by Beth Rhodes
“Sorry. I’m in.”
Tan lifted his brow.
“I swear.”
He noted Craig and Ranger coming down the street from the opposite direction an instant before he and Tancredo turned into the alleyway at the school the few blocks down. He slowed as they passed.
The sound of youthful voices filtered through the glass, and a quick glimpse showed classrooms full of little people. “I thought school was out today.”
“Bad intel?” Tancredo said. They were used to it. Every mission seemed to have its share, no matter how careful they were. This bit of bad intel was going to be worse for Emily. They had no idea what to expect. They’d been shot at, and things had exploded…
She’d be nervous, and more nervous, knowing there were children close by.
Tancredo help up two fingers.
Two guards. John nodded. And then it was time. As they moved, Tancredo pulled his sidearm, and John walked up to one of the guards and spoke in rapid Spanish—high school Spanish, but it confused the guard long enough for him to get close. John threw one punch, hoping to daze the guy. But apparently, his adrenaline was running a bit high, and the guy went down. “Shit.”
Duct tape over the mouth, zip ties around his feet and hands, and John was inside.
Tancredo was right behind him.
The stairwell rose to the second floor in a switchback motion. John pulled his M16 around the front of his body and went right at the top. Tancredo turned left, checking their six. “Clear.”
“I can see you.” Emily’s voice, low in his ear, sent warmth through his veins and confidence into his step. “Ranger and Craig went in through the west door.”
But it was the quiet inside the house that was setting his nerves on edge…a pregnant silence. Yesterday there were the guards, movement, chatting. Today—nothing.
John and Tancredo continued down the hallway. He knew from the visit yesterday that they’d reached the room. Tan moved in front of him as they neared the door. Ranger came up the back set of stairs, Craig at his back.
“Four in the room,” Emily whispered. “Two hostages, four tang—”
A pain-filled scream echoed through the door. John’s heart pounded and his hands shook. The sharp crack of breaking glass preceded Emily’s calm voice. “One tango dead. Marcus is down, John.”
Tancredo opened the door and swept the room with his gun, taking out the first guard, who stood over Marcus.
“Craig.” Her voice came through again, and John wondered—for an instant—what it was like to sit so far away with only a visual of what was going on.
And then everything in the room slowed as the second hostage rose, lifted a concealed Magnum, and pointed it directly at John. “Get me Emily Rogers.”
John raised his hands.
Emily’s gasp filled his ear with dread. And then she breathed one word: “Hassan.”
“Is that her, talking to you now in that fancy earpiece?”
“Move to the side, John,” she said. “I’ve got a clear shot. I will finish this.”
“Don’t move, John. I know she won’t shoot you…you’re too old, anyway, aren’t you? She likes her targets younger.” The man’s laugh rolled through the small room of the house, all the men frozen to their spots.
Hassan’s arm moved and he pulled the trigger, sending a bullet through Ranger’s shoulder.
“Stop,” John said sharply, and Hassan brought his aim back to John’s heart.
“Now I will do to her what she did to me. I will go through and kill everyone she loves. Thanks to your good friend here, I know I can start with you.”
“No,” Emily called. “Move, damn it, John.”
“No, Emily,” John said into his mic. “I can’t move.”
“So, you saw it.” Hassan remained in his protected position, his glance moving to the explosive in the third guard’s hand. The man shook, fear in his eyes. Not the self-righteous of an extreme believer. No, this was a man under duress, probably a family at home, waiting for him.
“I’m here for Emily,” Hassan said. “She will watch you die. And then I will hunt her down in that sniper’s nest you created in the tile factory on the border of the neighborhood.”
John blinked. The silence on his earpiece rocked his world. He wanted to reach out to her. How had Hassan known where they were? Could Marcus have anticipated so much?
Hassan moved backward, out of the strike zone, and into the hallway. And then he lifted the gun one last time and shot the man—a bullet right between his eyes.
John lunged for one of the fallen guards and threw him into the man with the grenade in the same instant Craig moved for the hallway, gun drawn and ready to take down Hassan.
“Out, out, out!” John called, reaching for the last of his men, and shoving them through the door before he hit the hallway. The detonation behind him blasted through his ears, knocked him into the wall, and rained down plaster on his head.
Hands were on him, dragging him down the stairs.
They’d barely gone through the front door when an explosion at the back of the house rocked the ground under their feet. And they all ran like hell, John bringing up the rear, keeping a close eye on Hassan.
The man moved quickly, and then he suddenly stopped. A motorcycle screamed through and came to a stop. Hassan jumped on.
“One o’clock,” John yelled as he ran to stop Hassan. Tancredo and Craig were on his tail. Craig pulled his weapon, but the streets were filling with people, and he didn’t fire.
“Damn it!”
A second explosion sent John flying, and the world became so clear, every color, every angle and shape. The landing was going to be…bad—oh so bad. He crashed, head slamming to the blacktop, another body landed on top of him, and his world went black.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“John!” The flash of the explosion hit her lens, whiting out her vision, and she crouched behind the wall two stories above the street, blinking rapidly and waiting for the brightness to recede and her world to right.
It will never be right again. Not if John is dead.
She dismantled her gun—sloppy work—and slid the barrel into the sleeve down her side. The stock went into the pocket of her pants on the left, and she wrapped her scope into the scarf, nestling it against her spine and tying it off in front in a crisscross pattern.
“You can’t leave—” Marie began.
“Try to stop me,” Emily growled.
“We go in pairs,” Marie demanded, stepping up to her again. And Emily remembered why she liked the woman so much.
“Get a move on, then. I’m not waiting.”
Marie grabbed a bag and spoke into her comm unit to alert Hawk where they were headed.
After slipping her hood over her head, Emily moved faster than she’d moved in her whole life. A quick glance right, and she spotted Malcolm, who jutted a chin her way, letting her know she’d been seen. She turned left, going straight into the stream of people coming out of the little residential neighborhood that minutes ago had been mostly sleeping. Only the earliest of risers were about, including the children at the school who were now out in the street.
She would get to ground zero. She would find John.
Sweaty bodies pressed against her, pushing her back. She shouldered through as memories from Brussels surfaced. The madness. The heat. The screaming. The bloody screaming of that day.
No. She forced her thoughts back to the present, back to John. Her throat closed and her stomach turned. And then that anger flared up. Why had he denied them? A tear streaked her cheek—guilt for even thinking the horrible thought, much less feeling the loss of something she never had.
“The blast wasn’t large, Emily.” Marie was doing her best to keep up. She was seriously a strong little woman.
Emily figured her to drop off and stop following in the first block. “Maybe,” she said. The closer she got to the place she’d last seen him, the harder her heart pounded, the more frantic her thoughts became.
A small voice called out, and she stilled, following it. There it was again…a soft mewling. Almost like a kitten. She rolled away a piece of rubble out of the way. The noise grew louder. She found an old wooden desk and then a chair—shattered by the explosion.
“Shit.” It was a cat. An old, mangy-looking tabby cat. “Come here, baby.” Carefully she lifted it from the dust and dirt and snuggled it into her shirt. “Poor thing.” The cat purred under her chin, giving that pitiful little mewl again, and then jumped away. With empty arms, she watched the cat disappear around a pile of rubble. “Nine lives,” she whispered.
Reorienting herself, she looked back to the way she’d come, making sure she wasn’t off course, and then continued. She saw Tancredo first, pulling himself off the ground, blood running down his face.
She scanned the road and the people. The house the guys had been inside was gone but for a few leaning timbers, desecrated by the explosive device. And then she saw him, and her stomach dropped. “There,” she called to Marie, and hurried toward his prostrate body. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” she said, over and over. She wasn’t a praying kind of person, but she would do anything right now to fix this clusterfuck happening in her name. Fuck Hassan. Fuck Marcus, for unwittingly bringing this on all their heads. He’d had no idea who he was dealing with.
Tancredo got to John at the same time as Emily was feeling for a pulse. “There’s a pulse. It’s strong. John, can you hear me?” Her hands shook, and she wanted to turn him over, but she was afraid to move him.
“Let’s get his neck braced. Emily, give me your scarf. Marie?” Tancredo’s calm penetrated through her hysterics, and she did as she was told.
“Watch out there. Give me a little room,” Marie said, putting a comforting hand on Emily’s shoulder and gently moving her aside. “Stay by his head. Talk to him. He’ll come around.”
Emily moved and bit at her lip as she watched. John’s eyes were opening, blinking against the light. And that was when she realized the sun was coming up. She looked around. Emergency vehicles were pulling in. The few injured people were being looked at. Surrounding homes and buildings were being doused with water.
And the man, the same one from the airport. The curly hair.
“Tim?” Her shock gripped her. “I thought— How did you—? You’re dead.”
“Excuse me, can I help you?” Marie walked toward them, and the jolt back to reality had Emily seeing the gun in his hand.
Marie took another step, as if to protect her.
Her heart fell. “Stop,” Emily said, this time with even more force, and Marie stopped, mere feet from crossing in front of her.
Emily would die before letting Marie get between her and this man’s gun.
“Oh, Tim,” she said, sadness ripping through her.
He’d survived. And she hadn’t known.
“Please, don’t,” she said.
The explosion had knocked him back, but there’d been something at his back, blocking the force of the blast from doing more damage. As he blinked, he took account of his person. The headache was expected, and there was an ache in his side. But he’d felt worse after going a round in the ring with Hawk.
Hands were on him, and he couldn’t move his head. He blinked again and saw Tan bracing him. Lack of sound created a bubble, an unreal world of silence. He reached for the scarves and brace at his neck to pull them off.
Tan leaned over his face. “Don’t move.” A movement in his peripheral vision stopped his efforts. His gaze moved up to the woman standing a few yards away. “Emily.”
John managed to break Tan’s hold and turn over. Dizziness ensued, but he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. Tan wanted to stop him. John shook him off.
The second man. The second hostage. Marcus and the unknown.
Marcus was dead. Nausea built against John’s breastbone as he came to his knees.
The unknown.
Tan grabbed him and forced him to look into his eyes. His frown spoke volumes of his displeasure at John’s determination. “Fuck off, Tan!”
He shoved Tan aside to get to Emily.
The man pistol-whipped her, splitting her head open.
“No,” John yelled, and lunged.
The man shouldered Emily and sent a bullet through the air at Marie, who was standing to the side, pistol aimed, trying to get a shot without hitting Emily. The man was covered, protected by his captive as he ran down the street.
“Tan.” He needed to hear, damn it!
Tan ran for Marie and picked her up off the ground. John pressed the comm unit in his ear. “In pursuit,” he reported. If there was a reply or directive, he heard nothing. And then he ran, following through the crowds, after the man.
John wasn’t going to let her out of his sight. Fucking blurred sight. Fucking tunnel vision. “Shit,” he said as he stopped. He’d already lost track of her. “Tan!” he called, hoping he wasn’t too far behind.
Tan showed up at his side, but he didn’t look ready to help. He was yelling into John’s face. The words were coming too fast for him to read.
He blinked and looked around for a glimpse of the pair, ignoring what he couldn’t hear.
Tan grabbed his face, the pain of his fingers digging into John’s jaw, sharpening his consciousness. “We’ll find her. We move, now.” The anger in Tan’s eyes had his brain clearing the rest of the way.
He was putting the entire team at risk. And Marie. Where was she?
Tan led the way, and they moved back through the streets to regroup.
John never stopped scanning the area around him. He’d been feet from her. She’d been standing over him. “Damn it,” he said, the frustration burning through his gut.
As they walked, John held his nose and gently released the pressure in his ears.
The pain of it had him slowing, had the feel of wetness running down his neck. He wiped at it. Blood. Probably busted his eardrum. But he could sorta hear again, so that helped.
At the sniper’s nest, John tugged on Tan’s arm and nodded up the stairs.
“Hawk wants us at the hotel.”
“Thirty seconds,” John replied, and went up the stairwell. He grabbed binoculars from his cargo pocket.
His gaze caught on a flash of silver in the corner where Emily had been. He reached down and picked up the little bracelet with a charm on it. A scope that looked old and worn. Another charm of a lighthouse.
He stood and began an outward spiral search that started at ground zero and reached as far in the distance as the binoculars would allow. “They could be anywhere,” he muttered, adjusting the magnification until the image was clearer.
“They’re gone, John, and we’re not going to find her standing around up here. It’s time to regroup, so we can find her.”
A feeling of defeat crushed him as he followed Tan back across the city.
He’d waited and searched too long to lose her now.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Marie was made of stronger stuff than he’d thought.
Malcolm had seen her go down, and for one weird instant, he’d had a funny, regretful feeling in his gut. It hadn’t lasted, but…it had reminded him to keep his guard up around her.
She’d earned respect, standing up for John’s Emily.
But he still had his reservations.
She peeled the bulletproof vest off, slowly and cautiously, and winced when John examined her. He lifted her shirt to see her ribs.
Malcolm scowled and turned away. The feeling of jealousy was humiliating. What the fuck was wrong with him? He was a fucking dick. Hating her and lusting after her. If Hawk knew, he’d probably fire him.
He grabbed a cup of coffee from the sidebar of the conference room, stirred in three packets of sugar, and took a sip before turning back. He took a seat, not too close, but not too far away either.
“She called him Tim.”
John’s hands stilled and then continued their exam of her side, pressing against her flesh. Hadn’t
he done enough by now? Fucker. Malcolm closed his eyes.
“Tim? As in Tim Roche? As in the man who died in Brussels with his fiancée, Sandra French?”
“I don’t know. She called him Tim and said, ‘You’re dead.’”
Malcolm’s ears perked up, and he gulped some coffee before setting it aside.
It was his turn.
He pulled his computer from his bag and set it on the table.
The search began. And it didn’t take long. “Dr. Timothy Roche, killed in the attack in Belgium,” he said. John came over, and a glance behind showed Marie lowering her shirt. The bruising covered her side, making Malcolm feel even more like an ass than he already did for being jealous of Father John.
He paged through a few more screens, pulling more information from the databases he’d created over the years. “Funny, though. He’s still got accounts in three different countries, including the United States. The only one that’s sitting inactive is the one in the States. He’s acquired quite a nest egg. He’s got one sister in Paris, which is where he and Sandra were living at the time of the attack, who owns a little art gallery.”
Malcolm opened his tracking program and tapped in Emily’s phone number.
“Why Emily? She’s done nothing but grieve for him and Sandra. She’s risked her life to get justice for those two.” John gripped the back of Malcolm’s chair. “Where is she? And where the fuck is Hassan?”
Malcolm did a search first, using Marcus’ phone number. “He’s on the move.”
“His phone is…because Hassan wanted him dead. He used him to get Emily, and then Marcus used Hassan to bring in Tim Roche. Both of those men would have seen the footage out of Raleigh. Marcus was the weak link.”
“Why? How?”
Marie cleared her throat. “I might know.”
“Figures.” Malcolm turned in his seat, lifted a brow at the pretty woman standing behind them, and felt that resentment build.
“I didn’t, um…well, I didn’t know.”
John checked his watch and wagged his finger. “Today.”
“I kind of grew up around people who liked to gamble, so I saw some signs…and, well, one night, after we’d all been at the pub for a bit, Marcus started talking.”
