Second Nature (When Seconds Count) (18 page)

“Both of you shut the hell up and listen to me.”
His nostrils flared, each labored breath working against his rising heart rate to calm his temper. He wasn’t accustomed to losing it, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to now. Instead, he carefully focused his rage on those who deserved it and turned his attention to the only two people who could help him get Thalia the hell out of there. It was time they were educated on exactly who they were dealing with and what needed to be done.

Dusk fell like a blanket across the quiet marina, the humid air making the newspaper in Grant’s hands curl and sag against its weight. He sat on a sailboat docked across from the graveyard where Thalia’s uncle was buried. His legs were stretched out, his back propped against the tall mast as he pretended to read. Judging by the amount of shale build-up on the hull, the boat’s owner hadn’t been around in while. That played perfectly into his plans as he sat comfortably and watched the comings and goings of a three block radius from his inconspicuous, uninhabited perch.

He
casually turned the page, peering over the top of the paper as a woman and small child walked along the broken sidewalk, turning left into the spacious graveyard. The bill on his ball cap shielded his watchful eyes as the woman released the child’s hand and rolled open a paper bag, carefully laying three dried rice balls on a modest looking headstone before wiping away a tear and turning to leave. A relatively outdated custom he couldn’t have cared less about, but he did find it a little odd that she hadn’t lingered. The suspicious thought strayed as he pictured Thalia kneeling there, the sobs he’d witnessed hours earlier wracking her normally strong frame as she mourned her uncle.

He had never spoken the words
I love you
to another human being. He had never wanted to speak them more than he did to her as she cried herself to sleep in his arms. It wasn’t fair to add that emotion to an already overwhelming tide of confusion, pain, and grief. They had time. As soon as he took care of Jauhar, Don Lalia, and Hamisi she would be safe and he would go to her. Tell her that he wanted forever with her. He needed forever with her.

He had been looking for something when he marooned himself on that island. He didn’t know it then, but
there had always been an emptiness inside him he longed to understand. In the past he filled that void with the rush of his job, always moving from one target to the next, never looking back to see what he might have missed along the way. He’d been good at simply existing, thriving on solitude, but he had missed something. Something he never knew he wanted. He’d been looking for her. He wasn’t sure if she would have him. He sure as hell didn’t deserve her, but living without her was no longer an option.

After explaining what she was up against to Daniel and that rabid
redheaded bulldog he’d brought with him, he was confident everyone was finally on the same page. The only important thing was getting Thalia out of Jauhar’s reach. He’d secure the thumb drive, and by the time he got back to the room they would have everything arranged. One flight to Montana. One to Mumbai. Once Thalia was safely hidden away he would make his play on Jauhar, take out the threat on her life, and then make his way home to her.

Afte
r two hours of surveillance, he saw no suspicious movement in or out of the surrounding buildings or boats. Positive the gravesite wasn’t being watched, he folded the newspaper, letting it drop over the side of the boat as he hopped to his feet. With a casual stretch of his arms, he scooped up his backpack, hoisted it over his shoulder and stepped off the boat. His free hand rested nimbly on the gun tucked neatly in his waistband beneath his dark-blue windbreaker as he wandered at a leisurely pace down the dock and up the steps leading to the street. A few moments later he was strolling through the middle of the graveyard, counting the rows of headstones to mark his target before he approached.

Snagging a single rose from an
unknown tomb, he stepped up to the grave marker Thalia had described. Taking one last unnoticeable glance to check his six, he bent to change out the flowers, palming the plastic bag containing the thumb drive as he placed the stolen rose into the vase. It was there, just like she’d said it would be.

He stood and stared at the
unimportant name on the headstone, his fingers playing along the contours of the thumb drive now stashed securely in his pocket. Just like the woman and child, a quick departure could raise suspicion. After a few solemn moments, his well-honed senses felt no prying eyes upon him. He allowed himself to entertain the curiosity burning in his gut. He simply couldn’t ignore it. His calculating eyes roamed the rows of headstones, counting the appropriate number until they rested on the object of that curiosity. He was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

Issa’s memorial stone stood a head taller than the
other stones in that section of the buried dead. Unable to harness his need to know, his feet moved swiftly over the grass toward the domineering monument that marked the grave of the man who held Thalia’s undeserved affection. His pace slowed as he approached, the chiseled letters of the tribute coming into focus along with a framed photo embedded into the top of the intricately carved marble.

His heart
leapt in his chest when Thalia’s silver, sparkling eyes stared back at him from the picture, full of life and fire, almost daring him to love her. She looked different now, hardened and more aware of the evil in the world. Her powerful yet innocent smile beamed back a happiness he’d never seen her express in the short time he’d known her. He knew it would be difficult, but standing there alone in the middle of so much death he made a silent promise to bring that happiness back to her.

His eyes flickered to
the image of the older looking man in her arms, the man she’d vowed to avenge. The hair on the back of his neck suddenly prickled to life with disbelief. There, staring back at him, were eyes of a man that reflected too much knowledge of his own wickedness. A man he was far too familiar with to believe for one moment he’d had nothing to do with Thalia’s abduction. A man he had studied and watched. He knew every nuance, every habit, and every movement this bastard made in the last few days of his despicable life. Staring back at him with a mocking smile was a man who knew he had just extracted his own twisted, fated revenge. In the grave beneath his feet rested the body of the last man Grant had killed in service to his country.

His blood turned to ice as he read the n
ame on the headstone again before looking back at the man in the picture.
Issa was Imad Shavish
. The man who had been at the top of the food chain for dealing arms to the Al Qaeda terror organization; the only person in the world Thalia had ever loved, and he’d killed him with a single bullet.
Fucking son of a bitch.

Sweat laced his palms. A chill flushed beneath his ski
n as fiery bile burned its way to the back of his throat. The crash of his heartbeat drumming in his ears drowned out any sounds of the violent retching that instantly wracked his entire body. Forearms braced against a nearby tree, he doubled over in fierce, involuntary spasms. His soul was ripped away as wave after wave of sickening images of blood and death he’d never before allowed to haunt him, now plowed over and destroyed any happiness he’d allowed himself to believe in. He knew. He’d known all along he was never meant to know the kind of life he dared allow himself to imagine with Thalia. He would never be anything more than a mindless killer.

Christ.
I fucking killed Issa.
A twisted laugh mingled with his hoarse cries of self-loathing and gut-wrenching loss as another wave of bile spewed from his mouth. It was ironic really, how fate would bring her to him and then snatch her away just as he understood that losing her would all but destroy him. He deserved it.

Begging
for forgiveness was pointless. She would never understand. She would never see Issa as the man he knew. A man who never thought twice about the multitude of deaths he facilitated in a quest for money and greatness. The man was a plague to the human race. There would be no forgiveness for something he couldn’t bring himself to regret. It was a righteous kill. But that would make him a monster in her eyes. He could imagine her beautiful face; see it twist in vile disgust as the soulless creature inside him was revealed to her. He would never be anything more than a murderer to her.

He didn’t think he could stomach the cold hatred he knew would fill her dam
ning eyes when she discovered the truth. He was the authentic target of the revenge she sought for Issa’s murder. He could feel his rage at the injustice of it all bubbling to the surface as he labored for each calming breath. Jauhar may be innocent of the crime she sought to kill him for, but he would still die a merciless death at his hands, if only to secure her future safety. It would be, no doubt now, a future without him.

Swiping the back of his hand across his num
b lips, he straightened and embraced the increasing weight of the returning emptiness that had once been his closest companion. He was a killer. Nothing would ever change that. Not now. Not ever. In his pocket he held the key to reaching his next target. Once more he would stalk his prey. Once more he would feel the soul drain from another worthless life as he condemned it to the pits of hell where it belonged.

Another wave of bone chilling awareness splintered like shards of ice beneath his skin as his trembling fingers wrapped around the thumb drive tuc
ked deep inside his pocket. No one knew what was on it. It was obviously damning enough to have both Jauhar and Don Lalia foaming at the mouth and willing to kill for it. If Imad Shavish’s empire was somehow linked to Jauhar’s, and Jauhar was now in business with Don Lalia…the NSA, shit, an entire alphabet soup of agencies would ass-fuck each other on a national stage to get their hands on it.

H
is years of self-discipline kicked in to overtake his grief as he processed each outcome with lightning speed. The minute those political leeches got their hands on the thumb drive Jauhar would be off limits. He would be untouchable, protected as an asset until the powers that be had crawled up his ass and combed through every possible source they could squeeze out of him. Only then, once he was of no further use, would someone like him be called in to eliminate the waste left behind after their plundering. That could take years. Countless other lives could be destroyed under the false flag of national security as different international agencies sat passively by and watched in hopes of gaining a fresher source to do their bidding.

No.
His head shook as he rapidly denied that outcome. He wouldn’t let that happen. He understood the game. He’d played his part flawlessly in the past, but this was personal. He couldn’t play by their rules on this one. He owed Thalia her freedom. She deserved a life free of the monsters that had ruled over her for so long. Free of the monster inside him. There was only one way to guarantee Thalia’s life would be her own once again: Jauhar had to die.

Hi
s stomach void of anything but the acidic pain of regret for what he was about to do, he shouldered his backpack and made his way out of the now darkened graveyard. He told himself it was what was best for Thalia, but in truth he was a selfish coward. He couldn’t face her. He wanted her memory to remain unspoiled for the many lonely years he would face without her.

Following the twisting alleyways,
he came to an abandoned rail station on the far side of the small tourist village. A lone phone booth stood adjacent to the closed ticket office. Grant marched purposefully across the platform and picked up the receiver, dialing the operator for a connection to the hotel suite. He would be long gone before anyone came looking for him. When they did come for him, as he knew they would, his trail would end here. No satellite traces, no signal triangulation. He would be completely off the grid for the next seventy two hours. Maybe forever.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A small whimper echoed in the darkness as the coarse concrete bit into the bare skin of her knees. She tried to breath past the pain, but kept gagging on the dirty cotton rag they had stuffed to the back of her throat. Her matted hair stuck to the spit and sweat that coated her face. Lose strands had tangled in the piece of cloth they’d used to gag her and tickled her nose as she fought to dislodge the material. Her wrists burned from the rough fibers of the rope binding them behind her back so tight that her shoulders screamed in agony each time she moved even a fraction.

She could hear others crying, some openly sobbing in the darkness around her.
Her own pain and shame faded just a little as she wondered if they too were naked. If they had been stripped of their clothes in broad daylight and tossed from man to man, their hands roaming and inspecting places on their bodies no other had touched before. She didn’t wish it upon them, but believing she wasn’t alone helped calm the panic inside. She believed she would wake up, that it was all just a nightmare, but as the hours turned into days of nothing but darkness and pain she knew, deep inside, she was going to die here.

The room she was in had been sectioned off into make-shift stalls with
sheets hung from wires strung from the weathered, pot-marked ceiling. It reminded her of an emergency room, but with no sterile equipment or busy nurses running from patient to patient. The floors were bare concrete, the walls painted a putrid green and peeling from years of neglect. Her stall had a stained and smelly mattress for her to lie on and nothing else. She was kept naked and bound in total darkness. Except when, every few hours, a man they called Stu would open the door to their room. Blinding light from the rows of overhead florescent bulbs would flood her senses, making her head throb and her eyes sting. She could not see anything beyond the tattered sheets surrounding her stall, but she could hear the screams of each girl as they were taken from the room, one by one. Darkness would once again cocoon them as the door was slammed closed, the click of the lock sealing her fate until it was her time to go.