Taking Fire (10 page)

18

Déjà vu all over again.

Here he was, exactly where he should
not
fucking be after picking her up, carrying her into the bedroom, and laying her down.

He'd had no intention of staying with her. But she'd clung to him, her body shaking so violently he was afraid she'd come apart if he let her go.

So he stayed. Held her. Remembered another time. Another place. Another moment when she'd cried and he'd kissed her for the first time. When he'd been blissfully unaware that what he felt for her and what he thought she'd felt for him was all a lie.

But the longer he lay there, the softness of her body nestled against him, her bare arms and legs locked around him as though gravity had pulled her in and held her tethered to him, the easier it was to think about forgiveness. And forgiveness made him feel weak. And ashamed that she could so easily bring him to his knees. Again.

Steeling himself against emotions she didn't deserve, he pried himself away as soon as she fell asleep. Then he left her there, his gut knotted with emotions that ran the gamut from anger to empathy to self-­disgust.

He walked through the small house and collapsed back down on the sofa, knowing he was in danger of getting in way too deep with this woman again.

Horizontal lasted all of a minute. Suddenly, he was too tired even to sleep. Restless, he rose stiffly to his feet again and started searching the house. There had to be a phone—a
secure
phone, and he wasn't certain that hers was. There also had to be weapons. Clothes. Food.

In the small kitchen, he hit the jackpot. He snagged an energy drink from the fridge and downed half of it while he snooped through the cabinets. Military-issued Meals Ready to Eat, dried fruits, and nuts. All the essentials to refuel and power back up.

He'd tear into one of the prepacked MREs later. Right now, he needed to find that phone. And since he still had another combination of numbers in his memory, he figured there must be a safe tucked away in the house somewhere.

Because he knew how some of the top minds in U.S. covert ops worked, he found it a few minutes later. The planked bamboo floors in the living room were highly polished. He moved the low, wide coffee table off the area rug that lay in front of the sofa, then flipped back the rug to expose the floor. Then he lay down on his stomach, his cheek pressed to the wood, and searched the boards not only by sight but with his fingertips, until he found the slightest gap between the seams.

After that, it was a matter of carefully prying up one section of board at a time, and
bam
. There was the safe, sandwiched between the floor joists.

He made quick work of the combination lock, whipped it open, and
hoo-ah!
Inside, along with a satellite phone, were enough weapons and ammo to level the playing field.

*   *   *

Every member of ITAP knew the number to call when the shit hit the fan and they were out of options. Satellite phone in hand, Taggart closed the bedroom door so he wouldn't wake Talia, then, to be doubly safe, opened the sliders at the back of the house and stepped out onto a small, secluded deck.

Although the sun had set an hour ago, the desert heat hit him like a tank. The weight of it made it difficult to breathe—as did the smell of burnt gasoline in the air.

In the distance, he heard the muffled sound of traffic, but here, in this residential neighborhood, the night was quiet.

He punched in the number and hit send, then waited for Nate Black to pick up.

Black was smart, tough as gravel, and he had been there, done that, with the scars and nightmares to prove it. There were very few people who could rattle Taggart, but Black was one of them. Black subscribed to General James Mattis's axiom: “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”

Like Mattis, Black didn't have a problem stacking bodies high and deep if he thought it was necessary.

He finally picked up on the third ring. “Black.”

“It's Taggart.”

“About damn time,” Black said, covering what Bobby knew was concern with a clipped reprimand.

“Sorry. Been a little busy.”

“So it would seem.” Black would have kept himself well apprised of the embassy bombing. “Good thing you called,” he went on. “Since we hadn't seen your name on a survivor list, the boys were setting up a lottery to see who got your new desk chair.”

A laugh burst out, the first honest relief Bobby had felt since he'd come to in that bombed-out building. “You tell my ‘buddies' to keep their mitts off my chair. I waited six months for that bad boy.”

“Bound to be disappointment all around.”

“I'm sure they'll recover,” he said, feeling the same affection for his teammates that he knew they felt for him.

“So . . . you okay?” The flat-out concern was back in Black's voice.

“Yeah. Fit and fine,” he lied, then asked the big question. “Any news on Ted Jensen?” He held his breath and, in the background, heard the familiar squeak of Nate's desk chair.

“He's alive.”

The relief he felt could have filled a football stadium.

“In serious but stable condition. Barring any complications, they say he'll pull through.”

Thank God.
“That's good. That's very good.”

“What've you got going, Bobby?”

“A fucking nightmare, that's what I've got.” Where did he start? “I need help, sir. Assets. Intel. A team on the ground. Infrared cameras. Hell, a drone if you can make it happen. Whatever you've got, I need it. Yesterday. Only there's one catch.”

“Hold on while I get hold of Rhonda. Sounds like she needs to be patched in on this.”

Taggart had a special friendship with Rhonda, the wife of his friend Jamie Cooper. Like Coop, she was also a member of the ITAP team, one of their go-to girls when it came to intelligence gathering and organization. As a field operative, she'd take a pass. But in truth, the blond bomber could hold her own with any of the guys. More important, she could work spooky magic with a keyboard. And the fact that Black was willing to bring her on board immediately told Bobby he'd bring the full weight of both his BOI team and the ITAP team to the table.

He only hoped he'd get the same response when Black knew the whole story.

“Sir. Um . . . hold on before you connect Rhonda.” He stopped, swallowed.

He hadn't yet fully processed the implications of Meir's existence in his life; he wasn't even close to being ready to share it with others. But he
was
fully invested in his son's safety. “There's something I'd like kept between the two of us for the time being, if you don't mind, sir. The team doesn't need to know. Not yet.”

“That would be the catch, I take it?”

A smart man, Nate Black. “Yeah. This is . . . this is personal, sir. One hundred percent. DOD would never sanction what I'm about to ask of you.”

The silence on the other end of the line was so thick he figured it was all over but the apologetic refusal. And he respected Nate Black too much to make him say the words. “Look. It's okay. I know you can't—”

“Taggart.” Black cut him off. “What did I tell you and Brown and Cooper when you agreed to come on board with me? We have complete autonomy over what we choose to do and not do. Now, tell me what I can do to help you, son.”

19

Fifteen minutes later, Bobby had filled Nate in on the bombing and Talia's and Meir's connection to it, as well as their certainty that al-Attar Hamas followers were behind it all. After a quick search of the Expedition, he found Talia's cell phone and fired off the photos he'd taken of the Golf's license plate and the four dead men. Rhonda would make short work of pinning them down. He hoped.

When he disconnected, he felt as though the weight of the bombed-out building had been lifted from his shoulders. Nate hadn't browbeaten him about his involvement with Talia six years ago; he hadn't heaped on guilt about being so irresponsible that he'd fathered a child. Most of all, Nate had assured Bobby that he'd dump everything—maybe even with DOD's approval—into a transport plane that would arrive within twenty-four hours with as many team members as he could gather.

“What's the situation with the boy's mother?” Nate had asked with straightforward concern after Bobby had explained about Talia and Meir.

“It's complicated,” Bobby told him, echoing Talia's words.

“Yeah. That much I'd figured out.”

Ordinarily, Bobby would have smiled.

“Can you work with her?”

“Yes,” he'd said without hesitation. “If she can pull herself together. You can imagine, she's terrified for the boy.”

“And you?”

“I'm going to find him. I
need
to find him. Alive. But I need something to go on. Someplace to start looking while I wait for you to get here.”

“I'll get Rhonda right on it. Stay by the phone,” Nate said, and disconnected.

Feeling his first glimmer of hope, Bobby headed for the bathroom and a shower. They'd sketched out a strategy, and Nate had assured him that they'd go all in on Meir's rescue.

Energized, he rummaged around in the hall closet and found T-shirts, jeans, dress pants, shoes, ­underwear—all kinds and sizes.

He also found traditional Omani attire. The dishdasha was a white, ankle-length, collarless, long-sleeved gown. He considered slipping one on; it would feel a helluva lot better on his nicks and bruises than street clothes.

In the end, he grabbed a black T-shirt and jeans. After downing a couple of painkillers and applying some antiseptic salve and a fresh bandage to his head, he felt like a new man.

Almost.

He peeked in on Talia and found her tossing the covers back, about to get up.

“You're awake.” He'd thought she'd sleep for some time yet.

“How long was I out?” She sat up stiffly, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

“Less than an hour.”

Plenty of time for him to contemplate, again, that this had been the second time he'd taken Talia Levine to bed and held her while she'd cried herself to sleep. Her grief tonight, however, had gone beyond anything he'd ever experienced.

What's the situation with the boy's mother?

Bobby still didn't have a clue. She looked pretty fragile—not a word he'd ever associated with her before.

A vindictive man would say she'd brought this all down on herself. He'd thought he was that man, but it turned out he wasn't. He didn't know what he was or what he felt for her, either.

But more important right now was how
she
felt. Could she come back from a breakdown that brutal? Her heart and her soul both seemed as shredded as her feet.

“You should get cleaned up, take care of your feet before the cuts get infected,” he said, schooling himself, for God's sake, not to let her affect him again like she had when she'd clung to him, her body trembling and convulsing with anguish. “There's a first-aid kit in the bathroom medicine cabinet.” He cleared his throat of his suddenly scratchy voice.

“I don't have time to shower. We have to—”

He held up a hand and cut her off. “What we have to do is regroup and recover. And wait—for now,” he said quickly when she opened her mouth to object. “Then we have to discuss our next moves. I'm already working on a plan, okay?”

She dragged the wild mass of her hair away from her face. “What kind of plan?”

“I found a floor safe with a SAT phone, weapons, ammo.” He looked down at his jeans. “I also found clothes. The kitchen's stocked with food. More important, I spoke to my team leader in the States. I'll fill you in later, but for now, just know that they're using every resource they have available to help find Meir.”

“They? Who are
they
?”

“The good guys, Talia.” Both Nate's direct team and the ITAP team were highly covert units. Only a handful of people in the Pentagon were on the need-to-know list, so he sure as hell wasn't going to tell her. “That's as much as I can give you.”

She didn't look convinced. But the soldier slowly surfaced, and she apparently accepted him at his word.

Then she eased unsteadily to her feet.

And damn, what a striking, wretched mess she was. Her skirt had ripped all the way to the top of her thigh. Her silk top was filthy and torn. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. She was bandaged and bruised and covered in ash and blood. And yet she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever—

Fuck. Do
not
go there again.

“Do you need help?” He hoped she could make it on her own, because if she was so physically and mentally beaten that she'd accept his offer of help, he was afraid she wouldn't rally at all. And she needed to. Just like he needed to keep his damn distance.

“I'm fine.” She wasn't, but she wanted him to think so, as she took step after careful step toward the bedroom door, her jaw clenched in pain.

That was the best reaction he could have hoped for. She was tough.

Still, he had to stuff his hands into his pockets to keep from picking her up and carrying her into the bathroom to get her off those feet.

*   *   *

He sorted through the stack of dishdashas and found a small one he thought might work for her. Then he grabbed the smallest pair of boxers he could find and rapped a knuckle on the bathroom door.

“Found something clean for you to wear. I'll leave it on the floor outside the door.”

It wasn't long after that she stepped out of the bathroom, scrubbed clean, her long, wet hair falling around her face. Her feet were still bare. Her face hadn't been spared, either. Here and there, he spotted nicks and bruises that had been hidden beneath the grime.

She looked lost in even the smallest dishdasha. The loose-fitting garment was made of soft white muslin and designed to mitigate the burn of the Omani heat. It made her look tiny, even waiflike, and he felt that catch in his chest that came at the oddest times.

“Eat while we can,” he said, his mouth suddenly dry. Sitting down on a stool at the kitchen counter, he tore into his second energy drink and an MRE—and damn near burned his tongue.

A hundred thoughts raced through his mind while she sat down beside him, silent, still a little shocky, suffering but dealing.

He forced his thoughts to Ted, relieved to know he'd gotten out of the building and was expected to be okay.

Now they needed a miracle to help the boy.

He glanced at Talia, who'd grown gut-wrenchingly quiet. And though he'd fought it for six years, he finally came to terms with another truth he'd managed to suppress. Okay, refused to acknowledge. Today wasn't the first time she'd saved his life.

“In Kabul,” he said. “When your boys took down al-Attar and his crew, they could have killed me. Instead, they tossed me into the street and turned me loose.”

She turned to him, and he knew she'd grasped where he was going.

“How much did it cost you to make that happen?”

Her gaze wavered, then lowered. With an unsteady hand, she reached for the energy drink he'd set out for her.

She had to have pulled in major favors to get him out of there alive. Navy SEALs, Special Forces, MI-6, or Mossad agents—operatives all went by the book. They'd minimize collateral damage if they could, but he hadn't fallen into that category. He'd fallen squarely into the “loose ends” category that night. By rights, they should have killed him along with al-Attar and his men.

“What was the price of my life?” he asked again, softly this time.

She didn't answer, so he said it for her.

“They booted you out, didn't they? Suddenly, their hotshot operator had a weakness—me—so they cut you loose.”

She propped an elbow on the counter and lowered her head into her hand, as if she couldn't bear the weight of it. “It doesn't matter.” Her voice was ragged, weary. “Saving Meir is what matters.”

Yes, Meir was what mattered now. But for all these years, he'd refused to acknowledge that he must have mattered to
her
, too, back then. He must have mattered very much. And he couldn't help but wonder if maybe he mattered even now.

I don't hate you. I could never hate you.

He studied her profile and felt a swell of emotion he didn't want to own. He fought to resist everything that made him want to react to her as a man who had once thought they had a future.

“Your team leader,” she said, abruptly changing the subject. “You said you talked to him. Said he's a good guy. What kind of resources does he have or have access to?”

He felt relief that she'd waylaid his thoughts. He didn't understand where this sudden bending of his defenses came from. It wasn't that he could ever forgive her. It wasn't as if what she'd done
for
him could ever compensate for what she'd done
to
him.

“Eat while it's still hot,” he said gruffly. “And I'll tell you what I know.”

She looked at the MRE he'd set in front of her. Then she shoved her damp hair over her shoulder and, on a resigned breath, picked up a fork. He watched while she took a bite. Knowing all that she'd been through today, the helplessness and loss she felt for Meir, he almost reached for her. Almost drew her into his arms again.

“Do you know anything about what I've been doing since you left Kabul?”

He wasn't sure why he'd asked or why her answer should matter. Yet the longer her silence went on, the more it did matter. It was stupid to feel so tense, but it felt as if something important depended on her reply.

Something other than the pathetic hope that possibly, she had cared enough to keep track of him. A hope that he just now realized had always been with him.