Chapter 9
Honey stared at the closed door, wishing they would spend a few extra minutes and explain things to her. Not that she needed the details. How many were involved with this mess?
And then she laughed. What was she thinking? Just two men? That was two too many as far as she was concerned. For some reason she’d assumed the man in her room was the one who had been taken out. But there was no way to know that for sure.
She used the bathroom, then came out and made herself comfortable on Laszlo’s bed and picked up the remote. What she’d like was her laptop. She could check her emails and do a bit of work, check in with her office. She was supposed to fly out tomorrow afternoon, so she was stuck here for the night. But the sooner she was gone, the better.
Frowning, she thought maybe she could slip across to her room. She got up, walked to the door and opened it. And then realized that, if it closed behind her, she’d have no way to get back in again. She used a chair to prop open the door and walked the few feet to her door, using her key to open it. She stepped inside, grabbed her laptop and charger, and left. She made sure the door was locked behind her, then crossed the hall to Laszlo’s room.
She stepped in, pulled the chair out of the way and let the door close. She walked farther inside, putting the chair back in its place, dropped her laptop on the bed and scrambled up so she could sit against the headboard, … but an arm grabbed her around the neck and pulled her back against a hard chest. She froze. Gasping for air, she choked out, “What do you want?”
“Your friends.”
“I don’t know where they are.” There was no point saying she didn’t know who he was talking about because, of course, she did, and, if he was here, he knew it too.
“Maybe not. But one guarantee is, they will come back here.”
His arm left her neck, and she bent over, gasping for air. She turned slightly to look up at him. The man appeared to be the same one from her room, again with a black mask over his face leaving only his eyes gleaming. “You again?”
He smiled. “Yeah, me again. You got a problem with that?”
His tone was insolent, as if he didn’t give a shit, and, if she opened her mouth, she presumed he would backhand her. She shook her head, grabbed her laptop and sat at the top of the bed where she had intended in the first place. “No, but while you guys play your war games, you don’t mind if I check my email, do you?”
He stared at her in surprise, then grabbed her laptop and pulled it from her hands. “I’m not such an idiot as to let you do that. You could be sending out a call for help to anyone.”
She stared in dismay as he dropped her laptop onto the floor. “Hey, don’t do that. I need the programs on there.”
He sneered and jumped up and down on the laptop.
Her heart sinking, she thought about all her notes and the programs she had specially loaded onto her laptop for the work she did. It would be a ton of work to clean up, reload and worry about all the things she might have forgotten to do whenever she got a new laptop. He just set her back a week. And pissed her right off. She glared at him. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“No, I didn’t. But then you didn’t have to be here with these guys either.”
“What do you want them for anyway?”
“They need to stop asking questions.”
“Why? Are they getting too close to the damn truth?” She sneered. At the look in his eyes, she fell silent.
He nodded slowly. “Smart. I suggest you watch your mouth. I’m just as likely to smack you into tomorrow because I really don’t give a shit who you are, what you are, or who you’re screwing around on. Because you’re not important. You’re just a pawn.”
Stated like that, it was too obvious he’d kill her without a thought. And this wasn’t her room. She didn’t know if she could use anything here to get back at this guy. She didn’t think she was in any danger if she stayed submissive, but she doubted he’d hesitate to kill her if she stepped out of line. Chances were, pressure would be applied on the guys by torturing her. If it ever got that far. She sure as hell hoped it didn’t. She settled back down and just waited. She crossed her arms over her chest, closed her eyes and tried to relax. Yet she was aware of every move the intruder made.
“Aren’t you a cool one?”
“There’s nothing I can do,” she said wearily, “but wait for whatever war games you guys are playing.”
He snickered. “And the guys don’t mind you mocking their work in such a derogatory tone? That you make light of the work they do?”
She shrugged and wondered. But then she’d never said anything like that to Erick. She hardly knew him. All she could hope for was that soon she’d be back in New Mexico and this would be a nightmare that might keep her up at night for a few weeks, but then it would take its place in her history. The history she hoped to never reopen.
“Do you know what they’re after?”
She looked up at him in surprise. “No. I don’t.” She shrugged. “Like you, they don’t talk much.”
He gave a bark of laughter. “Well, at least there isn’t any pillow talk. That’s always the worst. Guys tend to open their mouths when they’re all cozy and feeling good after sex.”
She kept her mouth shut. That wasn’t her experience, but then she wasn’t exactly sleeping with guys involved in shit like this. “If you don’t know what they’re after,” she asked, “why are you worried they’re asking questions?”
“I’m not.”
“You’re the one who just said they have to stop asking questions.”
“But I didn’t say I was personally concerned.”
“Oh.”
He shook his head. “You see? That’s why women shouldn’t be in the military.”
“Why? Because I just realized you were hired to do this? Because I don’t play well? I don’t have any training? So sorry if I didn’t exactly spot a mercenary at my first go-around.”
Instantly he went from being an affable stranger to a steely glaring soldier right in front of her. “I’m not a mercenary. A mercenary is somebody who’s for hire by anyone. And that’s not me.”
She studied him for a long moment and gave a clipped nod. Inside though she worried at the sharp edge of his temper. Was it normal for anybody to flip like that? Obviously she’d insulted him.
He seemed to relax though. But she couldn’t stop her mind from racing, figuring out what she was supposed to do now. Because he was right, the guys would return. And that meant she had to find a way to warn them. But how was she supposed to do that? It wasn’t like Erick had showed her any tricks or tips. She still had her cell phone, but this guy was watching her every movement, and the last thing she wanted was to have her cell phone jumped on like her laptop.
“Some men will do anything for a buck,” her kidnapper confided. “I’m not like that. I have ethics.”
She nodded as if she understood. But she wondered what universe he was from. Because where the hell did kidnapping an innocent woman to get information out of her friends constitute as having ethics?
“Your boyfriend and his buddies are looking to pin the blame on somebody else,” he said.
Again she just nodded. It seemed to be the only thing he was willing to let her do. Or maybe he was one of those guys you just could never argue with. He couldn’t stand to be anything other than right. She really wanted to ask questions, but she couldn’t take a chance at him blowing up again.
“See? It’s their mistake.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What was?”
“The accident.”
It was all she could do to keep her shock of surprise to just a small facial expression as she said, “Oh. Was it?”
He nodded, leaned ever-so-slightly forward. “They’re the ones who drove over the mine. If they hadn’t, it would never have happened.”
Feigning innocence, she made her eyes go wide. “Is that what happened?”
He nodded and stepped back, started to pace. “So I don’t know why they’re asking questions. Their vehicle blew up. Jesus, Talon was driving, so you’d think, if they would blame anybody, they’d blame him.”
Inside she marveled. Yet she worried that he would kill her. If he was saying all this, maybe he didn’t expect her to tell anyone. “Talon was driving?”
He nodded. “Yeah, he was. He’s the one who drove over the mine.”
“Were there signs saying a mine was there?” She wasn’t exactly sure how this all worked, but she highly doubted Erick would blame Talon for driving if he had no way to know about a mine up ahead.
The guy laughed. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
“Sorry. I’m not in the military.”
“Yeah, I was surprised they were hooking up with somebody who’s got absolutely no experience. Maybe it’s better that way though. All women are just dumb blondes, no matter their hair color.”
The dumb blonde comment had her screwing up her face.
“Yeah, you don’t like that, do you?”
“I don’t think anyone likes to be called that.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said cheerfully. “That’s what you are.”
“So explain it to me.”
“There’s nothing to explain.”
She waited.
He shrugged, turned and paced a little faster. He walked to the glass doors, pulled the curtains back and stared out. “They were all in the rig. They all drove over a land mine. The land mine blew up. They all went boom.” He shrugged again. “Nothing else to it. That happens all the time.”
“Do you really think there’s nothing to it? I mean, that they’re just looking for an excuse for shitty timing?” She hated to blame Talon for that, but if it got this guy to keep talking … She doubted he knew anything with the way he was acting. But she had to try. A man had died.
“It’s hard to say. But there’s no way to know where the mines are. They are buried on purpose. To catch people like that. They shouldn’t have been where they were.”
“Why were they there?”
“I don’t know. I figured they were after the hidden weapons though.”
Her heart froze. That was the first she’d heard anything about that. “What hidden weapons?” she asked cautiously.
“The guy who’s paying me to get answers, it was his cache. He figured the guys were coming in after his stash and would report him to the military. He didn’t plant the mine. But, since he’d sent out several men to set up a barrier to stop anybody from coming, he figured somebody had planted the mine to keep people out. He hardly approved. Yet these guys didn’t belong where they were, so it was all good to him.”
Oh, shit. She didn’t know what to say about that. Maybe this had nothing to do with what Erick thought had happened. That would really suck if he was chasing this asshole, only it was over something completely different.
“So you can see how they shouldn’t be asking questions.”
“Right, because, of course, your friend with the cache of weapons doesn’t want to get caught. Because chances are the weapons are still where they always were.”
He snorted. “If you think I’ll share any real information, you’re wrong.”
“That’s not what I meant. I was just continuing that logical line of thought. Obviously nobody wants anybody digging around.”
“And especially not from a couple years ago,” he snapped. He stared out the window, turned and walked back to the door. “How long are they supposed to be gone?”
“I don’t know. They told me to stay here.”
He snorted. “Figures.” He went back to the double French doors, opened them and stepped onto the balcony.
She wasn’t sure what the hell she should do. He’d disappeared so fast and so easily from her room, she was afraid he’d take off again now. “How did you jump between those balconies anyway?” she called out.
He didn’t answer.
She was afraid to get up and look. He’d gone around the corner, and the curtains hid him, so she couldn’t tell if he was still there or not. But knowing how quickly he’d disappeared the last time, it was quite possible he was long gone. She pulled out her phone and sent Erick a text, warning him the guy was in here with her. Then she shoved her cell into her pocket.
He came back into the room and stared at her. “Did you just contact somebody?”
She stared at him, letting her jaw drop. “How? I’m still sitting here. I was afraid you were balcony-hopping again. I can’t imagine how you even did that in the first place.”
He shrugged. “I’m good at it.”
She looked at his long length and said, “Well, you are built for it. So that helps.”
“Oh sure, take my skill and drop it down to a genetic ability. People like you make me sick.”
And here the mood shifted yet again. She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I put a lot of time and effort into perfecting my skill. People like you want it to be a genetic gift so you don’t have to put in the time and effort to become good at something. Genetics is just an excuse. I’m tall and lean, but I’m very good at what I do because I learned how to do it, and I keep it up.”
She frowned but recognized the truth in his words. She hadn’t really considered that, but obviously it was a sore point. “I’m sorry,” she said honestly. “I hadn’t really thought about it that way.”
“Of course not. It’s too easy for somebody like you to just knock other people’s skills, and then it makes it easy not to have developed any of your own. Everyone’s the same,” he said dismissively.
She heard an odd noise outside in the hall.
He immediately held up his hand and pointed a finger at her and then pressed it against his lips. He brought out a gun from his waist and pointed it at her as he crept toward the door.
She swallowed hard and waited, glancing around for any place where she could hide, but there wasn’t one. She could fall down on either side of the bed, but a few strides would bring him to her side, and the gun would be pointed right back at her again. She waited, but nothing more came at the door. He turned and glanced at her; she shrugged, not saying a word.
He was just too edgy. The way he was waving the gun around worried her more than anything.
She waited and waited. He didn’t move.
Eventually another loud sound came from outside. She gave a tiny cry, pulling her knees tight to her chest.
He stared at the balcony, then motioned to her. “Go to the balcony now.”
She almost fell off the bed in her hurry to get there. She dashed outside. And froze. Laszlo was at the neighboring balcony. He held up a finger, and she pointed behind her. He nodded. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. The masked gunman arrived just as Laszlo landed on her balcony. Two shots went off, but Laszlo knocked her to the ground out of the way, and he hit the gunman full-on. The two of them wrestled until Laszlo managed to take the gun from his hand. It fell to the balcony. She snatched it up, bouncing to her feet. No point in trying to use it to stop monkeyman because there was no room. She was in danger of hurting the wrong man. Somebody else burst into the room from the hall. She thought for sure it would be Erick. Instead it was one of the bruisers from the coffee shop.
She held up the gun and called out, “Stop.”
He took one look at her and snorted, his large hand smacking the gun out of hers. With his other hand, he smacked her in the face. She crumpled to the ground again, darkness crowding in. In the background she could hear Laszlo swearing. And she knew the end would not be the one she—or Laszlo—had hoped for.
More voices sounded. And she thought to herself, maybe the cavalry had come after all.
Only she couldn’t think anything more as the darkness took her over.
Erick raced through the hotel room toward the balcony but stopped short. Laszlo threw a punch at the masked man, but then the intruder leaped to the next balcony. Cade struggled with another man, not masked, just inside the hotel room. Cade appeared to be winning. Erick spun, looking for the intruder, but he had already disappeared from sight. Again.
Swearing, Erick ran out to the hall to the stairwell and vaulted down the stairs to the lobby. He headed outside, looking for the man climbing down a wall. But there was no sign of him. Cursing fluently and loudly, he studied the wall and the balconies, wondering at a design that allowed people to do something like that. It was made for breaking and entering. Absolute idiocy.
But he saw no sign of the gunman. He wanted the asshole who had caught Honey and terrorized her. Still shaking with fury, he raced back up the stairs and into Laszlo’s room. Sure enough the bruiser was unconscious on the floor inside the room. Honey was curled up against the headboard. As Erick burst inside, she bounced off the bed and came running. He opened his arms and caught her just before she flung her full weight at him. He held her close and crushed her against him. Into her hair he whispered, “It’s all right. It’s all right now.”
She shook so badly that he knew she wasn’t hearing him. Shock was like that. He picked her up, carried her to the bed and sat down with her. Cade grabbed a blanket and threw it at him. Awkwardly he tucked it around her shoulders. He just sat there for a long moment until she calmed down. He looked over at Laszlo, nodding to the man on the floor. “Do we know who he is?”
“One of the three who caught me in the alleyway,” Laszlo said. “And presumably one of the men in the coffee shop.”
He shook his head. “It might have been the third guy from the alley, but I can’t be sure of that, so …” He let his voice trail off. That was the trouble. Sometimes you thought you knocked him out for good, but some of these big guys were hard to keep down. Laszlo was a big brute in his own right.
“Is he carrying any ID?”
“Doesn’t matter if he is or not. We pretty well know who he is. Mason got back to us about the photos we sent. Lowlife mercs out of Africa. Tesla also ran the audio we sent her. No surprises in the translation.” Laszlo went through his pockets and shook his head. “He’s not got anything on him.”
At that, Honey lifted her head and turned to look at Laszlo. “Is he alive, or did you kill him?”
“He’s alive.”
She nodded and buried her face against Erick’s chest.
He held her close, rubbing her back and shoulders. “Can you tell us what happened?”
She lifted her head and glanced around at the three men and then shrugged. “It was my fault.”
“It’s not a case of who is at fault,” Erick said. “Just tell us what happened.”
She explained how she’d propped open the door, not having Laszlo’s key, so she could go across the hall to get her laptop and come back in, and how he’d been here when she got back. Then she told the guys about the conversation she’d had with him.
“What? He knew we were in that truck?” Laszlo asked.
She nodded. “And he knew Talon was driving. Knew him by name. And that he drove over a mine.”
“Hidden cache of weapons?” Erick asked.
“Yes, that’s what he said.” She nodded. “The boss man wants you to stop asking questions.”
“Because he doesn’t want an investigation that might end up finding his arsenal?”
She nodded. “Yes. That’s my understanding. So not necessarily the person who planted the mine,” she said tentatively. “Monkeyman did say something about the boss’s men made sure his place was secure. The boss man didn’t know anything about the land mine being used but had given his men free license to set up whatever protective measures they deemed fit. How you had no business driving where you were.”
The men stared at each other, processing the information.
Erick was stunned. “I never thought to consider another party could be involved.”
“No, but it kind of makes sense when you consider these recent attacks.”
“And how do they know we’ve been asking questions?” Cade asked from the doorway.
“Our supplier.” Erick knew that for sure. “Not that I’ve had time to listen to the audio bug we left behind, but I’d bet anything that he told this guy we were sniffing around in that region.” He settled back. “Wow, that changes things.”
“Does it?” she asked. “Does it really?”
He stared down at her, brushing her hair off her forehead studying the redness on her cheek. It was going to bruise the asshole had hit her so hard. She looked like she’d had a hell of a few days and was very close to the end of her rope. Talk about a shitty conference from her end. “It does. Doesn’t mean it changes enough though.”
She nodded. “I’m really hoping I don’t have to stay alone in my room. The chances of these guys coming back is just way too high. The last thing I want is to see any of these men again.”
“Monkeyman appears to be extremely good at disappearing,” Laszlo said. “I wouldn’t mind having a little one-on-one with him. The trouble is, the couple times I’ve met him, he’s been doing his bloody monkey act up and down the balconies.”
“That’s a hell of a skill,” she said. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen anybody scale a hotel wall like that.”
“No, he’s very good at what he does.”
“He was also incredibly insulted when I suggested he was a mercenary.”
The men turned to look at her again.
Erick studied her face. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “I forgot to tell you that.” She quickly mentioned the little bit she remembered. “He said there were guys out there like that, but he wasn’t one of them.”
The men looked at each other and shrugged.
Laszlo said, “So what? The intruder has an employer? Is part of another army? A private army? Security?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t say. But he didn’t have much good to say about being a mercenary.”
“Still, he didn’t have a problem keeping you captive, did he?”
She shook her head. “He has no respect for women. We’re all dumb blondes to him, regardless of hair color. And I definitely got the impression he would be happy to torture or kill me if he thought that would get the answers out of you guys. I was afraid, if he managed to capture you, to make you talk, he’d beat on me.”
Erick felt his gut twist because, of course, that was exactly what monkeyman would have done. And that was the last thing Honey deserved.
“He also made fun of me,” she added. “About the fact that I didn’t understand the kind of work you did. And in a way downplayed it or mocked it.”
“Interesting. His accent?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know accents all that well, but I would definitely have said American. It didn’t sound British or Scottish or Asian, or anything like that. Could have been Canadian. But they even have a slight accent.”
“So it could be one of our own guys, having left the military and now working for someone else.”
“We’ll have to tug in these lines but it will take time.” Laszlo looked at her. “I’m sorry about your laptop.”
Erick looked at the laptop that he’d picked up and placed on the bed. “We can probably take out the hard drive and get anything off it you need.”
She glanced at it and nodded. “I’d appreciate that. I’ll still have to get a new laptop though. As much as anything, it’s having to reload all the software that’s the most frustrating. I use a lot of specialty software for my work. And getting all that back up and running is a pain in the ass.”
Erick understood.
“I can give you a hand with that,” Cade said. “You just have to get another machine, and I should be able to transfer everything.”
“As long as the hard drive isn’t damaged,” Talon said.
They all turned to the doorway to see Talon walking in with a cardboard tray of coffee cups.
“Oh, what a good idea, thank you.”
He held one out for her. She shifted in Erick’s arms. He let her realign and then closed his arms back around her to keep her on his lap. With two coffees sitting on the night table beside them, Erick filled Talon in.
“That guy has nine lives.” Talon nudged the bruiser on the floor. “What are we doing with this guy?”
“I’m not sure what to do with him yet,” Erick said. “I wouldn’t mind having him awake for an hour or two so we can ask him some questions.” He felt Honey shiver in his arms. He smiled down at her reassuringly. “I promise I won’t kill him.”
She leaned back and looked up at him. “And what if he gets loose and beats up you guys again?”
He stared at her in outrage. “Hey, it was only because of the small confines of the balcony that anybody had a struggle out there at all,” he reminded her.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not judging your ability to fight or to get out of trouble or to keep me safe. I’m worried he’ll wake up and cause us all kinds of hell. He’s not even tied up.”
Erick smiled. “No, he’s not. But he also won’t make a jump for it. In case you hadn’t noticed, somebody is between him and each of the doors.”
She glanced around the room and realized they were strategically placed. What she hadn’t considered was their casual stances were on purpose. She sighed against Erick. “I just want to go home and have this over with.”
Erick nodded. “Soon. I promise it will be soon.”