Bodyguard Lockdown (4 page)

“A death sentence,” Quamar muttered, his fist tight. “How did Booker survive?”

“The report says Booker was called away on another assignment right before,” Jarek answered for Cain. “He hadn’t been on the base.”

“The story gets worse,” Cain said, his voice
grim. “Trygg managed to appear concerned enough to visit each of the men while they fought for their life. He caught the effects of the biochemical reaction on a hidden video camera. Along with the doctor’s reports.”

“Documenting the result for his buyers,” Quamar stated, disgusted. “I have known many men like Trygg. Who feed off of human suffering.”

“None of Booker’s men survived?”
Jarek asked.

“None. CIRCADIAN has no known antidote,” Cain answered. “Trygg told Sandra of the deaths while he was being arrested. I know—I was there. She held it together until the guards took him away. Then she collapsed.”

“Booker will not let Trygg remain free. He’ll kill him first,” Jarek acknowledged. He stood, walked over to the window. In an hour or so, the sun would break across
the horizon, a warm gold over the pitch and curves of the centuries-old city roofs.

Through the years, he’d lost family. Quamar’s mother, and his own father and mother had been murdered. The thought of losing his people at the hands of a madman cut just as deep. “Hell, I would do the same.”

“We all would,” Cain added.

They’d all spent years in the field. They’d all been responsible
for men who never returned home, for families and strangers who got killed, simply because they were in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

“After Trygg’s conviction, Booker resigned from the military,” Cain explained. “I recruited him into Labyrinth on President Mercer’s recommendation. A few months later, he volunteered to serve in Taer. Because of his expertise in desert warfare, and his
background in oil drilling, I approved his assignment.”

“Booker’s request was no coincidence, Cain,” Quamar inserted, suddenly putting all of the pieces together. “He wanted to be close to Sandra.”

“You’re right but I didn’t realize it at the time,” Cain agreed. “After the Al Asheera tried to stage that coup on Taer a few years ago, I ordered Booker home to the States and instead, he
resigned.”

“He said he needed a change of pace,” Jarek remembered. “So I kept him on.”

“He must have anticipated Trygg’s escape,” Cain speculated. “Or wanted to keep an eye on Sandra.”

“Or both,” Jarek inserted.

“Trygg planned his freedom for five years,” Quamar reasoned. “To him, freedom without power and respect is a poor existence. For both, he will need to obtain the formula
from Sandra, then eliminate her. Booker understands this.”

“If Booker wants Trygg, he’d make sure Trygg came to him,” Cain added. “That’s what we’d all do.”

“And there is no better way to do that than to stick close to the one thing Trygg wants,” Jarek agreed. “The only thing that would bring him out of hiding.”

“Sandra,” Cain stated. “She’s Booker’s bait.”

Chapter Four

“Was that necessary?” Sandra demanded. “Hijacking the man’s car and leaving him sprawled in the street?”

“You’re right, maybe I should’ve shot him,” Booker quipped, then pushed his foot farther down on the accelerator.

“Very funny.” She shifted, then winced. Bruises tattooed her arms, blackened her wrists. She reached into her bag, pulled out a few aspirin.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll live.” She swallowed the aspirin dry. “Which is more than I could have said six hours ago.”

Run-down and empty streets flew past them. Sandra could see the railroad tracks, the warehouses and the Sahara that lay just beyond.

“You’re driving us into the desert,” she commented, frowning.

“Change of plans,” Booker responded. “We’re not going back to the
palace.”

“Because of Jarek’s dead guard back there?”

“I hired him several months ago. American. Ex-military. Impeccable record and references. Top security clearance. All of them checked out,” Booker admitted, his neck muscles rigid with anger. “If Trygg can get to him, he can get to others.”

“You said you hired Jarek’s man. Are you still working for Jarek, then? As his head of
security?” Sandra asked quietly. She hadn’t seen him in months. Hadn’t talked to him in a year.

“I’m guessing not anymore.” He downshifted, dodged some loose brush and then glanced at the rearview mirror. “I was in a meeting with the Prime Minister of England, Jordan Beck. We were planning his family’s visit to Taer when I got word you were taken.”

“I was flying to Tourlay when Trygg’s
men took me.”

“Tourlay’s a border town filled with lowlifes,” Booker stated. “What the hell were you doing traveling there?”

Sandra sighed. “I have...friends in Tourlay who can help me stop Trygg.”

“Friends?” Booker commented, annoyed that she’d turn to someone else for help.

“Actually, they are ex-rebels.”

“By rebels, you mean Al Asheera rebels?”

She nodded. “For
the past year, I’ve been smuggling medicine and other supplies to their camps,” she explained. “They live in poverty, Booker. The men are afraid to work for fear of arrest. The women and children starve.”

“Is Jarek aware of your charity work?”

“No. And neither are my parents,” she admitted. “They would forbid it simply because I’m putting myself at risk. But it’s my choice. It’s not
Jarek’s—or my father’s decision.”

Booker understood the anger, the bitterness.

Sandra’s father, Doctor Omar Haddad—at one time, a world-renowned genetic research scientist—didn’t approve of the choices she’d made in her life. Her schooling. Her career. Her decision to return to Taer years before.

“Your parents will be sick with worry, Doc.”

Sandra gazed out the window. Streetlamps
cast a jaundiced glow against the shadowy buildings.

“My parents will be safer without me around.”

An engine gunned behind them. Booker swore, his eyes focused on the rearview mirror, his grip locked on the steering wheel. “Hold on!”

A sedan darted around a corner, slammed into their back bumper. Sandra flew forward, hit the dash with her shoulder. She gripped the dashboard, then
swung around, saw the car.

Two Caucasian men. The one in the passenger seat shifted halfway out the window and pointed a machine gun at their car.

“Gun, Booker!”

He slammed on the brake, jerked the steering wheel left and sent the car skidding around the nearest corner.

The sedan whipped around the corner behind them, its tires screeching.

Booker hit the gas, broke free
of the city and headed out to the desert.

He glanced at the dashboard gauges. “Let’s see what this baby can do.”

He swerved off the road onto the sandy plains. Brush banged against the hood, scraped the underbelly and shook the frame until Sandra’s teeth rattled.

“Hold on.” He spotted the ravine between two sand dunes in the distance.

Sandra followed his eyes. “Going fast in
a narrow space might not be the best idea.”

Booker cut the wheel into a tight turn and headed straight into the ravine. “If you have a better one, now would be the time to share it.”

The sedan turned off the road, following them.

“Where’s your gun?” Sandra lowered the passenger window. Wind slapped at her face, kicked grit and dust into the car. “I can stop them with a few well-placed
bullets.”

“There is no way you are going to shoot at them hanging out the damn window!”

“It’s my better idea.” She held out her hand. “Give me your pistol.”

“Killing people goes against the Hippocratic oath.”

“I don’t have to shoot them. I can take out their tires.”

“Not today.” Even if she could, it would only increase the chance she’d get shot or thrown from the vehicle.

Their car hit a rut, slammed them both back in their seats. Booker forced the car onto a flat path, hugged the right side of the ravine.

“Switch with me!” he ordered, then unsnapped his seat belt.

“What?”

“You’re small. Unbuckle, and scoot over.” He pushed the seat back as far as it could go. “Then place your right foot on the accelerator.

“Of all the stupid...” she muttered.
“My shooting them would be easier than this.” Still, she unsnapped her seat belt.

Gritting his teeth, he hooked one arm around her back and lifted her onto his thighs. “Put your foot on the gas, and your hands on the steering wheel.”

“Got it.”

Dodging the steering wheel, she wiggled down between his thighs.

“Okay,” she breathed, her knuckles white, her eyes focused on the landscape.

He slid out from under her, ignoring the jab of the middle console, then maneuvered to the other seat. “Keep clear of the brush and walls. I don’t want to dodge anything but bullets, got me?” he ordered, his harsh voice cutting across the air rushing through the open passenger window.

Gunfire pelted their back window, shattering the glass.

* * *

S
ANDRA
DIDN
’
T
SCREAM
.
Instead
she hit the gas.

“Hold on!” She swerved the car, barely missing twin boulders. Booker grabbed the window frame.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Trying to keep us alive. This ravine is like a minefield.”

“Just keep this damn thing steady and ahead of them. Without pitching me out the window.” He aimed his pistol through the back window and emptied the clip into the other car’s
windshield.

The driver slumped forward. The car skidded, hit the wall, then flipped on its back. Spinning. Once, twice. Its belly burst into flames.

“Hit the accelerator. We just created a bonfire for all their friends to see.” Booker turned back and settled in the passenger seat. “Not bad, Doc. Not bad at all.”

“Thanks.” But a fear was there, one that creased her forehead. “I think.”

“Drive back to the road.” He glanced at the gas gauge. Full. Perfect. “Then head east.”

“East?” Sandra asked, suspicious. “Why?”

“We need a place to lie low for a while,” Booker replied.

“What place?”

“Omasto.” He leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. “Don’t worry, Doc, you’ll fit right in.”

“And why is that?”

“Your friends the Al Asheera
might be there.”

* * *

T
RYGG
SHOVED
HIS
FOOT
against the nearest of the two dead men. Years of self-restraint made him hold back the disgust that threatened to let loose.

These men were lucky McKnight killed them. Trygg would’ve done much worse had they survived without Sandra Haddad in hand.

At his sentencing, the judge told him he wasn’t God. But the judge was wrong. They
were all wrong.

On the battlefield, he was God. And the men who’d serve him would be indestructible.

Archangels.

Colonel Jim Rayo took the nearest man’s chin and tilted it until he could see his features. “Can’t be dead more than a few hours, General.”

Trygg glanced at the second body, badly burned by the car fire. “How about the others from the apartment? Are they also dead?”

“Yes, sir,” Jim replied, frowning. “One man at the apartment was King Jarek’s. If McKnight killed him, he’ll suspect we have others in the palace.” Jim stood and grimly faced the open desert.

“What’s on your mind, Jim?”

“Booker McKnight is a top military man. He just killed nine of our men and took Sandra Haddad.”

“They weren’t our best men. We chose these men specifically.
We wanted her to escape. We need her to retrieve the cylinders.”

“Yes, sir,” Jim responded slowly, knowing he was walking a minefield. “But we still may have underestimated Booker McKnight.”

“You might be right,” Trygg said after a moment. “I want you to inform our Al Asheera allies that there is a bounty of one million dollars on Sandra Haddad. Alive. Another million on McKnight. Dead.”
Trygg walked beside him and slapped his shoulder. “Let’s keep the pressure on.”

But the uneasiness didn’t shake itself from between Jim’s shoulders. He understood Booker’s grief, his drive to find the men responsible. Glancing back, he found the general studying him.

“Everything okay, Colonel?”

“Yes, sir,” Jim answered in a short, clipped tone. His jaw tight, his features carefully
blank.

The general’s strategies had never failed them.

Yet,
came the whispered thought.

“Let me know if anything changes, Colonel.”

Understanding Booker’s grief didn’t change twenty years of loyalty to Trygg.

“I will, sir.”

* * *

A
LMOST
IMMEDIATELY
S
ANDRA
’
S
adrenaline wore off. Her eyes blinked with fatigue while Booker drove through the night in relative silence.
Sandra eventually pushed her seat back and slept.

Dawn broke over the horizon a few hours later. The heat of the morning sun drove up the temperature.

Booker clicked on the air conditioner, felt immediate relief.

They were at less then a quarter of a tank, but only twenty miles from the settlement of Omasto.

Most desert towns were little more than encampments of canvas tents
and stick. Some, the more permanent residents, made their homes of stone and animal skins.

Many only stopped to rest, drink water, buy food or fuel. Most used the settlement for trade. Cloth, spices and cookware crowded makeshift tables, spilled over onto blankets covering the sand.

But there were a few, the more corrupt, who bartered in the shadows. Their wares of weapons turned a larger
profit out of the hot sun. Away from the inquisitive, the talkative.

Booker needed the latter if he were to keep Sandra safe.

And he knew the man who’d deal with him. The same man who’d tipped him off about her kidnapping. Aaron Sabra. Ex-con. Black-market dealer.

Sandra shifted; her breath deepened.

He’d watched her sleep a hundred times, tangled in the comforter and sheets.
Most times, he kissed her awake until the comforter slipped to the floor and tangled limbs took its place.

Now a silk curtain of hair covered part of her face. The dark strands were stark against her pale skin, deepening the shadows beneath her eyes.

Sleep softened the stubborn chin, the feminine pride. Left the vulnerability bare in the soft, delicate lines of her face.

For a moment
he ignored the sand, the danger.

The responsibility to his deceased wife and his men.

And he remembered the last time he’d seen Sandra exhausted.

Trygg’s trial.

Weeks of waiting. Days of testimony. Her humiliation over her gullibility. Her guilt over the deaths.

Still, Sandra sat in the courtroom, chin out, back rigid, her brown eyes wide but leveled. She bared her soul
to condemn Trygg’s.

When Cain MacAlister insisted she enter witness protection, she refused. But Booker wasn’t surprised. Being a doctor meant everything to her. She wouldn’t walk away from it or her family for any reason.

“How far are we out?” Her eyes slowly opened, heavy with sleep.

“Less than twenty miles.”

She scooted upright and stretched her shoulders. Her hair tumbled
in soft waves around her shoulders. With a careless hand, she pushed it back.

“And then?”

“I take you back to the palace,” Booker stated. “Jarek has guards that have been loyal to him through the years. I’ll make sure he assigns several to you.”

“And my family?”

“If we need to.”

“Trygg wants my formula, Booker,” Sandra said almost sadly. “He wants CIRCADIAN. And he won’t
let anyone stop him from getting it.”

“I thought the government destroyed everything related to project CIRCADIAN. Including the formula and research notes.”

“I took four cylinders of the serum before I turned in Trygg.” Sandra sighed. She rubbed the knot of tension from the back of her neck, felt a spot of dried blood at the hairline. From her skirmish at the airport, she was sure.
“I hid them in the mountain near Tourlay for safekeeping.”

For a moment Booker said nothing, but the muscle on his jaw worked overtime. “This is the real reason you left me, isn’t it? To protect your serum.”

Sandra stiffened against the sting of his words. “That’s not true.”

“Think about it,” Booker replied. “I’ve always said I trusted you. But you decided that once your secret
was out, I really wouldn’t trust you. And I’d be the one to walk away. So you walked first.”

Something in his words hit a chord deep within her. Was he right? Was it her defense mechanism against Booker?

She shook her head, pushing the thought away. “I was protecting my research.”

“You were protecting a biochemical weapon.”

“It isn’t a weapon,” she argued. “I took the serum
because my research wasn’t completed. I hadn’t found the solution to advance a subject’s healing.”

“You can’t bring my men back, Doc.”

“But I might have been able to save others, if I’d been able to complete my research,” she stated. “I couldn’t tell you any of this, Booker, not without involving you further.”