Saving Brigit (26 page)

One of the men calmly walked to Rashid and yanked the knife out. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s better to get it over with.” Swiftly, he tore a strip of cloth from the bed sheets, wrapped the shoulder, and tied it off. “Will you make it?”

“I will make it.” He strode to the door, fairly kicking the legs of the guard out of the way. Behind the door they found another, larger bedroom. The décor and size bespoke the master. The Claw slept here, with his guard a few feet away.

The Claw also escaped through here. Rashid hurried into the hallway through the room’s main door to find no sign of anyone. While the hulking giant had delayed them, the Claw had made off. Rashid had failed. He wanted to sink to the floor, in pain and defeat.

His watch emitted a beeping sound. If they didn’t head for the west wall of the compound now, they chanced being in place when the attack started. Unfortunately, he had no idea where in the fortress they were. They were going to die in this hellhole. Not only he would die, but the three men in his team for whom he was responsible.
Another failure.

“Look what I found,” one of his team members said from behind him. The special ops man gripped a smaller, cowering man by the collar. “He knows how to get us out.” The army man looked down. His hand with the weapon rose slightly. “And you’re gonna show us, aren’t ya?” The little man nodded vigorously and pointed.

Another member of the team spoke up. “I think he means we should get our asses out that door and turn left.” He looked at Rashid. “What do you think, sir? Is he lying?”

Rashid stared at the man. In flawless Tajiki, he said, “These men have the power of the Great Satan behind them. If you lie to us and we die, they will send warrior spirits from paradise to every member of your family. The women will be ravaged, and the men will die slow deaths, in great pain. Do you understand?”

The man’s eyes grew to the size of saucers, and he nodded. His finger shook as he changed the direction he had been pointing.

“Good goin’, sir,” the man holding the snitch’s collar said. In watchful stance, they exited the room. In a matter of minutes, they were in the fresh air, but surrounded by rooftops from which snipers could be ready to pick them off.

A shot rang out, and the stone beside Rashid’s head splintered. One of his men returned fire, and still they hurried on toward the side of the compound where the helicopter should be waiting.

Then another alarm sounded on Rashid’s watch. Even while running forward, his spirit flagged. That had been the final alarm, the one signaling they were too late. The helicopter had left without them.

He stopped and settled on his haunches under cover of a low eave. His men settled around him, the little guide trembling like a leaf in the wind. “We have to find shelter somewhere. We are too late.”

“No, sir. Look!” One of the men pointed to the end of the wall. Derek rushed toward them.

Someone fired from a building across from them, making pock marks in the dirt in Derek’s path. One of Rashid’s men stood and shot off rounds, not stopping until the offending fire ended. As one, the others stood and they all raced toward Derek. He waved them through a narrow break in the wall. The helicopter waited a few hundred yards away.

“What happened?” Derek nodded at the bandage on Rashid’s shoulder as they jogged forward.

“A scratch, nothing more.” Rashid waved his hand signifying his stab wound was beyond mentioning. The special ops team hustled around Rashid and Derek. They shoved the little Tajiki in ahead of them and then jumped into the copter.

“My watch alarm had sounded. Why were you coming back into the building?”

“Truly? You surprise me. Do they not teach you that the mission is most important? And that it is best to keep to the timetable and leave behind those who are expendable?”

They reached the helicopter. Derek swung up, then turned to help Rashid. “Yes, we are taught that.”

“Well, thank you, my friend, for ignoring those lessons.” At a strange noise, he turned to look over his shoulder. The space was filled with women. “Who are they?”

Derek sighed. “It’s a long story.”

Rashid settled back to listen, trying to ignore the pain radiating from his shoulder. The chopper’s rotor started. Dust swirled around them. Noise blocked anything being said. He berated himself for losing their prey. How many good men would lose their lives before the Claw was once again run to ground? He made a vow to Allah. Next time, he would not fail.

Rashid stared out the open door. A few yards away, a truck filled with men and a few women idled at the side of the compound. One of the women looked up. Their gazes locked. She reached up and rubbed her brow with her little finger.

No!
But Marel’s words came back. The truth struck him like the kick of a camel. Elena was the Claw.

Here was a second chance! Rashid drew his handgun, took aim…and froze. He couldn’t do it. Elena might have done terrible things, spread death and misery through the world with her arms deals, not to mention what she’d done within the walls of her fortress. But a part of him loved her. There had to be a reason for her actions. She was his friend, his lover.

He let his arm drop. He couldn’t kill her.

Elena smiled as though she knew his weakness. Breaking their gaze, she turned to the man sitting next to her and pointed to the helicopter. He looked up and aimed his rifle. At that moment, the chopper pulled sharply away and up, the noise swallowing the report of the rifle. Seconds later, they were out of range.

The danger passed, but not the image. As long as he lived, Rashid would never forget the hatred in her eyes.

“Oh. My. God. That feels
so
good.” Thia sighed in delicious lassitude.

“What does? This, or this?”

“That, what you’re doing. Where’d you learn your technique? It makes a woman feel like…like she’s died and gone to heaven.”

Derek chuckled. “Darlin’, the only way to learn to do this is with lots and lots of practice.”

“I don’t think I care to know the details of who you practiced on.” She sank deeper into the water. “The hot tub is great, but your foot rubs are better than anything else in the world.”

“Not better than
anything
else, I hope.” He tickled the sole of the foot he’d just been massaging and then pressed it against the hard ridge of his erection.

Thia giggled. “I stand corrected.”

“How’s Brigit doing since we got home?”

She moved so that one of the water jets sprayed onto her clit. Squirming under the sensual pressure, she said, “Real well. She seems happy enough, though I’m trying to get her to see a therapist. She told me she’d drawn flowers on the wall behind her bed, one for each day she was alone in that cell. Derek, she described it as a garden. I can’t imagine what it must have been like, being there all alone, not knowing if anyone even
knew
. Thank God I had you. If I hadn’t known you’d come and get me, I’m not sure I could have survived. Brigit’s very brave.”

“You’re right. How’s Fatima doing?

Thia sighed. “She still fragile. Michael has been a God-send. He helped her claim asylum and pushed through the papers allowing me to be her sponsor. We’ve settled her with a family in the area who’re very supportive, and found her a good therapist. It’ll take time, but I think she’ll be okay.”

“She’s lucky to be alive.”

“She knows that. We talk often. She sounds better each time.”

Derek spread her legs so that they bracketed his. Lazily, he rubbed his foot against her mound. The insistent touch of skin against skin was so much better than the impersonal water jet. “Thia?”

“Hmm?” She was building up to an orgasm just being here like this with him. Buying the hot tub for her private deck had been such a good idea.

“I need to know you’re not angry with me.”

Her eyes popped open. “For what?”

“For letting you go into the brothel, for your being thrown to the guards, for—”

Water splashed over the side of the tub in her speed to reach his side. She laid her fingers on his lips. “I was determined. Brigit is like my
own
niece. Her parents might have found her before she got to Tajikistan if I’d expressed concern. I’m partially responsible for her weeks in that place, whereas you…you’re totally responsible for getting us
out
.” She kissed him, pressing her tongue into his mouth and letting him feel her desire.

He pulled her onto his lap, deepening the kiss. Her nipples hardened under his palm. His erection pressed her hip. She rose and straddled him, guiding his cock to her pussy. Before, with the water and his toes, she’d played with arousal. But now she needed him. How better to prove what he meant to her than with the greatest intimacy between a man and woman? She’d give herself to him and—even more—take him to her. When they joined, only honesty and truth existed between them.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Derek. You saved my life.” She rocked against him. “You saved my
life
,” she repeated. Dropping kisses along his jaw and down his neck, she flexed her hips, withdrawing from him, then surging down onto his rock-hard cock.

She sucked on the tender skin where his shoulder met his neck. His pulse beat wildly against her tongue. “Absolutely,” she whispered.

The word seemed to unleash something in him. He pushed her back until she floated. Warm, bubbling water teased her breasts, tickled her tummy, added to the heat Derek’s hard thrusts sent shooting through her.

He held her hips, pushing and pulling her to meet his hammer-like drives. Fire burst in her, and she came uncontrollably. Her breathing never slowed. Derek never relented. Thia floated in the hot tub between worlds, a pleasure play directed by Derek.

Steam circled around her where the warmth of the water met the cool of the evening. The lights of the city prohibited her seeing any stars, but in her mind, she saw again the millions of them in the sky when they’d made love on the ground in Tajikistan.

She glanced at Derek. His eyes were shut, his face pulled into a grimace as though he focused on something terrible. Or as though he sought absolution.

“Derek,” she called out softly. His eyes opened, his gaze intent. “Thank you.”

He dragged her torso up to meet his, crushing her in a hug. She died in passion, breath held, body stilled, heart pounding, until the final throes of her orgasm. In a last thrust he came, hard and long, throbbing within the confines of her pussy. She exploded again, her muscles convulsing around his cock, the tremors shaking her to the core.

“I wanted to kill every single guard who touched you,” he said. His mouth came down on hers in a fierce kiss, a claiming kiss. “I wanted to tear the Claw apart for what he’d done to you. If you’d been hurt or—”

“I’m all right. It’s all right.” Her voice seemed to soothe him, and he cradled her rather than tried to possess her. They sat like that for minutes, drawing strength from each other, giving comfort for what the last week had brought.

“I don’t want you to kill anyone for me, but there is something I’d like you to do.”

“Anything.” His voice held resolve.

He hesitated and then burst into laughter. “It’s after midnight. Do you have any eggs?”

Her eyes grew wide. “Yummy.”

He helped her from the tub and wrapped her in a fluffy robe. A few minutes later, the aroma of frying bacon filled Thia’s kitchen. Derek stood at the stove while Thia set the table.

“I still don’t understand how the Claw could be a woman,” she said.

“You’ve seen the female impersonator shows. Hard to believe they’re men, right? With the false beard, a little makeup to make her skin look rougher, and the turban to cover her hair, she set the tone. Her voice was naturally deep. The two things that would have given her away, her eye color and her hands, she concealed.”

“I was sure fooled.”

“I was, too.” He shrugged. “People tend to see what they expect to see. And for anyone who got too curious, she had her small contingent of guards to handle things.”

Thia shivered. “They were loyal all right.”

“Having time to gather papers from her office has really paid off. We have evidence of sales linked to terrorist acts all over the world. She supplied arms and weapons to some of the world’s worst scum.”

“Thank you for going back and saving the women.”

He snorted. “With Brigit running off, what choice did I have?”

“She is a little more headstrong than I remember.”

Derek frowned. “If we hadn’t found everyone when we did, we would have picked you two up and forcefully carried you out. We’d about run out of time.”

“When you left us at the helicopter and ran back in for Rashid, I was so scared. I don’t think I breathed the whole time you were gone.”

“Well, we got out all right, and the missiles and all the Claw’s weapons were destroyed.”

The swift bombing attack had followed seemingly seconds after they’d flown away. Rocks and dirt and pieces of the mountain fortress had been tossed into the air like so many bobbles. And then had come the huge explosion. Rashid and Derek’s men hadn’t cheered, but they’d high-fived each other.

“Wouldn’t it have been better to recover the missiles rather than blow them up?”

Derek broke four eggs into the skillet still covered with a sheen of bacon grease.
Two extra laps tomorrow.

“The Claw wasn’t going to let us have them. Contrary to popular belief, there were limits to what she would do for money. She sold arms to Westerners, but only the small stuff. The big guns—no pun intended—she sold to her friends, who happen to be the world’s biggest troublemakers.”

Thia leaned against the counter, arms crossed, and watched Derek fry their breakfast. “Poor Rashid. He blames himself for letting her get away.”

“Yeah. Well, he did.”

She looked up, surprised. “Derek, he’s known her for years. He just couldn’t kill her without a second thought.”

“I didn’t say it would have been easy, but someone’s going to have to do it eventually.”

She lapsed into silence.