Tactical Deception: Silent Warrior, Book 2 (34 page)

The agent released the woman’s arm and narrowed his gaze at Rico. “You’re fluent in Arabic? You’re full of surprises.”

“Most of the men on the teams are,” Dekker said. “Can’t send a man into a hot zone where he can’t hear what’s going down around him.”

Gibson nodded. The woman turned around. “It is all right, Fahran. Please do not anger them.”

“Mari!” Rico ran forward staring at Mari. She looked at him cautiously.

“You are mistaken. I am Maisa.”

Rico shook his head grappling for understanding. He was as sure as he could possibly be that Neil’s wife was standing in front of him.

“Tell him,” the man said. “It may save you.”

“I am Mari’s twin sister. Fahran is our brother.”

Rico couldn’t stop himself from moving closer and looking her over closely. It was Mari to a T, except for the bitter hopelessness in the woman’s gaze. “Where are Mari and Roger? What happened to them?”

“Fahran and my mother helped Mari and her husband escape into the forest hours ago. Do you have my mother? Can I see her?”

Mari’s husband? Roger? Her mother was likely the woman in the field. Executed for freeing the prisoners? “Can you describe Mari’s husband?”

“He is the cousin to President Anderson,” Fahran said. “Lt. Col. Weston. Tall, dark hair, blue eyes, a younger version of the President himself and strong enough to spit the devil in the eye.”

The woman gasped in surprise. “How do you know this?”

“I saw it on the news just after we arrived here.” The man shifted his gaze from the woman to Rico. “I have information. A lot of information. I will give this in exchange for two things. Her freedom and the safety and freedom of my wife and son. They are with Mullah Mohammed’s Omar’s guards in Quetta. I am sure this will be of great importance to your government.”

Rico raised his brow. This was top Taliban info they’d been searching years to get. He explained to SA Gibson. “I don’t have the authority to—”

Dekker didn’t skip a beat. “Tell him it’s a deal, Corporal Santana. I will make it happen. I’m calling the President now to tell him about Weston and to get these two ‘witnesses’ as far from that SOO’s pompous ass as possible.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Rico told the man. “But why? Why are you so ready to turn against your brothers?”

“Brothers? My family is hostage. What brother threatens what you love to force you to fight his fight? We are told to sacrifice all for Allah and bring retribution and destruction to the enemy who invaded our land, an eye for an eye. But the result is an endless cycle of death and suffering.” Anger and bitterness and a sense of hopelessness rang deep in the man’s voice and something about it struck a chord inside Rico. Somehow he could relate. He didn’t bother to translate now, but given General Dekker’s intense look, Rico would have to explain later.

“Say that again?” Gibson listened to something on his ear comm. “They’ve found five dead to the east of here and a woman’s gown and headscarf in the woods. They’re following the trail.”

Rico shook his head. “Tell them to go any direction but that one. Roger would never leave a trail.”

“Tell them to go west, right past the camp,” Dekker added.

Gibson raised a brow, but passed on the information.

Rico wasn’t sure what would be worked out, but he knew something would be done fast, in plenty of time to stop another sniper attack. Roger and Mari would be found. The last bit of information told Rico the commander was well in control.

Chapter Forty-One

Union County, Georgia

September 13

0600 hours

Roger was out of control.

After making love last night, he and Mari had fallen asleep for a few hours before waking up. He’d done nothing more than his porch alarm to secure their safety before doing that and was damn lucky nothing had happened during his lapse.

He’d immediately set things to rights in the middle of the night by placing more makeshift warning devices around the perimeter of the cabin. When he returned, he found Mari up and about. Dressed in a towel, she’d washed their clothes in the sink and had them drying over chairs. She’d bandaged her own shoulder, which he should have done instead of humping their brains out. And she’d heated soup in a pan set over the top of the gas lamp. Something he should have taken care of as well. They sat at the table to eat and he lost his mind.

They’d already made exquisite love. The hungry edge of his desire should have eased. Instead it had sharpened to a hard-dick-centered point. She had a way of sliding her tongue beneath the spoon when she ate. It wasn’t just an occasional glimpse of pink, but a constant barrage of sensual torment.

He watched her eat every bite and then she picked up the bowl and drank the dregs, licking the rim before she set it down and sighed. “That was great.”

“Not yet,” he said. “I’m still very hungry.”

She looked up at him. “I’ll fix more.”

“No. I will.” He stood, lifted her from the chair and laid her on the table like a feast, everything was splayed out before him once he flicked open her towel. He devoured her like a starved man, thinking about her tongue doing to him everything he did to her. Her breasts. Her sex. Her body, every place he could glide or slide his tongue. He made it last as long as he could stand it. He pumped into her wet sex until he thought he was about to come then he pulled out and licked her from stem to stern, kissing her, sucking her breasts, sucking her clit until she cried out. Then he slid back inside her heat. He did it again and again until he lost control with her heels on his shoulders, his hands on her hips, her bottom against his balls and his dick as deep as he could get.

She came a number of times, and by the time he orgasmed, he had banged the table across the cabin floor all the way up against the wall.

It had been wild and furious and fucking fantastic.

They’d crawled back in bed and slept again. Now it was morning. His internal clock knew it was dawn. He knew they had to reach help, knew that danger was outside of that door. Also knew that he didn’t dare leave her here alone while he went for help. So he needed to be up and planning for the most important mission of his life and instead he was lying in bed, spooning Mari with a King Kong-sized morning erection that had his balls aching for release.

All he had to do to regain control of his world was to get up and start moving and thinking on how he was going to get them both to safety. Yet, he didn’t move. Well, he did a little. He slid his thumb over the nipple of the breast he had cupped in his palm. She sleepily arched her back, sliding her sweet bottom flush against his throbbing dick. God help him but he wasn’t going to do anything but this.

He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Maybe it was because they’d been seconds from death yesterday, but he was driven to reaffirm life the best way he knew how. Sliding in from behind, he found her clit with a wet finger and thought he’d take her on a quickie to heaven.

She moaned and sighed and arched and thrust back against him so forcefully in her uninhibited response that he moved to his knees and anchored his hands to her hips to leverage deeper into her.

“I can’t get enough of you. You’ll have to tie me up to get any rest.”

“Never,” she whispered, answering his passion with hers.

This was not going to be a quickie. He was going long and deep on this pass. He needed help and he really didn’t think God was in on this one.

Mari cried with pleasure, wondering if it was possible to expire from it. She’d dreamed of Roger. Thought of being with him, but the reality of it was beyond her imagination. There was a wild inhibition to his lovemaking that was unlike anything she’d ever known. It swept her up in an irresistible rush of need and want. He knew every inch of her flesh, had kissed and licked and caressed her everywhere in almost every imaginable way with such fervor that all she could do was respond to him, welcome him, and experience his unleashed passion as he drove them relentlessly into an unmatched realm of sexual heaven.

But something wasn’t quite perfect. As he thrust into her, flicking his fingers magically, relentlessly over the very spot that sent her spiraling out of control, she wanted to know every inch of him as intimately as he knew her. As she arched and gave way again and again to the shuddering shocks of pleasure consuming her completely, she wanted to do the same to Roger. That she wanted him shuddering beneath her touch was her last coherent thought before he swept them away to heaven.

“We’ve got to go,” Roger said firmly as he pulled away from her like the cabin was on fire.

She had barely caught her breath, and her shoulder ache had just broken through the edges of her pleasure, yelling at her from the abuse she couldn’t stop herself from subjecting it to. She pulled the sheet over herself and blinked at him. He stood naked in the center of the cabin turning in a circle as if lost.

“What’s wrong?”

He frowned at her. “Nothing’s wrong yet. Now that the sun is on the rise, I just feel as if we’ll be sitting ducks in the cabin. We have to get to help and let everyone know we’re alive. Find a phone, a highway with traffic, people, someone who can get us to safety.”

Mari sat up. “No! Fahran said to stay away from the roads. To stay hidden. I don’t want you hurt. He said they’ll kill your cousin at the funeral.”

Roger staggered as if she’d shot him. “What? What did you say?”

“Fahran said to stay—”

“Not that part.”

“He said they will kill your cousin at the funeral. So you have to stay out of sight. Men want you dead. Not just because of me, but because of who you are.”

Roger marched over, bent down and looked her dead in the eye. “Think very carefully. Did your brother say
my
funeral or
the
funeral?”

“He said
the
, which confuses me because I didn’t think he knew who you were when he kidnapped us.”

“Christ,” Roger stood and raked his hand through his hair. “They plan to kill Paul at Uncle John’s funeral. All of the sniper shootings were a tactical deception, a cover for a plot to kill him. This is going to devastate him.”

Mari scrambled off the bed, horrified. “Whose funeral? When is it?”

“My Uncle John’s. He was killed by sniper fire yesterday morning. I don’t know when the funeral is, but dear God. Now that we’ve escaped, who knows what desperate men will do? My whole family is in danger. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry. So much happened. I—I—I set it to the back of my mind and thought he meant your funeral. Why didn’t you tell me about your uncle?”

“I, hell, sort of the same reason. I found out just minutes before you called about meeting your sister and brother. Paul was keeping the press out of it until everyone in the family had been notified.”

“We’ll hurry.” She scrambled out of the bed, almost feeling as if the world had come crashing down on her head. How could she live with herself if something happened to Roger’s family before they could warn them? She would be responsible. Her family was part of this horror terrorizing the whole country. She picked up her shirt, still stained lightly with blood even though she’d rinsed it as best as she could. Blood. Their blood would be on her hands. She fell to her knees, praying. “Allah!”

“Mari?” Roger rushed over and knelt beside her. “What is it? Is it the baby? God, have I hurt you?”

“No. If something happens to your family, it will be my fault. My family is part of all this death. I can’t bear it.”

“You’re wrong. Dear God, don’t think I’d ever blame you for any of this, no matter what happens.”

“That’s not true. How could you not?”

“Because my sin is greater than yours could ever be, Mari. Look at me.”

She brought her gaze to his to see tears streaming down his cheeks.

He drew a deep breath. “I’ve tried to say this so many times, but I have been too much of a coward to face what it would do to you, to us. I wanted so much to be for you and for your child what Neil wasn’t going to be here to be. And I knew if I told you the truth that might not happen. The explosion that killed Neil in Lebanon was my fault. I am not supposed to be telling anyone what I am telling you, but you have to know. For a lot of reasons I can’t disclose, I thought the team was already dead and I ordered a missile to strike the building the team had been in. The missile missed the building, but its fallout ignited explosives stored in the building and killed Neil. He didn’t come back because of me. His blood is on my hands and I will carry that for eternity. Whatever you decide to do about this truth, I will accept. But you have to know that you and your child deserve to be happy and safe, and when, not if, we make it back home, my mission in life will be just that. Making you both safe and happy, even if it means you don’t want me in your life.” He touched her cheek, her bottom lip. “Just know that everything that happened here, everything I feel, have been the greatest and best moments of my life. You are my heart, no matter what. Now we must go.”

Mari didn’t know what to say. What to feel. She was numb. Confused. Horrified. Hurt. Shocked. This is what he had nightmares about? What he’d talked about in his sleep last month in her hospital room then lied and told her it had been nothing? This was the source of the secret pain in his eyes? This is what haunted him.