He neared an opening in the brush and pressed himself up against the rotting bark of a rosewood tree. His position offered a line of sight to the entrance of a tent that two uniformed men had just emerged from. They were tailed by two heavily armed soldiers, and the uniforms marked all four as American. The entire village was crawling with both U.S. and San Marquez military, indisputable evidence that some sort of joint task force was in effect.
His stomach went rigid as he thought of those body bags. Task force? No, make that joint cleanup crew.
“She’s lying.”
The muffled voice drifted toward him, uttered by—holy hell, a United States Army general. Christ, they’d sent someone that high on the totem pole to handle this cleanup? This was bigger than he’d thought.
He inched closer, struggling to make out the conversation occurring twenty yards away.
“… to Valero. Question the staff, see what Carlisle told them.”
“… necessary? And to contain that many people?”
“Easier if …”
Sebastian’s gut swam with uneasiness. He needed to get closer.
Adjusting his grip on the knife, he moved without making a solitary sound, finding cover behind another tree, this one with low-hanging branches that allowed him to blend into the darkness.
“… the clinic will be handled.”
The clinic? Waves of foreboding crawled up his spine, moving faster and gathering in intensity when the general uttered a very familiar name.
“Davenport needs to be handled, too.”
Sebastian’s shoulders became stiffer than a block of marble. Davenport? As in Julia Davenport? As in the woman he’d spoken to only hours ago?
“… won’t be hard. Her death could be blamed on the virus.”
The general seemed to mull it over. “Carlisle was checking on patients when he died.”
“We’ll say she was here, too. Making the rounds with Carlisle.”
“The powers that be won’t like this. Two dead American doctors? This won’t look good.” There was a savage curse. “But that’s what they get for releasing Meridian this close to a damn international medical facility. Who was the genius who made that call?”
Meridian? Sebastian filed away the word as he watched the duo move away from the tent.
The general glanced at the soldiers manning the entrance. “If she tries to run, shoot her,” he ordered.
Sebastian’s body was strung tighter than a drum as the two men stalked off. If what he’d heard was accurate, then Julia Davenport was inside that tent. How the hell had that happened?
The colleague. Crap. She must have driven up here to check on her colleague, that Kevin guy she’d been worried about earlier.
Her death could be blamed on the virus.
His next breath came out ragged as a jolt of anger slammed into his gut. These bastards were planning to kill Julia and blame it on the virus.
No way.
No freaking way would he allow that to happen.
She’s not your objective.
The nagging little voice only further pissed him off. He knew that rescuing the doctor wasn’t his responsibility. Hell, all the mayhem and confusion of the past ten months was a direct result of his unit’s attempt to rescue a doctor. But Harrison’s death was no sweat off his back, not after they’d discovered the man was treating humans like lab rats.
But Julia Davenport? He’d be damned if he was going to let her become another casualty of that goddamn virus. So yes, he ought to be gathering more intel, listening in on more conversations, attempting to get a peek inside one of those body bags, but Sebastian was more than willing to give up any insight he’d find if it meant saving the smart, sassy woman who’d made his body burn today.
The soft hissing sound brought a frown to Julia’s lips. She twisted around in the chair, trying to pinpoint where the noise had come from. She strained her ears, but the sound had stopped.
Tssssss.
Her forehead creased. Okay, what was that?
For a second she wondered if her captors had let loose a poisonous snake in the tent or something. As her heartbeat quickened, she shot to her feet and examined the ground, but she didn’t see a rattler crawling on the dirt.
Tssssss.
She spun around, gaping when she noticed a line slowly appearing in the tent wall.
Someone was cutting the canvas!
Fear and astonishment warred inside her, but the latter quickly overtook the former when a large hand poked through the slit in the tent and a familiar pair of silver eyes suddenly locked with hers.
Julia gasped. “Seba—” Her jaw snapped closed when he swiftly held his index finger to his lips.
A million questions ambushed her brain, but even if he hadn’t ordered her to remain quiet, she suspected she wouldn’t have been able to make her vocal cords work anymore. She was too dumbfounded.
The man who slipped into the tent like a ghost was not the same one she remembered from Valero. Gone were the casual pants and T-shirt. Now he wore a skintight black shirt that clung to the rippled muscles of his broad chest, and black cargo pants encased his long legs. He had black boots on his feet, and a nasty-looking rifle slung over one shoulder, though not as nasty as that blade he skillfully wielded in his hand.
Julia gulped as the sharp steel of the knife winked in the light from the electric lanterns illuminating the tent.
She was looking into the eyes of a warrior. The playful, sensual twinkle from before had vanished. Sebastian Stone was all business now, those gray eyes grim with fierce determination. Waves of strength and danger rolled off his powerful body, making her mouth go dry.
Without a word, he walked toward her and cupped her chin with one hand.
She jumped, then relaxed when she saw the unspoken question in his gaze.
Are you okay?
Julia managed a shaky nod. God, what was he doing here?
And why did she get the feeling that this man was the furthest thing from a freelance journalist?
Sebastian took her arm and led her to the slit he’d created in the tent. “Stay close,” he murmured, his voice so low it was barely audible. “If I say move, move. If I say stop, stop. Do exactly what I tell you, do you understand?”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. And then her pulse took off.
Wait a minute—he was helping her escape?
“This entire village is crawling with soldiers,” she whispered with a violent shake of her head. “They’ll shoot us if we try to run.”
“They’ll kill you if you stay.”
You. Not us. She didn’t miss the distinction, and she suddenly grew queasy. There wasn’t an ounce of confusion on Sebastian’s rugged face, only focused intensity, which told her he must know a hell of a lot more about what was going on here than she did.
So maybe it would be prudent to listen to the man instead of arguing about his plans.
He reached behind him and pulled