Chapter Seventeen
“I can’t get away from these fucking SUVs,” Kane complained from the back seat. “Suburbans in the States, Rovers in Europe… I was hoping for something… sexier.”
“I’m not Nico Vitale,” Leo said.
“Doesn’t have to be a Ferrari.”
“I’m not Farrell Black.”
“Doesn’t have to be a Lotus either,” Kane said.
Leo sighed. He didn’t want to be Nico Vitale or Farrell Black. Nico was in Thailand now, living more or less off the grid with the woman who had inadvertently caused the fall of the Syndicate. And Farrell’s lifestyle was too stylized for Leo. He didn’t want mansions and security detail, blood and bodyguards.
He was more than happy to be the muscle, but for him blood was a necessary part of the job, not an aphrodisiac like it was for Farrell.
“This is the safest way for us to travel,” Leo said, navigating the Rover toward the seaport. “We could be anybody — a diplomat, an entrepreneur, the UN. It will help us get through customs on the other side.”
He hadn't given voice to his darkest fears about the trip to Algiers. Namely, that they were in a car bound for a notoriously complex political region, one that had become a haven for black market arms and drug dealers, sex traffickers, and terrorists. They’d loaded most of their guns into a hidden compartment in the trunk, but Leo had placed his own weapon under the driver’s seat, unwilling to leave Diana’s safety to chance if they were intercepted. Braden Kane was more obvious — strapping his handgun into a holster at his side — a perk of his FBI badge that would quickly turn into a detriment if the wrong people got ahold of it.
None of it made Leo feel any better about the excursion.
He scanned the crowd as they approached the automobile loading dock for the ferry. There was no reason to believe Stavros expected them to try and get into Algiers, but that didn’t mean it wasn't possible.
And Stavros wasn’t the only thing they had to be worried about. The region was loaded with people who despised Westerners, to say nothing of Kane’s affiliation with the FBI, an association that could either do them tremendous good, or tremendous harm. They were traveling with a beautiful woman, obviously British, another mark against them.
He pulled up to the line of cars waiting to pull onto the ferry, then rolled his shoulders, trying to relax. Diana reached over, touched the back of his neck as if she could sense that he was nervous. The gesture sent a flush of warmth through his body. It was nice until it was followed by a surge of fear at the thought of losing her.
They handed over their passports to a ferry employee and were waved onto the boat without incident. It did nothing to ease his mind. Spain wasn't the problem — Algeria was. Security would be considerably tighter there, and considerably less regulated. The wad of cash in his pocket might help them, but like everything else, it could hurt them as well. Would greed trump pride and principle with the Algerian police?
It was anybody’s guess, and they had no way of knowing until they tried.
The cargo compartment was cavernous and dark, a floating parking garage that was wall to wall cars, motorbikes, and bicycles. They locked the car and stepped into the underside of the boat as it started to pull away from the dock.
The ferry was like a mini cruise ship, and they found a cafe and bought kebabs and water, which they took to the upper deck to eat while Kane flirted with a tall, slender brunette in a short sundress.
The upper deck was crowded with an assortment of people — tourists and parents with their children and young people kissing at the railing. Above them, the cloudless sky seemed infinite as Almeria became smaller on one side of the boat, the Mediterranean stretching toward Morocco and Algeria, still invisible to the naked eye.
He was happy to have the moment alone with Diana. It was a relief to have Kane and his team from the States on their side, but there was never any guarantee when it came to these kinds of operations. Now that he had Diana, it felt like he had something to lose, and he looked over at her, trying to memorize the way her mouth turned up at the corners as she tipped her head to the sun. Her hair blew around her face, barely tamed by the scarf tied around her head. He had the sudden memory of her riding him the night before, her thighs pressing against his hips as she worked her clit against him, pursuing her own pleasure with a ferocity that had surprised him.
He suddenly wanted to freeze time, and he fought the dread seeping through his stomach. He didn’t believe in intuition. This would be a routine operation like so many he’d been part of with Farrell. They would intercept the shipment, Kane would take Antonis Stavros and his men into custody, Leo and Diana would return to London, figure out the logistics of building a life together. Figure out if it was even possible.
He could almost believe it.
When they were done eating, Leo leaned back, stretching his arm across Diana’s shoulders. “It’s a long trip,” he said. “You should try to sleep.”
“Impossible with this view." She looked at the bench. “And this seat.”
He gestured to his lap. “It’s all yours.”
She smiled up at him, then lay down, resting her head across his thighs. He smoothed the curls back from her forehead, stroked her cheek as she closed her eyes with a sigh.
They passed the next ten hours in various states of unrest: Diana dozing on his lap while he closed his eyes behind his sunglasses, he and Kane running down the possibilities in Beni Saf and catching up on news of Farrell, Luca, Nico. The sun swept the sky while they cruised across the channel toward Algeria. By the time they drove off the ferry in Ghazaouet, it was after ten pm, the light of day nothing but a memory.
They were stopped almost immediately by a group of uniformed men carrying weapons. Leo handed over their papers, offering Kane’s driver’s license rather than his FBI ID badge. They would save that for a situation when the reward outweighed the risk. Three of the police — if that’s what they were — circled the car, eyeing Diana through the window as the fourth flipped through their passports. He wasn’t worried about the authenticity of the documents Hyrum had created for Diana. There were no bar code readers here. No computers.
But this was far more dangerous: a group of armed men with seemingly no oversight, standing between them and the desolate road leading to Beni Saf and the man who wanted to kill the woman he loved.
Leo forced his expression to remain calm even as he calculated how long it would take him to reach the weapon under his seat. Even as he watched every move the men made, prepared to push Diana’s head out of the line of fire and lunge for the gun at the first sign of trouble.
Ten minutes later, the man grudgingly handed back their passports. Leo nodded, put the car in gear, and rolled forward. The car was filled with tension as they made their way along the deserted road leading to the seaside town of Beni Saf. Street lights were few and far between, and Leo quickly became accustomed to driving through long stretches of darkness. He wanted to believe the worst was behind them, but he knew that was about as far from the truth as they could get. There was every possibility of more police as they entered Beni Saf, and even the possibility that they’d been let go so the men could alert Antonis Stavros of their arrival. Leo wasn’t stupid enough to comforted by Kane’s presence. This was an unofficial mission. The Americans owed no loyalty to Leo, and he had no doubt they’d extract their own people and leave he and Diana behind if it was the only way to get out alive.
Which meant he was the only thing really standing between Diana and Stavros.
Fine, he thought. Let him come. Let him try.
They were nearing town when they spotted the next group of police. They weren’t manning a road block but sitting atop cars on the side of the road. They were heavily armed, eyes watchful, bodies ready to pounce as they watched Leo drive past them into the city. He should have been happy they weren’t stopped, but he couldn’t help wondering if it was because Stavros already knew they were there.
“You okay?” he asked Diana.
She nodded. “Fine.”
She was probably lying, but he couldn’t really blame her. He would have said the same thing in her position. The situation was what it was, and the only way through it was through it.
He navigated the Rover through the rundown city. It was different from the capital city of Algiers, the buildings old and startlingly white against the blue of the sky and sea, the surrounding brush that was reminiscent of Greece. There you could feel the history, could see it in the domed architecture and even the Church of the Holy Trinity built in the late 1800s.
Beni Saf was a seaport town in the truest sense, a place where people lived hard lives unloading cargo from aging docks, where their skin was etched by the moisture-less air, the salt of the sea, the sun that always seemed too bright. Leo could see why Antonis Stavros would find it an ideal location to bring in illegal cargo. It wasn’t a place anyone wanted to go, wasn’t a place that drew tourists or travelers.
Finally, they came to a low slung house on the outskirts of town. It was old but not derelict, well maintained but not at all grand.
In other words, the perfect safe house.
The Americans knew how to do something right at least.
He turned off the car, and turned to Diana. “Let’s go.”