Secure Target (Elite Operators) (21 page)

“Oh my God, look at the sand—it’s white! And the palm trees!” She bounded down the grassy slope to the beach, and he had no choice but to follow her. Wind whipped off the ocean and the sun was hovering just at the edge of the horizon, throwing a long, glittering line of light across the waves.

Lacey dangled her flip-flops from her fingers and tapped her bare foot on the toe of his suede desert boot. “Mr. Mason, you have not chosen appropriate footwear for this excursion.”

She took both of his hands and stood on tiptoe, tilting her face for a kiss. Bronnik complied, but while the sweet brush of their lips led her to beam up at him, his own reaction was an urge to throw her over his shoulder and carry her somewhere safe and secure, where he could be sure nothing and no one could touch her.

The problem was that he had no idea where that might be.

Lacey led him down the beach in an unhurried stroll, swinging his hand. The farther they walked, the emptier the sands became, and the distant sounds of music from the bars became increasingly obscured by the crash of the waves. Although he knew it was counterintuitive, Bronnik was unnerved by their increasing isolation. He scanned the area continually, scrutinizing the faces of the few individuals who passed by to assure himself there was no threat.

She halted beside him. The wind toyed with the hem of her dress as she stared out at the sea. By now the sun was halfway below the horizon.

She squeezed his hand, and when he glanced down she was looking up at him with an expression of such open, trusting self-disclosure, he felt like her entire life was written in her eyes.

“I’ve never seen the ocean before,” she said quietly, almost shyly, like it was a treasured secret she knew she could trust him to keep.

At that moment he knew he would do anything, kill anyone, to keep her safe.

“Lacey—” His voice faltered.
I love you
.
I’m so in love with you I can’t think straight
. But his jaw tightened and the words resisted and lingered on the tip of his tongue before dissolving back into his heart. He pulled her against the front of him, his arms encircling her from behind. As she leaned back against him he brushed her hair over her shoulder and lowered his head to her nape, breathing in the scent of her soft skin.

She felt so small and fragile in his embrace. Yet she’d been so strong, never flinching in the face of incredible danger, drawing on some inner steel to fire a potentially fatal shot and happily launching herself thousands of miles across the globe despite having barely traveled out of her home state. As much as he thought of himself as a hardened operator, he reckoned her bravery could put some of his Task Force colleagues to shame.

Hardy had made a mistake when he chose this one. She was nothing like his other victims.

As the last rays of the sun dropped away, a montage of the dead women’s faces flickered through his mind, their eyes dim and unseeing, their tongues lolling from between bluish, parted lips. Tension flooded through his body, and the usually soothing ocean waves suddenly seemed menacing and aggressive. The nauseating knot of dread was back in his stomach, bigger and tighter than before.

He had a sudden urge to get back to the house. Immediately.

“Let’s get out of here,” he told Lacey, not bothering to conceal the urgency in his voice. Her expression was questioning, but wisely she said nothing as he pulled her into his side and began hiking back up toward the road.

Everything seemed sinister as they made their way through the gathering dark. The wind-bent palms were arching their backs in agony, the music drifting from the bars was a discordant, jarring cacophony, and the taxi drivers leaning against their vehicles waiting for customers all seemed to watch him with violence in their eyes as he hustled Lacey along the sidewalk.

He practically dragged her up the hill where he’d parked, gave the Congolese car guard a few coins from his pocket and soon the Land Rover’s engine was roaring to life. As Bronnik drove back over the mountain toward Tamboerskloof, she turned to him, her winter-pale face luminous in the fading light.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice impressively calm and steady.

He shook his head. “I can’t explain it. I just have a feeling Hardy is going to make his move any time now—if he hasn’t already.”

She nodded, and seemed to brace herself. “Then we’ll have to take tonight as it comes.”

The smile she gave him was positive and assured, and he took his hand off the gear stick for a moment to reach over and squeeze her thigh just above the knee, her runner’s muscles taut beneath the thin cotton of her dress. Then he focused on the road, on his tactical training and on the night ahead.

He kept his foot light on the gas as they turned into his quiet street, creeping slowly past the rows of silent, dark houses.

“Bronnik,” Lacey said hollowly as they pulled up in front of his driveway. “The door.”

He followed the direction of her gaze and sure enough, the metal gate over the front door was unlatched and ajar. All of his nerves seemed to stand on end in that moment, and he felt for the handheld police radio stored between the two front seats.

He reached the Special Task Force dispatcher and relayed his address. “Alert Thando Zarda and Dassie Jones, and scramble the officers on duty,” he instructed. “Possibility of an operator down, high risk of a hostage situation. Suspect armed and extremely dangerous.”

“Roger that, Sergeant,” the dispatcher replied, and in another second he heard her on the open frequency, sounding the alarm in concise, efficient language.

Bronnik considered his next move. If he was smart, he would stay put and wait for backup—they’d be here in five minutes or less.

On the other hand, if Warren was bleeding out in the house, five minutes could be the difference between life and death. Added to which, the very thought of Hardy gaining entry to his home pumped him full of hot, irrational rage.

If Hardy was in there, he decided, he’d shoot him on sight. Moral high ground be damned—it was time to get his life back and put an end to this absurd, unending game of cat and mouse.

The Land Rover’s engine was still running. He turned to Lacey. “Can you drive a manual transmission?”

At her nod he continued, “You’re going to take my seat, and if you hear or see anything—a light coming on in the house, anyone moving on the street, hell, if you see my neighbor’s cat—I want you to drive out of here as fast as you can, and don’t stop until Thando or I come on this radio and tell you to. Just drive in circles around the beach, or back in the city—this part of Cape Town is perfectly safe, so you shouldn’t have any bother. Is that clear?”

Her eyes were wide, but when she responded her voice was firm. “Clear.”

He put his palm against her cheek, and promised himself it wouldn’t be the last time he touched her. He felt there was something else he should say, something significant, some kind of confession or profound reassurance.

Instead he drew the Beretta and started toward the front door, second-guessing himself the whole way but refusing to look back.

He climbed the stairs, trying to peer into the big windows on the front of the house, but the blinds were down. He approached the open gate quietly, his weapon held at the ready. He pulled the gate open the rest of the way, only barely making out the squeak of the hinges above the blood pounding in his ears.

The wooden front door was shut fully. He drew a breath and held it, then leaned into the doorknob and pushed it open in one swift, decisive motion.

The door swung halfway open before it lodged and stuck on something inside, something soft and heavy. He was just able to wedge himself sideways through the gap, and the first thing he saw in the dark room was the gleam of Warren’s polished boots.

“Dammit,” he whispered hotly, and shoved the rest of the way inside. Warren was slumped on his side, the Glock dangling loosely from his hand.

Bronnik dropped to his knees beside his friend, the Beretta still held aloft as he remained on alert for the slightest sound in the rest of the house. A quick check found Warren’s faint pulse, and he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. There was no blood, no sign of struggle or any visible wounds, and he filed this unexpected information in his mind for later examination. He pulled Warren into the recovery position and sprang back to his feet, surveying the room and what he could see of the corridor into the kitchen.

There was a bullet wedged in the wall beside the lintel of the front door. It looked about the right caliber for the Glock. Warren must have fired before whatever it was that knocked him out had a chance to work. That was the only sign of confrontation; even the welcome mat was still neatly aligned with the wall.

He crept through the kitchen and swept first the guest bedroom, then the bathroom. There was no one there, and no sign that anyone had been. He had just put his foot on the first step up to the bedroom when he heard tires squealing on the road outside.

Bronnik bolted out of the house and hit the steps just in time to see the taillights of a blue hatchback careening down the street. Adrenaline flooded his veins as he sprinted to the Land Rover. The driver’s side door hung open, the police radio was blaring.

And it was empty.

He vaulted into the driver’s seat roaring a string of curses in Afrikaans. The engine was off but the key was inside. He turned it, and nothing happened. Turned it again, and realized the wires connecting the ignition barrel had been pulled out from behind the steering wheel.

Bronnik punched the dashboard so hard it sent pain radiating up his arm, and then he was on his feet, tearing down the road in the direction he’d seen the car drive away. His heart thudded in his chest as he ran like he’d never run in his life, his crepe-soled boots slipping on the asphalt, the impact of his powerful stride against the unyielding surface of the road juddering up through his muscles, the raw scar across his ribs throbbing in complaint.

As he sprang around the turn onto Kloof Nek Road he spotted the car heading down toward the City Bowl. He paused and raised his gun. A jumble of thoughts lurched through his mind, and he felt like time had come to a complete halt.

He couldn’t shoot the driver—the car would lose control. He could shoot the tires. The car might flip—but it might not. Could he even hit it from here? What if he was wrong?
What if he was wrong?

Numbly, as though he were merely a spectator in someone else’s body, he aimed his service weapon and pulled the trigger.

The shot hit the bumper. The car swerved slightly, then accelerated, disappearing down the hill and into the urban crush beyond.

Bronnik’s legs trembled and buckled beneath him, and he found himself on his knees on the sidewalk, not quite sure how he’d gotten there. He felt furious and nauseous and bewildered all at once. He’d made the wrong decision; maybe he’d been making wrong decisions all along. It didn’t matter now—he’d failed. She was gone.

He sat back on his heels and stared down at the gun in his hands as if he’d never seen it before. Distantly he heard the sound of sirens, the rumble of the Task Force’s four-by-fours, shouts for his attention in Afrikaans and English hollered from the open windows of passing vehicles. He didn’t move—he couldn’t move.

Then Thando’s hand was on his shoulder, and his partner was squatting beside him.

Bronnik stared at Thando’s silent, sympathetic expression as he crashed back to the present, and despair washed over him like a heavy, black wave, threatening to drown him.

“He took her,” he managed hoarsely, before the meaning behind the words registered fully in his brain and choked off his ability to speak. He crumpled forward on to the ground, pressing his forehead into the rough pavement.

He breathed slowly, concentrating on air in and air out. He gave himself over to this mix of emotions, the sweeping rush of sorrow and futility. He allowed himself these few pathetic, wallowing moments before forcing himself to push back up to his knees.

The moon was high now, bright and full. He inhaled the fresh summer air.

And then he got angry.

Chapter Fourteen

Lacey came to consciousness slowly and with great difficulty. It felt like she had a tremendous hangover—her head pounded, her throat was dry and sore, and her stomach churned. Her eyes felt gritty when she opened them.

The room came into focus. It was some kind of office reception area, with two big windows at the front, both of which had the shades pulled down to the floor. She blinked, utterly disoriented—what was going on?

There was a faint noise to her left. She twisted her neck, and suddenly a rush of memories zoomed back into her head.

Bronnik disappearing inside the house, and the scary isolation of being alone in the car on an empty street. The movement in the shadows, and her fumbling, chaotic, panicked attempts to engage the clutch. The rush of warm air as the door was opened from the outside, the hand on her ankle as she tried to scramble across the seats, the sharp sting in her thigh, and then the slow dissolve to blackness.

Now Lloyd Hardy was seated in one of the leather-upholstered waiting-room chairs, humming tunelessly and flipping through a magazine. The pace of Lacey’s heartbeat tripled, and as she realized she was in an office chair with her wrists and ankles bound with plastic cord she gulped hard, momentarily quelling the shrieking hysteria that bubbled up in her throat.