Athena Force 12: Checkmate (14 page)

Cole had seen images of the Predator before, and now that it sat before him in person, it did nothing to change his impression of a big flying spoon. Twenty-seven feet of flying spoon…no bigger than a single-engine Cessna.

But effective.
Maybe even the chance that Selena needed. For this particular flying spoon incorporated Josie’s acoustic improvements, making it even stealthier than before. And since they didn’t have Berzhaani permission to run recon flights over the besieged capitol, they’d need all the stealth they could get.

“What did she say?” Josie asked, even as Morel took possession of the cell phone—albeit only long enough to set it on one of the small round tables that served as the commissary, well within Cole’s reach. “She had time for a few words when she first called—she would have chosen the most important ones.”

For an instant, Cole could only look at her, still numb. Brain definitely not functioning. He saw only concerned smoky hazel eyes, personable features under bobbed brown hair, flight suit cinching in her figure. He’d been flummoxed to find her here, knowing the Predator—even unmodified birds—took time to bring into play. Time to pack it up in its “coffin,” time to transport, time to set up. More than two days’ worth of time, and the hostage crisis was only a day in the making. She’d cleared up his confusion in a matter of words. “We were here already,” she’d said. “There’s been so much alarming intel coming out of this region that it was worth risking Berzhaan’s displeasure to bring the modified Predator in for its first operational flight. But it’s still a test article, so Diego Morel—” she’d nodded at a man who looked as out of place as Cole himself, a big, lean fellow in jeans and a worn leather jacket “—is along as the sensor operator.”

All fine with Cole. Anything was fine with Cole, as long as it helped Selena. He’d taken Morel’s firm handshake in an absentminded way, but that had changed quickly enough as he caught the look in the other man’s dark eyes and realized, startled, that Morel understood. That in some way he’d been there, done that—and a quick doublecheck of the way he looked at Josie was enough to tell him with whom.

And now the two exchanged a concerned glance, one full of unspoken words—
is Selena’s husband going to pull it together?
—and it was enough to shock Cole back into thinking mode. “She didn’t have time for much,” he said, finally answering Josie’s question. “She said we should check the outside of the building. She definitely had something in mind, but that’s when—” and he stopped, because he couldn’t bring himself to say the words and because they knew them anyway.

“Check the outside of the building.” Josie nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

Cole gave the white and gray craft a skeptical glance. “Does this thing see well enough to check things out in detail?”

“If we risk a lower altitude—luckily for us, the cloud cover is on our side. It would be easier if we knew what we were looking for, but—”

Morel finished Josie’s thought. “If she chose those particular words as the most important ones she could say, we’d damn well better not let them go to waste.”

Cole nodded and wondered if he looked as lost as he felt. He’d been in the middle of so many operations just like this one—which is to say, grasping for information, lives on the line…sometimes even his own. But never had they involved Selena. He had no idea he’d struggle so hard to find his usual easy confidence.

But he’d find it, because she was counting on him. “We have to trust her,” he said. “If we look hard enough, we’ll find it.”

All too soon, Selena opened her eyes, waking to a world of discomfort spiked with pain. Her arms, twisted behind her and once again cuffed…
ow, dammit.
It wouldn’t be so bad if her badly bruised biceps hadn’t been twisted along with the rest of the arm. Or, if upon opening her eyes, she hadn’t seen just what they wanted her to see—the current guard sitting directly across from her. When he saw her eyes open he greeted her with a mongrel smile that was as much sneer as anything else.

She sneered back.

Okay, not the wisest thing to do. Wisest would have been to close her eyes again. But she wasn’t in Obi-Wan Kenobi mode just now. She was in the mood to quit playing games and kick ass all the way out of here.

Like that’s going to happen.

It might have happened already if it hadn’t been for the hostages. People she couldn’t leave, because they were the very reason she’d come in the first place. People who—

Suddenly aware of whispers and rustling, of rank, fearful sweat in the air and the indefinable feel of bodies sharing the space nearby, she popped her eyelids up again, and this time turned her head. The gaze she met first was Ambassador Allori’s.

“Charming expression, my dear,” he murmured, sitting on the edge of his chair with his elbows propped on his knees. His tie was long gone, but his suit coat remained against the chill. “Perhaps you should teach it to me so I can use it during my next negotiations. Which, I hope, will be far from here.”

Her response—her recently formed conviction that none of the hostages were meant to leave this building alive regardless of the outcome for the Kemenis—stuck in her throat. Given their recent conversation, at the very least Ashurbeyli considered his chances of success to be remote and was fully prepared for that contingency. Because besides Allori, the students watched her closely, their faces a collage of emotions.
Fear, awe, concern, fear, fear and fear.

“Are you okay?” one of them asked, a girl of indefinable ethnic background. American by the accent, reasonably calm to judge by her voice. She added quite sensibly, “Because you look like crap.”

Selena took a more careful assessment of her circumstances. She was with the others now, that much was obvious. But she was the only one cuffed, and she’d been placed closest to the guard who sat in the opening between this function room and the ballroom. One corner held neatly stacked litter from what scant food they’d been allowed; another still held their makeshift latrine, though they’d now thoughtfully been provided with a mop bucket. Even though they’d also been taken to the bathroom occasionally, the faint underlying odor of urine made it clear the bucket was in use. The air held the definite chill of an ancient and faltering heating system left to its own devices; the students all wore what coats they’d come with, and some of the girls huddled together for warmth. Many of the boys had stepped up to fill the role of comforter.

Selena knew from experience that it was a great way to avoid feeling one’s own fear.

That she was here, with the others…she didn’t take it as a good sign. Ashurbeyli had been truly offended by her attempt to contact Cole, and if it resulted in more limited access to the Kemenis, it meant she had less chance to find out what was going on. But at least the guard was letting them talk. And a glance at her low waistband showed no sign of blood, no telltales from the metal strip—nor any sign that it had been taken from her. As blurry as those last moments in the bathroom had been, it didn’t seem as though she’d missed anything important. The last thing she remembered, Ashurbeyli had hung up on Cole.

Cole.
She tried to imagine what he’d heard from his end of the phone. The initial interruption, Ashurbeyli’s baiting words, Selena’s own perfectly timed cry of pain before Ashurbeyli cut the connect.

Big mistake. She should have left it alone. Even thinking about being on the other end of that phone—about how she’d feel if it was him in the hands of terrorists…

You might have run from him, girl, but not nearly as far as you thought.

Even though in the end it might be too far. Too many miles, too much danger between them.

Selena reoriented her thoughts with much determination. She shook her hair back and looked at the young woman who’d spoken and who’d probably given up on an answer. “I’m as okay as the rest of you. Is everyone all right?”

Allori drew her attention to Razidae, a man who defined the very meaning of the word
grim.
“He does not feel his government will negotiate in any manner.”

“I’ve already told Ashurbeyli they won’t. I’m not expecting any grand gestures from the States, either—Berzhaan is likely to tie their hands.”

Allori shook his head. “I just can’t understand what they’re trying to accomplish. They’ve always been smarter than this.”

“I think they
are
smarter than this.” Selena held his gaze long enough to give her words extra meaning…things she didn’t want to say out loud if Ashurbeyli listened in. Allori’s eyes widened slightly. He might not have even her vaguely guessed details, but he realized there were indeed layers to this operation.

“What about that man?” the same girl asked. The others had moved a little closer, just as interested in the answers but letting her ask the questions. “The cook.”

Surely they realized he was dead. Surely they’d heard the gunshot. A glance at Allori confirmed it, but on that group of young faces she saw nothing but naive hope. Selena sighed and tipped her head back against the wall against which she’d been sloppily positioned. “His name was Atif,” she said. “He was helping me. He’s dead now.”

“Helping you?” The young man who’d stared in the lobby snorted, loudly enough to draw a quelling look from the guard. He immediately subsided. “They said he betrayed you.”

She nodded. “That’s true. He did both. People aren’t always simple.”

Keep that in mind.

He met her words with a scowl, opened his mouth—and then glanced at the guard and shut it again.

“My name is Selena,” she told them. “Tell me yours—all of you. Tell me where you’re from.”

Still the scowl. “And how is
that
going to help?”

“Get us out of here? It won’t. But it’s a way to pass the time.” And to get their minds off their possible—no, probable—fate. Unless Selena could do something to change it. Unless she could figure out exactly what the Kemenis had planned—and then stop them.

The girl with the questions took up the introductions, pointing to them all. Selena, well versed in putting names to faces and remembering them, paid only partial attention, nodding in the right spots. The girl’s name was Rosa, said the Spanish way with a soft
s.
And the staring boy was Craig, and his girlfriend Marianne, and then there was Toby and Guy—very French,
Gee
—and Celina and Pam and Agatha….

And others, which she’d remember when she needed them. She made small talk with them, asked how they’d come to be visiting here, and all the while kept catching Allori’s eye. She wanted his assessment of the situation.

“Did you really call outside?” Rosa asked, quite suddenly. Everyone else stopped their quiet chatter, eager to hear that she had, that help was on the way.

Selena shifted, trying to straighten out the cramp in her lower back. Maybe she really
was
getting her period. Just what she needed.

Except its arrival would mean she could quit worrying about risking more than just her own life. Its arrival would take her off the hook with Cole, leaving things between them less complicated. Leaving her the space to stay with him for the sake of that relationship, and not to blur the decision with what might be best for a child.

Then why did she feel that sudden flutter of disappointment? Absurd disappointment, under the circumstances. Crazy.

Then crazy she was.

She took a deep breath, glanced at the guard—did he even understand English?—and said, “I called someone who can help.”

As one, they held their breath; hope leaped to every face. She shook her head. “He can’t overcome the mandates of the Berzhaani government. He’s not Superman. But he can make sure that those who are addressing this situation keep us in mind.” She looked at the guard again, and this time spoke right to him—just in case he knew a smattering of English after all. “Frankly, I’m surprised the Kemenis found it so upsetting. You’d think they’d want both governments in a frazzle about our welfare. Then the Kemenis will get what they want.”

Ashurbeyli’s voice from the ballroom startled the students, but not Selena; she’d half expected it. “He doesn’t speak your language,” Ashurbeyli said, sounding bored. “But noise irritates him, so you might well want to keep it down. As time goes by—as we see no signs of concern or cooperation from Berzhaan—it will become harder to keep my men from taking their pleasures and frustrations out on you all. After all, if it does not matter to your people, why should it matter to mine?”

The students paled, every one of them. Their chaperone paled. Even the events coordinator blanched.

“Oh, great,” Selena said, responding in Berzhaani.

“Scaring a bunch of kids. Big tough terrorist.”

He gave a dark laugh, but returned to his murmured conversation with Jonas White.

Selena fought the impulse to scratch her cheek where a trickle of dried blood itched with sudden ferocity—and then she fought the impulse to check her watch as habit overrode, for the instant, her otherwise constant awareness of the ache in her restrained arms.

Enough of the gesture got through for Allori to give her a grim smile. “It’s been just over a day. It’s just the beginning.”

Selena lowered her voice, mindful of Ashurbeyli in the next room, and mindful of Ashurbeyli’s warning about the guard. It had not, she thought, been an empty threat. Nor were the words flying back and forth between Ashurbeyli and several of his men, for the snatches she heard of the quickly escalating conversation seemed to center around Ashurbeyli’s easy treatment of Selena thus far. It was a startling challenge in the face of their loyalty to him, and a hot personal insult. There would be fallout. But she couldn’t concentrate solely on her eavesdropping. Not when she had the opportunity to touch base with Allori. “Dante, what do you make of them? They’re prepared in every way—they knew this could be an extended situation. But they don’t seem particularly concerned about the outcome.”

“Noticed that, did you?” Allori gave the ballroom a pensive look, no happier about the shouting than Selena. “If I had to guess, I’d think they’ve got a backup plan. I might even say they’re just as happy to go to that plan.” He eased off the chair, moving closer, and crouched nearby to lower his voice even further. “I would go so far as to venture that it’s something dramatic—and that it wouldn’t bode well for us.”