Agents Under Fire (15 page)

“
About Kenneth…” A muscle jumped in Jake’s cheek. “We’ll find him on our own. You’re not going anywhere with these men.”

Part of her bristled at his taking control, part of her felt grateful for it. Bottom line—she trusted him more than she trusted Maddox. So she followed him out into the hallway.

He pulled his weapon, then bent and pulled a smaller handgun from an ankle holster and handed it to her.

She held the thing with two fingers. “I can’t handle a gun.”

“
My kid sister can handle a gun,” he said with patience as he took it back. But before she could relax, he said, “This is how you take the safety off. Then you point and squeeze the trigger.”

He seemed to have more faith in her than she had in herself. The truth was, when they were together, she did feel like she could do just about anything.

Handle whatever comes your way.
When he handed the weapon back to her, she grabbed it more firmly. “Fine.”

He nodded then stole down the hallway, and she followed closely. A man was sprawled on the floor at the top of the stairs, bloodstains at his temple. Looked like Jake had hit him hard. She turned her head from the blood.

“
They took my purse and phone.” She remembered suddenly.

“
Tell me your passport is at the hotel.”

“
In the room safe.”

“
Okay.” He gave a crisp nod then started forward.

Instead of operating from a stance of fear, do what has to be done.
“The team leader has a laptop. Do you think there might be something about Kenneth’s location on it?”

He stopped to look back at her, then rubbed his hand over his face, and for a second looked worn out—and something else, some emotion she couldn’t identify—before he schooled his features. “The laptop would be good.”

He stashed his gun and picked up the downed mercenary, dragging the man back to the room they’d just left. He didn’t even strain.

She closed the door behind them once they were inside then moved to the window to look out. Half a dozen men sat around the fires. The rest had probably gone to sleep, taking rooms somewhere in the building. Maddox sat apart from the rest, his back resting against the well in the middle.

“
The team leader is still out there,” she whispered. “He’s got the laptop with him.”

Jake tugged off the unconscious man’s boots. “See if you can get his attention. Get him up here.”

How?
“I have to go to the bathroom,” she called out, blurting the first thing that came to mind.

Maddox looked up. She couldn’t make out his expression in the semi-darkness.

“
I can’t wait. I’m sorry to be so much trouble,” she tried to sound as apologetic as she possibly could.

The man put the laptop down.
Seriously?
He couldn’t bring it like before? Then he stood up and lumbered toward the building. As he walked by one of the fires, the flames lit the dark scowl on his face.

“
He’s not bringing the laptop.”

Jake acknowledged her words with a nod, showing none of the despair she felt. He finished with the boots and began working on the man’s pants. “Get his shirt.”

While she worked on that, he put the man’s pants on over his own. They fit with room to spare.

She undid the shirt buttons as fast as she could. Then she had the shirt at last, and a few seconds later Jake had on the full commando outfit. He grabbed the guy’s hat as the finishing touch.

“
Stand in the far corner,” he all but commanded as he dragged the guy to the wall where he’d be hidden behind the door when Maddox pushed it open. “Keep your weapon out of sight unless you need to use it.”

He positioned himself in the middle of the room, his back to the door.

“
Bill! Where the hell are you?” Maddox stomped around outside the door.

He rattled the key in the lock. “Why is this open? I told you to keep your hands off her, dammit.” He swore and pushed the door in, peering into the semidarkness. “What the hell is going on in here?”

Jake whirled on him. Lunged. The two men went down hard.

Allison closed the window with one hand to keep the noise from reaching the courtyard, gripping her gun with the other. She couldn’t shoot unless she had no other choice, for the same reason Jake hadn’t used his weapon. The men outside would hear the shot and rush to investigate.

“
Get out of the room.” Jake grunted as the two rolled on the floor.

She so didn’t want to get that close to them. She skirted the wall. For a moment, Jake was on the bottom and Maddox slammed his elbow into his face. Blood spurt from his nose. He didn’t even pay attention. Instead, he used the distraction to push Maddox up and smashed his head against the wall.

And while Maddox shook his head, dazed, Jake brought up his gun at last and smashed the butt of his weapon against the man’s temple. Maddox went slack.

Jake rolled him off, picked up his hat, then took the guy’s weapon before tying up both men with their own belts, gagging them and locking the door on them. Then he pulled up his shirt and wiped his nose with the inside of his shirttail. “Let’s move.”

She could do little more than gape at him.

They hurried down the hallway, then down the stairs. “You stay here,” he said when they reached the landing. He wiped his face once again, pulled his borrowed hat low over his eyes then stepped out into the courtyard.

By the time she thought of protesting that acquiring the laptop wasn’t worth it, he was striding to the well where Maddox had been sitting. He picked up everything as if he’d been ordered to bring in the man’s things. He kept his face away from the light, turning to come back when he had everything.

Except, two other men stood from one of the fires and headed for the door at the same time. Her heart stopped beating. If the men passed close enough to Jake, they’d recognize him as an outsider. But Jake veered toward the side entrance as if he’d meant to go that way all along.

She let out a breath of relief before she realized that the men would see her as soon as they came through the door. She darted toward the stairs, seeing at once that she couldn’t reach the top in time.

Handle it.
She lunged for the shadows, then flattened herself to the wall in the darkest corner, hoping the men would pass by her.

They stopped outside the door.

“
Can’t wait, man. Wildest damn thing we’ve done so far, right?” one of them said, slurring his words, sounding more like a frat boy than a commando soldier.

She wondered where they’d gotten their alcohol. Probably snuck it into the country with their equipment.

The other guy swore suddenly. “I left my gun at the fire. Better get it before Maddox sees me without it and kicks my ass.”

“
Don’t let that jerk intimidate you. We’re paying
him
,” his buddy told him, then stepped through the doorway.

She would have been fine if he hadn’t stumbled. But he did, swerving precariously to the right, then losing his balance altogether and slamming into her. His whiskey breath almost knocked her off her feet.

She tried to push him off, but he didn’t budge.

“
Hey there,” he mumbled and groped her, shoving her hard against the wall the next second, one hand painfully squeezing her breast while the other snaked between her legs.

He was so wasted, he probably had no idea who she was or what he was doing, he just felt ‘woman’ and went for it. And she couldn’t scream for help. She couldn’t make any noise at all. She would fare much worse if his buddies came in and discovered what she and Jake had done to their team leader.

She was so scared she couldn’t breathe.

The man pinned her so tight, she couldn’t move her hand which was wedged between them. She, couldn’t use the gun she still held, either.

His hard shaft pushed against her belly as he roughly yanked up her skirt. His fingers dug into her thighs. She scratched at his face with her free hand, but he didn’t even react, past feeling pain.

She knew what would come next. Cold fear hit her like a wall, panic choking her as she fought against him.

Then Jake rose out of the darkness, his face a hard mask, his eyes burning with a fierce power that froze her in place for a second.

The bastard on top of her thought she was giving up and grunted with satisfaction.

“
Get your hands off her.” Jake kept his voice low, but it still cut through the air like the sharpest scimitar. The tone of menace put goose bumps on her arms.

The idiot groping her was too far gone to recognize doom when it stared him in the face, and kept on going, refusing to budge when she shoved him with all the strength she had left.

She expected Jake to raise his gun and knock the man out like he’d done with the others, but instead he reached for the man’s head, twisted it with a thickening pop then dropped the lifeless body at her feet.

He wasn’t even breathing hard. He stood in front of her like some dark avenging angel. Yet, even though she’d just witnessed the single most violent act in her life, she wasn’t afraid of him. Instead, when her knees gave out, she collapsed into his arms.

He picked her up and ran with her down the hall, toward the back of the building. She held onto him, wondering who he really was. Because, while she knew little about the XO-ST team or the reasons behind Kenneth’s disappearance, she knew this: Jake Tekla was no travel writer.

* * *

“
Are you all right?” Jake set Allison down, unbridled anger still pumping through him. He looked her over, not that he could see much in the semidarkness. He wanted to go back and snap the bastard’s neck again.

She cleared her throat. “Thank you. I’m fine.”

She sounded… quiet. Probably frightened. Her attacker had scared her half to death, and then he lost complete control and finished the job.

He swore silently and calmed his fury. He had made a point not killing the man left to guard her, knowing she would see him on their way out. He’d even left the team leader alive. He hadn’t wanted to scare her. He wanted her to see him as something other than the stone cold killer he was.

He could forget about that now. Didn’t matter anyway. Nothing could ever happen between them. They didn’t live in the same world. They definitely didn’t run in the same social circles. He could handle that. He could handle her not being in his life, as long as he knew she was safe out there somewhere.

He squeezed through the window that had let him into the building earlier and waited to help her out after him.

“
I’m sorry I lost it back there. I have two sisters. One of them was abducted last year.” Violence against women bothered him in a big way.

“
She’s fine now,” he said, for both their sakes. He still couldn’t stand to think about those times. Then when he saw that idiot with her hands on Allison—

He let out some pent up air, along with his pent up anger. The man, one of the greenhorns he’d seen in the yard earlier, was dead. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone ever again.

He caught Allison and lowered her to the ground, wishing he could hold on to her for a while. But a shout rose somewhere in the building.

“
Careful where you step.” He took her hand and drew her behind him in the dark. He had pretty good night vision, developed over years of military night exercises.

“
Was your sister hurt?” Compassion thickened her voice.

After what had almost happened to her, he knew what she meant. “Jasmine wasn’t raped, but hurt, yes.” His jaw tightened. He hated that his sisters still weren’t safe. They would have to remain in hiding until Wharton was brought down and no longer posed a danger.

He cut a straight path toward town. They covered maybe half a mile in silence before the pink line of dawn appeared on the horizon. Soon visibility would be much better, both a blessing and a curse.

He kept in cover as much as possible, grateful for every bush in the near desert-like landscape. Allison kept up every step of the way without complaint. Not something he would have expected from her when he’d first laid eyes on her. She surprised him at every turn.

After another half a mile they could see the road where a dozen or so peasants herded goats and sheep, some driving donkey carts, heading into town for the day’s market. By the time they reached the small group, the sound of the animals wasn’t the only sound Jake heard. Car motors roared in the distance.

Jake greeted the men in the local language and pushed into the middle of the procession, hoping to gain some time to come up with a plan, knowing Maddox and his men couldn’t tell him and Allison apart from the others from afar.

With a little luck, they’d see the locals whom they must have seen dozens of times before, and decide not to bother with them, search the fields and bushes first. Maybe he could gain enough time to reach the edge of town with Allison.

But as the sun slipped another inch higher in the sky, he could make out the vehicles, definitely on the road, and judging from the dust cloud, flying straight at them.

He glanced around. There had to be a way to protect Allison and keep the farmers from getting caught in the crossfire.

“
Keep your head down and stay with these people,” he told her under his breath and gripped his gun, ready to run back down the road and face off with their pursuers.

A single man could do a hell of a lot of damage with a single gun if his magazine was full and he was a good shot. All he had to do was hit the gas tank of the first car…

Allison grabbed after him and held him back, her slim fingers closing around his wrist.

And as he looked closer at the woman she was pulling him to, he realized she looked familiar.

Kenneth’s local girlfriend.

She didn’t know what was going on, but maybe she could see in their faces that they were in trouble because she gestured at her donkey cart, lifting the edge of the woven cloth that covered what looked like half-dozen goat cheese rounds.

The Humvees ate up the distance between them with sickening speed. If bullets started flying, people would get hurt. No time now to come up with another plan. Jake boosted Allison into the cart then dove after her. The woman blocked the view from behind and covered them both once they were situated.

Just in time. The ragtag caravan was pulling off the road already to let the vehicles pass, and a minute later the two Humvees slowed as they came in line with them. Probably examining every man and woman.

Jake held his breath, keeping his gun ready in one hand, taking Allison’s hand with the other.

~~~***~~~

Chapter Six

Her insides trembled, and soon her muscles did, too. She could do nothing to stop it. Shock, Allison recognized the symptoms. She lay wedged sideways in the narrow donkey cart, facing Jake with less than an inch between them. As the donkey dragged the cart over the rough terrain, the whole conveyance shook, causing her to bump into Jake over and over.

He held her hand. That helped. She tried to focus on his touch with all her might and shut out everything else, but she couldn’t, not when the mercenaries had slowed by them and were asking the locals questions. In Arabic, so she couldn’t understand, but she didn’t have to. They’d be asking after two foreigners, a man and a woman. And from their tone, she could tell the questions were peppered with threats.

Beyond the Ukrainian girl who hid them, nobody had any reason to keep them safe. Panic pushed her to jump up and run. Staying still in the face of imminent danger went against some primal instinct. She gripped Jake’s hand, squeezed her eyes shot, her muscles drawn tight as she waited for the bullets that would start flying any second.

Instead, Jake’s warm lips touched hers.

The sensation short-circuited her fight-or-flight response.