Nightshade (Discarded Heroes) (33 page)

The steady approach of footsteps over the crushed-gravel side road sent waves of chills and jitters over her. From the empty void of night, a large figure loomed, growing larger with each step. A man. Jerome.

Could Lane and Holden hear him coming? “I’m here,” she said to the contact.

He continued straight toward her without speaking. A scowl marred his features as he walked right up to her and reached toward her face. Cringing, she sucked in a breath and stumbled back, panic beating a rapid rhythm in her breast.

He gripped the nape of her neck with one hand, swept her long hair aside, and deftly removed the bug with the other. Then he handed her a cloth. “Put this over your head.”

Sydney hesitated for only a second, thinking it was a bag. Instead, a long, silky length of fabric draped over her head and shoulders. A scarf!

“Let’s go,” Jerome said, hooking her elbow and starting down the road. A block away, he stuffed her into a car and pulled onto the road.

Scrambling to secure her seat belt, Sydney’s stomach churned as they roared past the hotel—just as Lane and Holden burst through the front door, light from the interior spilling out after them. She clung to the sides of the seat as he barreled down the pothole-riddled road.

“Where are you taking me?”

“No questions!”

They drove for an hour, the silence excruciating and frightening.
You’re an idiot, Sydney Moira
. She placed a hand over her belly, over her son, and quietly prayed that her exuberance for the story wouldn’t kill her baby. Peace settled into the inner recesses of her heart and calmed her fears.

Finally, he pulled off the two-lane road onto a narrower road, if one could call it that. With barely enough room for one car to navigate, the road wound up into a hilly area, thick with trees and waist-high flowers.

Serenity bathed the West Yorkshire landscape, revealing the beauty and splendor of the hillside for the first time. But ahead, the road ended. Panic gripped her tighter still, squeezing against her chest as Jerome stopped the car.

“Get out,” he said.

She froze, noting that he climbed out and shut his door. Her gaze combed the hills, searching for a home or road or
something
that would reassure her she wasn’t about to be murdered and left for the vultures. Nothing. They were alone. And he wanted her out of the car. Why had he brought her up here, alone and at dawn? Would her body be found days from now, rotted and half eaten?

Almost as if in answer to her questions, a gentle vibration tickled her feet. Soon the deafening roar of a helicopter rattled her bones. It descended less than a hundred feet from the car like a giant bird of prey.

Jerome jerked open the door, grabbed her shirt at the shoulder, and dragged her out. The seat belt dug into her throat as she pawed at the latch. Freed, she stumbled into the open.

“Where are you taking me?” The rotors whipped her hair into her face as she shouted, but whether he hadn’t heard or ignored her, he didn’t answer. Instead, he hauled her to the chopper and shoved her inside.

Metal slammed into her knee as she struggled to climb into a seat. Yelping, she straightened and climbed into a seat—and froze. A gunman sat across from her, leering. She glanced back to Jerome—only the door shut tight, and the pressure of gravity pushed her down as the chopper lifted.

“You safe now,” the man taunted amid a wicked laugh.

Oh God, help me!
Pressed against the seat, Sydney stared at him. Breathing became a chore. She braced herself as the nose of the chopper angled down then seemed to drag forward before finally lifting upward. The hearty breakfast clawed its way back up her throat. She gulped back the acid coating her tongue.

Twenty minutes later the chopper delivered her to an airstrip hangar. Peering out the window, she spied a small jet. As the rotors of the helicopter slowed, she heard the deep thrum of the airplane’s engines. What were they planning to do? Or better yet—where were they planning to take her? This didn’t make any sense. If they were going to kill her …

The gunman hopped out and waved her onto the tarmac. If she got out, they’d put her on the small jet sitting a hundred feet away, and who knew what would happen after that. Mustering every last bit of courage, she refused.

He reached in and tried to grab her arm, but she kicked his claws away.

A fresh burst of air slapped her hair into her face, concealing her view. Something caught her from behind—and she felt herself falling—right onto the tarmac and into the arms of a burly man. She screamed and struggled to free herself, but between him and the leering man, she had no hope. Each man held an arm as they hustled her up the steel steps to the jet.

Stale and mechanized, the air in the cabin enveloped her as they pushed her into a leather seat. Almost immediately the plane began to taxi down the runway.

As gravity again worked against her, pressing her spine into the cream leather, she lashed out—tears spilling over her cheeks. This was it. She would never be seen again, except maybe when Holden reported on her death via a live feed from Keighley.

Through the tiny portal to her right, she grieved the disappearing lush hillside. It meant her doom.
Don’t be so morose!
But it was true. Burying her face in her hands, she surrendered to the fear that strangled her. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. A simple meeting with someone who knew about a group of men saving the world. She just had to push, had to insist on tracking down the story. Even the American government had tried to warn her through its silence that this was far more dangerous than she knew. And Lane wanted her to go home and not find the Ashburn Hotel. Why hadn’t she listened?

As the plane leveled off, Sydney stared at the white cottony sky, resigned to her fate. Now she was on her way to only-God-knew-where, and she wasn’t sure she’d live to give birth to her baby. Tears still streamed as she wished she’d told Max about the baby. Wished she hadn’t listened to Bryce. Wished she’d had a backbone and been stronger.

“I am sorry to frighten you with such extreme measures.”

The soft words jerked Sydney’s gaze to the right. As she wiped her tears, her vision slowly focused on a woman seated across from her dressed in a beautiful teal-colored dress, the apron heavily beaded and sparkling. Sheer material draped around her face added an air of mystery and Scheherazade-ness to the woman, who smiled. Sad eyes drifted down to Sydney’s belly. “You carry a child?”

Hand on her stomach, Sydney couldn’t bring herself to speak.

The woman smoothed out the material over her own well-rounded abdomen. “We have much in common, yes?”

“Wh-what do you want with me?”

“My name is Raisa.” She looked around the cabin and waved someone Sydney couldn’t see out of the way. “Again, I am sorry for the way you were brought here, but it is necessary for my safety. I swear you will not be harmed.”

Why weren’t the words comforting? Maybe because they were thirty thousand feet over nothing that could guarantee Sydney a safe return.

“I am told you are looking for a group of soldiers.”

That piqued Sydney’s interest. She shifted and straightened. “You’re the source?”

“I stay hidden. They guard me because if I am found, then my child will be cut from me to make sure he dies.”

The gruesome mental image shook Sydney. “Who?”

“The men the soldiers saved me and my family from. You see, my husband—the father of my baby—led a rebellion against those who would deny freedom to all who desire it. Freedom for women; freedom to worship whatever god one wills. I hold to Allah, but it does not mean all should. Yes?”

“So you saw the men who saved you?”

Even behind the veil, her smile shone. “They delivered me to a safe place, and now I live on this plane. But I am not safe. I will not be, nor will my son. They murdered my husband, but we still have a voice. Once the men who butchered so many are caught, I will testify against them, and they will go to prison or be executed. Then my son and I will disappear and begin a new life.”

“Can you tell me about the men who came to your city?”

The woman shrugged, motioning toward an open doorway. “They wore the color of night. No flags. No names. I think they did not want to be recognized.”

“Yes, but I have been trying to find them. They saved another woman, and she wants to thank them publicly.”

Garbed in similar attire to Raisa, several female servants shuffled in with silver trays of tea and biscuits. They set up a table between Sydney and Raisa then discreetly served them. With a reverent bow, they backed out of the cabin, their faces still down, a sign of respect often shown to royalty.

Was Raisa royalty among her people? Shamefully, Sydney couldn’t identify the woman’s nationality, other than to know she was Middle Eastern.

“Is there anything you can tell me—” Silenced by Raisa’s snapped-up hand, Sydney bit back the torrent of frustration.

The woman lifted a cookie between her manicured fingers and took a small bite. After she wiped her mouth, she resumed the conversation. “I am hiding, protecting myself, going through extraordinary measures to protect my unborn son. It’s important, would you not agree?”

“Yes, of course. Your life is in danger. It makes sense.”

Raisa smiled, her olive skin shining under the fluorescent lights in the cabin. “And so it is that I understand their desire not to be found.”

“Yes, but—”

“Would you like something to eat? As a pregnant woman, I know how the little one within saps strength and vitamins from your very bones.” Raisa set a plate on Sydney’s side of the table and placed several treats on it, then poured her a drink.

The woman wasn’t going to cooperate. Being one to seek anonymity, she wouldn’t want anyone to betray her whereabouts, so she clearly wouldn’t say what she knew about the men who’d saved her life.

“You dragged me to the middle of nowhere, had me transported via helicopter then on this plane to I-have-no-clue-where, only to tell me you won’t tell me?” Incredulity streaked Sydney’s words.

For a moment, Raisa’s composure slackened, and she flashed a heated gaze toward Sydney. But then the cool facade slipped back into place. “Perhaps you do not realize who I am, and for that, I will forgive your outburst. I have my reasons for everything, and just think of this as my way of saying it’s better left alone.”

“Better left alone?” Indignation scampered up her vertebrae and in between her shoulders, heating her neck.

“Tell me, have these men helped others?”

“You know they have—I just told you!”

“Would you say that these men are heroic? That they have done wonderful things by helping so many?”

Sydney sighed.

“If you unveil these men, if you go before the world and destroy the anonymity that they have worked so hard to create, who is that helping, besides you?”

The accusation stung, but Sydney couldn’t deny it. “It wasn’t my intent to
expose
them.” She wanted this story, wanted to find the men who were heroic, who swooped in and saved lives and the day. And this woman probably had the answers but wouldn’t give them. There had to be a way to get her to talk.

Sydney’s gaze roamed the silver trays as she munched a cookie, thinking. She sipped the cool drink. Then she saw it. The implanted stem of an orange tossed an idea into Sydney’s mind.

She grabbed a napkin, exhilaration pinging through her. “If I show you a symbol, would you tell me if you’ve seen it before?”

Biting into a chocolate biscuit, Raisa’s dark, expressive eyes came to hers. Licking her lips, she took her time. Patted her red, full lips with a napkin. “It’s senseless, this little game of yours, Mrs. Jacobs.”

Sydney asked for a pen then drew the symbol Mangeni’s son had depicted. She slid it across the table.

Recognition flickered through Raisa’s eyes, but she cooled her reaction. “I have not seen it.” Chin lifted, she looked away.

Sydney could see the lie written over the woman’s beautiful face. “I don’t believe you.”

Raisa rose sharply. “Allah has gifted these men. Allows them to do what he has willed.
Insh’Allah.”
Then she softened ever so slightly. “Besides, it is too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“For you.” Raisa almost sneered, glancing at the cookies and drink. “You will be able to sleep now, no doubt.”

With a hard swallow, Sydney noticed the tiny grains filling her vision. The edges smudged into a gray nothingness that slowly devoured her entire sight. She gasped, gripping the chair. “What did you do to me?”

“Insh’Allah.”