WAR: Opposition: (WAR Book 3) (12 page)

“Good.”

Four turns later, they careened onto the main road. Since no one was shooting at them, Kirra sat up.

She glanced behind them and groaned. Two black rebel four-by-fours and a motorcycle were on their tail.

Seth looked over his shoulder. “Shit.”

Barely slowing, he turned onto the grassy divider, cut across the two lanes of oncoming traffic, and blasted down a side road.

“Are you insane?!” Kirra yelled, grinning in delight. Behind them, cars honked and brakes squealed, followed by the crunch of metal. Kirra checked the mirror again. “Seth. The motorcycle is coming up fast.”

“I see it.” He swapped lanes to avoid a bicyclist, then skidded around a corner on two wheels.

Directly into the path of an oncoming tro-tro.

“
Eish
!" Kirra clutched at the door handle.

Seth swerved, missed the tro-tro by inches, then sped down the street. A minute later, he cursed and slammed on the brakes. The street ended at a crowded roundabout surrounding a memorial park. People strolled among decorative fountains or sat on benches, enjoying the afternoon sun. Vehicle traffic was at a crawl. Seth joined the vehicles moving counterclockwise around the park.

Kirra checked their tail.

A motorcycle sped into the roundabout. The driver hit the brakes, spun in a half circle until he sighted the Land Cruiser, then pulled a rifle out of a sling on the side of the bike.

She caught a glimpse of the man’s white-skinned face before Seth’s hand pushed her head between her knees.

A bullet ripped through the seat where Kirra’s head had been a moment ago. The next bullet lodged in the windscreen between Kirra and Seth.

People in the park were screaming. Kirra heard more shots, but nothing else hit their vehicle. She peeked out her window. The driver of the moto-taxi next to them jerked, then fell to the ground. His passenger dove off the back of the motorcycle. He was also shot.

“What the hell is he doing?” Seth snarled. “It’s me he wants.” He put the vehicle in reverse and sped toward the shooter.

The shooter fired at them, but Seth kept driving. The shooter slammed his rifle back into its carrier and the motorcycle spun away.

Not fast enough. The fender of their Land Cruiser clipped the motorcycle’s rear wheel, sending the bike spinning into the path of a bus. The bus tried to avoid the motorcycle, but it was top-heavy with goats and chickens. It toppled sideways onto the motorcycle.

Seth turned down another street. When they reached the main road, he touched the brakes and quickly scanned for threats before merging into traffic.

“I don’t see any rebels,” Kirra said.

“Me either.” He eased into the flow of vehicles, heading back the way they’d come.

Traffic was heavy enough that there was little room to maneuver. Five minutes later, they approached a cluster of rebel vehicles standing sentinel on the median. Kirra kept her head down and Seth averted his face, but the rebels spotted them and muscled their vehicles into traffic a few cars back.

“To hell with this,” Seth snarled. When the brightly colored minivan ahead of them moved forward, he turned right.

Kirra’s heart kicked on another surge of adrenaline. “What are you doing? We’re too wide!” There was only a narrow strip of earth between the crowded road to their left and a deep drainage ditch to their right.

“Have a little faith, sweetheart.” Seth grinned at her.

“Don’t take your eyes from your driving!” Their wheels must be running along the edge of the ditch, because she saw nothing between her side of the vehicle and the steep drop to the water below. It wasn’t a terribly deep ditch, probably no taller than her. Yet one wrong move and the vehicle would slide into the ditch and be stuck.

The steady confidence with which Seth kept them balanced on the edge was incredibly sexy. Kirra couldn’t help but return his grin.

He turned right over a concrete slab barely wide enough for their vehicle, then ordered, “Fold in your side mirror.” He lowered her window.

“What?”

“Mirror. Flat to vehicle. Now.”

Kirra pulled on the mirror to fold it in. Seth drove into a tight space between two buildings and Kirra winced as the back of the mirror scraped against the walls.

She shook her head. The man had nerves of steel and an impressively steady hand. He would have made an excellent thief.

She checked behind them. One rebel four-by-four had halted on the main road. The other had attempted to drive over the concrete slab. Its wheels must have slipped, because the vehicle hung drunkenly off the side. The idiot driver hauled himself out of his window to fire in Seth and Kirra’s direction, which caused his vehicle to slip farther over the edge. The last Kirra saw of him, he was falling backward as the four-by-four fell into the ditch.

Well.

She settled back in her seat. They reached the end of the alley and Seth turned onto a deserted industrial street, while Kirra returned her mirror to the proper position.

“Are you okay?” Seth demanded.

Kirra’s heart still pounded with excitement and fear. Once again, she felt the seductive thrill of having risked her life and come out the victor. All of her senses were acutely alive.

No. That wasn’t who she wanted to be. Shoving those emotions down deep, she checked herself for injury. “I just have a few scratches,” she said. “The long sleeves protected me.”

“Good.”

She turned her head to check him out. Blood seeped from a gash in his shirt over his right biceps. Red filled her vision. Her breathing became too fast. Too shallow. The world swam out of focus. “Seth, you’re hurt,” she choked out. She managed to point to his arm before nausea rolled over her in a hot wave. She bent double and put her head between her knees.

“Huh? Oh, that’s nothing. Just a graze.” Seth’s voice sounded far away. “What’s wrong?”

“Saw your blood,” she gasped.

“Sorry. I forgot.”

Once the dizziness and urge to vomit receded, Kirra dared to sit up. Light-headed and drained, she leaned her head against the back of her seat. “What now?”

“I find a car to steal.”

Kirra winced. After waking up from her coma she’d realized that the damage she’d done hadn’t just been in monetary terms. She’d left her victims with the knowledge that their space had been violated and with the fear that it could happen again at any time. So she’d vowed never to steal again. To make up for what she’d done, part of the proceeds from her albums went toward an organization that supported victims’ rights. She’d also performed some volunteer work with delinquent teenagers.

Seth, of course, noticed her negative reaction to his plan. “Sorry if you disapprove, but we need inconspicuous transport. Neither one of us can walk into a rental agency without word getting back to the rebels.”

His quick, yet false, presumption of her motives raised her hackles. “Do whatever you have to.” She shrugged dismissively and turned her back to him. After brushing away the shards of glass, she slouched against the side window. Her conscience would just have to deal with the fact that in order to keep them both alive, Seth had to steal a stranger’s primary means of transport.

“That’s right,” he snapped. “I
will
do what’s necessary to keep you safe.”

“I don’t know what’s got you so angry,” Kirra muttered. “I said go ahead. Besides, what does it matter what I think? I’m just some stupid hippie chick with no common sense.”

The temperature on Seth’s side of the vehicle turned glacial. “I never implied that you were stupid, Kirra. Idealistic to want to obey the law when our lives are at stake, sure. But not stupid. A woman who managed to evade the rebels on her own for over twenty-four hours is far from stupid and has a hell of a lot more common sense than most people.”

She felt his eyes boring into her back and wished she’d kept her mouth shut. But she was tired and shaky and the words had just popped out.

“So who made you think you were stupid, Kirra?” Seth demanded.

F
rom his position
face down on the asphalt, the assassin shoved a goat off his head. The goat bit his finger before trotting a few feet away where it planted its feet and shot him the evil eye. All around the square, people rushed to the aid of the passengers of the bus and the victims that he’d shot, but the good samaritans gave him a wide berth. Not surprising. They probably feared he’d shoot them, too.

He should be thankful that the bus had missed his legs by inches, but he was too infuriated at his inability to move to feel grateful. He raised his upper body and glanced over his shoulder. His bottom half was pinned by the back wheel of his bike and a crate of goats. He attempted to wiggle free, but the weight was too much for him to lift. Pain radiated out from the hip that had been shattered years ago in a car accident.

It infuriated him to be this helpless. The satisfaction he’d taken in making Jarrod feel like the hunted one, the pleasure in killing the civilians so that Jarrod would feel the guilt of their deaths, had been erased the moment he hit the pavement.

A chicken flew past his face. He muttered a vicious curse and waved feathers away from his mouth. Oh yes, Jarrod would pay for this humiliation, just as he would pay for killing his younger brother in Southeast Asia. His brother had only been doing his duty when he’d hunted Jarrod down. But, like the coward he was, Jarrod had shot his brother in the back, then left him to die in a stream.

A farmer had found his unconscious brother where the stream emptied into the farmer’s rice paddy. The farmer had done his best to help his brother, but the bullet had gone through his spinal column and no one in the little village knew how to treat such an injury. They’d left his brother alone in a hut to die. By the time the assassin reached him, his brother was crazed with pain, weak from lack of food and water, and the hut stank of sickness and waste. He’d died two days later.

The assassin had killed everyone in the village, but that hadn’t eased his rage. No, only watching Jarrod suffer an equal amount would quell this fury.

Sirens sounded in the distance, drawing closer.

He had to leave.

Two men rushed forward and dragged the crate off him, then began fussing over the bleating goats, completely ignoring the assassin.

He grabbed his rifle and aimed it at the closer man. “Lift the bike off of me.”

The man hesitated.

“Do it, or I will shoot you in the stomach. It is a slow, painful way to die.”

The man’s eyes shot daggers at him, but together with his friend, he lifted the wheel of the motorcycle enough that the assassin was able to slide free.

Ignoring the pain in his hip, he took the closest man in a headlock. “Do not try to stop me,” he announced to the crowd. Dragging the man with him, he backed up until he reached the protection of an alley. He shoved the man away from him, then ran.

With each limping step he promised retribution. He was the hunter. The avenger.

Jarrod would pay dearly for this. Before he died, the assassin would make Jarrod watch as he tortured the woman. Then he’d work on Jarrod.

By the time he was finished, Jarrod would be begging for death.

W
hat the hell
was going on?

Wil logged out of the restricted government files and pushed back in his chair. He raised his eyes to the ceiling of his office, but when no answers appeared, he stood up. Grabbing one of his whiteboard markers, he began making lists.

FACT:
A few months ago, one of WAR’s soldiers had photographed the pilot of a plane that had delivered a cargo of explosive MP3 players to Sani Natchaba’s partner.

FACT:
The pilot had been identified as an American named Michael Hughes.

FACT:
Other sources claimed Hughes also flew for Morenga, various rebel leaders, and the few remaining NGOs in the region.

SPECULATION:
Hughes was exactly as he appeared. An independent contractor who took flying jobs wherever he could find them, no matter which side of the law the client operated on.

Nothing at the time had suggested that Hughes represented a clear and present danger. Since Wil’s job was to address immediate threats to U.S. assets, Hughes had been far down on his list of things to worry about.

Then additional information had come in.

FACT:
When the photograph of the pilot had been passed around WAR, their Black Hawk pilot, Marcus Jones, had identified the pilot as Seth Jarrod, a former U.S. special forces helicopter pilot. Once Marcus’s best friend.

FACT:
When Wil’s team had attempted to pull Jarrod’s military records, they’d found nothing. Zilch.

Wil stepped back from the whiteboard. The missing records had raised all kinds of red flags in his mind. However, he trusted Marcus Jones. For whatever reason, Seth Jarrod, aka Michael Hughes, had been erased from the military’s database. One possible explanation was that Jarrod had been shifted into covert ops and that his records had been wiped as a precursor to a sensitive undercover assignment. Marcus favored that possibility. He insisted that Jarrod was an honorable guy who’d never willingly fly for the likes of Natchaba. He’d offered to make contact with Jarrod, since WAR could use another helicopter pilot. But Wil, backed by Kris in his role as the leader of WAR’s military wing, had nixed that idea. If Jarrod was undercover, contact with someone from his past could put his life in jeopardy.

Another possibility was that Jarrod’s records had been erased as part of a cover-up. Marcus had told Wil’s team that the last he’d heard of Jarrod, he’d been posted to Southeast Asia. That had tickled Wil’s memory. Sure enough, when his research guy had investigated, he’d discovered that a major U.S. base in Southeast Asia had been destroyed in an attack by local warlords three years ago. The data on the attack was so scarce, more alarms had sounded in Wil’s head. He’d sent out requests for information about the base attack, but received no reply.

Until today’s fax from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command.

FACT:
According to the fax, the CID wanted Jarrod brought in—alive and unharmed—for questioning.

Curious as to why the U.S. army was suddenly interested in a man who their database claimed didn’t exist, Wil had called the number listed on the fax. He’d ended up talking to Special Agent Michelle Walton. Special Agent Walton had started off by telling Wil that the fax had only been sent out to counterterrorism and intelligence units that she believed could be trusted with the existence of her top-secret investigation. She’d been cagey with her answers, but had admitted that the erasure of Jarrod’s records was one of the items under investigation. Then, further surprising Wil, she’d sent Wil the code for accessing the records, which were currently restricted to those people she approved.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Not one to look a gift clearance in the mouth, Wil had immediately logged in.

He made another notation on the whiteboard.

FACT:
According to his records, Jarrod had been a top-ranked special ops helicopter pilot with a reputation of pushing the envelope both in the air and in his dealings with authority. But he’d never had any serious disciplinary problems.

FACT:
Confirming what Marcus had said, the records showed that Jarrod’s last deployment had been at a base in Southeast Asia at the same time the base had been destroyed.

SPECULATION:
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that someone in CID had decided there was more to the destruction of the base than had been reported. Wil found no mention of other survivors, so the investigative team’s interest in Jarrod made sense.

FACT:
Jarrod was being hunted by an unidentified assassin.

SPECULATION:
Whoever had sent the assassin after Jarrod wanted to silence him before he could tell what he knew about the attack on the base.

FACT:
Wil had been authorized to enlist any aid necessary to bring Jarrod in, so he planned to get WAR involved.

FACT:
As long as the location of the diamonds remained unknown, both Bureh’s men and Rio needed Jarrod alive, in case Dev’s sister had passed the diamonds over to Jarrod.

SPECULATION:
If possible, Rio would protect Jarrod from the assassin until he recovered the diamonds. After that, all bets were off. Rio was too pragmatic to risk his neck for a man who apparently had no qualms flying for the bad guys.

Rio. Wil capped his marker and shook his head. Hell, Rio was another complication he didn’t need. He’d joined the Marines because he’d wanted physical action. He’d never expected to end up running an intelligence asset.

He walked over to his desk and perched on the edge. When Rio’s CIA handler had approached him a couple months ago and asked Wil to take over managing Rio, he’d been reluctant to get involved. Yet the man had been insistent. He’d explained that his network in West Africa was being shut down and he suspected the hand of the man within the military who was believed to have supported first Dietrich and now Morenga. Wil’s attention had been caught, but, wary of a trap, he hadn’t said a word about his own interest in Bogey One.

The handler had explained that Rio, aka Rick Martin, had finally risen high enough in Morenga’s organization to learn about Morenga’s relationship with Bogey One. The handler had been afraid that if he pulled Rio out abruptly, Morenga would become suspicious, and those suspicions might reach Bogey One.

He also didn’t want to abandon Rio without any outside help. For security reasons, Rio’s military records listed him as deceased. Only his handler knew that Rio was alive and working for the CIA. So the man had begged Wil to accept a covert transfer of Rio to Wil’s unit, because Wil was the only person within the U.S. military the handler trusted to keep Rio alive.

Even though Wil hadn’t known spit about running intelligence assets, or had the time to take on more responsibility, he hadn’t been able to pass up the opportunity to gather more information on Bogey One. So he’d agreed to step in. The handler had given him the CliffsNotes version of being an intelligence handler, transferred over all pertinent files, then told Wil he was going dark and disappeared.

It had taken Wil several hours to read through all of the reports on—and by—Rio. When he’d finished, Wil had cursed for several minutes, wondering why this sort of crap always landed on his desk. Because the background report on Rio had revealed a potential land mine.

Hell. Forget potential. At some point Rio was going to cross paths with WAR and there’d be fallout of nuclear quality. It was a bloody miracle that WAR’s researchers hadn’t already identified Rio.

For now, Wil did his best to keep Rio alive and out of WAR’s path.

And his diligence had paid off. Rio had become Wil’s most reliable source of information regarding both Morenga’s movements and Bogey One. It had been Rio who’d first identified Natchaba’s pilot as Michael Hughes and explained that Hughes had also flown for Morenga.

Not only that, but Rio ran a network of spies who were embedded in a number of the rebel factions. The intel he provided was crucial to the success of Wil’s team. And Wil made certain to pass on critical data to WAR.

Yet because the diamonds tied Morenga into the current situation, Wil couldn’t tell Rio the truth about Michael Hughes. Not even Hughes’s real name. Wil doubted Rio would get caught and tortured, but he couldn’t take the risk of Morenga learning that the U.S. military wanted Jarrod.

Morenga would use that information to benefit himself, which would only cause trouble in the region.

So yeah, even though he hated to keep Rio in the dark, it was necessary.

Wil glared at the whiteboard. Once he’d determined that Bogey One likely held a position of power within the U.S. military, Wil had become good at hiding his tracks as he searched for the man’s identity. These days, writing a report required more care in deciding what he left out than deciding what to include. But he still hated holding information back from his allies.

He sighed, then studied his notes.

He didn’t understand the timing. What had triggered an investigation now, nearly three years after the destruction of the base? Who had suddenly decided that Jarrod was important enough to assassinate now, when he’d been working in Africa for two and a half years?

Wil blew out a breath. Those questions would have to wait.

The same way you’ve waited to talk to Kris about how you really feel?

Wil shoved away from his desk. He had nothing to feel guilty about. Kris was the one who insisted on attending the upcoming Conclave—a gathering of the most bloodthirsty, cold-hearted bastards the world had ever spawned—even though he hadn’t worked undercover in nearly two years.

Wil had tried to talk Kris out of it. He’d failed.

Worse, he’d insulted Kris by implying that the other man couldn’t handle himself in that rough crowd. And when Kris had seen through Wil’s anger to the fear underneath, he’d tried to get Wil to admit the truth.

But the truth wasn’t something Wil wanted to admit to himself yet, let alone Kris. So, with all the drama of a seventeen-year-old, Wil had snarled, “If you want to get your fool self killed, go right ahead. Just don’t expect me to come save your sorry ass.” Then he’d stomped out the door.

Yeah, Wil was a decorated, well-respected Marine who ran toward trouble instead of away from it. Unless that trouble had to do with relationships. Then he was a total coward.

Even here, alone in his office, he couldn’t bear to put a name to whatever it was he felt when he was with Kris. And he didn’t have the time to work it through. Just keeping the unit afloat was a full-time job.

But could he man up and tell Kris that he wasn’t ready? Say that he wanted to stay friends and just friends? Hell, no. Because he knew Kris wanted more. Knew that the just friends speech would hurt the other man.