Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(24)
“It is for me,” Abby exclaimed. “With Dad running for office, I was told I’d have to room separately. You know, for security reasons.” She waved a hand toward a far tree, and that’s when he saw the two women dressed in black pantsuits with matching black sunglasses. Secret Service. And, suddenly, this girl’s identity became all too real. It was one thing to know she was the daughter of the man who was the next prospective president, another thing entirely to have effing Secret Service agents staring him in the face. “But I whined and begged, and they eventually caved. So now”—Abby bit her lip—“I’m going to have a real college experience!”
“You may wish you hadn’t whined and begged,” Rosa said. “My freshman roommate spent the entire year smoking cigarettes, eating SpaghettiOs, and watching reruns of The Big Valley and Leave It to Beaver.”
Abby’s nose wrinkled, and he couldn’t help but notice what an adorable little button it was. And now he was officially a big ol’ pervert.
“Abby,” Rosa said, “I’d like you to meet my twin brother.”
Rosa motioned to him, the look in her eyes telling him to get his shit together and be quick about it. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to make his mouth work. And that was probably a good thing. One, because keeping it closed seemed to hold in the drool. And two, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember his own name.
Another elbow landed in his ribs. “He’s really not a mute,” Rosa told Abby. “And in case you’re wondering, his name is Carlos. Carlos, meet Abigail Thompson.”
“Carlos.” Abby extended her hand. And there were those eyes again, holding his gaze and doing things to his man parts they had no business doing.
You, sir, he told himself, are stupido.
“Good to know things haven’t changed,” he murmured now, shaking away the melancholy and nostalgia the memory always evoked. Rosa…damn he missed her. Had missed her every minute of every day for the last eight years, although the overpowering pain had dulled to a subtle ache. But he couldn’t dwell. Not now. Not when he had to concentrate everything he had on Abby’s rescue.
Brushing aside the fuzzy pink seedpods of some weird Asian plant, he took a quick look up and down the muddy, rutted logging road that led from what passed as a highway into the jungle and the encampment where Abby was being held. When he satisfied himself that no prying eyes or eavesdropping ears were near, he ducked back into the wet, rich-smelling foliage and punched in Dan’s encrypted telephone number. Leaning against the leather seat of the motorcycle, he waited impatiently as the scant cell tower coverage struggled to connect his call.
A couple of clicks and beeps sounded before, without any preamble or salutation, Dan barked, “We’re zero-for-zero on the signals here in the city. Her kidnappers took her clothes to a night market and stuffed them into the carts of the hawkers. It was a good trick. It had us running all over God’s green Earth and wasted an assload of time, which I suppose was the whole point, aimed at sending any of the Secret Service agents who mighta survived the bombings on a wild goose chase. So, tell me you fared better.”
“I’ve found her,” Steady whispered, his chest swelling with relief. It wasn’t until that moment, when he actually said the words aloud and knew help was on the way, that he could draw a full breath. A full breath that was pretty much the equivalent of trying to inhale porridge.
Had he mentioned how much he hated the jungle? The heat? The humidity? The mosquitoes the size of Chicago Transit Authority buses? And speak of the devils…he slapped a hand on one of the little f*ckers that had the supremely poor sense to try to make a meal out of his forearm.
“Good.” Dan’s satisfaction was palpable. “Let me just…” Steady could hear a rustling noise and then the tinny, long-distance sound of Dan’s next words told him he’d been put on speakerphone. “I can see by the location of your signal that you weren’t kidding about it being up past where Jesus lost his sandals. That was one hell of a trip.”
Steady nodded and then realized no one but the monkey lounging in a nearby tree and munching on a berry could see his gesture. “Sí,” he said softly. “And, if I’m not mistaken, we’re dealing with the—”
“JI,” Dan interrupted. The Jemaah Islamiyah, simply known as JI, was an indigenous Islamic terrorist group. They’d claimed responsibility for the Bali, Indonesia, bombing in 2002 that killed two hundred people, as well as the simultaneous 2009 bombings of the J.W. Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta. Known to operate out of Malaysia, they had been growing more and more restive in the last few months. And it looked like they’d just added the abduction of the president’s daughter to their résumé.
“How did you know it was the JI?” Steady demanded. Then he answered his own question. “They’ve called in a ransom, haven’t they?”
“Roger that. Supposedly six of their members are being held at a super-max somewhere in Colorado. They want ’em released within twenty-four hours, or they say they’re gonna do to Abby what they did to her security detail.”
Just the thought had Steady’s stomach dropping into his boots. “But we’ll have her hell and gone long before then, eh, bro?” An odd silence met his question, and his stomach just went ahead and drilled a hole into the jungle floor. “What is it, Dan? What aren’t you telling me?”