WAR: Disruption (24 page)

Max lowered himself into his seat. “Go!” he ordered as he shut his door and slid his window down. He leaned out and fired back toward the men to make sure they didn’t pick up their weapons and return fire.

The Jeep leapt down the road.

When the men had faded from sight, Max drew his head back into the Jeep and raised his window.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. But her voice was subdued and she had a white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. “You killed Ebo.”

“He hurt you.” She had blood trickling from a cut on her lip and the shadow of a bruise on her cheek. The men were lucky he hadn’t killed them all in reparation.

“I know.” Her mouth turned down in an unhappy line, but at least this time she didn’t yell at him for doing what he’d needed to do. “I can’t believe he was willing to turn me over to the rebels. I mean…”

“He wasn’t going to hand you over. He was going to kill you. He’d raised his rifle toward your head. That’s why I shot to kill.”

“B-but… He said he’d get money for me from the rebels.”

“Of course. The rebels pay a higher bounty for dead foreigners than those turned in alive.”

She paled. “That’s… That’s…”

He shrugged. “Reality. You can’t trust anyone in this area that you haven’t known for years. The villagers could probably live for weeks on the bounty they would have received for you.” Max refrained from saying “I told you so.” It wouldn’t help.

Emily lapsed into an uneasy silence.

When Max judged they’d driven far enough away from the hostile villagers, he said, “Pull over and shut the lights off.”

This time she obeyed without question and let him take the wheel.

“I’m sorry, Max,” she said after she’d settled into the passenger seat and handed him the night vision goggles. “That was my fault. I should have been paying attention to my surroundings when I got out of the Jeep. I’ve had enough self-defense training that I shouldn’t have frozen when Ebo grabbed me. But I guess I’m really not equipped to handle any of this.”

Max sighed. “You’re tired. Stressed. Afraid. It’s difficult to make the right decisions under those conditions unless you’ve had extensive real life experience. That’s why you need to listen to me when I tell you not to do something.”

“Yes, okay, I screwed up. Can we please drop it?”

“All right.” The angry, regretful silence that filled the Jeep nearly suffocated him. He maneuvered the Jeep into the jungle, heading roughly north. “Why don’t you grab us some of the precious food from your homestay mother? Although for all we know, it’s poisoned.”

“Now you’re being paranoid.” She retrieved the bag from behind his seat. “I refuse to believe that Prudence had anything to do with those men accosting us.”

“Don’t be naïve.”

“Stop being so damn suspicious. Prudence could have sounded the alarm when I knocked on her door. She didn’t. But if you’re too afraid to eat the food…”

Max shook his head and stared at the artificial green landscape created by the night vision goggles. How had he ended up on the wrong end of this argument?
She’d
made the mistake in judgment.
She’d
put her life at risk. Yet
she
was mad at
him
?

Emily pulled something out of the bag and bit into it. “There. The bread is safe. Okay? Now eat this.”

She handed him a piece of soft, white, Western style bread smeared with groundnut paste.

He chewed cautiously at first, then with more enthusiasm as hunger hit him.

“So where are we going?” she asked once she’d fed him another three pieces.

“Far enough away that the villagers won’t come after us.” He glanced over at her. “Tell me more about the people you met during your homestay. Did you sense any hostility while you were there? See anything to indicate that they sympathized with the rebels? There’s an underground smuggling network in this area. Based on how those villagers were armed, they’re likely part of that.”

“What? Smuggling?” She shook her head. “I didn’t see any signs of that. They’re a poor village, with no electricity. They don’t even have a vehicle of their own, but share one with the villages down the road. I felt welcome. Sure, I was a bit of a novelty, but they seemed to accept me.” She shrugged. “I really don’t know what else to say. I spent most of my time with the women and children. I thought that was because the men weren’t interested in the dance, but maybe it was also a political statement.”

“Or they didn’t want you learning about their smuggling activities.”

“Maybe.” She sighed. “You know, I wasn’t even supposed to be housed there.”

“Really? What happened?”

“The scheduled village pulled out. I don’t know why. Our tour guide, Kofi, just handed me a revised itinerary and assured me that this village would be safe and welcoming for a foreigner. That he had friends here who would look after me.”

“The other village might have decided that the rebels would eventually move into this area and they’d be at increased risk of harassment if everyone knew they’d offered shelter to a white lady.”

“It sounds so mercenary stated like that.”

“Emily—”

She sighed. “I know. I’m too trusting. But all this danger and intrigue is so far removed from the world I live in that it’s really hard to get my mind to accept the situation.”

“That’s why—” He hit the brakes as he heard the sound of a helicopter. “Shit.”

“Oh, the helicopter,” Emily said. “Don’t worry, it should pass by in ten, fifteen minutes.”

“You say that as if it’s happened before.”

“It has. Assuming it’s the same one, it’s been flying overhead on and off for the past couple days. Never this late at night, though.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this before? Christ, Em, they could be hunting us.” As far as Max knew, and his information was good as of a couple of weeks ago, Dietrich didn’t own any aircraft with infrared technology, but he might have a crew out doing a visual search. “Did you notice any identifying marks? Did they hover over the Jeep?”

“No. I don’t know who it belongs to,” Emily said. “The first time I heard it I parked the Jeep and climbed a tree to use the binoculars. It was painted army green. So maybe it belonged to the government?”

That made sense. The rebels didn’t have any air capacity and the government would want to know what the rebels had done to the roads. It would be safer for him and Emily if the helicopter belonged to the government, but he wasn’t going to risk their lives on a guess.

“The helicopter spent a lot of time back by the explosion site, so I don’t think it was looking for us,” Emily said. “Still, I stopped each time I heard it, trying to stay unnoticed by not moving.” She shrugged.

Max removed the night vision goggles and glanced over at Emily. She really had dealt with a hell of a lot since he’d passed out. Now that he had a moment to pay attention, he saw that her pant cuffs and sneakers were caked with mud. Lines of strain bracketed her mouth. Dark circles gave her eyes a sunken, haunted look and a bruise darkened her cheek where the villager had hit her.

Fierce protectiveness filled him, momentarily stealing his breath. “I’m sorry.”

Her brows scrunched together. “Why?”

“For not protecting you. For being a burden instead of a help.”
For being a failure.

She shrugged. “It’s not your fault you got hurt and ended up with a fever.”

But if he’d been awake, he would have stopped her from going anywhere near her homestay village and she wouldn’t have been hurt.

Her hand landed lightly on his forearm. He stared into her eyes and saw her lingering fear. His anger died and he sighed. She wasn’t trained for these types of situations. He had to stop expecting her to anticipate or follow orders like one of his teammates.

He reached out and cupped her jaw, careful not to touch her bruise. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Em, but you scared me. You’ve got to promise you’ll be more careful. Listen to me when I say there’s danger.”

She pulled away and crossed her arms over her chest. “Max, I understand the danger. I’m not stupid. I made the best decision I could in order to keep us both alive.”

Crap. He knew better than to push her on this when she was so emotional. But the thought of anything happening to her filled him with cold terror. “You won’t need to make such decisions. I’m awake now. I’ve got this.”

The increased volume of the helicopter’s noise prevented her from answering beyond narrowing her eyes at him.

Max lowered the window to listen, hoping he’d be able to tell if the bird belonged to the government or Dietrich. Unfortunately, it sounded like a Russian build. Which meant it could belong to either group. God, he couldn’t believe he was going to ask this. “Em, I need you to take the night vision goggles, climb that tree,” he pointed out the windshield at a tree with a medium sized trunk and plenty of low hanging branches, “and see if there are any identifying marks on the helicopter.”

She shot him a look. “Are you kidding me? You just reamed me out for making bad decisions and putting my life at risk. Now you want me to leave your all-mighty protection and go climb a tree in the dark?”

He ground his teeth. “Yes. Please. I can’t plan our next step if I don’t know who’s paying so much attention to this area.”

“Wow. Bet that hurt to say, Mr. Professional.” She snatched up the night vision goggles and the binoculars and opened her door.

“Yeah, you have no idea,” he muttered as he watched her disappear into the night.

Twenty minutes later, with the helicopter no longer audible, Emily slid back into her seat. “I can’t really tell the color because there’s not enough moonlight, but it appeared to be solid black. I didn’t see any markings on it.”

Yeah, figured. Max started the Jeep. “What shape was it?”

“Um… Well, it wasn’t the little bug-like ones that they use for the news. Its nose stuck out just a little bit—more pug than schnauzer. The length of the body looked to be the same length as the tail, which had one smaller set of rotors. Oh, and it had three wheels. One in front and two in back.”

“Not bad. You’ve got pretty good recall.”

She just shrugged. “I’m used to watching a choreographer demonstrate a series of moves only once before I have to replicate the moves. Dancers develop really good memories or else they don’t advance very far.”

“Nice.” He slowed and turned back toward the road because the trees here grew too close together to let him drive between them. He figured they were far enough away from any village at this point to risk driving on the road, particularly since they weren’t using headlights.

“So, did that help?” Emily asked.

“Yes, and no. Since you didn’t see any insignia, it probably belongs to Dietrich. The government would have their national roundel—a circle with their flag’s colors—visible. Any legit aircraft would have some identifying mark. Which way did it go?”

“It flew left, toward the main road.”

“Did it aim straight for the road or did it move back and forth in a search pattern?”

“It kept going.”

“Okay. That’s good. It means we’re not being hunted yet and that they’re not searching for the plane on this side of the main road.” Even if Dietrich knew they were in the area, he and Emily had an excellent chance of staying hidden as long as they kept to the cover of the jungle.

“What now?” Emily asked.

He wanted to keep driving, to get as close to the border as possible, but the adrenaline was wearing off and the wound in his thigh had started to throb again. “You should climb into the back and sleep. As soon as I find a safe place to pull over, I’ll stop for the night.”

“What? Is your reserve of superhuman strength finally giving out?”

“Em,” he growled.

She exhaled heavily. “Sorry. Forget it.” She leaned her head back against the seat. “Just…do whatever you have to do.”

Dammit, he was getting really tired of feeling like the unreasonable one here. But he bit his tongue and focused on his driving so he wouldn’t say something to make it worse.

Day Nine

THE NEXT MORNING, Max had just climbed out of the cargo compartment to take care of personal needs when Emily called out, “Max, the phone has a failed incoming call notification.”

He gave her a wave and limped back to the Jeep. Swallowing his pride, because his leg hurt like a mother this morning, he hauled himself into the passenger seat. “Can you find us a place with a clear line of sight to the sky?”

She nodded, took a swig from her water bottle, then settled behind the wheel. “How are you feeling?”

He managed a crooked smile. “Better than yesterday. Not as good as I’ll feel tomorrow.”

She frowned, as if she didn’t believe him. Great. Last night had destroyed her trust in him.

He cleared his throat. “So, where are we?”

She held out her wrist and he saw that she was wearing his watch. Dammit, it was already several hours past sunrise. They should have been on the move by now. Yet one look at Emily’s pale, drawn face and he knew he couldn’t yell at her. She’d needed sleep as much as he had.

Tamping down his frustration at their lack of progress, he unbuckled his watch from Emily’s wrist and activated the GPS feature. Then he pulled out the map. Hopefully they weren’t too far off course and would be able to make it to the border by the end of the day. It would be cutting it close, but if Kris still didn’t have a team available to replace him, he should have time to come back and find the weapon before Dietrich’s deal.

Emily braked in the middle of a small clearing. “How’s this?”

He stuck his head out the window and looked up. “Should work.” Afraid that his leg wouldn’t hold up if he stood for long, he smacked the antenna onto the roof of the Jeep, then checked his phone. No surprise, he had a missed call from Kris.

“Where the hell have you been?” Kris demanded when the call went through.

Max gave a brief summary of the sinkhole and his injuries, relayed their current coordinates, and explained his timing regarding the embassy.

“Scratch that. Remember that wanted poster you conveniently forgot to tell me about?”