Fatal Courage: Shadow Force International, Book 3 (Shadow Force International Romantic Suspense Series) (31 page)

In her ear, several people spoke, all echoing the one voice that overrode them all. Jax’s. “Ruby? Ruby, whatever you do, don’t…”

Too late. Ruby put a finger to her mouth, signaling Dan to stop talking as she pulled her gun from the back of her waistband. His eyes went saucer-wide and she motioned him to lead the way back to his place, shutting her apartment door behind her.

Chapter Twenty-one

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D
AN’S
H
EAD
W
AS
down as he opened the door to his apartment. “I’m really sorry,” he muttered. “But if I didn’t do what he said…”

Ruby swept in, gun drawn, noticing peripherally that Dan’s apartment mirrored hers. The entryway was nonexistent, the door opening directly into the living room. An open doorway on one side lead to the kitchen, the bed and bath connected to the living room on the other end.

Shabby furniture, dark curtains, a poster of Bob Marley over an old-school TV.

“He, who?” Ruby asked, furiously searching for whoever was in the apartment. “Who said?”

In the corner farthest away from the door, an upholstered rocking chair that once had been green but over time had become gray, faced away from her. A thumping sound came from it as it slowly began to turn.

The thumping increased as Woodstock saw Ruby. The dog sat in the lap of a man who held her by her fat neck with one hand and aimed a black gun at Ruby with the other.

Oh, crap. Her fingers flexing on the trigger of her gun.

Abdel Al-Safari was dressed like a businessman, his hair trimmed and neat, his dark suit displaying the short blond hairs of Woodstock’s shedding. He tightened his choke hold on the dog, Woodstock’s already strained breathing becoming more labored, even as she wagged harder at Ruby. “Welcome, Agent Ruby McKellen,” Abdel said. “Put down the gun.”

She’d set a trap, then walked right into his.

Little did he know how happy that made her. He was within reach, the man who’d screwed up everything—her career, her partner, her very future. Not to mention the people who had died in his wake.

He was going to pay and pay dearly.

In her ear bud, furious commentary with plenty of curse words flew at her. She ignored all of it, keeping her gun pointed at the man’s head.

A slow turn of his wrist and his gun pointed at Woodstock.

Dan, behind her, made a whimpering noise in his throat. “Please don’t let him kill my dog.”

Mission first and always.

She kept her gun on him, hoping, praying he wouldn’t shoot the damn dog.

“I’m told my American English is excellent,” Abdel said, his schooling in a top Swiss engineering university evident in every syllable. “But perhaps you misunderstood my previous statement. Put the gun down or the dog dies.”

The bastard wouldn’t stop with Woodstock. Ruby knew he was going to kill Dan too.

All because of her.

She’d led him here, thinking he would come for her and her alone. Now he was threatening her innocent neighbor and a dog, for God’s sake.

Not happening, jackass.
“Perhaps you misunderstand the purpose of me pointing this gun at your head.” She smiled. “I’m an expert marksman. Try me. You’ll be dead before you can flex your finger on that trigger.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Jax yelled in her ear. “Stop taunting him. We’re on our way!”

“Stand down,” she ordered. This was her gig and no one had a better shot at Al-Safari than she did.

Woodstock was not going to die. Neither was Dan. No one was going to die today.

Luckily, Abdel thought her command was directed at him. “You are as cocky as your partner. Mohammed will be pleased to beat that out of you.”

Ruby laughed, the dry sound echoing in the small apartment. Woodstock panted and wagged with even more gusto. “Mohammed and I are going to have a serious come-to-Jesus meeting after I’m done with you, but he won’t be beating anything out of me, I assure you.”

“I’m outside the door,” Zeb said softly in her comm. “Give me the signal and I’ll cover Dan.”

All she had to do was get Abdel to release the dog and get to his feet. He wasn’t walking out of here a free man, and she needed him alive for questioning because she was going to clear Elliot of everything and take down that asshole Izala, so help her God.

“Your partner is dead,” Abdel said. “You know this, yes? You have no one to help you, unless you still have your Marine friend tagging along. Where is he, by the way?”

“Marine?” Jax yelled in her ear.

“He was a SEAL, asshole.” She wondered if he were purposely taunting her to get a rise out of her one way or the other.

“Oh, that’s right. The big, bad SEAL who got tossed out of the Navy. He was recently your bodyguard, wasn’t he?”

“He was ordered to bring Elliot in. Elliot’s dead, so he’s returned to Washington, DC.”

“He abandoned you?” Abdel tsked. “You should be more careful about who you trust.”

On the side table next to the rocking chair, a cell phone lit up. Without taking his eyes from her, Abdel answered it. “Very good,” he said into the phone after a brief pause. “Stream the live feed to me.”

Ruby frowned as he turned the phone for her to see the screen. “I suggest you accept your fate, or these people will pay the price.”

“We’re on the stairs,” Jax said to her. “Give us the signal and we’ll bust in.”

A ticking started in her ears, became a flood of white noise as the video on the screen came into focus.

A building. One in downtown Chicago. Someone was on the roof across from it, taking a video through a high-powered camera lens of…

The conference room at the new Rock Star Security headquarters.

Where Emit, Cal, Rory, and Beatrice were gathered around the table.

Shit. Shit.
Shit
.

They hadn’t finished switching out the windows for those with reflective coating and bulletproof glass.

“Two of my men are across from this building. As you can see from the video, they are in position to, shall we say, cause trouble for the people gathered in that room. If the people in that room try to leave…”

He zoomed out and she saw a car sitting on the side street next to RSS headquarters. “Boom,” he said.

A car bomb. Her mental curses rivaled those Jax was using in her ear.

He was the mastermind behind the bomb, this she knew. Although his expertise was in chemical warfare, chemicals needed a way to be dispersed. Bombs were the easiest and quickest way to disperse anything he liked.

A new thought registered. Abdel was probably the man who’d created the bomb that had taken the legs of Jax’s friend.

No one could see what she was seeing, yet she hoped from Abdel’s description, they understood there was a bomb. And snipers.

Her repertoire of curse words was pretty extensive, but she kept coming back to
shit
. Because heaven help her, she was knee deep in the stuff.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, lowering the gun. “I’ll cut you a deal.”

“Ruby” Jax snarled. “What’s going on?”

Abdel stared at her, nonplussed. “I believe this will be entertaining. Please, go ahead. Tell me about this deal.”

So smug. She wanted to wring that out of him.

But not yet. First, she needed to save the dog and the people inside Rock Star Security.

She attempted to put more sincerity into her smile. Her lips didn’t want to cooperate. “I’ll come with you willingly if you leave my friends alone. No fuss, no fight.”

“Oh, well, of course.” Abdel rocked in the chair. He didn’t seem moved by her act or the fact she’d lowered the gun from his head. “That seems so reasonable, especially since you have no options.”

The mockery in his voice made her see red. She had to control that reaction since that’s exactly what he wanted. For her to lose control and give him a reason to shoot the damned dog and take out everyone at RSS.

You’re good but I’m better
, she mentally taunted him.

It wasn’t bluster. She
knew
she was better than Abdel Al-Safari any day. He may have fooled her once, but he didn’t have that upper hand anymore. She knew him for what he really was now, and her gloves were coming off.

But not until Beatrice and the others were out of the line of fire.

She needed a bluff. A solid one. “I’m serious, Abdel. I’ll put down my gun and let you handcuff me. We’ll walk out together. No one gets hurt.”

Except you, jackass, when I rip your evil heart out
.

In an effort to convince him, she laid her gun on the floor.

God, did that kill her—to be unarmed and at his mercy, even if it was only for a few moments. It would have been easier to put a bullet in his head and end this right now.

As if he’d read her mind, he added some insurance to his threat. “If anything happens to me, my men are instructed to shoot to kill.”

Of course they were. She hoped Rory or Zeb or Jax was picking up on this and understanding there was another layer of danger here.

“What’s he talking about?” Rory said in her ear. “The men he’s referring to, the ‘boom’ he mentioned. We’re under surveillance here, aren’t we? There are guns on us? A bomb?”

Bless him. “You’ve covered all your bases, haven’t you, Abdel?” she said. “Threatening innocent people here in my apartment as well as those in the Rock Star Security office.”

“Holy shit,” she heard Jax say, his exclamation followed by those of Zeb and Rory.

They knew, and the specifics of what they didn’t, they’d figure out in short order. In the meantime, she had to play along until someone got Beatrice and the crew to safety.

The man in the thousand dollar suit appeared pleased with himself. “Mohammed and I are not your everyday terrorists, Agent McKellen. We are businessmen. We play into your stereotype of Middle Eastern terrorists because that’s what you want and that gets us what we want. You believe we are short-sighted and only focused on wiping out the infidels, while in reality, we want so much more.”

She needed to keep him talking in order to give the others time. “And what is that?”

“The world.” He sounded as if he were disappointed at her obtuseness. “We have been infiltrating every major military and spy group in the world for years. From Mossad to M5 to your own Department of Homeland Security. When your partner offered me a deal to be an asset inside Mohammed’s camp, I nearly laughed. It was so easy saying yes while I planned an extensive strategy to lead the US into giving Mohammed whatever he needed to expand our military knowledge of your endeavors. You are not dealing with a small-time organization. We are superiorly educated, well-funded, and shrewd. As you can see by the fact that I am here soliciting your cooperation.”

What a nice way of putting it. He was blackmailing her as he’d done with Elliot. Only with Elliot, he’d dangled a carrot. With her, he was threatening to kill people. “I’ll do whatever you say, Abdel. Just don’t hurt anyone, okay?”

“Kick the gun over to me.” Smugness coated his words and brightened his face even more. “Get on your knees.”

Forcing her to her knees was smart, making her less dangerous.

At least that’s what he thought.

Ruby kicked her gun toward him, the butt end coming to a stop under his loafered foot. “Let the dog go,” she said. She needed something in exchange for her bowing to him. “Then I’ll get down on my knees.”

He eyed her as if she were a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. “You’ll get on your knees, Ruby McKellen, or the dog will die. The humans as well.”

Dan let go another whimper. Rory was talking in her ear, saying they’d found the snipers’ positions but didn’t want to alert them, so they had to sit tight for now.

So they knew about the snipers, but did they grasp there was a car bomb?

Jax spit commands at her…what she should say, what she should do. Near her, Dan continued to whimper.

Concentrate!
Tune them out
.

This was on her. She needed to look at this awful situation from every angle, fast. Was there any way to alert Jax to the car bomb?

Was there a way to keep Jax from plowing into this apartment at any moment and taking Al-Safari out?

Doing that would result in the worst of outcomes. If none of the others realized there was a bomb, Jax taking out Abdel would end in massive bloodshed, and it would all be on Jax’s conscious.

And hers.

“You’re going to ruin that perfect suit of yours by shooting the dog?” She shook her head at Abdel. “For all of your education and shrewdness, that doesn’t seem like your style. That thing probably cost more than my boss at the CIA makes in a year. I have a hard time believing you’re going to ruin it with dog brains.”

Dan’s whimper turned to a cry. The man was sobbing.

Maybe she had been a little graphic with that one, but she couldn’t give into him too easily or Abdel might get suspicious.