Authors: Dana Marton
Agents Under Fire (9 page)
_._._
I dedicate this story to Jenel Looney, a truly extraordinary person and the best friend anyone could ever wish for.
Agents Under Fire
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
GUARDIAN AGENT. Copyright © 2011 by Dana Marton. All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author.
First Edition: June 2011
AVENGING AGENT
A Novella
BY
DANA MARTON
This story is dedicated to Jenel Looney with my most heartfelt gratitude.
Agents Under Fire
GUARDIAN AGENT
AVENGING AGENT
WARRIOR AGENT
"... started with a bang and the tension never let up. Marton is an accomplished thriller writer, and it shows. Every time I promised myself I'd stop and turn out the light, I kept reading just one more page..." Paula Graves, national bestselling author (about GUARDIAN AGENT)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AVENGING AGENT.Copyright © 2011 by Dana Marton. All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author.
First Edition: August 2011
~~~***~~~
Chapter One
The full heat of summer poured in through the iron bars of the glassless window. Two pesky flies buzzed around the police chief’s head, trying to get to the sweat beading on his forehead. Another settled on the man’s coffee cup that teetered on top of a crooked stack of files on his desk. He dabbed his forehead with a rag and swatted at the flies. “People think you are an American spy.”
Not for the first time, Allison Myers considered whether it had been a huge mistake to come to Afghanistan.
No, not a mistake.
She
had
to find Kenneth. She hadn’t been able to save Daniel and had blamed herself all these years, had wondered every day if there’d been anything more she could have done. She wasn’t going to lose Kenneth. She couldn’t live with any more regrets.
“
I’m looking for my fiancé. He disappeared around here six months ago.” She glanced at the two-door metal cabinet behind the man, its doors a crack open. That two-inch dark gap kept drawing her eyes.
“
Is your fiancé a spy?” The man whacked at the flies again, and knocked over his empty coffee cup.
The guard standing outside the open door dashed in, restored the cup to the table then returned to his post, all without making eye contact.
Allison fanned herself. She couldn’t breathe in the mid-afternoon heat. She reached for her top button, but caught herself in time, folded her hands on her lap. “My fiancé, Kenneth Hatch, is a businessman. His company designs irrigation systems.”
“
We don’t have any irrigation systems here. Just the old cisterns.” The man’s beady eyes never moved from her for a second, as if he was watching some loathsome snake he would have liked to cut in half.
She looked up at the ceremonial dagger displayed on the wall behind him, probably some tribal relic, and she swallowed hard.
He braced his stubby-fingered hands on the desk. “You’ve been bothering people with your questions. Why do you want to know so much?”
“
I just want to find Kenneth.” Again, her gaze fell on the cabinet and her instincts prickled. She had the strangest feeling that someone was watching her from inside. The heat and stress were getting to her.
“
Where are your brothers and your father?”
“
I don’t have any brothers. My father is gone. Dead,” she clarified.
His glare said he fully blamed her for having no
protector
. “Are you spying for an American company that wants to steal our water?”
Not the first time he’d brought that up. People here seemed paranoid about water. Probably because they didn’t have enough. If they thought anyone threatened their water supply…
Despite the oppressive heat, a chill ran down her spine. “I’m only in Lahedeh to take my fiancé home. I swear.” She would have loved to go back to New Hampshire. Nobody wanted her here. But she couldn’t leave until she found Kenneth.
She hadn’t been a hundred percent sure about her feelings toward him for some time, but no matter what happened with the engagement, they would still be friends. And she wouldn’t abandon a friend. She believed in loyalty with all her heart.
A moment of tense silence passed. The police chief measured her up, then leaned back in his chair. He seemed to have come to some sort of conclusion.
Her muscles tightened as she waited.
“
The police commissioner is coming tomorrow on his annual visit. He might want to talk to you.” He glanced toward the guard outside his door.
Probably getting ready to order the man to lead her away and lock her up until the commissioner got here.
“
I’ll be happy to come in.” She sprung to her feet and looked at her watch. “Thank you for your time. I better get back to the hotel. I have some health issues. I should take my medication, now,” she lied.
“
And they’ll be calling me from the American embassy,” she added for extra measure. “They’ll be worried if I’m not there when they ring.”
The man gave her another long, speculative look. He didn’t give her permission to leave, but he didn’t block her way either.
Good enough. She took advantage of his momentary hesitation and hurried out past the guard, down a long, dingy hallway with suspicious-looking stains on the cement floor, expecting to be called back any second.
Steel doors banged in the distance. Now and then, she could hear muffled cries.
On the way in, she’d been escorted. Nobody bothered with her now. She took one turn after the other, hoping she got it right.
Sweat ran down the middle of her back by the time she reached the outer door that led to the sun-drenched street. Another guard manned that post. He shot her a hostile glare as he stepped aside.
She steeled her spine. She would stay until she found Kenneth. She refused to be run out of town. She hadn’t let her board of directors oust her from the helm of her father’s company. A small town police chief wasn’t going to get the better of her.
She wished the U.S. embassy
was
calling. Or would consider helping her a little more enthusiastically than they’d been doing. But for some reason their records were all messed up, indicating that Kenneth had entered the country as part of some commando team. Kenneth William Hatch, millionaire businessman with serious political aspirations. Ha! He wore Hugo Boss suits and Armani loafers. She couldn’t even picture him in army fatigues and combat boots.
But the embassy had washed its hands, referring her to the Army who brought in these private security commando teams on contract. The army wouldn’t give her the time of day, of course. Classified information and all that. The locals were even less helpful.
She squinted against the sun as she looked around with a sinking heart, searching in vain for the cab that’d brought her over from the hotel.
Better not loiter around or the police chief might change his mind and call her back. She hurried down the street in the direction of her hotel, a dozen blocks from here. Caught a number of angry glares from passersby. Even the old beggar sitting in the dirt frowned at her.
She looked at her long-sleeved dress that covered her arms to her wrists and her legs to her shoes. She couldn’t imagine anyone finding fault with that.
A group of older men carried on an intense conversation a couple of yards ahead, wearing long traditional robes and uniform round hats. The street narrowed at the spot where they stood, barely leaving her room to pass.
They shot her looks of disapproval as she approached. She kept her eyes downcast.
“
Whore,” one called out as she reached them.
She walked faster.
“
American whore spy.” A hand reached out and yanked her hair, hard.
She scrambled to pull her scarf tighter around her head, but her fingers touched nothing but hair. No scarf. She spun around, but couldn’t see the flimsy material behind her. It must have slipped off as she’d been fleeing the police station, in those winding hallways inside.
The men shouted at her in Arabic. Some shook their fists.
For about half a second she pretended she could handle them, that she wasn’t intimidated and everything was fine. Then she ran.
Her heart beat in her throat. Panic squeezed her lungs. She didn’t dare glance back until she reached the end of the block. The old men had given up pursuit and stood at a distance, arguing with each other.
Relief filled her to her toes. She drew a shaky breath and pushed forward, eager to put as much distance between herself and the men as possible.
The streets grew narrower and narrower. Houses butted up against each other, tall adobe walls loomed above.
Should have reached the main street by now.
She slowed after a while, trying to identify a point of reference, but nothing looked familiar. Instead of the colorful shops the cab had passed on its way to the police station, drab houses lined the street.
She must have taken a wrong turn and entered a residential area somehow. None of the residents appreciated a foreign intruder, which they made clear by shooting her hostile looks as she passed by. Tension seeped back into her muscles as she kept on walking.
The maze seemed endless, following no logic, the heat trapped in the narrow passageways, the temperature brutal. As endless minutes ticked by, she could no longer pretend she wasn’t hopelessly lost.
Maybe she should turn around.
She looked back. Six or seven men followed a hundred feet behind her. Not the same ones who’d taken exception to her uncovered head outside the police station. She took the next turn to let them walk by, but they turned after her. She hurried forward, turned again. They kept coming, watching her. She swallowed hard.
Her latest pursuers were young thugs, the grins they exchanged predatory and dark. They advanced on her with menacing speed, their intent clear.
* * *
Jake Tekla watched the disturbing procession from the top of a mud brick wall.
The woman’s near waist-length, golden hair fluttered behind her as she ran. Surreal, really, a princess from a fairytale who obviously shouldn’t have left her palace.
The police chief didn’t seem to care for her. They’d come in unexpectedly while Jake had been searching the man’s files for any connection to U.S. Congressman Wharton. He’d barely jumped into that infernally hot metal cabinet in time.
He’d been in the chief’s office twice this week, had the bars rigged on the window. He’d gone through what the man had and found nothing useful. No need to go back a third time tomorrow. Better search the mercenary commando headquarters on the outside of town instead. If Wharton had any dealings with anyone here, it would be someone with power.
The chase on the street below drew Jake’s thoughts from the congressman.
The woman’s long skirt tangled between her feet as she ran, slowing her down. What in hell was she thinking running around in a backwoods little town like this, all alone? Might as well wave a red cloth at a bullfight.
Allison Myers, heiress to a business empire. Clueless about how to survive outside her protected little bubble back at home, from the looks of it.