WAR: Disruption (8 page)

Realizing that he’d been staring at her, he blinked and refocused.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

Not by half. “Yeah,” he said. “I found us a safe house.”

She raised her brows at his surly tone, but thankfully didn’t ask any questions. Still, he felt her curiosity pressing against him as they headed out.

To his surprise, the safe house was in a swank neighborhood that rivaled a Beverly Hills suburb. Huge, multi-storied houses sat behind tall security fences. Emily whistled appreciatively, echoing Max’s thoughts. Damn, WAR must have some high-ranking supporters, because just keeping the well-manicured lawns so green would cost more than most locals made in a year.

Following Kris’s instructions, he turned down a back lane until he reached the rear entrance to the safe house. Max punched in the security code and a moment later, the gates swung open on well-oiled hinges. Sensors turned on the outside lights as he parked in the attached garage to the two-story, hacienda style house.

Max climbed out of the truck. Emily opened her door and started to stand, then sank back onto her seat with a low curse.

“Em? What’s wrong?”

“My feet hurt. Just…give me a second.”

“Do you require assistance, my friend?” a voice called from the back door.

“Rene.” Max whipped his head around in surprise. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Always a pleasure to meet you again,
mon ami
.” Dr. Rene LaSalle’s accent, a mix of Cameroonian and Parisian French, smoothed the bite in his comment as he walked down the stairs from the back door.

“Sorry. That came out wrong. Good to see you, man. I thought you were working in The Democratic Republic of the Ivory Coast.” With his tight, short cornrows and his light brown skin, Rene could have passed for a reggae star. In reality, he was a traveling doctor who moved from conflict to conflict. Sort of like Doctors Without Borders, only Rene worked independently. He’d saved Max’s life a couple of times.

“I was,” Rene said. “However, I just attended a conference here in New Accra that was an excellent opportunity to increase my knowledge of infectious diseases while also gathering information.”

Right. As Max’s foggy brain finally remembered, in addition to offering medical treatment to its operatives, Rene often assisted WAR by providing intelligence.

“So. Kristoff tells me you need a safe place to stay.” Rene moved in to embrace Max in greeting, but Max instinctively stepped back to protect his ribs. His friend gave him a knowing look, then glanced into the truck.

“Who is this?”

“Ah, Emily Iwasaki, meet Dr. Rene La Salle. He’s a friend.”

Rene’s eyes narrowed as he noticed Emily raise her hand to cover her scars, but otherwise he showed no reaction as he took her free hand and placed a kiss on the back, European style. “My pleasure, Mademoiselle.”

“Hello.” Emily grimaced. “I apologize for not standing to greet you, but my feet are a bit…sore.”

“Allow me to assist you, then.” Rene reached inside and slipped his arms underneath Emily. Ignoring her cry of protest, he lifted her out of the truck with ease. “Hush, Mademoiselle. Your friend Max would do this himself, but I fear he is too injured, yes?” He glanced over Emily’s head to meet Max’s eyes. “What is it? Ribs?”

“Goddamn Kris and his big mouth.”

Rene’s answering smile was only slightly mocking. “I am a skilled doctor, my friend. I recognize the signs without any prompting from Kristoff.”

Emily snorted in amusement and Max narrowed his eyes at her.

“This way, please,” Rene said.

Max scowled at Rene’s back as he followed his friend up the stairs. The spurt of anger he’d felt when Rene touched Emily surprised him. He barely knew the woman. Why should he care if Rene was the one to carry her? It wasn’t as if she were in any danger of being dropped. Rene might look like an average businessman in his kente cloth tunic and western trousers, but as a traveling doctor who worked in some of the most remote, most dangerous locations in the region, he often had to carry patients out of threatening situations before treating them. Hell, he’d even carried Max to safety once while dodging trigger-happy rebel patrols.

Rene moved easily through the house until he reached one of the upstairs guest rooms. “Here you go, Mademoiselle.” He set her on top of the covers. “Now, shall we see what is causing you such pain?”

Emily’s eyes widened in panic. “Um…no need. I can… I’ll…”

Max could have told her to hold her breath. Nothing derailed Rene once he set his mind to it. He bent and removed Emily’s sneakers before she could stop him. As he slid off her socks, he hissed in surprise, then said, “Mademoiselle, I think you and Max must have quite a story to tell.”

“What?” Max moved forward. Emily’s feet were covered with blisters, most broken and bloody but a few still pregnant with liquid. “What the hell, Em? Have you been walking with blisters since the beginning?”

She just shrugged.

“Why didn’t you say something?” He ran a hand over his face. “Dammit, how was I supposed to know you were hurting? You didn’t even limp.”

Face red, Emily wiggled her toes. “Take a good look at the state of my feet, Max.”

Rene pointed to a thick callus on her big toe that was partially covered with blood. Emily nodded. “I’m—” The misery that filled her eyes made his chest ache. She quickly glanced away, cleared her throat, then started again. “I was a ballet dancer. Calluses, blisters, and broken toes are par for the course. I didn’t limp or complain because I’m used to pain in my feet.”

“Then why’d you need Rene to carry you inside?”

She gave a rueful smile. “Because I’d been sitting funny in the truck and my feet had fallen asleep.” She shrugged. “You know. Pins and needles.”

Rene’s mouth curled into a smile. “I am relieved that it is not worse. Would you like to bathe? Afterwards, I will bandage your feet.”

Emily nodded so violently, Max snorted. She pushed hesitantly to her feet, but her balance was good. She took one step, then halted. “Do you have a phone that can make international calls? I need to let my family know I’m okay. And—” Her voice caught and she glanced down.

“Don’t worry about it,” Max said. “We’ll make sure word gets to your family and to the families of the women who were killed.”

She nodded without looking up at him. “Thanks. The tour company needs to be notified as well. Also, there were three other women who were part of the tour. They were in the southeast region. Would it be possible for you to check that they’re okay?”

“Of course we’ll check on the women. But it’s safer if the tour company thinks you’re dead.”

Her head snapped up.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make certain your family learns the truth. But until we know if anyone on the tour company’s staff was involved in sending the rebels to the way station, it’s better that they not know you’re a witness.”

“Oh.”

That one word made her sound very young and very scared. She searched his eyes. He had no idea what she saw, but she gave him a tentative nod.

“Mademoiselle, I promise that we will take care of the notifications for you,” Rene said. “For now, if you will please come with me.” He turned and stepped into the hall.

Max kept an eye on Emily as she followed Rene, just in case her feet gave out.

“Mademoiselle, the bathroom is just there.” Rene pointed toward an open door. “You should find all that you need inside.”

“Thank you.” Emily glanced at Max. “Uh… Good night, Max. Thanks for sticking with me.”

He shrugged. “Nite.”

Emily disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

“That is your room.” Rene nodded toward the guest suite across the hall. “Are you able to undress yourself? Because quite frankly, my friend, you stink. You should wash before you call Kristoff.”

Max frowned. “I’m good to go. The ribs are just bruised.”

When Rene raised one brow, Max rolled his eyes. “Okay, Dr. Dad. My ribs hurt like hell, but I’ll manage on my own.” Even if he had to cut his t-shirt off.

“Ah, you Americans. So afraid to ask for help.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t tell Kris I needed medical care.”

“Yet he knows you better than that, does he not?” Rene shook his head and jerked his chin toward the door.

Max threw Rene an irreverent salute, then walked into the suite. Compared to the outside of the house, the bedroom was simple. A gleaming wooden armoire for clothes. A plain wooden headboard for the bed and a matching bedside table.

What really proclaimed the wealth of the owner, aside from the quality of the wood, was the attached bathroom. Max dumped his pack on the bed, removed his spare set of clothes, then headed into the bathroom. Okay, truth? He could have used some help with the shirt if he didn’t want to aggravate his ribs, but goddammit, he was sick of being helpless. He managed to wrestle his shirt off without causing too much pain.

Max groaned as he stood under hot, steady water for the first time since his capture. Most of his cuts and scrapes had started to scab over, but a few had been irritated raw by his backpack. Yet it felt so good to be clean, he barely noticed the small stings. He was free. And alive.

Tremors wracked his body and he steadied himself against the wall. Damn. He’d come too close to dying. He’d been completely helpless against Ziegler. Known that Ziegler was going to kill him. How ironic that Dietrich’s arrival had saved him, because the arms dealer wanted Max dead by his own hand.

Yet if he hadn’t escaped, Emily’s friends would be alive.

The memory of the women’s deaths brought Max’s guilt bubbling up in a scalding froth that threatened to send him to his knees.

It should have been me that died. Not those innocent women.

Max leaned his head on his folded arms and let the wall hold him up. For a long while he stood like that with his eyes closed, letting the water sluice over him and carry his tears away. Letting the heat ease the tension in his muscles as he shoved the guilt back into its cage. He couldn’t go back and save them. All he could do was make certain Emily got safely out of the country, then make damn sure that Ziegler went down with Dietrich.

AN HOUR LATER, Max sat alone at the safe house’s dining room table, staring into space. His hands were clasped around an empty bowl, trying to absorb the lingering warmth from the tomato and onion stew over rice that Rene had prepared for him. Without the mechanical motions of eating to distract him, and with Rene down the hall in the office, Max couldn’t stop his mind from replaying the moment when Ziegler shot that girl.

“Max?” Rene asked from the doorway. “Is everything okay?”

Max startled, then shrugged. “Ah. Yeah. Just thinking.”

“Hmm.” Rene gathered Max’s dishes and carried them over to the sink.

Max pushed to his feet. “Hey, I got that, man.”

Rene waved him down. “No. Sit. It is my pleasure. Once I have tended to your wounds and you have had a decent night’s rest, then I will allow you to help.” He quickly washed the dishes and stacked them on the drying rack. Then he nodded toward the hallway. “Come, let me—”

Max’s satellite phone vibrated, then the networked house phone rang as the incoming call was transferred. Max glared at it before answering. “Yeah.”

“You at the safe house yet?” Kristoff said without preamble.

Max sighed. “Yeah.”

“Good. Is Rene there?”

“Yes.”

“Put me on speaker phone.”

Max hit the button. “All right, Kris, Rene can hear you now. What’s up?”

Rene leaned back against the sink and crossed his arms.

“Rene already knows some of this, but I want him to be aware of the latest developments. Long story short, on the twenty-seventh—that’s nine days from now—Dietrich has an unknown buyer coming in to take possession of a highly lethal, experimental weapon gone missing from a South African military research facility.”

“I knew Dietrich had a deal coming up,” Max acknowledged, “but I haven’t been able to find out where.”

“We don’t know where either, only when it’s taking place. Unfortunately for Dietrich, the plane containing the briefcase with the weapon’s plans and a prototype went down in the north of the country. Our source said that even after the plane disappeared from radar, Dietrich waited until the courier failed to make his scheduled check-in before sending teams into the jungle. As far as we know, he hasn’t found it yet.”

“Good luck with that,” Max said. “With some of that deeply forested terrain, you’d have to be right on top of the plane in order to find it. Didn’t Dietrich have a beacon or other tracking device on the plane?”

“Apparently it malfunctioned. Or it might have been disabled by the pilot. You know how smugglers are. They don’t want anything on board that could be used by the authorities or by their clients to track them.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve managed to sneak access to a satellite image of the area, but there’s no sign of the plane.”

Max got a sinking feeling. “You want me to go after it.”

“Yes.”

“Dammit, Kris. That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“I know. I’m sorry. We tried to contact you as soon as we learned the plane had gone down, but you didn’t answer.”

All too aware that Rene was listening intently, Max said, “That’s because I was captured and spent a few days at the mercy of Ziegler’s temper before I managed to escape.”

“Christ, Max. Rene, is he even up for the challenge?”

Rene gave Max his Serious Doctor look. “I have not yet had time to examine him. At best guess, he has at least one cracked or severely bruised rib. And from what I can see on his face and hands, he has been beaten extensively.”

“Max?” Kris asked. “I know I made this mission a condition of using the safe house, but if you’re seriously injured, I take it back.”

“I’m fine,” Max growled. “I just don’t know what you expect me to do. If Dietrich’s men can’t find it, how do you expect me to? It’s not like I have access to satellite photos and computer analysis software.” Even if he were back in his office at Unit 3 with his full arsenal of analytic tools, finding the plane would be difficult. Jungle vegetation grew fast and would have started to obliterate any obvious signs of the crash within days. “Has there been any intel from the locals?”