged out into the darkness, only to reappear a minute later with the kid over one shoulder. He flung the screaming child into the chopper and turned, one foot up on the skid. The trees rippled, caught in the Huey's downwash.
Connor charged across the clearing. “Lift!”
“Do it!” yelled Keegan. “Lift!”
Ten more seconds. Jakarta tomorrow, back in Seattle by the end of the week. Fallon swung his big body into the compartment and crouched in the opening, hand out. Shots exploded from the tree line, punching Connor down as the chopper spiraled up. Revolutionaries overran the clearing.
And the ground fell away.
Chapter One
Volcano, Hawaii
There was no such thing as fresh air in Jen's office. Sulfur samples kept it smelling like rotten eggs, and what little breeze ended up at the bottom of the back alleyway didn't make it past the louvered windows.
Jen brushed the hair out of her eyes and wondered if it was worth turning on the air conditioning. Preliminary reports were due within the hour, and more than half the files weren't in the queue, including Terri's geotechnical investigation. In two months, when the geothermal linkage went on-line, Jen would be free, but for the next eight weeks she was trapped shuffling paperwork from people who thought a short report meant reformatting the encyclopedia in small font and chasing prima donnas.
Pulling out her phone, she punched in Terri's number. A terse male voice she didn’t recognize told her Terri was “busy.” The last time their geotechnical engineer had found an interest outside the job, she’d ended up engaged.
“But—” Jen protested. The phone clicked off. “Dammit.”
She grabbed her walkie-talkie and pulled on her official jacket. The bright yellow color made Jen look like a corpse, but for all her faults, Terri responded well to authority. And they were friends. Not always a good thing.
Once out of the enclosed tunnel, the air still smelled like sulfur, but a breeze brought a spatter of rain moving in off the lower slopes of Volcanoes National Park. The new annex wasn't so new, but after three years, it had become a perpetual work in progress. Barricades blocked off the unfinished elevators. Stairs were the only form of access to the upper levels. Despite that, people had still moved in. Engineering was on the ninth floor because Terri—like all prima donnas—loved to intrude on people but hated intruders. Smart, funny and as friendly as a tiger, she was like a primal force, moving through the world to make things work. Jen's obsession with the geothermal linkage was nothing compared to Terri's utter fascination with the logistics behind the deep-sea cables.
From the courtyard, Jen could see down the long slope behind the employee parking lot to where the storm formed a dark wall on the distant horizon. Wind piled leaves at the high plastic barricades and roared up through the open stairwell. Jen took a deep breath, filled her lungs with the lingering stench of sulfur and straightened her shoulders. She felt like she had a bulls-eye painted on her back as she crossed the center court. Over the last six months she'd come out to the Annex so many times, she had started to identify sulfur with tamping her fear down to a manageable level.
She suffered from vertigo but no one had to know if she didn't tell them.
Jen put her foot on the first riser, one hand locked the handrail. Her stomach roiled. The sooner she got this over with, the faster she’d be back on solid ground. On the second landing she paused to stare out at the rain. Perforated orange safety mesh kept visitors from the non-existent viewing platform. The clouds were closer, sweeping over the ohia scrub.
She made it to the ninth floor and couldn't go any further. Her knees gave out and dumped her on the landing where she sat with her head between her knees and took deep, cleansing breaths, just like in the phobia video she'd bought to help with her problem. The Project would just have to wait while she stiffened her backbone.
“No!” shouted Terri.
Jen looked up. Terri stood in front of her office, big Texas hair lacquered up against the elements with hairspray and fancy clips. A small crescent of people surrounded her, anonymous in bright red shirts. Terri shoved at the man next to her and he pushed back hard enough to make her stumble. From the set of his shoulders, it was obvious he was coiled up and ready to explode.
Jen was too far away to make out what Terri said, but whatever it was didn’t help. A flash of green and part of an athletic shoe showed in the door to the office suite, and Terri went from mad
to terrified, eyes white-rimmed all the way around.
Jen inched back into the stairwell, and fumbled through the channels on her walkie-talkie, hands shaking. “Chandler,” she whispered. “Please pick up, Chandler?” Where the hell was their head of security?
She glanced back to where Terri stood, right up against the mesh, arms gesturing wildly. Her mouth was moving, but words weren’t coming out and no one smiled.
She got out another, “No!” and lurched forward, only to be carried back on a rush of bodies and flung over the temporary railing.
She screamed all the way down.
The walkie-talkie spewed out crackles of static, “This is Chandler, Ms. Stalling.”
Jen shoved the receiver in her jacket but it was too late. Faces turned in her direction.
Terrified out of her skull, she stood and ran, stumble-sprinting down the stairs, one hand on the guardrail. Faster going down. Voices shouting. She heard her name, but the sound was all tangled up in the rising wind and the pounding of her heart as her feet slammed against the slats.
She was out of shape. She wasn't going to make it. The stairwell shook with the thud of heavy footsteps behind her. Hair stuck to her rapidly drying lips. They were running, she was running—she had to get out! Jen grabbed a handrail and jumped, adrenaline pushing her up, over and down half a floor, into the courtyard, out past the construction piles in the courtyard.
A flash of metal caught her attention with a ricochet of sunlight. It looked like Terri had tried to fly, arms outstretched and pleading. Her long blonde hair had spilled across the barricades with her brains, and there was blood everywhere, exploded from her shattered white bones.
Jen fell to her knees, hands over her eyes and screamed.
****
Corlis dropped a water bottle on the hard plastic seat next to Keegan. “Take one.”
Kai’s gratitude had stopped just short of a private jet, and trading their tickets in on an earlier flight had put them in Hong Kong on a six hour layover. Despite the stench of old joss and durian, the terminals at Chek Lap Kok were high-tech, and the primitive smell of Keegan’s blood had triggered an olfactory isolation zone at the crowded gate.
He opened the bottle, stared up at the ceiling as near to horizontal as he was going to get, and chugged a couple of aspirin.
“We’re wasting time,” said Corlis, still angry with him if the total lack of emotion in her voice was anything to go by.
Frustration soured Keegan's stomach and boiled the pills in his gut. “Money,” he said tightly. “Lack of. What don’t you understand?”
Her foot tapped. Stopped, and started again. “I want Conner back.”
Keegan rolled to his feet and crowded her, right up in her face. “And you think I don’t? I've spent every minute we weren't on that plane calling in favors.”
Fallon shoved him back. “She's upset. Back off.”
“I'm fucking upset.”
“We're all fucking upset. Have they sent proof of life?”
Keegan pushed a hand over his eyes and rubbed his face, mouth tight. “Not yet.”
Fallon turned to look back over his shoulder at Corlis. “There's a tea shop down the concourse.”
At five ten, Corlis stood head and shoulders taller than the people around her. Her pale skin and white-blonde hair were a rarity in Hong Kong. Despite her dirty tank top and ACUs she attracted admiring looks. “Bubble tea,” she said.
“I don’t give a hot damn what kind of tea it is. We on for that tea shop?” Fallon ran a hand down his cheek, scratching at the dirty stubble.
Which wasn’t the end of it, but as much as Keegan wanted to hear. He put his feet up on his duffle and slipped a hand up under his shirt, smoothing the tape down around his bandage. Damned black market penicillin wasn’t working. He wasn’t going to do anyone much good flat on his back.
His phone vibrated. Another picture. This time of Conner next to a copy of today's Manila Times. Dark hair, green eyes—cold, murderous anger. Blood caked the left side of his face, black in the storm-washed light. No longer the boy Keegan had promised to protect, but a dangerous man in his own right.
I want to talk to him, texted Keegan.
Two million, eleven days, repeated the Samoy.
Keegan swore under his breath, fingers flying over the keypad. What apartment did we live in as children?
A long pause. C-3. Cash or bearer bond. We'll be in touch.
A chubby toddler goggled at Keegan from over a row of distant chairs. The kid’s mouth fell open as a group of men passed—too edgy and buttoned down to be anything but a security detail.
They reached the open space around Keegan and the first two stepped back.
“Mr. Dalfrey?” The man in the center stepped forward and frowned. “I’m Merlin Stalling. We talked.”
“You talked,” said Keegan. He rolled over on his good side and closed his eyes.
“You have a situation, we have an issue.” Merlin had a stuffed shirt English accent. Too bad his tight body-conscious white linen suit didn't match. “I think we can be of mutual benefit to each other.”
Keegan pushed to his feet, slid the phone in his pocket, and folded his arms. “StallingCo has security.”
“You’ve heard of us,” said Merlin.
Keegan stood his ground. Now that the game was done, they could get down to business. “I’m not hearing specifics.”
“My uncle would like to hire you. Name your price.”
****
Jen pulled her head out of her folded arms.
Her father’s on-site security man shrugged, hands open. What would you have me do?
Damn Chandler for allowing the Project staff to treat her like a total nut-job. Nothing, she glared.
“They killed her,” she told the PR man at the far end of the table. “I didn’t imagine it.”
“It’s been a traumatizing experience—”
“I said I didn’t imagine it.”
“Suicide,” murmured the Project Official, some oily person she didn’t know. “Maybe an accident?” He pushed a bowl across the table. “These things happen. Would you like an egg?”
“Not to Terri.” She pushed the eggs back.
The PR man leaned into her face and looked at the condition of her eyes. A box of tissue was placed next to the eggs, along with a small bottle of water. She made no response.
He stood up and turned to the man next to him. “She's obviously in shock.”
Chandler moved from his position near the door to a different one where he could look out down the hall. He’d disappeared shortly after depositing her in a small room behind the security office. She had no illusions. He’d called her father, and now he was waiting for a response.
She curled her hands down in her lap while the man from PR scribbled away in a small notebook, eyeing Jen with the kind of speculative look that made her want to scream.
She gave him a tight smile. “I’m a geologist, not a liar.”
“I never called you a liar, Ms. Stalling.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you saw something and might have misinterpreted it,” he said, obviously aware Jen was beyond anger.
She swept the bowl off the table. “Get out.”
“Ms. Stalling?”
Jen surged to her feet, breathing hard through her nose. “I know I witnessed a murder! Get out and leave me alone!”
****
Keegan sped down the narrow lane strung out on nerves and caffeine, but clean—all the funk of his last mission washed down the drain. He wished he could wash away the guilt. He had ten days left to earn the price of his brother’s freedom.
According to the built-in GPS, he was in the right place—up a mountain, freezing his ass off. He turned on the heat and cracked the window. Anywhere else he’d be filtering mosquitoes through his teeth. A yellow sign with the international sign for NO warned off intruders. What the hell was wrong with this place?
He’d al
ready wasted three days in transit. According to his bona-fides, he was a miracle worker. He felt like Death in a wheelchair, rolling up a switchback so new the asphalt glittered like diamonds. If the StallingCo heiress was at the end of it, she had no more sense than a howler monkey.
He was in over his head, playing bodyguard to a rich kid with a knack for being in the wrong place at the right time. Connor did close-in, Keegan ran tac-ops. If they hadn’t been over-extended. If Connor hadn’t grabbed the boy. The cheap aspirin made his gut hurt. His sister had passed him something better, but he needed a clear head to save Connor. Who was he kidding, running scared for so long? Fatigue hit him in a dizzying rush—Jesus, the what-ifs were killing him.
He pulled into a parking lot backed by an enormous black building. A red and white ambulance blocked the entrance while a couple of paramedics loaded a dripping body bag into the rear. They were supposed to seal tight. Guess not.
“Mr. Dalfrey?” A big man in a green polo shirt and khakis waved Keegan to an unobtrusive door beside the main entrance. “I’m Chandler. Thank you for coming.”
Keegan shrugged his heavy camouflage jacket into place and nodded at the ambulance. “Accident?”
“Internal problem.”
He waited until Keegan got right up on him before sticking his hand out. His teeth were big and white. Keegan could see them all and nobody had teeth that good.
“Call me Bobby,” Chandler said. “I hope we can take care of this little issue just as quickly. Mr. Stalling is concerned about the effect of prolonged stress on his daughter Guinevere’s mental stability.”
Jesus. “Is she unstable?”
Chandler gave him a hard look. “She’s delicate. Is that a problem?”
“You gonna pay me?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s not a problem.”
Chandler stepped back, and gestured Keegan past him. “We have her in the rear observation room. She’s been there since the incident.”
