“I’m pretty sure that’s taken already. Some moving company or insurance company or something,” said Duff.
“Damn, should’ve trademarked that shit when we had the chance,” Jangles said. He shut the laptop. “Video’s scrubbed,” he said, letting them all know he’d erased any airport security video of what had just gone down.
Heath could see the wheels turning in Eleanor’s head. She was smart, she would put it all together quickly, he was sure.
“You went into the Army,” she said, “but you guys have to be special forces. Rangers? Green Berets?” She tilted her head, studying him and he could guess she was taking in the way his hair wasn’t really military short on top and the scruff on his chin. Someone in her position would know special forces were allowed a lot more leeway in their appearance than your average soldier. “Delta?”
He shook his head. “Can’t discuss that.”
She rolled her eyes and he knew she was thinking of her security clearance. As Delta forces, they had top secret clearance, but so did she. In fact, she probably had a few ticks higher than that, but they still didn’t need to discuss who and what his team was. It just wasn’t something they did unless they had to.
Eleanor seemed to move on then, accepting his response. “He said my assistant had already landed, but she hadn’t.” She tensed beside him, sitting up straighter. “My team is on their way here. Will these people go after them? Are they safe?”
He reassured her. “There’s another team grabbing them. They’ll take them to Kazarus using a different route and we’ll meet up with them just ahead of the summit with Demir.”
“I’m supposed to go to the US Air Force base here in Adana.” Eleanor shifted around to look around them at the roads outside the car. “I have to get to the meet with Demir. It’s too important not to.”
“We’ll get you there,” Heath said quietly.
“Just going to have a change of plans, mix things up a little,” said Merlin from the front seat. “Someone fed them your itinerary. We need to change things up to keep you safe. From now on, no one outside this car is going to know our plans or your itinerary.”
Eleanor gave another of those too-jerky nods and he saw her press her hands to her thighs to control the shaking that had started moments before. “Why did they want me? Where was he planning to take me?”
There was a stillness in the car at her question and she looked to Heath, searching his expression. He stayed carefully neutral.
“We don’t know for sure but there’s been some chatter someone wants to make sure you don’t make it to this meeting. Could be the Kazarus government. Could be members of the terrorist groups in this region that have an interest in keeping that regime in place. Could be any number of organizations, but we know one thing: he wasn’t planning to take you home for tea and cookies.”
He didn’t mention the possibilities. It was possible they would have held her for a time and then let her go, but the more likely scenario was that they would have taken her someplace off the grid and killed her outright. If the US couldn’t get a negotiator to Demir alive, they might just have to give up on the idea of forming an alliance with him.
Eleanor looked down at her hands and he could see her working to absorb the shock. She might be high up in the foreign service, but anyone who wasn’t used to dealing with the scum of the earth like this on a daily basis would be hit hard when it came so close to home.
Heath vowed to himself he’d put a stop to whatever assholes were trying to hurt her. He’d failed her before, but he’d be damned if he’d ever let that happen again. She would be safe with him and his team.
She had to be.
Chapter 4
“We’ll get some sleep here while the guys grab provisions and make arrangements for the next leg of our trip,” Heath said, putting Eleanor’s bag on the small bed in the equally small apartment.
Eleanor had watched as he and the others checked the room before the other men on the team filed out without a word. It seemed like they all had some strange ability to communicate with each other without words. Or maybe this was standard operating procedure or whatever and they didn’t need to talk through a plan before acting. It probably wasn’t unusual for them to be protecting someone who’d just had an attempt made on her life so they had to go through the motions.
She was beginning to realize that’s what had happened back there at the airport. The man might have been trying to kidnap her, but more than likely given what Heath had said, the end goal was to kill her and dump her body somewhere she’d never be found.
A chill ran through her for what seemed like the hundredth time that day and she rubbed her arms to try to chase away the sensation.
And then Heath was there in front of her pulling her into his arms and rubbing her back with those large warm hands and it felt so damned right. So safe.
This was Heath. Her Heath, the boy she’d dated in her last year of high school. From another lifetime, it seemed.
The boy she’d hurt in more ways than she could count.
She forced back the memories, trying to focus on the here and now. She wasn’t that girl anymore. She wasn’t weak and insecure and afraid the way she had been so often then.
And truth be told, she could see he was different than he was in high school. He’d been smiling and happy all the time then, but it was an act. He’d used jokes to deflect what he was feeling. Now, he might joke with his team, but he was changed on a basic level. He was hardened with an edge to him that said he’d seen and done things no ordinary person would want to know about.
There was genuine confidence about him now, too. Not the bravado of a kid jock who put on a show for everyone around him. This was the kind of certainty that said he knew who he was and what he had to contribute to the world. That said he wasn’t worried about what people thought of him.
Not to mention, he was very different physically. The boy had filled out. He was taller. Maybe 6-foot-2 and all muscle. His light brown hair was now short on the sides and unruly on the top and framed a tanned, chiseled jaw with the lightest of scruff that made her want to run her hands over it. He had a small scar at his temple and another cutting across the left side of his lip. The green eyes she’d always loved looked at her softly now as he continued to tell her to breathe.
Lust slammed into her just as it always had where he was concerned. Talk about wrong place and wrong time. And definitely wrong person.
She gave herself a minute to sink into the heat of his embrace, to melt and let the fear and tension of all that had happened melt away. But then she reminded herself she had no right to take any comfort from this man. Not to mention, they were in the middle of trying to get her to a very important negotiation. One she couldn’t mess up or muddle with distractions.
She stepped back and broke the embrace. She should have her mind on her work. She had known coming into these talks that this was going to be messy. The United States had always had a strict policy of not negotiating for hostages. And while that was still the case, they now made the distinction between negotiation for hostages and communicating with them.
So she was being sent in to talk to Onur Demir about other things, but discussing the health and well-being of those hostages wasn’t out of the question. And stressing to him that her government would be more likely to broker a deal with him for support of his cause if those hostages were released wouldn’t violate protocol.