Bodyguard Lockdown(10)

“Wait here,” Aaron replied. “I’ll have them brought to my office for you to question.”



Aaron walked toward two men watering camels by the trough. He waved them over to the outhouse.

“What are you planning?” Sandra asked.

“Sabra said they were offering a high price for our capture,” Booker answered, deliberately leaving out the fact Trygg wanted him dead. “I want to ask them a few questions.”

“Give my men a few minutes.” Aaron leaned against the side of the sports car and crossed his arms. “We can use the time to negotiate my price.”

“Price?” Sandra asked, not sure she understood.

Aaron flicked his cigarette away. “I get the sports car.”

“You can’t be serious,” Sandra scoffed. “What happens if the owner comes looking for it?”

“The owner has insurance. The only thing he’ll be looking for is a newer model to replace it.” Aaron leaned in the window and studied the custom leather seats, the state-of-the-art dashboard. “I’ll give you food, water and transportation. Enough to get you across the desert.”

“Deal.” Booker glanced at the camels taking their fill of water from the trough. “And the transportation better have wheels.”

“Whatever you’d like.” Aaron smiled, then straightened when one of his men waved them over. “Give me a minute, then follow me in.”

Booker waited until Aaron entered the hut, then turned to Sandra. “No matter what happens, Doc, you don’t move from this spot until I give you permission.”

“I haven’t needed permission to do anything for quite a while, McKnight,” Sandra snapped. “This is my problem. I will not be left out of it.”

“I can’t protect you and question them at the same time.”

Sandra pulled a pistol from her medical bag. “I don’t need your protection. I have my own.”

Booker stared at the 9mm Glock in her hand. “Where the hell did you get that?”

“Aaron’s desk drawer. I don’t usually steal, but I figured he had a warehouse full somewhere.” She started toward the hut. After a few moments, she looked back. “Are you coming?”

A gunshot ricocheted through the air. Booker reached for his gun. “Stay here!” he barked.

Before she could answer, he slipped around the corner and into the mercantile.

One of the men was dead on the floor, his pistol still in his hand. Aaron had the other man sitting down in a straight-back chair, a Sig Sauer pointed at his chest.

“The one on the floor had a gun hidden. He tried to shoot me,” Aaron said, his features slanted with anger. “I shot first.”

Booker recognized the man in the chair. “Kalroy. What brings you so far out from the palace?”

“King Jarek sent me. I tried to tell him that we are on the same side,” the man responded, his voice more of a whine than angry. “That I was here to retrieve Doctor Haddad. Is she here?”

“Right behind you,” Aaron mused.

“Kalroy.” Sarah stepped through the doorway, took in the situation, her gun lowered but in her hand. She glanced at the dead man, noticed the army fatigues.

“He’s not Jarek’s man, is he?” she asked.

“No,” Booker replied. He looked at Kalroy. “Your dead friend on the floor is one of Trygg’s mercenaries, isn’t he?”

Aaron checked the dead man’s pockets. “He has no identification.”

“How much did Trygg pay you?” Sandra asked. “To peddle a reward for my capture?”

Kalroy shook his head. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Booker dropped the barrel of his gun to Kalroy’s left knee and fired.

Kalroy screamed. He rolled onto the floor and clutched his knee. Sandra bit her lip but did not say anything.

“Try again,” Booker suggested, his tone low, almost guttural.

“Trygg’s man, Rayo, paid me six months’ salary to bring his man here.” Sweat beaded Kalroy’s face. Pain etched his features.

“And if you found her?” Booker demanded.

“We were to kill you, and take her to Tourlay. Then collect the reward.”

“Where in Tourlay?”

“Only he knew,” Kalroy answered, then nodded to the dead man. “I wasn’t told.”

“All right.” Booker shrugged, then lowered his gun. “I believe you—”

Suddenly, Kalroy lunged for the dead man’s pistol. Booker fired into the back of the traitor’s skull.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Sandra asked. “You knew Kalroy would reach for his gun.”

“I’d hoped,” Booker said flatly, then looked at Aaron. “You have the sports car. I’m taking their car. Consider us even. You can do whatever you want with the bodies.”





Chapter Six



There weren’t too many duties Jim Rayo hated.

Acting as delivery boy, however, was at the top of his list.

He parked his jeep at the crest of a nearby dune, and studied the perimeter. The sun hit the top of the sky, turning the Sahara into miles of molten gold.

He’d been here before. Many times over the years. But most of those times, blood stained the sand, clogged the air. And bodies littered the dunes.

He’d followed Riorden Trygg for twenty-five years. A little more than half his life. Desert Storm. Operation Freedom. Several known occupations and others not so known.

Through it all, Trygg had saved his life more than a dozen times, bailed his butt out of bad situations countless more.

When Trygg had first found him, Jim had been barely in his twenties. He’d been tried and convicted for manslaughter after a drunken brawl escalated into a knife fight.

Trygg walked into his cell like he owned Leavenworth. He’d been a colonel back then. His chest crammed with metals, his hair short and tight, a cigar hanging out of his mouth. And a half a dozen more shoved in the shirt pockets of prison guards.

Trygg gave him a choice. Thirty years in prison, or his full rank back and an opportunity to serve his country the way he’d always intended.

The only thing Trygg required was Jim’s word. His sworn loyalty.

From that day, he’d followed Trygg throughout numerous countries, campaigns and, finally, to Capitol Hill. Neither man had broken his promise.

He even shared Trygg’s goal of creating the perfect soldier.

But all of it had changed with CIRCADIAN.

The whir of a helicopter split the air. Jim watched the bird land several yards away, the pilot giving him the high sign.

Jim waited until a slight, mousy man jumped from the opening. Military gear hung on his small frame along with a briefcase strapped over his shoulder and a gray gym bag gripped in one hand.

“Colonel.” Doctor Lewis Pitman tossed the gym bag into the back of the jeep and slid onto the passenger seat. “Are we on schedule?”

“Yes.” Jim started the vehicle. “We’re in the last stages.”

“Good. Good,” Lewis said. He placed his briefcase at his feet and fastened his seat belt. “And Dr. Haddad? Is she at the camp?”

“No.”

Pitman frowned. “If we are in the last stages, we need her within the next forty-eight hours. I need time to adapt my systems. You realize that, right, Colonel?”

“Yes. And so does the general,” Jim reminded him. “We expect she’ll be joining us within the next twelve hours.”

“Joining us?” Pitman sneered. “This isn’t a goddamn tea party.”

“It isn’t your operation, either.” Jim’s eyes narrowed. “Are we clear?”

“Fine.” Lewis backed down, more out of fear than accord, Jim suspected.

“How much farther?”

“It’s just over the next hill,” Jim replied. “The general is waiting for you at camp to discuss the final plans.”

They crested the dune and Lewis let out a long whistle. His eyes moved to an airbus parked at the base of a five-hundred-foot-high rock formation. The plane itself was forty feet high and well over one hundred feet in length, its white body covered in camo clustered netting from tail to nose.

“Well, hello, sexy.” Lewis jumped from the jeep the moment Jim parked.

“Dr. Pitman.” General Trygg approached from a nearby tent, caught the smile on the scientist’s face. “I can see you’re pleased with our efforts.”

“General,” Lewis answered, then slowly shook his head. “I can’t believe you did it. That you pulled it off.”

“It’s been refit to your specifications.” General Trygg stopped, his eyes flickering over the plane. “At great cost to my operation.”