The underlying tension that always hummed in his gut when he was undercover ratcheted up violently. He didn’t like this. Not one bit. Was he a prisoner in this van, too? How fine a tightrope was he walking with Mahmoud and his men? He’d been useful to them as long as they were trying to keep a low profile and not be noticed by the locals. But if they’d completed their mission, these men would go to ground or flee the country and not need his services any longer.
His intuition screamed that he was blown. That it was time to bug out.
Normally, he never went against his gut feelings. Over and over through the years, his gut had proved to be right. And right now, it was telling him in no uncertain terms to abandon this operation immediately. The feds had plenty of ammunition to arrest these men and put them away for a very long time after this morning’s stunt in the elementary school.
The authorities might never figure out what Mahmoud’s primary goal had been, but at least this particular terror cell would be off the street.
However, the woman changed everything. Zane couldn’t possibly bail out now. Not as long as these men held an innocent woman captive. An innocent women he had put into these violent men’s hands.
He mentally swore. He mustn’t do anything to arouse these guys’ suspicions. The danger of staying in this undercover assignment drove home hard, a punch in the gut that left him gasping.
Too tense to be still one more second, Zane walked around behind the van, pretending to stretch his legs. “Can I help with the signs?” he asked casually.
Mahmoud wadded up the last of the adhesive vinyl and tossed it in a trash can. He shoved a cigarette lighter down into the barrel, and a thin stream of smoke commenced rising from its contents. “No. We’re finished. As soon as Osted gets out of the bathroom, we’ll go.”
Zane nodded slowly, trying to look impressed. “You guys are good. I’m grateful you let me learn from you, almuelim alhakim.” He dropped in the Arabic phrase meaning “wise teacher” to gauge Mahmoud’s reaction.
The guy nodded shortly and looked vaguely less irascible than usual, acknowledging the compliment.
Zane guessed they were assets of VAJA—the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. But they never talked politics, not even in the most general of terms. They talked about European soccer and the weather for the most part. And such a degree of operational discipline scared the living hell out of him.
He strolled to the corner of the cinder-block building and, with a glance over his shoulder to make sure no one saw him, surreptitiously dropped the woman’s class ring on the ground. There. One piece of evidence showing her to be a soldier erased. Now he just had to make sure she didn’t have some other form of ID on her—dog tags, or maybe a wallet with a military ID in it.
For that matter, he needed to get rid of any identification she had on her. He had to keep up the ruse of her being Persephone Black for as long as he possibly could. Until both he and the woman could escape. Everything depended on it.
Including his life. And hers.
* * *
Tessa Wilkes eyed her boss cautiously. Major Gunnar Torsten was not a happy camper this morning. He barked, “Still no answer on Piper’s phone?”
“No, sir,” Rebel McQueen replied from her post at the ops center’s communications panel. “I pinged her phone’s locator function, and it puts her in Houma.” Which was the nearest actual town to their secret training facility.
“Where in Houma?” Torsten demanded.
“Um, at an elementary school.”
“What in the hell is she doing there?” he snapped.
Rebel didn’t answer and instead threw Tessa a distressed look. She felt Rebel’s pain. Torsten was usually a stern guy and all business, but this morning he really had a burr up his butt. Catching the silent plea for help, Tessa sighed and spoke up. “Do you want me to go fetch her, sir?”
“No! But I damned well want to know why one of my highly trained, supposedly responsible operatives has gone AWOL.”
Rebel spoke from her console again, muttering, “That’s odd.”
Everyone looked at her. She glanced up and started. “Oh. Um, I just pinged her backup locator. The one in her class ring from West Point. It’s not in Houma.”
“It had better be headed this way at a high rate of speed,” Torsten ground out.
Man, the boss had seriously woken up on the wrong side of the bed today. Not that he was ever tolerant of screwups. He was fond of saying that seconds were the difference between life and death. He wasn’t wrong, of course.
Rebel reported, “Her secondary locator is moving away from us on Bayou Black Road, heading northwest. It’s about fifteen miles west of here.”
Tessa, the first member of their new Medusa team and more at ease with Torsten than Rebel, leaned forward. “Something’s wrong. Piper would have called one of us if she had a problem and couldn’t get here on time. And she would never go AWOL.”
Torsten huffed in irritation. “We can’t wait any longer. Our Vietnamese instructors are only here for a few days, and I need you to learn as much as you can while you have access to them. Fall out, ladies.”
Rebel and Tessa stood, trading worried glances with one another. It was supremely unlike Piper to blow off required training, and even more unlike her not to check in with someone. A note of worry started to vibrate low in Tessa’s gut.
The major led the way to the reinforced steel door disguised to look like weathered wood siding, unsealing it and stepping out into the morning’s steamy heat. Tessa fell into step beside Major Torsten.
She said soberly, “Sir, I’m worried something has happened to Piper. You taught us to listen to our intuitions, and mine says she’s in some sort of trouble. I think one of us should go look for her.”
He frowned, but at least he didn’t rip her head off. “I’ll take your intuition under advisement. If Piper doesn’t show up in the next hour or so, I’ll go looking for her myself.”
Yikes. Piper was in a heap of trouble.
Piper regained consciousness slowly. Her head throbbed painfully, and it didn’t help matters that every time the van hit a bump in the road, the metal floor bounced underneath her temple, whacking her head again.
Her lips were dry, and her bladder was full, which meant she’d been out for a while. A couple hours, possibly. Dang it! They could’ve changed directions a dozen times without her knowing. She had no way of knowing where she was now!
A sense of disorientation swirled around her. As if she was completely disconnected from the real world. It was scary as hell, and she had to force herself to lie perfectly still until her breathing settled back down and the panic attack passed.
Questions peppered her mind almost too fast to catalog. Where was she? Who were these guys? What did they want with her? How much danger was she in? Where were they taking her? Would she have a shot at escaping them? Did they plan to kill her? Was this even real?
Cautiously, she cracked her eyes open and saw black pants and black combat boots. It hadn’t been a terrible dream. She really had been kidnapped. The weight of panic landed on her chest again, and she struggled to control her breathing.
She could just lie here pretending to be unconscious...but just then the van hit a big bump and slammed her head hard into the floor.
Ow.
She probably had a concussion already from the