* * *
Purposely trying to mislead anyone watching the elevator numbers, Justice pressed buttons for multiple floors, but not the floor she needed. The elevator stopped. Justice and Amal walked out.
Justice picked up her pace toward the stairs. Amal followed.
Inside the stairwell, Amal didn’t complain or ask a single question. But for the sound of their footsteps echoing as they ran, she was almost spookily silent. Two floors up, they exited and moved quickly down the hall.
Justice struggled to remember her training. That was bad. Training should just kick in—like coughing when you’d swallowed water incorrectly. But that wasn’t happening. It might have something to do with being shot. The ache in her side. The pounding of her heart. The weight of the gun in her right hand. The fragile feel of Amal’s small hand grasped within her own as Justice tugged her to keep up.
They made it to the room, and she pulled out the key card. When she’d been doing recon, she’d spent a whole day arranging a room here. Leaving her hotel down the street, changing at a restaurant, then coming here in disguise with false ID and credit cards. It had seemed overkill. Now, she was glad she’d done it.
Time wasn’t on her side. They’d already be looking for her, scanning the cameras.
With a push of her hand, the room door swung open. Without a prompt, Amal slipped inside. Following, Justice closed the door and hurried to the bathroom.
The bathroom light flicked on when she entered. Wiping the blood and sweat off of her hands and onto her pants, she grabbed a towel and used it to stanch the wound on her side.
Her body was tense with adrenaline. Her mind racing. Digging the tips of her nails under the wire in her mouth, she yanked off the last piece of metal from her teeth. It gave way with a pop. She ran her tongue over her teeth, tasted blood.
Inside the hotel room, she found the suitcase she’d brought.
It contained three airtight packages and clothes, but nothing that could be tied to her. Except the locket Cooper had given her, which she quickly put over her head. With the last bit of metal pinched between her fingers, she pierced each of the three packages.
Air entered and they expanded. Amal gave a small squeak of surprise. Justice told her it was okay and pulled the plastic away. A noxious chemical smell filled the room as the sponges expanded more.
Two of the sponges in one hand, she walked to the bathroom, placed them on the sink, and stripped off her uniform. In her underwear and bra, she tore the sponges with shaking hands then tossed them, her hotel uniform including the vest, and the poison into the tub. Back at the sink, she washed her hands and hustled into the room.
The last sponge had expanded to the proper size. Good. The straps attached to this football-shaped sponge secured it to her midsection. Over this she slipped an abaya, and on her head a niqab. One pregnant Muslim. Check.
Amal watched this transformation with eyes growing larger by the minute. She probably would’ve been less stunned to see a car turn into a Transformer.
The suitcase she’d brought had a small pair of scissors. They’d do. Tossing the white bedding off the plush bed, she cut a square strip from the sheet.
“Can you make this into a niqab?”
Amal held out her hands, then went into the bathroom and did a fairly good job of it. Justice straightened it a little, tucked the sides under. Not perfect. Not with that blue dress. But it would have to do.
That done, Justice grabbed a towel and wiped down any surface she might have touched, including her suitcase. Back in the bathroom, she tossed the towel in the tub.
She stroked the wheel on a lighter she’d brought and put the flame to the flammable gel padding. It went up with a whoosh. She threw in the lighter. The material would burn to ash quickly, so it wasn’t a danger to the guests, but it would destroy the evidence and create enough smoke to set off the fire alarm.
Her heart fluttering in her chest like a bird against a cage, Justice grasped Amal’s hand and kept her other hand holding the gun within the sleeve of her abaya.
She gave final instructions to Amal. “When the alarm goes off, we head out, down the stairs, and out the front door with the other people.”
The fire alarm sounded.
Chapter 24
Beneath a dull streetlamp that lit only a small section of the dirt road through Zaatari, Sandesh cleaned up the bloody strips of cloth from the planks of the truck. He tossed them into the refuse container outside Salma’s headquarters.
Salma’s grandson had taken the rescued women to the new, larger facility they’d finished setting up yesterday. Originally used for aid workers, it had easily morphed to fit the refugees. They’d deal with the medical and psychosocial needs tomorrow.
Reaching for the bag of weapons, he hesitated, flexed his hands. He didn’t need them. With a purposeful mental shove, he walked back into the tent.
A dull light hung down from the wooden support rafter over a small gurney. Basic medical tools sat on a steel table. The tent resembled a clinic. Salma used it to give medical assistance to the women and girls. He avoided looking at the small, blue corpse atop the metal cart. A boy.
The Yazidi woman had been taken to the French hospital. Soon, an official would arrive to take the corpse.
He picked up a jug of water, poured some into the basin on a cart in the corner, and washed his hands. Blood didn’t usually bother him, but the brutality of the birth and the loss of the woman’s son had lodged like disease in the creases of his knuckles, the tension of his fisted hands.
Salma’s skills as a doctor had saved the woman, but only because she’d been pregnant. The baby had taken the brunt of the gunshot.
Damn. Everything in him wanted to protect the softness he’d seen in that bleeding, terrified teenaged girl. But that wasn’t his job. He was here to aid those who were injured, not to bring injury to others.
“You have dealt with conflict for so long, Sandesh,” Salma said, “that you can’t even find peace within your own mind.”
Her brown eyes glistened with knowing intelligence. She was right. He nodded. “I almost told you to take the truck and leave me to fight.”
Her eyebrows rose. “That would’ve been a problem, as I don’t drive.”
He laughed, but somehow that made him feel better. He wiped his hands on a towel and placed it beside the basin. “How do you do it, Salma? Work here, witness what happens, knowing you can only save the moment for someone, leaving them alive in a violent and unfair world to save all the succeeding moments for themselves?”
“What would I do differently? I heal. That is my mission. And when given the chance, I speak of healing, speak of their pain, and open others to the possibility of soothing the ache that too much anger and too many ideas of God’s justice has done to our delicate minds.”
Delicate minds? That seemed an oversimplification. Or was it? Was it as simple as not allowing certain beliefs to take root, make patterns in the brain that caused kneejerk reactions?
Salma’s clever eyes seemed to reevaluate him as she cleaned up the area around the gurney. “Why start this venture if you aren’t willing to risk yourself?”
Risk? Did she think he regretted helping those women? “I’m not sure I understand.”
“You have to risk your, uh, perhaps in English ego fits best?”
“Fits best for what?” God, the whole room smelled of blood.
“You are trying to change the way you see yourself. And tonight, you came face-to-face with that reinvention. Stay. Fight. Or pick the other path, the one that helps without violence. You chose a different path. You needn’t beat yourself up for that. This time, it was the right choice.”
A swish of the tent flap and Sandesh turned toward the opening. A pregnant woman in niqab and black abaya, holding her side, staggered into the emergency tent.
A young girl, her daug
hter perhaps, supported her. The girl looked at him with eyes much too old for a child and whispered, “Help.”
He rushed to the woman, caught her just as she fell. He lifted her easily and carried her to the gurney. Salma moved quickly to the woman’s side. “Are you in labor?”
Standing by the gurney, the girl took charge. “She’s hurt. Her side. She speaks English.”
The woman proved this by speaking English. “We’re being followed. Please hide the girl. Amal.”
Sandesh knew that voice. Justice?
Salma reacted with a speed that indicated she’d been here before. She directed the girl to hide in a steel cabinet. Amal, who couldn’t even have been a teenager yet, darted into the cabinet and shut the door with a metal clang.
“Justice?” It was her. Justice, but with eyes like honey. Contacts? What the hell? Justice had been injured. Justice had a daughter. No. That was panic speaking. “What’s happening?”
“I think I’m being followed. Sort of. I don’t understand. They were here when we got here.”
What the hell was she talking about? Sandesh tied down the dog of war that wanted to break whoever had injured Justice. He needed to stay calm. Why would someone be following a PR hack? “Who?”
The tent flap was tossed open. Two armed men entered. They began yelling, asking who the woman on the table was.
Sandesh slipped toward the first man, preparing to disarm him so he could take down the second.
From her place at the bedside, Salma waved her bloodied hands at the men. “Get out. Can’t you see that she has lost her baby?”
The men hesitated. The stillborn baby lay lifeless and purple-blue inside the metal pan.
Sandesh took her lead. “Outside, outside.” He waved with his hands. “She has lost much blood and might die.”
On the table, Justice began to moan. The confused men turned on their heels and left.
Sandesh waited five seconds before he glanced outside. He saw the men move away, take out a cell. They’d be back.
Salma had already pulled up Justice’s abaya and located the wound. She patted Justice on the hand. “There is a piece of metal in your flesh. Not deep.”
“Not a bullet?”
Salma’s eyebrows rose. “A bullet? No. I am going to pull out the metal. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Quickly. Please.”
He returned to the bedside. “Salma, what do you need?”
Salma looked up at him. “The men,” she said. “How long?”
“Not long.”
She nodded. They both understood the risk. Soon this tent would be filled with anger and accusations. Their choice was to turn Justice over to those men and keep the charity clear of the violence. Or save her.
“Quickly.” Salma began to tear at the dress.
Justice put her hand on top of Salma’s. “I need this dress.”
Justice tugged the abaya up with one hand. Sandesh came over and helped, exposing delicate pale skin, black lace lingerie saturated with blood, and a deep gash, an inch wide, below her hip.
A slice of metal filled the wound. What the hell? And Justice had a gun? She hid it under the sleeve of her abaya while her other hand clenched the scaffolding of the bed.
Salma wiped the blood from the wound. Justice flinched. Salma had snatched up a pair of forceps. She bent close to Justice. “A tiger stalking, no sound, brave one.”
Justice nodded. Digging into the skin, Salma plucked at the edge of the shrapnel, once, twice. Her face locked in concentration, Justice seemed to put herself somewhere else, like someone accustomed to dealing with pain.
The only sound from her was slow, deep breathing. Sandesh cursed to himself. What the fuck was going on? Could she be some type of operative? Salma dug in again, grasped it, twisted, then pulled it out.
Justice let out a sharp breath. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Is it over?”
“You need stitches.”
He handed Salma the alcohol, and she cleaned the wound. With steady, learned fingers, Salma sewed quick stitches.
Justice inhaled and slowly exhaled. Again and again. She did not cry out.
This was not a public relations specialist.
Outside, Sandesh could hear voices. One of the men talked on the phone.
Justice sat up. He put a hand on her shoulder and steadied her. She winced.
“Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. She didn’t meet his eyes. “No. Don’t worry about me. Take care of Amal.”
Salma bent under the counter and spoke with Amal. She began directing all of them in Arabic. “I will hide the girl with a family I know here. Take her.” She motioned toward Justice, who had her legs under her a lot more than she should have. What kind of training had this woman been through?
“No.” Justice supported her own weight. “I’ve risked you enough. I can get out from here. But take care of Amal. She has a family she wishes to return to. I can arrange—”
Salma waved away the words. “I will arrange it. This is what I do. But you cannot go alone.”
“Sure she can,” Sandesh said, his anger building. He’d been a total idiot. “This is no woman accidentally hurt. She is an operative. Her backup is probably on its way. I’ll help you deal with the men she’s brought here.”
He shouldered Justice toward the back of the tent and steadied her. She looked haunted and vulnerable, and he wanted nothing more than to hoist her up and carry her to the nearest safe place.
No. He’d been enough of a sucker.
She wasn’t what she appeared. She wasn’t helpless. And she wasn’t a PR specialist.
He leaned into her. “I’m going to find out who you’re working for, and I’m going to have your ass.”
She smiled then, wicked and full. “Flirting at a time like this, Ranger?”
She winked, ducked under the tent side, and walked confidently into the night.
Chapter 25
Justice staggered down the dark dirt lane. Must not fall down. Must not fall down. Ugh. This sucked.
To her ears, she breathed heavily enough to make the people in their trailers think death itself stalked the streets. Her side hurt like hell.
She staggered quickly, because she knew, even as mad as he was, Sandesh would help if he saw her vulnerability. And she needed him there for Amal and Salma.
Okay. That had to be far enough. She grasped her side and let out a breath of pain. Really, not shot?
It hurt like she’d been shot. Her skin felt like it had been twisted in a vice and sewn up with hot metal spikes. Could that just be thread?
Fuck. How did Walid’s men follow her from the hotel? How did they get here before her? The only way was if Walid had already had men in the area, and somehow figured out she was coming here. That made no sense. Unless, someone from her family…
Could she have been betrayed? By who? She hadn’t told any of her team she was coming. Unless…unless someone on her team had checked her GPS. Every family member was required to have one implanted.
Usually that information was only monitored for missions by Leland, his security team, and Momma. For this mission, only Leland and Momma had had access.
But the truth was it wouldn’t have been that hard for someone in the family to figure out how to gain access to that information. Especially since they’d had similar tech implanted in themselves.
Had someone in her family, one of her siblings, informed on her and almost gotten her killed?
If so, did the traitor care? Did the traitor hate her that much? What had she missed? Who had she missed?
Stop thinking about it. Focus. Let go of the failure. One of the two Brothers was dead. That meant something. Too bad the other was well and truly pissed and might have access to the GPS that would let him know exactly where to find her.
Sh
e needed to get out of this camp. This country. And then she needed to make another plan. Walid wasn’t going to just give up and go away. She needed to get to him, take him out before he found her family and the school.
Chapter 26
Inside the medical tent, lit only by a single dangling bulb, Salma prepared Amal for what would happen next. Meanwhile, Sandesh checked out front again. He looked down the road both ways. A few locals, but not the men who’d busted in here. Why hadn’t they come back?
Salma walked over to him. “You must go after her.” She pointed out the back way. “She is in need.”
“No. Justice has people. I guarantee she’s already with them. You need me.”
She shook her head, clutched a blood-soaked rag. “These men will let me be. They will not harm a Jordanian woman, a doctor, a devoted Muslim with ties to this community. One of my sons is on his way here. He works for the government.” She held up her cell phone. “Those men will not want that trouble. They want Justice.”
She began to push against his chest, guiding him toward the back of the tent. He would’ve laughed at her pathetic attempt if it wasn’t so damn frustrating.
“No.” He refused to give another inch. “I am here for this. I changed my life to be here for you, for this cause, for people who want to make things better.”
Salma let out a frustrated sigh. “You are a good man. But stupid. Her cause and ours are the same. No matter whom she works for or why she has done what she has done. Do you not see?”
“Salma—”
“No.” She held up a hand. “When the leaves fall, you will see further. Take the advice of someone who has lived longer. Destiny isn’t always the path we have chosen for ourselves. It is the one that most clearly matches the values we aspire to protect.”
The crack of distant gunfire punctuated her meaning. Gunfire? Could that mean the men really weren’t coming back? Could that mean they’d gone after Justice?
He stared at Salma for a wordless second. She shoved the truck keys into his hand. He kissed her on the cheek and bolted outside.
I Am Justice Page 8
