“We’ll be sittin’ ducks!” she screamed, the tiny cracks in her composure splitting into wide, steaming fissures. It was her job to look after O’Leary, to take care of his every need. But she couldn’t help the man when he was refusing to use his brain and save himself.
Lock themselves inside their offices? The Taliban had managed to overrun the Marines and blow up the front door to the embassy! Did he really think something as simple as a deadbolt would keep them out? Talk about being one or two sandwiches short of a picnic. I mean, come on!
The sound of heavy footsteps pounding up the marble staircase was joined by a bevy of raised voices speaking Pashto. She held out a hand to the ambassador, begging him with her eyes and her words. “Please, sir! Come with me. The panic room is our only hope.”
He shook his head again, stepping back into the office. Then, to her slack-jawed surprise, he slammed the door in her face. And even despite the pandemonium of sounds echoing from below, she could make out the ominous click as the lock slid into place.
She had a brief moment to blink owlishly and think oh, no he di-int before prudence, and straight-up heart-pounding, soul-sucking fear, dictated she make a run for the back stairs. In less than two ticks of the clock, she was across the landing and throwing open the door that concealed a narrow, winding metal staircase—she’d been told it was a servants’ passage back when the building was the mammoth residence of some hoity-toity sultan. Quietly closing herself inside the airless stairwell, she was instantly embraced by the warm, suffocating arms of darkness. She blew out a wheezing breath and took her first step down just as a barrage of pounding fists and shouting voices told her the Taliban fighters had made it to the third-floor landing and were demanding the ambassador open the door to the offices.
You should’ve come with me, sir. Although woulda, coulda, shoulda…there was nothing she could do for the ambassador now. But maybe, hopefully, there was still something she could do for herself.
Descending as quietly and quickly as she could, she thumbed on her iPhone and brought up her recent call history.
There was his name glowing brightly on the screen. Twenty times in the past two weeks. Once for every time she had put him off with a Busy now. Let’s talk later text, or a quick Hello, are ya safe? Okay, good. Let’s chat when ya get back, response, or—and, yup, she wasn’t too proud of herself for these—those times when, like a lily-livered ninny, she’d flat-out avoided him altogether.
Well, by God, you can bet your sweet bippy she wasn’t avoiding him now. Because while she may not trust him with her heart, she more than trusted him with her life. And since it was her life on the line, it was a good thing—as those twenty calls would suggest—that Michael “Mad Dog” Wainwright had absolutely no quit in him…
? ? ?
Minhas Pakistani Air Force Base
Fifty miles outside Islamabad
“Yo! Brad Pittstains! You wanna put away your phone and move your ass?”
Michael stared down at his iPhone’s irritatingly blank screen, trying—and failing—for about the millionth time to figure that damned woman out. If she’d been any other dame, he would’ve chalked up the night of the embassy party to a simple wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. No harm. No foul. Just one hell of a rocking good time.
But this was Harper Searcy…
The funny-Internet-dog-photo-sharing Harper Searcy. The joke-texting Harper Searcy. The ol’ fashioned, Southern born-and-bred, good girl Harper Searcy. The phrase one-night stand probably wasn’t even in her vocabulary. But that’s sure as shit what he was beginning to suspect had happened. Then again, the way she’d snuggled up to him, so close and tight, kissing him directly over his heart? Well…that certainly hadn’t felt like see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya. So what the hell was she—
“I said, Yo, Brad Pitts—”
“I heard you the first time, asshole,” Michael grumbled, sliding his gaze over to his friend and teammate, Bran Pallidino. “And first off, I happen to know you stole that insult from an episode of Modern Family. Secondly, I think you may have mistaken me for yourself. For the love of Christ, man, we’re barely wheels-down and you already look like a drowned Atlantic City sewer rat, which, in case you were wondering, are uglier than sewer rats any place else. Drowned or not.”