WAR: Disruption (12 page)

Wil shook his head. “I’m too wound up to sleep.”

Something else Kris could lay at Max’s door. “What time are you heading out in the morning?” Wil had to be careful not to be followed when he came and went from WAR’s headquarters. Kwame Azumah, the former Côte d'Ivoire prime minister before the country split into the Ivory Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Ivory Coast, had founded WAR to be an underground movement to counteract the growing rebel presence across West Africa. Part of WAR’s strength depended on it being shrouded in secrecy. The citizens of West Africa might whisper of mysterious troops that helped fight back the rebels, or unidentified saviors who broke people out of jail and delivered crucial payments that kept hospitals and charities alive, but no one knew the name of the organization except for a few key allies.

Most of the foreign military and diplomatic missions were also not privy to the secret. Only a few select individuals who’d proven they could be trusted.

Wil glanced at his watch. “I leave at oh-four-hundred.”

Kris winced. “There’s not much more we can do tonight. If you really don’t think you can sleep, how about a game of poker?”

Wil raised his eyebrows. “Trying to earn back the money you lost last time?”

“That was a total fluke and you know it.”

Wil snorted. “In your dreams. But if you want to delude yourself that you’re a better player than me, then you’re on.”

The Republic of the Volta

West Africa

MAX SPED UP.

Emily picked up on his tension and glanced over. “Max?”

“I think we’re being followed.” It could just be a local leaving for an early morning job or heading home after a late night. But his gut didn’t like having an unknown entity trailing behind them. “Can you tell how far it is to the intersection?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe the same distance as from the bridge back to the safe house.”

“Okay.” This Jeep, despite having a beat-up exterior, had a smooth, powerful engine, so they should be able to give the rebels a run for their money. If that was who pursued them.

Keeping watch via the rearview mirror, he inched the speed up until he felt balanced on the edge of control. But the other vehicle—he thought it was another Jeep—kept advancing.

Shit.

Max took the next turn too fast and almost overbalanced. Emily yelped and braced herself against her door.

“Hold on,” he said as he straightened out the wheels. A few minutes later he jerked the Jeep around another turn and finally spotted the illumination from the streetlights on the north-south feeder road. Max glanced behind him. That last turn had blocked them from view of whoever followed them. Taking advantage of the moment of anonymity, Max raced toward the intersection. Traffic wasn’t quite as dense here as on the other road and was moving faster. He merged aggressively into the stream of traffic, barely reducing speed. Ignoring the angry honks of the drivers around him, he steered sideways until the Jeep was on the far side of the road. Only then did he slow to match the pace of the other vehicles.

The sun cleared the horizon and the streetlights went out.

Seconds later, an open-topped Jeep screeched to a halt at the place where the side road emptied into this one. A rebel stood on the passenger’s seat. He scanned the passing traffic, then scowled down at someone behind him that Max couldn’t see. Shaking his head, the rebel soldier fired his AK-47 into the crowd of vehicles.

Emily jumped in her seat. “Not again!” He heard the anger and fear in her voice and wished he could soothe her. But this was how it went with the rebels. With luck, you got away from them. Without it, you ended up shot for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He glanced in the rearview mirror in time to see a rickety bus ram the rebels’ Jeep.

Both vehicles tipped over. Other vehicles tried to swerve out of the way, but many of them crashed into the overturned vehicles. Then the AK fired. People screamed.

Max lost sight of the crash as he drove away. “Can’t we—?” Emily cut herself off with a choked sob and a shake of her head. “I know we can’t go back and help, that we’re targets because of the color of our skin, but I hate this. It’s not fair. These people are just trying to get to safety. They’re fleeing their homes. Yet that rebel shot at them like they were wild animals.”

Turning in her seat, Emily stared out the back window for a long while before facing front again. “I never had much time to watch TV,” she said quietly. “For years, my days were pretty much ballet from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. But every once in a while I’d catch a glimpse of the TV news.” She waved toward the other vehicles. “We see images like this, of people fleeing their homes, and while we feel sympathy, as soon as the newscast changes to the next story, most of us forget all about it. We never stop to think about the mothers forced to wake their children and pile them into the car.” She nodded at a battered Toyota 4Runner with three young faces pressed to the rear window. “Or everyone else forced to drop whatever they were doing in order to run for their lives.” She smacked her hand against the dashboard. “I hate being helpless to stop the rebels from killing people.” She threw a glare over her shoulder toward the rebel Jeep. “I swear, I’m normally a pretty even-tempered lady, but if you gave me one of those weapons, I’d be tempted to shoot the rebels myself!”

Max clamped his lips together so he wouldn’t laugh. But she cracked him up. She sat so primly in her seat, her posture perfect thanks to her ballet training. Her voice was cultured. Yet her words were so fierce. Revealing the heart and passion of a warrior.

The contrast delighted him.

Damn. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like laughing. How pathetic was that? Shoving aside the sadness that thought caused, he watched Emily. More than just angry over the situation, she genuinely wanted to help. And once she focused her attention on a subject, he bet she wouldn’t stop until she’d accomplished her goals.

His humor fled, replaced by admiration. And that was quickly followed by a jolt of arousal that had him shifting in his seat as he imagined being the focus of Emily’s sensual attention.

“I’m sorry you have to be here for this,” he said, when he thought the danger of him laughing or reaching over and kissing her had passed.

Emily shook her head. “I’m not. It’s time I woke up to what’s going on in the rest of the world.” With a hiss of anger, she twisted and reached behind her. “Ugh. Too far.” She unfastened her seat belt and crawled into the back seat.

Max did his best not to react to first her breast, then her butt sliding past his cheek, but it was damn hard not to give in to the temptation to turn his face and place his mouth on her. Didn’t matter which part. He just wanted a little nibble.

Ah, hell. The last thing Emily needed was his adrenaline-fueled lust.

He tried to focus his attention on the road. But Emily’s sounds of exertion just made him think about what she’d sound like in bed. Great. This was a first. Not the sudden desire for sex. Adrenaline tended to have that effect on a guy. In fact, he was surprised it had taken him this long. But he usually just felt the urge for a quick roll in the sheets. Thinking that he’d like to take his companion to bed and not let her out for a week or so?
That
was new.

Yeah. He was Mr. Smooth for sure. Uh-huh. He’d been in the wild for so damn long, he’d lost any traces of civilization. And people used to think his brother, the career military man, was the barbarian.

Ha.

Max waited for Emily to reappear. Instead, he heard her moving deeper into the cargo compartment. “Emily, what are you doing?”

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing, so I’m taking photos.”

“Can you even see enough to get decent shots?” Dawn’s deep shadows still blanketed the road.

“Yeah, I’ve changed the settings to adjust for the low light.”

“All right. Go for it.” He was just relieved that she’d focused her attention on something positive, rather than holding on to her fear of him.

About fifteen minutes later, Emily returned to her seat, camera in hand. She alternated between checking the images she’d already taken, and pointing the camera out the window. But eventually, her hands dropped to her lap. He glanced over and found that her head was tipped back against the headrest. He shook his head. She was asleep.

Damn. He was really going to have to relearn that trick.

On second thought, never mind that. Sleeping that deeply was too dangerous. She was lucky he was there to watch over her. Lucky that he wasn’t the type of man who’d take advantage of her.

No matter how sexy the pale curve of her throat was in the soft morning light.

Keep your mind on the road.

Right.

Still, he couldn’t help but notice that asleep, she looked younger. More vulnerable. There was a quiet sense of self-sufficiency about her when she was awake, despite her delicate appearance. She’d proven her mettle by keeping up with him in the jungle. When he’d seen her blisters, he’d been triply impressed. He respected and admired her strength and the single-minded determination that had kept her going despite the pain.

He knew something about that, himself.

Emily roused from her nap almost an hour later. She rubbed her eyes and glanced out the window. “Where are we?”

“We’re still on the road heading north.”

“Where are those cars going?” Several vehicles had turned off onto a side road that cut across a field of cassava.

“See those buildings in the distance at two o’clock?”

She peered out the window, then nodded.

“The people in those cars probably have relatives over there.”

“Oh.” She lapsed into silence.

Strange how comfortable it felt to be quiet around her. Usually he worried if a woman shut up for too long. Too often it meant she was mad at him. Or plotting something he wouldn’t like. But with Emily, the silence didn’t make demands or hint at upcoming threats.

He liked it.

After another hour, Max pulled over. Emily helped him lower three of the five-gallon gas cans from the roof so he could fill the tank. Not long after they hit the road again, it crossed a bridge over a trickle of a river. On the other side, the quality of the road changed. The relatively even pavement gave way to smooth, well-packed dirt, then to the potholed and rutted dirt so prevalent in this part of the country.

“It’s such a shock.” Emily raised her camera and started snapping photos.

“What is?” Although he thought he knew.

“The change in road condition. Paved to dirt. You’d think that we’d entered a different country.”

“Nah. Just a different region. One where the funding either doesn’t exist to fix the roads, or where the politicians choose to use the funds for other projects.” Such as building expensive homes. For themselves.

Christ. He really was turning into a bitter, cynical man. He needed to take Dietrich down and get off the continent before there was nothing left in him he’d want to face each day in the mirror.

Or that Emily would want to get to know better.

Right. Like he’d even have a chance with her if they were both back home. After all, she blamed him for the death of her friends. Hard to build trust after that.

Not that he planned to go back home any time soon. In fact, he didn’t have any plans past taking Dietrich down.

“Life’s so difficult here,” Emily murmured. “The poverty. The inequality.”

“You got that right. Which is why so many people have joined the rebels. They’re hoping for a better life.”

Emily snorted softly. “As if men who terrorize villages and gun down innocents are capable of creating a fair and prosperous democracy.”

“Sometimes, when you’re desperate, you’ll grasp at any straw to get out of where you are.” Dammit. What had made him say that?

She shot him a speculative glance, but to his surprise, she kept silent.

Another point in her favor. If he wasn’t careful, he might end up falling for her.

Wait. What?

Impossible.

Even if her friends’ deaths weren’t between them, it wasn’t like they had anything in common. Her whole life revolved around dance. While he didn’t even know if he liked the ballet. The only time he’d attended, he’d been so thoroughly caught up in the allure of his date that every shift of her body and every breath she took had ratcheted up his arousal. By the end of the show he’d been so desperate for her that they hadn’t even made it to the car. He’d found a deserted corridor and taken her in an alcove.

Shit. He couldn’t even remember her name, but he sure as hell remembered the way her nails had dug into his back and how she’d urged him on with throaty moans and dirty words.

Not the kind of encounter the refined Miss Emily would welcome.

Stop thinking about sex.

See, there was a reason he focused on getting his revenge on Dietrich. It kept his mind off other, more dangerous topics. And yes, he recognized the irony of thinking that killing a major international arms dealer was safer than sex with a sheltered American woman.

Around ten o’clock that morning, Max’s eyes began to drift close. “Time to stop,” he announced. He pulled the Jeep over to the side of the road, then drove into the jungle until the vehicle was hidden from the other cars.

“Do you want me to drive?” Emily offered. She’d dozed off once or twice more, but for the most part had stayed awake. She’d kept his mind alert with her occasional questions about the politics and economics of the region, and had tactfully avoided asking about his work.

He was tempted to let her drive. After all, he was racing against the clock. But his body was already pulling him toward sleep and he wanted to be awake when she took her first shot at driving over these roads. Besides, she wouldn’t be alert for danger like he would. So it wasn’t safe to have her drive while he slept. “Nah. Let’s both sack out for a few hours.”

She nodded. He lowered the back seat and spread the sleeping bags out in the cargo compartment so they could lie down next to one another. Despite his exhaustion, Max wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep with Emily’s seductive feminine scent tickling his nose and her warm, sexy body just inches from his. But after a few moments of fighting the urge to pull her into his arms, he fell into the abyss.