Deceptive Treasures: Slye Temp Book 5 (3 page)

When he didn’t move, her forehead furrowed with a question then she waved him away and mouthed the word
go
.

He shook his head and slowly reached for her arm, drawing her back several steps until they had returned to the rear corner of the building
. Once he had a sheltered position where he could watch the soldiers, he leaned close to her to protect his words.

A faint floral scent distracted him for a split second, allowing her an opening to berate him
.

“If you know this city so well, you know that is the best place to cross.”

He ground his back molars and explained,  “Wait here until
I
deal with them then I’ll wave you forward.”

“There will be more soldiers nearby who will hear any disturbance
. I can distract those two while you run across. No noise.”

He studied her eyes, searching for the lie in her words
. Was she waiting for him to step out then she’d raise the alarm for the soldiers to catch him? Or did she really mean to put herself at risk to cover for him?

He wasn’t sure which possibility was more disturbing. “What if they catch you?”

“They will not,” she declared, but he picked up on a smidgen of uncertainty in her words.

“But they might,” he argued.

“Then I will no longer be your problem.”

He asked her again, “Why would you take this risk?”

She looked away and shook her head then told him, “You are so stubborn. If we reach your men safely, I will tell you why.”

His gut was working overtime with figuring this one out, but until she gave him a reason to think otherwise he was going to give her the benefit of the doubt
. “Your idea is too dangerous for you. Do as I say and we’ll both go together.”

Her head cocked to one side as she took his measure with her next look.

And the results are?

She didn’t share her assessment
. Instead, she said, “Your men will trust nothing I tell them if you die.”

“You’ve got a point, Jin, but we’re wasting time here so follow my lead.”

“I am not the one who retreated and lost ground,” she chastised under her breath.

Saucy little pistol
.

Tanner headed back toward the tuk-tuk, but slowed when one of the soldiers listened to his radio and replied in a low voice
. He whispered something to his partner who nodded then they marched off.

Were they gone for good?

Tanner gave it sixty seconds then moved in, watching from side-to-side. Coast was clear. He waited beside the tuk-tuk and kept scanning the area as he waved Jin forward.

She reached him, did her own recon of both directions, and nodded before slipping around the little vehicle to cross the road
.

Tanner had taken a step to follow when he heard, “
Jeongji!
”

Ice ran through his veins
. He did as he was told and halted, turning to find a Nork bearing down on him with another Type 56 rifle.

That must be the weapon of choice tonight.

The minute this guy called in his buddies, this game was over.

Chapter Three

Adrenaline swam through Tanner’s blood, but he took it as a good sign that the soldier hadn’t shot him yet
. That only meant they wanted Tanner alive for interrogation, the kind of questioning that involved pain inflicted in creative ways.

All he needed was an opening to disarm this Nork before the soldier used his radio to call in reinforcements
. This guy was young, with little experience. His arms were shaking.

The soldier growled another order at Tanner in Korean.

Tanner just stared at him, the universal sign of not understanding.

Or it should be if it wasn’t.

At that, the soldier crept closer, hands shaking on a weapon capable of cutting a man in half across the middle.

The world in Tanner’s field of vision slowed to microseconds
.

His hearing sharpened and the air pulsed with energy
.

The skinny bastard had the bony face of the underfed. He kept biting out one order after another in a squeaky voice
. Tanner understood enough to know the Nork wanted Tanner down on his knees and to put his hands behind his head. Tanner continued his mute routine until the soldier finally jabbed his weapon in the direction of Tanner’s hand that rested on his rifle.

Tanner made a face he hoped conveyed understanding and released his weapon so it dangled against his chest, holding the soldier’s gaze on that hand.

He’d kept his other hand hidden next to his upper thigh where he’d been working a smoke grenade free from one of his cargo pockets. He needed both hands to activate it, but if his idea worked, actually
releasing
a smoke cloud wouldn’t be necessary.

There. He had it in his hand
.

The Nork kept chattering orders and Tanner used his free hand to point at the ground
. “Down? That what you’re saying?”

The guy nodded and jabbed his weapon toward the ground, still rattling off orders.

Tanner bent his knees as if he intended to comply. He unfolded the fingers on his shielded hand and let the impotent smoke bomb drop to the ground.

That sucker rolled toward the soldier
. Hot damn.

The distraction worked like a charm, drawing the Nork’s attention down to the canister.

Or it would have worked perfectly if Jin hadn’t come out of the shadows from behind the soldier.
Shit
. As she darted forward, Tanner moved at the same time. Jin launched herself forward and kicked the back of the guy’s knee, as Tanner swept his arm in a quick arc, shoving the rifle muzzle to the side. He cracked a vicious blow across the soldier’s trigger hand.

Next, Tanner booted the guy in the nuts
.

The Nork’s howl of pain was cut short by the crazy woman as she wrapped her hand around to grab his mouth and nose, shove his head to the left and slam him to the ground in one of the smoothest takedowns Tanner had ever seen.

But with her mixed blood, self-defense skills made sense. She’d have to be able to handle herself to keep predators at bay if she had no one else to protect her.

Jin took a step back and spun, smashing her booted foot against the back of the soldier’s head, knocking him out cold.

Damn, that was hot.

Tanner added deadly to his mental description of his ninja and snatched up his smoke grenade and the guy’s rifle
. “Let’s go.”  He turned to leave.

She hissed, “Wait.”

“No,” he snapped.

When he paused to see what her problem was, she’d run over and jumped on the driver’s seat of the tuk-tuk. “Get in.”

She’d fired up the engine by the time Tanner had folded his oversized body to sit on the bench seat in the sardine can three-wheeler. She made a U turn and rolled hard on the handlebar accelerator that twisted like a motorcycle control.

Bullets pinged off the metal body
.

Tanner returned fire with the stolen rifle, covering their back. Might as well use their ammo instead of his.

“Stop,” she ordered.

“Why
? You got a bullet proof vest under that ninja outfit?” he asked, heavy with drawl.

“Ninja?
Wrong country, cowboy. We can lose them, but not if they follow your gunfire. Hold on.”   She spun the oversized go-cart up on two of its wheels as she rounded a corner.

Tanner leaned over her, throwing his weight to counter balance so they didn’t flip
.

She glanced at him, her face an inch from his, and she sucked in a breath he didn’t think had a thing to do with her NASCAR turn
. The third wheel hit hard and Tanner’s head bounced against the top of the cab.

He muttered a curse and dropped back on the seat.

“Are you hurt?”

“What
? You worried about me, ninja?”

She never took her eyes off the road when she said, “Of course ... you are my way out of here.” 

“What?” 

“You asked why I am helping you. I want to leave, too.”

Did she think he could just add people like a Conga line at a party? Defecting wasn’t as simple as it looked in the movies.

But he finally had a believable reason for what she was doing
.

The only problem was that he couldn’t take her with him, but he wasn’t about to admit that before he got his men and the two physicists out of here
.

Chapter Four

Wind blasted Jin’s face until she cut back the speed on the tuk-tuk as she reached the point of picking her way through narrow alleys that led to rear entrances of two-story shacks where laundry hung on lines strung between buildings
.

Places vehicles weren’t meant to travel.

This American might have knowledge of Pyongyang geographically, but she knew the people and the places they could pass without challenge. He said he was not military, but he had been at one time. She’d spent much of her life studying Americans and the military, trying to figure out what made a man walk away from a woman and the two children he’d made.

The cowboy watched every door and window, but no one came out
. She’d called him cowboy at first because it was so American, and because he’d used a similar stereotype for Asians by calling her “ninja,” but he sounded just like the men in the two cowboy movies she’d seen—both were illegal copies she’d risked watching over the years.

Would he admit that he needed her?

Probably not. Male egos did not allow room to accept that women were of value. She didn’t care what he thought of her as long as he took her with him and his team.

But his silence had not said yes when she’d told him what she wanted.

He spoke just loud enough to be heard over the engine. “Have to hand it to you, darlin’.”

“
What?
”

He turned to her, that one uncovered eye staring out from enough headgear to be some alien warrior
. An eyebrow arched at her terse, one-word question.

She held her breath, waiting for him to say he would definitely take her with Har and Pang.

To be left behind would mean her death and, eventually, her sister’s death. And then the loss of many more innocent lives.

She whipped their little truck around a child’s bicycle, throwing her body to the side and bumping his
.

Heat flushed her skin at the contact
. She shook off the silly reaction and said, “Well? What are you handing to me?”

“You might not know the city better than I do, but you
do
know the people and where to go without drawing attention. I wouldn’t have risked coming through narrow areas like this, places that are prime for an ambush.”

Was that a compliment
? It couldn’t be, could it? Not from a man. She decided saying nothing would be the wisest answer.

When she emerged in the park, she slowed her speed and drove down a narrow sidewalk
.

He asked, “How far?”

“Close. Maybe one block.”

He spoke as if talking to himself, but he was communicating with his men
. “We’re comin’ in rollin’. Hold your fire.” 

After a brief silence as he listened to someone, he replied, “Got some help from a friendly.”

Jin cut her eyes at him, but said nothing while she drove the last stretch to where she parked the tuk-tuk next to the painted wood carving of a lion. It sat at the corner of an abandoned warehouse with boarded windows and junk cluttered outside.

Her passenger climbed out, his sharp eyes searching the grounds until he spied the area and waved his hand in that direction.

In the next moment, Har and Pang emerged with three men protecting them. Those three looked like this cowboy, smoky ghosts armed for war.

One was taller than the other two, but that was all she could make out about the men on his team since they all wore the similar muted clothes of the locals over their own gear
. They all had night-vision monoculars and were armed from head to toe.

Jin stepped out of the tuk-tuk on the side facing the building and flipped on a penlight to find her way through the junk to the rotting door panel twenty feet away
.

When she reached it, she called quietly, “Over here.”

Her cowboy nodded that he heard her, so she pushed the panel aside and squeezed through the opening. Stale odors left from years of storing dried fish and fishing equipment assaulted her nose. Docks for the Taedong River were less than a kilometer away.

When someone pulled the panel aside to enter, Jin snapped off the penlight
. She’d learned to appreciate the safety darkness offered.

Once the cowboy and his team were inside with Pang and Har, one of his team asked, “What’s the plan, Bo?”

Bo? That was probably not a real name. They would not use real names here.

Fair enough. She would limit what she told them as well.

Bo said, “I’ve got one, but it has more holes than a sieve. She’s going to show us the way out of the city.”

Pang and Har stood ten feet away, but with no light on in here they couldn’t see her, because she couldn’t see them
.

Pang piped up. “She
? What she?”

She might as well answer Pang as there was no hiding from him at this point
. “Jin.”

“Says she’s part of the network that’s helping you two escape,” Bo explained
. “Works in your lab.”

Pang would ruin her chance to leave by telling these men she was of no value to the Americans
.

That would have been bad enough, but Pang said, “You would trust a woman who sleeps with our soldiers?”

With one question, that lying dog Pang had undermined all the work she’d done to gain the cowboy’s trust in a short time and made her sound like a whore.