The Killing Game (37 page)

She nodded and wiped away happy tears. She felt the same way.

He rested his head against hers. “This mess is going to take time to sort out.”

She gave him a mirthless smile. “And I need to talk to my father.”

“Don’t go anywhere without telling me, okay?” He slicked water from his hair, drops sparkling on his skin. With those bold planes and icy features he looked formidable, and yet she knew he’d risked his life and career for her.

How could she not love a man like this?

She squeezed his hand. “That could be difficult because I just realized there’s something I need to do back in Afghanistan.”

“I’ll come with you.” His fingers tightened around her arms.

She grinned. “How?” Then her attention swung to a man on the deck of the frigate. It was the same guy who’d sat next to her on the flight to Heathrow. “Who is that?”

“Holy fuck, that’s the Chief of MI6. Christopher Gleeson.”

Axelle folded her arms and nodded. “Is it now? I wonder if he knows my father because I get the feeling they are about to become acquainted.”

The guy saluted her with a wry smile of acknowledgement. When he smiled, he actually looked handsome and not at all slimy.

“Now that’s a scary guy,” she said.

“Want me to shoot him for you?” Dempsey wrapped his arm proprietarily around her shoulders.

She laughed. “No, but…” A sudden thought occurred to her and she deflated. “You’re going to get into serious trouble for this, aren’t you?”

He grinned. “For helping contain a suspected Russian spy while rescuing the daughter of the American Ambassador?”

She bobbed her brows. “When you put it like that, you did a damn fine job, Sergeant.”

Baxter came up behind them, followed by Taz. “That he did, lass, that he did.”

EPILOGUE

Two Weeks Later…

Dempsey heard the click on his comms to tell him the op was a go, and moved quickly past the concrete bunkers and chain-link fences, avoiding the rudimentary security. One guard. No cameras. No alarm system. Barely any perimeter to speak of. Taz was running surveillance, Baxter in position if things went south. Cullen was driving the getaway car.

Darkness was tinged green by NVGs, the sound of wild beasts juxtaposed against distant traffic.

“This way.”

A black silhouette moved through the night, knowing exactly where to go because they’d scoped out the place to decide the best mode of entry earlier that day. The one good thing about a burka was it didn’t make his ass look fat.

They moved swiftly through the derelict, often empty enclosures, toward the building where the zoo secretly housed two snow leopard cubs. It was imperative they get the cubs out before their presence was made public. The zoo was struggling to the point of desperation. The administrators were doing their best with limited resources, but the place was a ghost of its former self. They couldn’t police the leopards. They could barely feed them.

“You’re sure the guy was good with this?” he asked.

“He didn’t exactly say ‘Go ahead and steal the cubs.’ But he did say he was worried about their security if they remained here. Relax.”

Relax?

They got to the door and he held the bolt cutters in place, hesitating for one split second. “You’re sure the lions aren’t loose in here, right?”

“I’m sure. Although if I could think of a way to get them out of this hellhole, I would.”

No way was he kidnapping adult lions, but he wasn’t about to argue right now. He cut the chain and Axelle slipped inside, Dempsey on her tail, hand on the butt of his pistol even though he figured Axelle would rather lose a leg than let him shoot anything feline.

Life was not going to get boring, that was for damn sure.

The center of the building was empty. He saw the lions watching them from behind a glass wall and walked swiftly to a door opposite. He quickly unlocked it and Axelle rushed inside, scooped up both cubs, and put them each in a separate sack. She handed him one, took the other. “Let’s go.”

They exfiltrated the same way they’d entered, then headed north to a small wall where they’d agreed on a rendezvous point. He dangled both sacks over the wall and Baxter took them from him. Axelle started climbing and he put both hands on her backside and gave her a boost. A gigantic roar made him pause, the hairs on the back of his neck springing upright in a primitive recognition of danger. The lions.

Sorry, boys
.

He vaulted the wall and ducked into the car, which idled at the curb. He wrenched off the NVGs and threw them in the boot of the hatchback with the rest of their gear as Cullen drove calmly away. They headed to a quiet suburb and switched vehicles. Baxter had one cub in the crook of his arm; it had doubled in size since Dempsey had last seen it and it cried hungrily. Axelle passed Baxter a bottle she’d prepared earlier. Taz fed the other cub, a goofy smile on his face.

Dempsey refrained from rolling his eyes because he figured he was an even bigger sap about the woman at his side. She’d used her diplomatic connections to get help with a little wildlife work. It was unethical as hell but after everything that had happened lately, no one was complaining.

They headed to a small airstrip an hour north of the city, loaded the cubs into a crate and, with a salute to his squad, he and Axelle climbed aboard a small twin-prop plane, which immediately taxied along the runway and took off. The boys were headed for parts unknown, and he’d been given a month’s leave to do some private security consulting with an outside company.

“Your father came through.” He sank into his seat at the back of the aircraft. The pilot turned the lights off as he headed north. No point giving the enemy something to shoot at.

She’d been reinstated by the Trust when the former director had unexpectedly quit.

Axelle smiled and leaned back into his arms. “He did. So did you.”

Dempsey covered them both with a blanket and settled back for a long flight.

She nuzzled at his neck and sighed, looking regretfully at the front seat. “Pity about the pilot, otherwise we could…” She whispered things in his ear that did little to settle his blood.

He tucked her closer to his side. She looked like a ninja but smelled like lavender. “We’ve got four weeks.”

Time for things to calm down regarding the Russian spy scandal, as well as to end speculation as to what had been sunk in the English Channel during an RAF training exercise. He was providing Axelle with some close protection in case anything unexpected popped out of the ether in the meantime. He kissed her hard. “We’ve got plenty of time to continue this later.”

Her lips curved into a beautiful smile. She kissed him back for a moment, then pulled away with a gleam in her eye. “Can you imagine what I could do with a whole squad of SAS soldiers?”

“You’re thinking about other men when I’m kissing you?” He grinned.

“Only in a purely professional capacity.”

“How about you concentrate on what one SAS soldier is going to do to you when we get back to camp.” He slid his hand over her breast beneath the blanket, took the lobe of her ear in his teeth and bit gently. Made her groan and writhe until he almost forgot about the damned pilot. He pulled back as a thought struck him. “Josef isn’t there, right?”

Her eyes glittered in the darkness. “Because of the sheer number of laws we just broke, it’s just you and me while we get the cubs set up with the surrogate. Josef’s teaching my course.” She laughed and tunneled her fingers through his short hair. “It’s a win-win situation. He gets work experience for his résumé. And I get time to try and find a way to raise these cubs in their natural environment.”

A few days ago the other tagged female had tragically lost her cubs. Anji had taken their fur, which they would wrap around these cubs and then present them to the pining mother in the den. It was a long shot, but if the mother accepted them it would solve a lot of problems. If it didn’t work, Dempsey knew Axelle would figure something out.

She yawned and laid her palm against his heart. He listened to the sound of her breathing get slower and more even as she drifted off to sleep. It had been a helluva day. He kissed the top of her head.

Not long ago the thought about what he was going to do after he quit the army had scared the crap out of him. Now he knew he was going to spend the rest of his life with this woman on her relentless crusade to save wildlife. For years he’d been willing to die for his country but he’d never seriously thought about what he wanted to live for. Finally he’d found it. Axelle Dehn.

A woman who knew everything about him and loved him anyway.

He thought of his sister, who’d died too young. And the young boy who’d two days ago received a life-saving operation in Paris. Life wasn’t fair, but Dempsey had done his best to even the score. With Axelle by his side he’d keep trying, keep fighting the bad guys, but also learn to enjoy it. He hugged her closer. Life was too precious to waste.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In 2010, my family and I spent three months living in northwest France. Every day, my husband would take the car and drop the kids at school, leaving me to work in peace and solitude in our tiny rented cottage. I planned to write a category novel, but
this
story just wouldn’t leave me alone. Eventually I finished with my snow leopards, and even though it wasn’t the standard Romantic Suspense, I loved it. So, thanks to my family for traveling with me on these weird and wonderful adventures, and for putting up with me as I insist we watch the
Planet Earth
snow leopard episode “just one more time.”

I grew up on stories from my dad’s days as a soldier in the Parachute Regiment. In many ways my admiration for the Special Air Service
stems back to him. There was never a war film that he didn’t critique or a piece of military history that he didn’t already know about. I just hope I didn’t get any major military details wrong (crossing fingers). If I did—Sorry, Dad!

I want to thank my brother and a childhood friend (KJ) who both work for the Ministry of Defence—not for the information they gave me, but for their tight-lipped refusal to say anything at all. It gives me hope for Britain’s national security.

I want to thank my editor, Deb Nemeth, for doing such a wonderful job, and for knowing my voice well enough not to dilute, but rather to enhance the story.

Thanks for the encouragement and support of my beta readers, Maureen A. Miller, Laurie Wood, Marie Treanor, and Gary Anderson. Also, my long-suffering critique partner, Kathy Altman, who sees more rough drafts than any person should have to suffer. And thanks to Loreth Anne White for being my Skype buddy, and being there as we dip our toes into the self-publishing ocean. Let’s hope we’re not swallowed whole by great whites! Maureen A. Miller showed me some of the indie ropes and I thank her and love her to bits. And thanks to all the other indie authors who have been so supportive of fellow writers’ publishing endeavors, especially Marie Force, Norah Wilson, and Dale Mayer.

Thank you for reading
The Killing Game
! I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please help other readers find this book:

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A former marine biologist who completed her PhD at the Gatty Marine Laboratory in St. Andrews, Scotland, Toni Anderson has traveled the world with her work. She was born and raised in rural Shropshire, England, and, after living in five different countries, she finally settled down in the Canadian prairies with her husband and two children. Combining her love of travel with her love of romantic suspense, Anderson writes stories based in some of the places she has been fortunate to visit. When not writing, she’s busy walking her dog, gardening, and ferrying the kids to school, piano, and soccer games. She is the author of several novels including
Dangerous Waters
,
Storm Warning
, and
Edge of Survival
. Her next release is
Dark Waters
, August 2013.

Find out more on her website:
http://www.toniandersonauthor.com

REVIEWS

DANGEROUS WATERS

(Nationally best-selling book)

“With a haunting setting and a captivating cast of characters, Anderson has crafted a multifaceted mystery rife with secrets. Readers will have to focus, as red herrings abound, but the result is a compulsively engrossing page-turner.” —
Romantic Times
(4 Stars)

“A captivating mix of suspense and romance,
Dangerous Waters
will pull you under.” —Laura Griffin,
New York Times
and
USA Today
best-selling author

“With vibrant writing, a cast of damaged, captivating characters and a plot that's deliciously diabolical,
Dangerous Waters
will have you mesmerized from page one.” —HEA USA Today

“The vivid picture of the scenery adds ghostlike images to the dark and dangerous mystery. Plot twists interlock, never letting up until the last pages.” —Coffee Time Romance (5 Cups)

EDGE OF SURVIVAL

“Anderson writes with a gritty, fast-paced style, and her narrative is tense and evocative.” —HEA USA Today