Digitalis (35 page)

Airborne, the rickety old Russian bird lifted the team and sped them toward their destination. The hotel in Ein Gedi where the assassin lay holed up. Colton worked to keep his thoughts and arms to himself. But with Piper so close, it proved impossible. More than once, he bumped her when they hit an air pocket.

What felt like mere minutes later, the chopper began its descent through the dark night. Colton flipped down his NVGs and let the wash of green illuminate the interior of the helo. He glanced to the side before he could stop himself. Piper nodded at him.

He scooted onto the edge of the rack as the rest of the team hovered, ready to rush onto the beach. By the time his feet hit the soft terrain, his adrenaline had surged. With a glance back to confirm she was with him, he rushed down the stretch of empty beach. They’d chosen a good hour, and the assassin couldn’t have picked a better place to expose himself.

Within fifty yards of the hotel, the team regrouped at a steep embankment that concealed them from the building. Gently, he moved Piper behind him. Eased himself up to the top of the sloped surface. Light trickled toward him from the flood and pool lights. Colton tugged the thermals from his pack.

“What ya got, Cowboy?” Max’s voice came through the coms.

“Two bodies. One prostrate. One by the window, watching.”

“Our assassin?”

Not with the shape and location of the heat signatures. “Negative. Female.”

Was the assassin asleep? That’d be too easy, but that’s the way it looked because he certainly wouldn’t leave a hostage alone. But sleeping …? Colton lowered the thermals. It didn’t make a lick of sense.

“Let’s go!”

For cover, the team raced along the sloped surface, giving Colton’s thighs a good workout. When he checked on Piper, he was pleased to find her right behind him. The four of them slithered up to the side of the building and crouched low beside the wall that formed a perimeter to the garden patios. Unfortunately, the bleached wall only came to his shoulders, so he felt like one of those shooting ranges at the fair back home with his head as the target. He inched lower as he moved.

Pausing at the point where the wall ended, they peeked toward the room.

Again, Colton eased his thermals out and peered through the walls, steel, glass, and curtain. The woman still stood near the door, apparently looking out. On watch perhaps? Another figure lay prone on a bed, he guessed. He signaled to Max and Midas what he saw.

Max held up a hand with three fingers.

Two.

One.

They launched around the corner, darted for the private patio. Hopped the iron gate that afforded no privacy. As Colton made the bound, he saw the curtain flutter. He yanked up his weapon and swept an arm around to once again nudge Piper into a secure position out of sight and behind him.

Max shoved a booted foot against the door frame.

The glass door popped open.

A scream stabbed the night.

By the time Colton made it inside with Piper, Max had the girl in a stranglehold, a hand over her mouth. “Don’t say a word,” he hissed in Arabic.

The girl stilled.

Colton and Midas rushed the room. Midas hovered at his elbow and nodded to a door near the main entrance. Together, they scissor-stepped toward what looked like a closet. His partner knelt at the side, gripped the handle, then waited.

Weapon at the ready, Colton gave the signal.

The door flung open. He shuffled forward, sweeping his weapon over the closet—side, side, top … bottom. “Clear,” he whispered.

Immediately, they whirled toward the bathroom. He slid the chain over the main door and flipped the deadbolt, securing it. At the threshold, he stared down the barrel of his M4 and scanned the semidarkened bathroom. The sink with soap and a washcloth. White tile stretched floor to ceiling. The toilet and half-empty roll of the paper. Two towels draped over the rod of the shower curtain that had been pushed back against the wall.

“Clear.” They pivoted back to the main area, and he eyed the form on the bed. The old man. Rosenblum, he recognized from the picture Ben-Haim had provided.

Max had secured the girl to a chair in the far corner using plastic cuffs. “She had a phone. Talking to our assassin, no doubt.” He pointed to the bed, where Piper stood, hand over her mouth as she stared down at the bed. “Midas, check it out.”

Seeing her like that pulled Colton forward. He glanced at the still form on the bed. Bruised and bloodied face, a graying bearded also stained with blood. Bandaged hands. But a steady rise and fall of his chest.

Midas darted to the bed and dropped to his knees. He unloaded a pack as he felt for the man’s carotid artery.

Slowly, Piper knelt. “Baba?”

“No!” the young girl shouted, looking toward the elderly man. “Don’t touch him!” The girl’s brow flickered as she saw Piper beside the bed. “Leave him alone. Don’t hurt him!”

Next to him, Max asked, “What kind of assassin leaves his objectives in a hotel room?”

“One who knew we were coming?” Colton didn’t like the idea, but it was the only one that presented itself.

Glaring, Max joined the scene at the bed. “What’ve you got, Midas?”

“Severe dehydration, obvious damage to the hands, no broken bones as far as I can tell.” He grunted. “I don’t know what else.”

“He make him sleep,” the young girl mumbled in broken English.

They considered the old man.

“Now why would a killer have his victim sleep?” Max shook his head. “This is too weird. Prep him for transport, Midas.”

On her knees, Piper reached with trembling fingers toward the bruised face. Blood mottled the beard that looked plucked out in several spots. “Baba,” she whispered. “Baba, it’s me.” She pressed her lips to his face. “It’s Lily.”

Heart in his throat, Colton ached for her. Ached at the sweet name he’d never known. Ached to ease the pain so clearly gouged into her face. He stood at the foot of the bed, watching. And he had to admit that he’d do just about anything to remove this pain from her.

She smoothed a hand over the tussled hair. “Oh, Baba …”

“Baba?” The girl balked. “It can’t be!”

“Quiet!” Max stuffed something in her mouth.

After swabbing down a swatch of the man’s forearm, Midas slid an IV into his arm, which elicited a soft moan. The former Green Beret medic then carefully unwound the soiled bandages from their objective’s left hand.

Just then, Yitshak Rosenblum’s eyes fluttered open.

Piper hauled in a breath and pushed up on her knees. “Baba, can you hear me? I’m here. Your Lily is here.”

A raspy noise issued from the old man. Then he cleared his throat. “How …?” came his strained question. Then his face screwed into sheer panic. His arms flailed. “No, no! You must … leave.”

Surprise pushed Piper back, but just as quickly, she tried to quiet him. “Shh.” She eased onto the bed beside her father.

Only then did Colton realize how thin and frail Mr. Rosenblum truly was—so much that his body didn’t take up much of the narrow bed. Matter of fact, it sickened Colton when he thought Mickey would’ve filled the same amount of space.

Midas slid another needle into the IV and depressed the plunger.

Aged, bruised, and bloodied fingers wrapped around Piper’s arm. “Bombs … they’re moving them ….”

The words pulled Colton straighter—and he saw Max do the same. A bomb? Nobody mentioned a bomb. Within seconds, Max stood at his side with a scowl that could create its own nuclear blast.

“No tiimmme …” He shook his head. “Get me out of here.” His voice sounded stronger. Clearer. He pushed up.

“Hey!” Midas snapped, and when they looked at him, he tapped

the IV bag. “Relax or you’ll rip this out.”

Max keyed his mic. “Legend, Squirt, we need you in here. Two friendlies. Kid and Scar, watch for the assassin. He is unaccounted for.”

“Roger that,” the Kid’s voice came through unaffected.

Seconds later, Colton unlocked the hall door for Legend and Squirt.

“Give us a hand here,” Max ordered as they shifted the old man onto a stretcher.

“Movement on the lawn!” Legend’s voice snapped through the coms. “It’s the assassin. He’s scoping the room.”

“Take cover!”

The others scrambled as Colton caught Piper’s arm and tugged her toward the closet. He directed her inside, scanned the room—Max behind the Saudi girl, Midas tucked in the corner next to the bed, Legend on his belly, his weapon tucked under the blanket hanging off the empty bed, and the Kid slipping into the bathroom. Colton pulled the door to, leaving just enough of a crack to aim his M4 but not give himself away.

Behind him, he heard Piper’s uneven breathing. He glanced over his shoulder at her, surprised to find her huddling very close.

Those caramel eyes he loved rose to his, streaked with fear … uncertainty. “What if he kills my father?”

Colton peeked into the room again. Satisfied it was clear, he returned his attention to Piper. “He won’t.”

She inched closer. “How can you be sure?” she whispered.

“Quiet,” he hissed. Even though she’d whispered, he didn’t want to alert the assassin to their presence. But right then, he saw her near-tangible fear. And his heart hitched into his throat. He caught her hand and set it on the drag strap of the flak vest. Then gave a gentle pat as he shifted back to monitoring the room.

As he stood there, his mind reaching for the assassin huddled out in the darkness beyond the hotel, he felt her catch the other side of his vest, too. Soon, her weight pressed against his right shoulder. When he checked, he found her resting her forehead against him. The sight tangled his mind something fierce, but he quickly reminded himself that she sought comfort, that’s all. A normal response to anyone not battle hardened.

But it was Piper. And he liked her being close.

Mentally, he shoved her away, remembering his own father. Hers lay on the bed, here in her homeland—the same homeland where his sister died—and his lay in a coffin awaiting burial.

“I do love you, Colton.”

Colton squeezed his eyes shut.

“Please … please don’t let my father die,” she whispered in a voice hoarse. “I know … I know you’re angry with me because your father died. But please don’t let my father die.”

He glowered at her. How could she think that of him? Did she really think he valued a human life so little he’d do something like that? Hurt spiraled through him like a heady venom. He jerked back to the door.

The curtain fluttered.

Yeshua, I beg You—save my father!

Loving the man hadn’t blinded her. Colton was a skilled, lethal soldier. He knew what he was doing and did it better than anyone, Midas had said on their way to the rendezvous point. Despite that, she didn’t think for a minute he’d just let her father die to get revenge on her. Knowing an assassin stood within killing distance had set her on edge and made her panic, saying things she didn’t mean.

Though it was dark in the closet, she didn’t miss the outrage in Colton’s expression. She’d wounded him with her words. She’d just been so desperate. Her father—less than ten feet separated them, yet she could do nothing to help him.

Even now with his broad shoulders completely blocking her view of the room, Colton stood tensed and ready to engage the enemy. She could feel his rigid stance and hoped it didn’t go all the way to his heart. There had to be a way to mend the rift between them. She couldn’t lose him … or her father.

What if she lost both?

Piper let her head drop against his flak vest again, not for the strength and comfort she felt being close to him, but for the ability to detect the way he tensed. Despite the vest smelling of dirt and sweat, she could detect the faint scent of the man she loved. And would always love.

A second later, he straightened, and she felt his arm come up with the weapon. When Colton slid back to line up the weapon, Piper shifted away to give him room. Her heat skipped a beat as almost simultaneously she heard the change in air pressure—the door had opened.

The assassin had finally come.

G
et down! Get down!”

Colton rushed from the closet, his M4 trained on the stout young man with death in his eyes. Weapon almost pressed against the man’s head, Max forced him down.