CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ian Black was fucking pissed. He hadn’t intended to go to Ras al-Dura, but when Victoria had threatened to quit, he hadn’t trusted that she’d go through with the job. And the job was much too important to leave it to chance.
Hell, right up until the minute she’d fired, he still hadn’t been sure. It’s why he’d had to be there. If she hadn’t killed Chernovsky, then he would have. Maybe he should have just done the job himself in the first place, but he had too many irons in the fire and not enough time to be everywhere he needed to be.
This is why he hired people, goddammit.
Victoria had been reliable for two years. She was a professional who did the work and left emotion out of the equation. God knows he’d admired that about her. He’d thought they were alike. He’d thought there was quite possibly something there between them that would still be there when things were different.
He’d been wrong.
He didn’t have to ask himself what had changed to know why she’d suddenly turned confrontational with him.
Nick Brandon was what had changed. Since the moment that cocky asshole had swaggered into the cafe, Ian had known he was trouble.
Ian stuffed his tie in his pocket and undid the buttons on his tuxedo shirt. The soldier across from him didn’t look happy. And he wouldn’t be, since he’d just had to hand Ian back his phone and wallet. Ian had promptly texted Victoria, partly as a “fuck you” to this guy and also because he wanted to know if she’d made it out. Relief had flooded him at the evidence she had.
It was all he needed to know.
The man across from him watched with interest. He wanted to know what Ian was doing here, no doubt about it, but there were reasons Ian was able to operate the way he did.
Powerful reasons.
It had taken these guys a few more hours than Ian would have liked to learn they’d have to let him go, but now he was free. He stood and gave the soldier a look. He knew the man was special operations. He could always spot a highly trained and disciplined warrior when he saw one—perhaps because he was one too.
Except that he operated alone. Even with a team around him, he was alone. Victoria was certainly proof of that since she’d abandoned him too. Or worse.
It was most interesting that a spec-ops team had descended on the consulate after the hit. He didn’t think it was a coincidence they’d been waiting. And they’d been looking for him, which most definitely wasn’t a coincidence. Since no one had known he would be in Ras al-Dura until the last possible minute, he was intrigued that they’d seemed to expect him.
Ian got to his feet slowly and stretched as if he had all the leisure in the world. The other man stood too.
“Thanks for the hospitality,” he said. And then he headed for the door.
Another soldier opened it for him and Ian walked through, whistling as he went.
He kept whistling until he reached the darkened street. And then he took his phone out and sent another text. Within moments, his phone would be wiped remotely. Another few minutes, and it would all be restored but without whatever extra software his captors had installed. He knew they hadn’t opened the phone because it would have destructed had they done so.
Amateurs, he thought, strolling down the sidewalk. When he reached an open cafe, he ducked inside and waited. Once his phone was restored, he made two calls—one to the airport and the plane he had waiting, and another to Washington.
“This had better be good, Black,” a voice growled on the other end.
“Trust me, Congressman, it is.”
* * *
Victoria was jolted awake by shouting. She shot upright, reaching for her guns. Nick was already cranking the motor into life.
“What’s happening?”
“The opposition seems to have cut off the road.”
Victoria climbed into the front seat, her heart pounding as she cradled her assault rifle in her lap. The lights of many cars started snapping on, and people scrambled to get moving before they were caught in the opposition army’s trap.
Nick didn’t bother following the pack. Instead, he took the Jeep wide, driving into the desert and away from the road. Suddenly they were rolling down a sharp incline, and Victoria snapped a hand up to press against the roof while propping her foot on the dash.
They’d gone over a dune, which wasn’t necessarily a problem if you knew to expect it, but she wasn’t sure that Nick had known. Still, he rolled the wheel back and forth, keeping the Jeep as straight as possible as they rocketed down the side of the massive ridge.
When they hit the bottom, the Jeep bounced hard. Victoria thought her teeth would come out of her head as her jaws cracked together.
Nick whipped the wheel left and pressed the accelerator. They bounced along, parallel to the dune, the lights shining on nothing but sand and more sand up ahead.
Victoria gripped the rifle tighter, ready to blast anyone who got in their way.
“How did you know it was the opposition?” she asked.
“Lucky MacDonald.”
“What?”
“A teammate who’s fluent in several dialects. She taught me some useful words and phrases. Not to mention the way everyone panicked—that was a dead giveaway we shouldn’t stick around.”
“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” The desert was rolling by fast, but there were no landmarks, no indication they were even going the right way.
“North. If we outflank the opposition army, we can rejoin the highway a few miles up the road. If we’re lucky.”
She wasn’t sure they would be, but she’d have done the same thing in his place. It was best to get away from the crowd and not get funneled into a trap somewhere they couldn’t escape because of all the traffic. “We need a backup plan.”
He shot her a glance. “I’m listening.”
“I’m thinking.”
They seemed to be the only ones taking this route. For all they knew, this trench between dunes was taking them east or west, not north—but it was a chance they had to take.
Victoria gripped the dash and prayed they’d get out of this alive. Something flashed in the distance. She fixed her gaze on the spot and tried to determine if there was something out there or if it was her imagination.
But then it flashed again and she knew it wasn’t her imagination.
Nick had seen it too because he turned the Jeep and started toward the opposite dune. They were nearly there when gunfire sounded—and the Jeep careened out of control before coming to a bone-jarring stop in the sand.
“Nick!” She unclipped her seat belt and scrambled toward him, afraid he’d been hit. He turned his head, his gleaming eyes meeting hers.
There was a trickle of blood running down his cheek.
“Are you hit? Talk to me!”
“Shoulder,” he said.
She turned him as much as she could. The blood on his cheek was spatter. The blood oozing from his shoulder was much worse.
Victoria turned and scrambled for the packs. They had first aid, and she found it quickly. She couldn’t search the wound for the bullet now. All she could do was staunch the flow. She ripped open the field dressing.
“Go,” he said. “Run.”
“Fuck no,” she growled, applying the field dressing to the wound and securing it. She didn’t have time to inspect it or rip his T-shirt first. This would have to do until they could get somewhere safe.
“Victoria, get the fuck out.”
“Only if you come with me.”
He studied her in silence.
“Nick, for fuck’s sake, let’s go.”
“Copy,” he said.
She reached over and opened his door. Then she opened hers and ran around to help him out of the Jeep. He had one foot on the sand when she got there.
In the distance, she could hear the roar of an engine and voices shouting in Arabic. But she didn’t see anything yet. They’d hit the dune face-first, burying the front of the Jeep into it. The battery had been disconnected in the impact, most likely, because there were no lights to illuminate the interior. Thank God for modern safety features.
Nick climbed the rest of the way out and stood there tall and strong. “We have to take as much of this as we can.”
“I know.”
She got busy shoving the seat forward and throwing the packs onto the sand. Nick grabbed two and put them on his right shoulder. His left would be out of commission, of course.
Victoria lifted everything she could and slung it over her shoulders.
“Leave the rifle,” Nick said when she hefted it.
She shook her head. “If we get a chance, we can use it to pick them off. No way am I leaving it here.”
“We won’t get that far, Vic. They’re coming too quickly.”
“Just go! Let me worry about the damn gun.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” he muttered. But he turned and started trudging up the side of the dune, tracking away from the Jeep and the rapidly approaching enemy forces.
Sweat streamed down her face as she climbed the sand behind him. Her heart felt like it would burst from her chest as her lungs dragged in air and her muscles burned. If she felt like this, what must he be feeling with a gunshot wound added to the burden?
He reached the top of the dune—and stopped so quickly she plowed into him from behind.
“Get down,” he ordered as he dropped and dragged her down with him.
Victoria lay against the sand, panting, her eyes stinging with sweat. “What is it?”
“A patrol.”
“On the other side of the dune?”
“Yeah. Not leaving anything to chance, I guess.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
She reached for the rifle case and started to unzip it.
“Assemble it but don’t fire. It’s possible they may not spot us up here.”
“For God’s sake, I know that as well as you do. Stop giving me orders.”
She put the rifle together quickly and aimed the night-vision scope. She had to belly crawl up the dune a little ways to do it, but what she saw made her pulse kick up. Three big trucks, filled with fighters, rolling south. Maybe they were headed to Ras al-Dura. Maybe they were just trying to cut off the road and stop the flow of supplies into the southern quadrant.
Or maybe they were after the uranium mine. It was well guarded, but it was certainly a target in this war.
The trucks were going slow, but they didn’t show any signs of stopping. Victoria’s blood pounded in her ears, her throat.
They might just make it. If they lay here quiet and still and waited, they might be okay.
She turned to say something to that effect to Nick. But before she could get the words out, a spotlight shined on their position, illuminating them for the soldiers below.