Hot as Hell (Deep Six 0.5)(2)

“Holy shiiiiit,” she rasped, ducking back beneath the window and swallowing the bile that burned up the back of her throat like sulfuric acid. If she’d been raised Catholic instead of Southern Baptist, she would have crossed herself.

“Harper.” Ambassador O’Leary grabbed her wrist, his palm cold and clammy. It left behind a wet imprint when he quickly released her. “I don’t think we’re getting out of this—”

“Nonsense,” she cut him off, hastily reaching into her purse, scrounging past her wallet and two plastic containers of wild cherry Tic Tacs to pull out her cell phone. “We just need to haul ass down to the panic room and wait for the cavalry to arrive.”

And by cavalry she meant Michael “Mad Dog” Wainwright and his badass band of Navy SEALs…

For the last six months, ever since the DOD heard whispers over the airwaves of a possible terrorist attack on the embassy, Michael and six additional members of his SEAL Team had been tasked with providing the ambassador and his diplomatic officers personal protection. But after months of radio silence and zippo indication that an offensive would actually, factually occur, the Navy decided they had more important things for the SEALs to do than sit around Pakistan twiddling their thumbs. So Michael and his Team had been given marching orders to report to the South China Sea—for God and JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) only knew what—on a two-week mission. That had been exactly fourteen days ago, which meant Michael was due back today—a fact she’d been lamenting ever since the embassy party when she’d recklessly engaged him in a round of drunken debauchery. Of course, given the quick left turn her afternoon had taken, now the man couldn’t return his fine ass to Islamabad quick enough to suit her.

Latching onto the ambassador’s sleeve, she broke into a hunched run, dragging the wiry old diplomat in her wake. She’d just made it out of the offices and to the top of the wide, sweeping stairwell when—boom!—another explosion rocked the place. She and the ambassador stumbled into the wall, bracing themselves against the plaster and each other. Luckily, this blast appeared to be much smaller than the first, although it was no less frightening—illustrated by the fact that Harper had to gulp twice, three times, in order to force her heart back down into her chest from where it’d lodged in her throat. Then acrid black smoke began to slowly, almost lazily, drift up from below.

Hell and damnation!

Now on a regular day, the embassy would be teeming with staff. But it was the weekend—and a holiday weekend at that—so the landing was blessedly empty. The place was operating with what amounted to the barest bones of a skeleton crew.

Just me, O’Leary, and the Marines…

Which, on the one hand, was a point in their favor. It meant there were far fewer people the TTP could use as targets or hostages. On the other hand, it was a point against them. Because it exponentially increased her and O’Leary’s personal odds of ending up as either…or both.

“They’ve penetrated the building,” the ambassador gasped from behind her, pressing himself against the wall like the floor might up and decide to fall out from under his cordovan-colored loafers.

“Then we take the back steps down,” she said matter-of-factly, surprised by the steadiness of her tone when her heart had gone all Carl Lewis on her, breaking into a 100-meter sprint. She’d been scared plenty of times in her twenty-eight years, but this was the first time she’d ever experienced pure, undiluted terror.

“N-no.” The ambassador shook his bald head frantically, inching along the wall back toward the offices. “There’s no time. We should lock ourselves inside—”

“We’ll be sittin’ ducks!” she screamed, the tiny cracks in her composure splitting into wide, steaming fissures. It was her job to look after O’Leary, to take care of his every need. But she couldn’t help the man when he was refusing to use his brain and save himself.

Lock themselves inside their offices? The Taliban had managed to overrun the Marines and blow up the front door to the embassy! Did he really think something as simple as a deadbolt would keep them out? Talk about being one or two sandwiches short of a picnic. I mean, come on!

The sound of heavy footsteps pounding up the marble staircase was joined by a bevy of raised voices speaking Pashto. She held out a hand to the ambassador, begging him with her eyes and her words. “Please, sir! Come with me. The panic room is our only hope.”

He shook his head again, stepping back into the office. Then, to her slack-jawed surprise, he slammed the door in her face. And even despite the pandemonium of sounds echoing from below, she could make out the ominous click as the lock slid into place.

She had a brief moment to blink owlishly and think oh, no he di-int before prudence, and straight-up heart-pounding, soul-sucking fear, dictated she make a run for the back stairs. In less than two ticks of the clock, she was across the landing and throwing open the door that concealed a narrow, winding metal staircase—she’d been told it was a servants’ passage back when the building was the mammoth residence of some hoity-toity sultan. Quietly closing herself inside the airless stairwell, she was instantly embraced by the warm, suffocating arms of darkness. She blew out a wheezing breath and took her first step down just as a barrage of pounding fists and shouting voices told her the Taliban fighters had made it to the third-floor landing and were demanding the ambassador open the door to the offices.