Relentless (33 page)

When she knew she had everyone's attention glued on her, she continued. “The need for good medical care in Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan is critical. On our first day we had over eighty appointments scheduled among the four of us. The lineup of people wanting to see us snaked around the building.”

The next picture showed a little girl standing with her mother. She was filthy and thin, her eyes way too big for her face. The mother was completely concealed from view by a sky blue burqa, even her eyes hidden behind the mesh veil panel within the hood. “The general public believes Kabul at least has been transformed into a beacon of hope for the citizens of Afghanistan. I can tell you from personal experience that nothing could be further from the truth.”

From his position at the rear of the room, Rhys was awed by the power Neveah radiated as she stood in front of the crowd and began her speech. Strength and confidence flowed from every elegant line of her body and blazed out at the audience from her vivid blue eyes. Her voice was strong and clear, filled with the conviction she was doing something important. Something she believed in so strongly she was giving her talk despite the ongoing risk to her safety.

He was so damn proud of her.

She commanded respect with her natural poise and her message. The fact that she was before her peers speaking about what she'd survived had a powerful impact on everyone in the room, him included. The picture of the clinic came up. He remembered going there after the fact, looking through the wreckage for clues as to where the militants might have taken their hostages.

A minute into her talk, Rhys's phone buzzed against his hip. Careful not to draw attention to himself, he stepped out into the hall to check the text message. It was from Ben.

Heads up. Cell leader is Ahmed, no last name. Uncle to dead kid Mahmoud.

Shit, then he was linked to Tehrazzi. And Ahmed was a common Middle Eastern name. Due to Nev's speech about her experience in Afghanistan, half the attendees at the brunch were of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent. Was the cell leader already inside?

We're going through a database now. Comms indicate ongoing threat to N. Alert security members. I'm on my way.

Pulse pounding, Rhys deleted the message and turned to go back inside, but one of the undercover cops named Khan met him outside the door. His lips were pressed into a tight line in the middle of his neatly trimmed goatee.

“What's up?’ he asked.

“There's another plot in the works. Get the team briefed and sweep the crowd, seal off the exits.” The shoulder holster chafed him beneath his jacket, his muscles tense. He couldn't see many faces in the dimly lit room. He prayed the security search had done its job and that they hadn't missed any concealed weapons.

Still scanning the room uneasily, another text came in.

Be advised, Ahmed linked to hired gun. Be on look out for a male, ex-military...

Rhys's eyes stuck on the last words.

... possibly armed with sniper rifle.

Couldn't be true. Not here. They'd been thorough. He hadn't seen anything suspicious.

Rhys's hand was unsteady as he keyed his radio to let the team know what to look for. “Seal off all entrances and exits,” he finished. If the bastard was already here, he wasn't getting away.

“Sinclair, come back.” Khan's low voice came over the radio.

Rhys keyed it again, forcing himself into that icy calm space he operated in so he could do what he had to. Taking a breath, he looked away from Neveah on stage. “Go ahead.”

“I'm going through the attendance register, and have three Ahmeds. Two are spouses of attendees, but the other is— ”

Whatever Khan had uncovered got cut off by the chorus of shocked gasps that rose from the crowd.

Rhys's head snapped up, and when his gaze focused on the screen behind Neveah, his blood ran cold.

Drawing a deep breath before continuing, Neveah plunged on, detailing how the attackers came through the back door where she'd been working, and hauled her away at gunpoint with the rest of the team members. Her voice remained surprisingly steady for that part, but when she began telling about Gary, her throat closed up. She cleared it, gripping tight to her professional demeanor.

“Doctor Gary Sutherland was a courageous man who deserved a better fate than the one he received. His horrific death will always haunt me, even though I realize there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. Now I can only comfort myself with the knowledge his killer is dead also, shot during the operation in which we were rescued.” She didn't specify that Tehrazzi had shot him dead.

A swell of applause rose from the crowd, interspersed with a few loud whistles. She waited for the noise to die down, in full agreement with their reaction.

The next picture came up. “This is Doctor Frank Owens, our resident orthopedic specialist. Those of us who knew him will always remember his kindness and his endearing sense of humor. He wanted so badly to help the people of Afghanistan, especially the elderly who needed but could not afford or access the care they needed.”

She glanced down at her notes and flipped to the next card.

The blood drained out of her face. Her lungs seized.

Someone had written on the next card with red ink, over top of her notes.

Do you remember what it was like, Neveah? Do you wake up with their dying screams ringing in your ears?

Her gaze jerked up, whole body tensed, ready to run at the slightest perception of a threat. No one moved. They all sat staring at her.

Nev tried to slow her frantic heartbeat. Just a sick prank, she reasoned, fighting to hold on to her composure. The ticking seconds seemed like minutes as she stood frozen in front of a roomful of people. Her gaze sought Rhys. He was gone.

Had something happened? Did he know something?

Get a grip, Nev
, she told herself sternly. Must have been the people who'd broken into her room and rifled through everything. They'd left the note behind to taunt her.

Or because Tehrazzi had ordered it.

An icy chill shot down her spine at the thought.

“Doctor Adams?” The low question from the event organizer jarred her.

She sucked in a breath. “Fine,” she rasped, licking her upper lip and tasting the beads of sweat there. Frank was still on the screen behind her. “Pardon me,” she told the audience, and hoped they would forgive her the lapse. She hit the button to bring up the next picture.

A collective gasp rose from the crowd.

Tension gripped her chest as she gazed out into the audience. People had their hands over their mouths. Their expressions were horrified. Some of the ladies turned away as though they couldn't bear to look.

She hadn't put anything in the presentation to illicit such a reaction.

Shit...
She didn't want to look up at the screen. Couldn't make herself do it.

In her peripheral vision, she caught sight of Rhys on the far side of the room, coming toward her. Which meant he wanted her off the stage.

Cringing instinctively, she turned her head to find out what everyone was gawking at. The remote fell from her numb hand as she too clapped a hand over her mouth and stifled a cry of horror.

She was staring at her nightmare again.

Tehrazzi's bodyguard stood in the doorway with Gary's severed head in his fist, holding it by the hair. He was grinning, his white teeth a slash in the midst of his bearded face, yet the scar in the middle of his chin remained visible. His gleeful expression was all the more hideous because of Gary's lifeless eyes and half-open mouth. Forever frozen in a silent scream.

God!
She slapped the laptop shut to kill the image, just as the lights went off, plunging the room into darkness. She jumped. What the hell was going on? Several people cried out, and she heard the sound of hundreds of chairs scraping against the floor as the audience rose in alarm. She couldn't see Rhys, but knew he was coming for her. All she had to do was hang on until he got there.

The room seemed to close in on her, suffocating her.

Get out.

The words shot through her mind. Then something brushed past her cheek and hit the wall behind her with a loud
thud
. She shrieked and ducked.

Intuition made her dive to the floor. Her heart threatened to explode. She recognized that sound from the night she'd been rescued. A suppressed shot. A bullet had hit the wall. Someone had taken a shot at her.

Another round hit the podium she'd just been behind. A shower of splinters exploded.

“Down!” She recognized Rhys's distant shout and covered her head with her arms.

Then Mike's voice rose over the noise and confusion in the room. “Someone's shooting! Run, Nev!”

Afraid to move, she whipped her head in Rhys's direction. Where was he? He must be close, still trying to get to her.

Some primal instinct urged her to get off the stage. Her skin crawled, little prickles racing over her body. It was still pitch dark. She couldn't see anything except vague shapes and bodies moving around. Was the shooter going to take another shot at her? Staying still made her an easy target. At least if she moved she would be harder to hit.

Gathering her courage, she jumped to the ground and started making her way toward Rhys, her only thought that she had to get to him. He would keep her safe.

She tripped over something and went down hard on her knees. Flinching at the pain in her sore ankle, she got up and staggered on as fast as she could while the crowd streamed around her toward the exit.

Ahmed's heart was in his throat as dim security lights came back on around the edges of the room. People milled about in confusion, but the only thing he was interested was Doctor Adams. His gaze swept over the stage, expecting to find her lying on it bleeding. But she wasn't there. The stage was empty.

He jerked to his feet. She couldn't have gotten away! He looked around frantically, and caught the back of the shooter as he exited the room with the panicked crowd. Had he hit the target or not?

Ahmed's muscles froze when he located Doctor Adams, shoving her way through the crowd away from the stage, her eyes wide with terror.

Dear God, she wasn't even
wounded
...

His throat closed up. Lily. They'd kill her for this. Even though he'd hired the professional and it wasn't his fault the man had missed.

Lily would die because of him.

No. He couldn't let that happen. He could still get to Adams. But how would he do it? He looked down at the table and the knife lying on his plate. It was sharp, the beef he'd eaten was testament to that, and the blade was five inches long. Long enough to penetrate deeply into the body.

Blood roaring in his ears, he reached for it, wrapping his hand about the cold steel handle, and slipped it into his right breast pocket. He searched for his victim, and found her coming his way. Sweat bloomed over his skin. Could he do this? Actually kill her, and in front of all these witnesses?

Security guards were in the room plus that big Sinclair guy who'd been acting like a bodyguard for Adams. Once he pulled out the knife, someone would see him. Then the guards would come after him. Probably shoot him.

In that moment of hesitation, the room faded away. All the noise of the crowd's panicked confusion disappeared into a vacuum of silence. The only thing left was the thudding of his heart. Loud. Frantic.

A terrible sense of grief filled him. He would die if he did this. Wasn't there another way?

He cast a desperate look around the room as everything slowed around him. The shooter was long gone.

The neon red glow of the exit signs beckoned in the distance. He could still run.

You can't! Lily's life is at stake.

Drawing a deep breath, he sent up a prayer.
Allah forgive me for what I'm about to do.

In slow motion his feet carried him through the crowd, but he could barely feel them. His body was numb. Every ounce of concentration was focused on the grisly task ahead of him, and the knowledge that he and Neveah Adams were taking their last breaths on earth.

God help him, he had no choice.

Scanning frantically about the room, Nev couldn't find Rhys. He must be close and he was so tall he shouldn't be hard to find, so where the hell was he?

The crowd moved around her like a stampede of cattle, blind with fear as they shoved and jostled toward the exit. She spotted Doctor Shirani coming toward her and met his gaze. He was intent on escape and his focused expression set her heart pounding, but she didn't want to leave without finding Rhys first. He would know what to do and he would keep her safe. Dammit, why couldn't she see him? The awful knot in her stomach drew even tighter.

“Neveah!”

She whipped around at the sound of his deep shout, eyes anxiously searching through the crowd. In the weak light she barely made him out, but caught sight of him near the stage, a wall of strength with a deadly black gun in his hand.

“Rhys!” She turned back, intent on getting to him.

Shirani was closer now. She waved him over. Rhys would save them. “Over here!”

“No! Run, Neveah!”

Rhys's barked command made her jump, and when she saw his expression her blood turned to ice. His face was filled with something she'd never seen in him before, not even when he'd been bleeding to death in her arms. Stark fear.

“
Run
!”

Her heart gave a sickening thump. The sharp order confused her, but the urgency on his face had her body swinging around to obey. Then she saw the reason why he'd told her to run.

The man from the park and the hospital was bearing down on her, eyes locked on her with an unnatural light. Fixated. His hand disappeared beneath his jacket, and she knew he was about to draw a weapon.

She wheeled away with a cry, sending one last sidelong glance at Rhys so he'd see her words in her eyes.

I love you...

“Go!” he yelled as he barreled toward her, gun raised like he was preparing to take aim and fire at the man closing in on her.