Her Kind of Hero: The Last Mercenary. Diana Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ passes out of his shirt pocket. “Get out your driver’s license and birth certificate,” he said. “We have to have a photo ID to board.”

      She felt momentary panic. “My birth certificate is in my file at home, and my driver’s license is still in my purse, in my car…!”

      He laid a lean forefinger across her pretty mouth, slightly swollen from the hard contact with his. “Your car is at your house, and your purse is inside it, and it’s locked up tight. I told Maddie to put your birth certificate and your driver’s license in the case. Have you looked for them?”

      “No. I didn’t think…”

      She paused, putting the case down on the carpeted concourse floor to open it. Sure enough, her driver’s license was in the zipped compartment that she hadn’t looked in when she was in the bathroom. Besides that, the unknown Maddie had actually put her makeup and toiletries inside, as well, in a plastic bag. She could have wept at the woman’s thoughtfulness, but she wasn’t going to tell Micah and make him feel uncomfortable that he’d already bought her those items. She closed it quickly and stuck her license in her jeans pocket.

      “Does Maddie really look like me?” she asked on the way to the ticket counter, trying not to sound as if she minded. He’d said they resembled one another earlier.

      “At a distance,” he affirmed. “Her hair is shorter than yours, and she’s more muscular. She was a karate instructor when she signed on with me. She’s twenty-six.”

      “Karate.”

      “Black belt,” he added.

      “She seems to be very efficient,” she murmured a little stiffly.

      He gave her a knowing glance that she didn’t see and chuckled softly. “She’s in love with Colby Lane, a guy I used to work with at the justice department,” he told her. “She signed on with us because she thought he was going to.”

      “He didn’t?”

      He shook his head. “He’s working for Pierce Hutton’s outfit, as a security chief, along with Tate Winthrop, an acquaintance of mine.”

      “Oh.”

      They were at the ticket counter now. He held out his hand for her driver’s license and birth certificate, and presented them along with his driver’s license and passport and the tickets to the agent on duty.

      She put the tickets in a neat folder with the boarding passes in a slot on the outside, checked the ID, and handed them back.

      “Have a nice trip,” she told them. “We’ll be boarding in just a minute.”

      Callie hadn’t looked at her boarding pass. She was too busy trying to spot Bojo and Peter and the others.

      “They’re already en route,” Micah told her nonchalantly, having guessed why she was looking around her.

      “They aren’t going with us?”

      He gave her a wry glance. “Somebody had to bring my boat back. I left it here in the marina when I flew out to Jacobsville to help Eb Scott and Cy Parks shut down Lopez’s drug operation. It’s still there.”

      “Why couldn’t we have gone on the boat, too?”

      “You get seasick,” he said before he thought.

      Her lips fell open. She’d only been on a boat once, with him and her mother and stepfather, when she was sixteen. They’d gone to San Antonio and sailed down the river on a tour boat. She’d gotten very sick and thrown up. It had been Micah who’d looked after her, to his father’s amusement.

      She hadn’t even remembered the episode until he’d said that. She didn’t get seasick now, but she kept quiet.

      “Besides,” he added, avoiding her persistent stare, “if Lopez does try anything, it won’t be on an international flight out of the U. S. He’s in enough trouble with the higher-ups in his organization without making an assault on a commercial plane just to get even for losing a prisoner.”

      She relaxed a little, because that had been on her mind.

      He took her arm and drew her toward a small door, where a uniformed man was holding a microphone. He announced that they were boarding first-class passengers first, and Micah ushered her right down the ramp and into the plane.

      “First class,” she said, dazed, as he eased her into a wide, comfortable seat with plenty of leg room. Even for a man of his height, there was enough of it.

      “Always,” he murmured, amused at her fascination. “I don’t like cramped places.”

      She fastened her seat belt with a wry smile. “Considering the size of you, I can understand that. Micah, what about Dad?” she added, ashamed that she was still belaboring the point.

      “Maddie’s got him under surveillance. When Pogo goes back, he’ll work a split shift with her at your apartment to safeguard him. Eb and Cy are keeping their eyes out, as well. I promise you, Dad’s going to be safe.” He hesitated, searching her wide, pale blue eyes. “But you’re the one in danger.”

      “Because I got away,” she agreed, nodding.

      He seemed worried. His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “Lopez doesn’t lose prisoners, ever. You’re the first. Someone is going to pay for that. He’ll make an example of the people who didn’t watch you closely enough. Then he’ll make an example of you and me, if he can, to make sure his reputation doesn’t suffer.”

      She shivered involuntarily. It was a nightmare that would haunt her forever. She remembered what she’d suffered already and her eyes closed on a helpless wave of real terror.

      “You’re going to be safe, Callie. Listen,” he said, reading her expression, “I live on a small island in the Bahamas chain, not too far from New Providence. I have state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and a small force of mercenaries that even Lopez would hesitate to confront. Lopez isn’t the only one who has a reputation in terrorist circles. Before I put together my team and hired out as a professional soldier, I worked for the CIA.”

      Her eyes widened. She hadn’t known that. She hadn’t known anything about him.

      “They approached me while I was in college, before I changed my course of study to medicine. I was already fluent in French and Dutch, and I picked up German in my sophomore year. I couldn’t blend in very well in an Arabic country, but I could pass for German or Dutch, and I did. During holidays and vacations, I did a lot of traveling for the company.” He smiled, reminiscing. “It was dangerous work, and exciting. By the time I was in my last year of residency, I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t be able to settle down into a medical practice. I couldn’t live without the danger. That’s when I left school for good.”

      She was hanging on every word. It was amazing to have him speak to her as an equal, as an adult. They’d never really talked before.

      “I wondered,” she said, “why you gave it up.”

      He stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I had the skills, but as I grew older, the less I wanted roots or anything that hinted at permanence. СКАЧАТЬ