Once in Paris (13 page)

“Roger, wilco,” she said with an extended thumb.

He showed another flash of perfect teeth before he turned back, automatic weapon in hand, to advance down the wide corridor.

A soft birdcall came around the corner and Tate stopped, listening. He made a similar call back. He started walking again.

Just as they rounded the corner, three men came running at them, men in camouflage dress with weapons firing.

Brianne's breath stopped in her throat. She'd never expected this sort of danger, but apparently the man in front of her had. He fired two short bursts from the weapon in his hand.

“Don't look at them,” he said in a soft, deep voice as he herded her beside him down the hall.

She tried not to look at the bodies on the floor, but she couldn't help it. One glimpse was enough to make her stomach heave. She swallowed, and swallowed again, giving way to silent tears. Those men hadn't been Arabs. They were fair. Some of Sabon's invaders, no doubt, and bloodthirsty enough to kill anything that moved. Her opinion of her host changed at once. Men like that weren't going to fake any invasion; they were going to do it for real, casualties and innocent victims and all.

Tate felt her arm tense in his grasp, but he couldn't stop to reassure her. He kept walking, his eyes everywhere. It had been crazy to do this with only two men. Even so, they stood a better chance than a large armed force did of breaching the security here. He hoped they could grab Pierce and get out without any more gunplay. It attracted unwanted attention.

“I wish I could tell you where they've taken Pierce. I don't know,” she said, shaken but moving right along beside him.

“My men have found him,” he assured her.
“The door is giving some trouble. The lock's rusted.”

“Can't they just shoot it open?”

He glanced at her with another flash of white teeth. “A steel door? West German manufacture, just like old Saddam's bomb shelters. Choice engineering, except for the iron lock's rust.”

“Oh, dear.”

“One of my men once served time for bank robbery,” he murmured. “There isn't a lock made, rusty or otherwise, that he can't crack, given time.” He looked around them with keen scrutiny. “We're lucky those gunshots didn't bring company. They're too busy on the mainland to bother with us right now, but that won't last long. Sabon will be on his way back any minute, once he's assured himself that things are going according to plan.”

“He said he only wanted to protect his country's oil fields from a poor neighbor, that his people are starving and he wants to make life better for them.”

“And you believed him.” He sighed. “What a utopia we'd have if everyone told the truth.” He rounded another corner, tensed, and then re
laxed. Two men were hurrying toward him with Pierce right alongside.

Brianne started to go toward him, but her rescuer held her back.

“Hurry!” he called to the others. “We've got about two minutes to clear the building before the communications center goes up!”

“What?” Brianne gasped.

“I mined the communications equipment.” He drew her along.

“We've got to get back to the States, pronto,” Pierce called, falling into a dead run beside them. “Brauer's already there.”

“Yes, he is,” Brianne panted as she ran, “and this attack is being made by Kurt's hired mercenaries, not the neighboring country! They're going to blame it on the neighbor to give Kurt an excuse to draw American troops in here.”

“Good God!” Pierce exploded.

“Well, maybe we have time to stop Kurt from getting to his senator friend,” Brianne added breathlessly. “There'll have to be committee meetings and congressional hearings and public hearings before they even think of sending troops….”

“What planet did you say she came from?” Tate asked Pierce.

“What in the world do you mean?” she exclaimed as she gasped for breath at the pace they were going toward the front entrance.

“You do know that covert operations in several secret government departments act immediately in case of aggression that affects American interests?” he persisted. “In other words, ground troops can be here and in the thick of battle by morning, without congressional knowledge or approval.”

Her heart jumped, and not due to the speed of her legs. “You're kidding!”

“I'm not.” He went out the door just behind her. A huge helicopter was waiting for them, military-looking and armed to the teeth. It looked as if a dozen people could sit in it without crowding one another.

“Inside!” Tate yelled.

Pierce caught Brianne's arms to lift her in beside him. The other men followed suit. Tate tapped the pilot on the helmet, and they took off. Seconds later, they were being subjected to a veritable hail of bullets.

“I believe Sabon's people have just discov
ered that you're missing.” Tate looked at his watch. “Six, five, four…”

“Why is he counting?” Brianne asked Pierce.

The answer came in an explosion of impressive proportions.

“He won't be calling for reinforcements right away,” Tate murmured with a grin.

“Where did you leave the plane?” Pierce asked.

“Not at the airport—” came the dry reply. “I knew it would be a primary target. I left it—” He broke off, and his good mood vanished as he looked over the pilot's shoulder and listened to a sudden burst of Arabic that even Pierce couldn't grasp.

The pilot murmured something grimly.

“We have to put down at the next port and hope for a miracle, I'm afraid,” Tate told them somberly. “Sabon's hired guerrillas blew up the airport and didn't stop there. They found the strip where I left the plane and blew it up, too.”

“Smart boys,” Pierce murmured.

“They should be, I helped train at least two of them,” Tate said grimly. “We all started out in government service together.” He looked down at the land below. “Sometimes I'm sorry
I left it. Like right now.” He rapped on the pilot's helmet and gave him a sharp command in Arabic before he turned back to his companions. “We've got to get out of this chopper before we cost Hamid his life. He can fly it over the border and he'll be safe, since he's a citizen. We won't be,” he added with a rueful grin. “They don't like foreigners.”

Brianne couldn't blame them now. She'd learned a lot about this part of the world in a very short time.

“How do we get home?” Pierce asked easily.

“We hop on a freighter,” Tate replied. “Most of them will take passengers if the price is right.”

“I hid my wallet in the jet coming over here, so they wouldn't find out who I was right away. It will turn up one day, but not in time to help us,” Pierce said.

“No problem,” Tate said. “I brought plenty of cash.” He leaned across the seat and stuffed a wad of bills into the man's flight suit. He did the same with the two uniformed men beside him. None of the three had taken off their masks.

“Since they're masked and they haven't spo
ken, you won't know them again,” Tate said, explaining the masks.

“Would we know them if they weren't masked?” Brianne had to ask.

“That depends on how much attention you pay to the pictures on the walls in the post office,” Tate returned dryly.

Brianne looked at the men with new interest, wide-eyed. “Really?” she asked.

“Now, don't do that,” Pierce murmured disgustedly. “You're supposed to look scared.”

“I am?” She sat back in her seat and contorted her features. “Is that better?” she asked politely.

They both started laughing.

“You are the damnedest woman,” Pierce said with pure disgust.

“Amen to that,” Tate agreed. He checked his gun and pulled an automatic pistol from his jacket. He checked to make sure the safety was on and there wasn't a round chambered before he extended it, butt first, to Pierce. “Remember how to use that?”

Pierce nodded. He checked the safety himself and stuck the gun in his own pocket.

Brianne was getting uneasier by the minute. She remembered the two men her companion
had shot and the way they'd looked there on the tiled floor, so vulnerable and helpless and pitiful. Her eyes went slowly around the interior of the helicopter and she saw what she'd missed at first. These were killers. They knew how to use those guns and they wouldn't hesitate if threatened. Pierce had a knowledge of firearms that had surely come of using one himself, perhaps in some conflict or during some time of danger in his past.

She felt young and gauche. She wrapped her arms around herself for comfort and averted her eyes to the pilot. He was starting to bring the chopper down near what looked like a seaport, but he wasn't landing anywhere near it. There was a lot of sand and a lot of people down there, all of whom looked, as they neared the ground, very Arabic. They wouldn't blend in, she and Pierce and whoever their rescuer was.

When the chopper landed, their rescuer pulled a big duffel bag from under one of the seats and jumped down beside Pierce and Brianne and the others. The two men who'd accompanied him were wished well and released. The pilot took off with a cursory wave.

“What do we do now?” Brianne asked worriedly.

“We blend in,” said their rescuer, and he pulled off the mask that concealed his entire head.

Brianne saw at once that he could have blended in, better than she and Pierce. The man was darker than either of them and he had rough features rather than handsome ones. He had deep-set black eyes with a faint almond shape to them, heavy brows, a broad, straight nose and a wide, chiseled mouth. His cheekbones were high, and his chin square. His thick black hair was in a straight braid behind him that reached below his shoulder blades. It didn't take much imagination to divine his identity.

“Mr. Winthrop, I presume,” Brianne murmured with a dry smile.

The tall man lifted an eyebrow. “My reputation precedes me, I gather?”

“He only said that you ate scorpions,” she pointed toward Pierce.

“Rattlesnakes, too, but only when they try to bite him,” Pierce said with a grin. He extended a hand. “Thanks for coming after us. I don't think Sabon intended to let us go for quite a while.”

Tate returned the firm handshake. “This is what you pay me for,” he reminded the other
man. “Hell of a shame to waste money by letting me sit on my thumbs all the time.”

“How did you find us?”

Tate grinned at him. “I could tell you…”

“But you'd have to shoot him,” Brianne said for him.

“I really would have to shoot him,” Tate assured her. “I took an oath.”

“He took several,” Pierce murmured, “but he only uses them when it suits him.” He sobered. “If Brauer gets to the right people in Washington before we do, it's going to mean an explosion of epic proportions in this part of the world. The whole Arab contingent will go to war.”

“I brought a phone.” Tate opened the duffel bag and produced the instrument. But when he tried to use it, nothing happened.

He turned it over and exposed the battery. There was no battery. He said something in an unfamiliar-sounding language.

“We can find a phone….” Pierce began.

“Not here. There's not a telephone. Only the wireless on the freighters, and I don't have my codes with me. I need a land line.” Tate let out an angry breath.

“What happened to the battery?” Pierce asked.

“Our pilot has a small black-market operation on the side,” he said irritably. “I never thought he'd stoop low enough to rob me. I should have carried a spare. I usually do. But not this time.” He shook his head and glanced at Pierce. “You should fire me.”

Pierce chuckled. “Get us home first, then I'll think about it.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I.” Pierce clamped a huge hand on the other man's broad shoulder. “Anybody can get caught up in circumstances. You had a battery pack stolen. I got kidnapped.” He shrugged. “We're even.”

“Okay.” Tate dug deeper in the duffel bag and tossed two roomy black garments at Pierce and Brianne. “I didn't have time to worry much about sizes, but they're voluminous. They should work all right. And wind these around your heads—especially yours,” he told Brianne, glaring at her wealth of pale hair that reminded him so much of Cecily's. “You stick out like a sore thumb here.”

She shrugged into the large garment. “That's no way to talk about ‘white gold.'”

Tate frowned. “What?”

“White gold,” she repeated. She looked at Pierce, who was faintly amused. “That's what Mr. Sabon thinks of me. He said I'd have brought quite a price in earlier times in the slave trade.”

“Did he really?” Pierce asked with eyes that grew colder by the minute. “I gather that you found him less repulsive than before?”