Intimate Danger. Amy J. Fetzer

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СКАЧАТЬ Richora grabbed it and threw it against the wall. Clancy flinched as it hit and shattered. She closed her eyes, unable to look. “You bastard.” About a million bucks’ worth of hardware was in pieces.

      “If it was expensive and worthy, then neither of us has it.”

      He just killed the Marines. Destroying the pods was the only way to save their lives, and with no Terminator to alter the implants, Clancy was helpless. She couldn’t re-create it, and even if she found the men, what could she do now?

      Then Richora pulled her purse from the floor and dropped it on the table. “Why do you have a tracking device in your handbag?”

      Her head jerked up. “What? No, there isn’t.”

      He turned the bag over, spilling her things, and she grabbed for some before they rolled off the table as he pulled the handbag inside out. There was a slice in the lining, obviously restitched, and Clancy’s eyes widened as he pried for a second, then held up a small rectangular chip encased in plastic.

      They’ve been watching me all this time.

      “You are CIA.”

      I wish. “If I was, I’d be out of here by now.”

      “Not necessarily.”

      This man was different from the others, more refined, his accent heavy, but his diction was perfect. “Who are you?”

      “That is unimportant.”

      “You could be a cop on the take with the dealers, for all I know.” Though that seemed kind of obvious right now.

      “I am not, let me assure you.”

      “It doesn’t.” She rose and moved to the room’s only window. There were no two-way mirrors, one window, one exit. She peered out the window, judging the distance to the ground, then inspected the sill. Painted shut.

      “Sit down.”

      “I’ve been sitting for two days. Give me a phone. I’ll call the U.S. consulate and get out of your hair.” She had to get out of here now.

      “They will not get involved.”

      “Guess again.”

      “They do not know you are in this country.”

      She looked at him. Why would he say that? The U.S. consulate couldn’t keep track of every U.S. citizen on foreign soil.

      “You could die and none would find you.”

      “Is that a threat?”

      “Tell me the truth!” He left the chair so quickly it shot back and hit the wall. “What are you doing there? What did you see?”

      “Nothing!”

      “Why have you come without escort?”

      “I did, you killed him!”

      His rage gave his eyes a demon glow, and she was thinking up some juicy lie when he backhanded her across the face. Clancy reeled with the impact, hitting the wall, her face exploding in hot pain.

      Her eyes watered and she worked her jaw. “That’s not going to get you anywhere.” She spat blood at his feet.

      “You cannot escape.” He stepped close and she put her hands up.

      “Okay, okay, no punching! Maybe we can work a deal.” She moved to him, her expression giving new meaning to the words Come on, honey, I’m yours. “Just you and me.”

      He smiled as if she were the stupid kid in the class and reached for her.

      That’s all she needed. She grabbed his wrist, dug her thumb into the apex of his finger and thumb, and twisted hard, forcing his arm and elbow backward. He reached for her, for the chair, but Clancy threw her weight into it, lowering him toward the floor. Then she slammed her knee into the side of his head. He dropped like a stone. Clancy stepped back.

      “Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” she muttered, stunned it worked and warmed with her victory.

      The pain in her kneecap burned up her thigh and she rubbed, then quickly searched him for the cuff keys. It took a second to get them off. She put them on him, hands behind his back, then stole his gun and a fistful of bullets.

      Grabbing her purse, she swept everything off the table and inside, then dropped the tracking chip to the floor. She crushed it under her heel. Screw you, Cook.

      Richora stirred, pushed up, and she kicked him in the head. He flattened to the floor and Clancy gripped her bag and looked around. Now what, smart-ass?

      The window was painted shut, and there was one door with another ten policia on the other side.

      Choufani moved through the blackened remains. What once stood eight wood crates high, now barely covered his boots. He squatted, pulling a pencil from inside his jacket to flick at the evidence. The piles of crates had exploded up and down into the floor. The gulley around him was more than twenty feet wide. What could have done this? A large bomb, certainly, but the depth and width of the explosion told him it was high-magnitude explosives. Yet everything was right where it had been, except contained. No real scatter, but the bodies were in pieces and shriveled.

      Choufani dug, moving charred wood and burned rifle stocks. That wasn’t all that was in here, he knew. But this was all he’d been allowed to see. The group had not trusted him enough, but there had been more than small arms in the crates.

      In the black debris soggy from firemen’s hoses, from the rain that had graciously fallen since the explosion—he found something angular. He started digging with his hands, the black muck climbing up his arms. He loosened the object, frowning at the long slightly curved piece that was practically untouched by the flames. Black and dense, it was as if it had melted. He tapped it on his watchband. Solid plastic? Not resin, nor steel. So then, what was it?

      He lifted his gaze from the sooty block to the warehouse. Jail for arms was a great deal less…uncomfortable than for acts of terrorism. Even in Libya, they had strict ruling over crimes. If it were not so, Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi would not be in power. But was it worth dying for? Your beliefs, your country, yes, but keeping secret a cache of arms? They could be had across the border for a price. In Libya, an AK-47 went hand in hand with the rising of the sun.

      In Tunisia, not so, Choufani thought.

      But the dead had taken their intended target with them. Destroying their weapons rather than be taken alive. Unfortunately, this was not the first shipment.

      He straightened and went to the forensic table, pieces of evidence bagged and logged. Broken jaws of teeth, a charred hand. He knew these men, and others like them. He had prayed four times a day as they did. For Choufani, they had achieved their goal.

      To make the world see Islam their way.

      Clancy had no way out and minutes before someone came in here and saw that she’d beaned the big jefe. She struggled to open the window, and sunlight blinked off her diamond ring, a hawking big thing she’d had СКАЧАТЬ