The Killing Game (15 page)

“Even if they give you a direct order?” he asked quietly. Things weren’t going according to plan for either of them.

She leaned close again and he could feel her breath on his lips. “No one orders me around when it comes to the survival of my animals, Sergeant. You’ll use those leopards over my dead body.”

That was what he was afraid of.

She turned and started marching back toward the camp. Her student followed with the horse like an overgrown sheepdog coming to heel.

The troop came together.

“She’s a firecracker.” Scottish, belligerent and proud, Craig Cullen eyed Axelle with a wild glint in his eye.

“She’s a bloody pain in the arse.” Dempsey pulled up his sleeve to check the scratches, which were starting to itch. Even though he’d helped her he’d got nothing in return but blind hostility, and that was despite the stirring of attraction between them. He frowned. Maybe it was because of it.

His wounds were healing. He tried not to wonder about hers.

“Bloody hell.” Baxter walked up behind him. “You look like you had sex with a tigress.”

Dempsey’s temper flashed and he was thankful he could hold his tongue. It must have shown in his eyes though, even in the dim shadows of twilight. Dempsey met Taz’s gaze and some silent understanding passed between them. He might have called Axelle a pain in the backside, but it didn’t mean he didn’t care about her. Taz accurately read the nature of his feelings for a woman he’d only just met.

“It was one of her bloody snow leopards,” Dempsey told them.

“You wrestled a snow leopard? For fun?” Taz asked.

A reluctant grin tugged his lips. “It
was
fun. Anyway, it turns out Dr. Axelle Dehn is the lead biologist on this snow leopard project. Our target appears to be hunting leopard. Did you see anything while I was gone yesterday?”

“Not much.” Cullen scouted ahead as they headed toward the camp. “The big guy spent most of the day on the ridge listening to the radio transmitter. When did you figure out they were biologists?”

Dempsey grunted out a laugh. “When I found tranquilizer darts in her saddlebag a fraction of a second before she got behind me and shoved a Glock up my arse.”

Cullen grinned. “You’re getting old.”

“I can still beat you in a footrace.” But he felt old. As old as the mountains. He’d seen so much death throughout his lifetime he sometimes wondered why they bothered. To protect innocents, he reminded himself. That was what he’d dedicated his life to and he’d quit when he was dead or Returned To Unit. Same thing.

“We’ll contact HQ but I think our best bet right now is sticking with the biologists and staking out the leopards. When our man shows we’ll make sure he has nowhere to go.”

“Corner him like the rat he is,” Cullen agreed. “The orders were dead or alive but this guy must have fuckloads of information…”

“Let’s try for alive unless he’s a threat. Then all bets are off. We’ll stay out of sight until we receive orders. Maybe the old fecker doesn’t know we’re here. He might have realized the biologists were uncollaring the leopards and got pissed off.”

“It might not even be him,” Cullen put in.

Dempsey nodded and trudged down the valley to the yurts. If only he could forget the fierce flash of betrayal in Axelle’s eyes the moment she’d worked it all out. Because, yes, he’d always intended to use her leopards as bait. He was a soldier and he had a job to do—he was still planning on getting rid of her poacher, which would ultimately save her cats.
But maybe too late…

He reined in his runaway thoughts and concentrated on the barren landscape. It didn’t matter what Axelle Dehn thought of him. With any luck he’d be gone before daybreak and she’d never cross his path again.

***

Axelle shoved back the yurt flap. Anji flung up his hands in surprise and gave a nervous laugh. “You’re back. You scared me.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.”

He smiled at her, brown eyes twinkling. “Josef was worried when the horse came back without you, but I told him you be okay.”

Anji had more faith in her than she did. He returned to whatever he was doing with the cubs.

She strode to the computer and opened her email and read the message. Christ, the Trust really had forbidden her to release the animals. She inhaled deeply and tried to calm the rage that continued to burn inside. They thought she was overreacting and had no proof, and in the next sentence they told her it was too dangerous for her and Josef to go after a guy with a gun. Josef came slowly into the tent. She didn’t know if he was scared or angry. He had a right to be both.

“Did you reply to this email?” She was vibrating with emotion. Moisture filmed her eyes but it wasn’t tears.

“No.” He stood behind her.

“Did they ask for receipt of confirmation?”

“No.” He frowned.

She pressed delete. “Then it never arrived.” She held his gaze. “Are you okay with that?”

His blue eyes flicked to the computer screen and back. He nodded.

“Good. I’ll resend the original email again after we get a few hours sleep.”

“What about those men?”

“What about them?” She wanted to pretend they didn’t exist, that she’d never met Dempsey or exposed some of her darkest secrets in the shadow of the mountain. She should have known he was buttering her up so he could use her. It was all about the mission. That was what made a man a soldier.

She went and stood before the fire because she had no new answers and was so tired and wrung out she could barely see straight. She needed a few hours’ sleep before she got back to releasing collars. Surely the man hunting the leopards was also tired? Surely he needed sleep? She helped herself to salted yak’s milk tea and flatbread. Grimaced. You might acquire a taste for local food but it didn’t mean you didn’t miss Starbucks.

The cubs clambered over Anji’s legs and drew a smile from her lips. “How are they doing?”

“They eat plenty.” He looked up and smiled. “They survive and get fat,
Inshallah
.”

The ice around her heart cracked a little. “Good.”

“I fix other fire in your yurt.”

“Thanks.” Propriety demanded she sleep separate to the men but for the first time in years she didn’t want to be alone.

She hugged herself with little comfort. The memories of Gideon had been brief but searing. She didn’t let herself think about him often and that brought its own guilt. He’d been a wonderful man. An honorable man. She’d loved him fiercely. He’d joined the Marines because his best friend had died fighting for his country and he’d been compelled to do the same. Pity he hadn’t asked his wife’s opinion first.

She didn’t think about him because it hurt too damn much.

“Did that guy really help you release G-man?” Josef broke into her thoughts.

She nodded. Some of her anger cooled. Dempsey
had
helped her; in fact she might not have caught G-man at all if he hadn’t been there.

A man hunting terrorists would use any means available, and she’d do the same to save her cats. She squeezed her temples with her thumb and index finger. She needed to apologize to him but at the same time she hoped she never saw him again. “He said he’s British Army but he’s not wearing a uniform.”

“Special Forces.” Josef’s eyes gleamed. “Probably SAS. Some of the most respected soldiers in the world. Dangerous men.”

He’d exuded danger and skill. But, except for that first heart-stopping moment when he’d disarmed her—easily disarmed her, now she thought about it—she hadn’t been scared of him at all. Not even when he’d grabbed her in front of Josef.

“Why? Why are they even here?” She dragged her fingers through her bedraggled hair.

“Do you trust them?” he asked.

Wearily she shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess if they’d wanted us dead we’d be dead.” Maybe that was the only truth that mattered. Her eyelids started to droop. She needed sleep. “I’ll see you at dawn.” She went outside and the air was clean and fresh. Pink seeped along the edges of twilight. She could barely drag one foot in front of the other as she headed to her tent. She glanced at the surrounding hills and wondered where Dempsey was. They’d spent the night together and somehow forged a bond. What it meant, she didn’t know.

Her scratches were sore and her bones ached. But there was also this weird sense of loneliness that she hadn’t felt in years. She half expected Dempsey to be sitting on her bed, waiting to chew her out for yelling at him earlier. That thought tangled in her brain and slowed her feet because she wasn’t sure what she’d do if she found him there.

She threw back the flap but her tent was empty. The quick stab of disappointment was shoved into the furthest corners of her mind. She lit the fire, shook out her bedclothes and took off her boots. Then she lay down and slept like the dead.

***

Dempsey sat and watched as Josef started the dirt bike and headed to the top of the ridge with the radio receiver. Why hadn’t Dmitri Volkov booby-trapped that carcass? Why hadn’t he planted mines or explosives to take them out? The questions nagged him constantly.

He didn’t know.

All he knew was catching Dmitri Volkov alive would provide valuable intel and save lives. Sergeant Ty Dempsey wasn’t here to save leopards or babysit biologists. He was here to catch a traitor. The Russian knew things. He had connections. He was dangerous.

Yet these biologists were directly in the line of fire…

“I think we need a change of plan.” Dempsey spoke into his radio so the whole squad could hear. He and Baxter had already packed their kit. They started trudging down the slope.

“What are you thinking, Irish?” Taz’s voice was calm and even.

“Come on down, bring the gear.” He stared at the thin blue sky. “I think we’re about to become field biologists.” There was a high chance the Russian knew there were soldiers in the area. Dempsey had spoken to HQ and they were sending in more troopers.

When they got to the camp Dempsey’s eyes flashed up to Josef on the ridge. “Keep your eye on the big man.”

Baxter nodded and sat on the sunny side of yurt.

Inside the main tent a local man, Wakhi from the look of his features, was brewing tea and jiggling something gray and furry in his arms. It took a moment for Dempsey to realize it was a snow leopard cub, and there was another one, who began to squawk from the bottom of a large box.

“Where’s Axelle?” he asked quietly.

The Wakhi man pointed east. “Next yurt.” Dempsey took a step away but the little man shook his finger wildly in a “no” action. He thrust the squalling kitten at him and Dempsey took it, followed by a bottle of warm milk. “Go feed cub. Leave Axelle sleep,” the man scolded.

Dempsey raised his brows and did as he was told. He assumed feeding a baby leopard was much like feeding a baby human, and as he had a huge family, with enough cousins to take on the Regiment, he did have some experience feeding babies. But it had been a long time.

He stuffed the teat into the eager pink mouth and realized he’d missed this. He’d missed feeding his nieces and nephews. He’d missed seeing them grow up. He missed the connection, the roots. His stand for a peaceful future for the Province of Northern Ireland, for an end to sectarian violence, had led to the total destruction of his place within his family. The irony wasn’t lost on him that he was the one with the weapons now. He hoped he had the sense and skill to know when to use them, as opposed to bombing innocents in market towns or kneecapping informers.

Dempsey held the warm body in the crook of his arm and went to peek at Axelle despite the hissing protestations of her bodyguard. Sheesh where was this guy when she’d been out in the wilds all alone?

She lay snuggled deep in her sleeping bag. The bag lifted and fell steadily, and her cheeks flushed with rosy heat. He didn’t have the heart to wake her. He went back outside, careful of the cub suckling greedily. He walked over to Baxter who stroked the cub’s tummy.

He heard the dirt bike start up and saw Josef coming back down the hill. He rolled up beside them and started past them into the yurt without a word.

Dempsey stopped him. “What’s going on, mate?”

There was no anger in Josef’s gaze today. Acceptance. A reluctant interest. “No snares were tripped in the night. I’m going to check the collar coordinates and see where our cats are.”

Taz joined them and looked at Josef with pensive brown eyes. “Do you get many poachers here?”

“Not like this. Who are you looking for anyway?” Josef’s eyes sharpened. Axelle would have told him they were soldiers. “A terrorist?”

Dempsey weighed his options about what he could say. “Someone the British government wants to talk to.”

“You’re going to stop this poacher from killing our leopards?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Good.”

Dempsey looked at the seemingly endless spread of the Hindu Kush and across the valley to the Pamirs in the north. He passed the satisfied kitten to Baxter, who was eyeing it with look usually reserved for beautiful women.

“We can help each other,” said Josef.

Dempsey nodded. He should be feeling satisfied too. He should have been feeling bloody marvelous but these people were not the sort of partners he wanted when hunting one of the world’s most notorious terrorists. So what if GCHQ thought the guy had been inactive—presumed dead—for a decade? To Dempsey that spelled some seriously dodgy connections. And an even more sinister reason for coming out of hiding now.

Axelle was a liability. Rash, brash and female—a powder-keg of trouble in a country like Afghanistan. Maybe he should hogtie her, release the horses, dismantle the computer, take the motherboard and Sat Link with him. But the Russian had come to them; they hadn’t gone searching for the Russian. They were already involved in this mess, and something about the determined set of Axelle’s jaw told him he’d have a fight on his hands if he tried to shut them down. As fun as that might be under normal circumstances, he couldn’t afford the distraction when this mission might cost lives. He had to work with her. And he had the feeling it was going to cost him more than swallowing a bit of false pride.