Escape to Morning (27 page)

“Sorta like a wart?”

“Okay, that's good, soldier. Who are you, really?” Micah took two steps toward him.

Suddenly Will recognized Micah as Iceman, a guy whose reputation preceded him. Jim Micah had been his hero in more ways than Will could count—mostly because of his legendary battle tactics and his ability to think without his emotions and get the job done.

Will tensed, fishing for some sort of truth. “I'm a reporter. But I used to be in the Rangers.”

Micah frowned as if digesting this information. “So why the getup?”

Will sighed, growing very, very quiet. Even Dani cast him a frown. “I'm not at liberty to say.”

Pain flashed through Dani's eyes. “What? Will, are you … hiding something from me?”

Will turned away, picked his weapon off the floor. “I'm going for a little walk. Don't go anywhere 'til I get back.”

Her silence in his wake spoke volumes. He might have preferred a slap across his face.

Conner stepped out beside him, keeping pace as Will left the cabin.

“Go away,” Will said.

“In your dreams. It's obvious to both myself and Micah, the two former
Green Berets
in the room, that you are on a mission op here. And we don't much appreciate your dragging our friend Dannette into it.”

“She followed me.” Okay, that wasn't quite true. “I didn't have a choice.”

“There're always choices.”

Will stopped, turned. Conner stood eye to eye with him. “Not always. Not this time. Dani was determined to tag along. I couldn't leave the lost girl out there, and I was afraid if I sent Dani home alone she'd get hurt.”

“Define
hurt
.”

Will's jaw tightened. “Snatched.”

Conner didn't blink. Didn't flinch. “And the girl? What's she about?”

Will shook his head. “That's the part I can't tell you. But feel free to throw Dani over your shoulder and haul her out of here. You're armed. Just … be careful. And good luck. She knows how to deliver a wallop.”

He got a hint of a smile from Conner. “She hit you?”

Will moved his jaw. “I probably deserved it.”

Conner's eyes darkened, and suddenly Will saw his own reflection in the man's gaze—haunted eyes, smeared greasepaint in his goatee, training in his stance, and power in his arms. More than that, he saw his past. Wild Will.

Conner probably saw it too. “You want to elaborate on that?” he said quietly, warning in his tone. “In what way did you deserve it?”

Will held up his hand, took a step back. “Don't get your dander up. I was the perfect gentleman. She just … doesn't like reporters.”

Conner frowned. Then finally he said, “That's right; Dannette doesn't like reporters. Which means that—” he stared hard at Will—“if she's defending you, you must have won her trust.”

Will gave a curt nod. “Thank you.
Finally
. I promise, I have only Dani's best interests at heart here.” He turned.

Conner's hand clamped his shoulder, stopping him. “Dannette's heart is a precious thing, pal. I'm using a friendly tone, but take me very, very seriously. Don't break it. Or your nose is only the first thing Micah will break.”

Oh, Will had no illusions about how Micah would react. And rightly so. In fact, he was living on borrowed time, and he knew it.

Maybe getting Conner and Micah on his team was the only way to protect Dani from the terrorists.

From himself. From Wild Will.

They'd crossed to the far edge of the yard, out of earshot. Will sighed, looked away from Conner, his chest knotting. “Conner, it's me, Wild Will Masterson. From the 10th.”

Conner stared at him. Stepped back. Mouth open.

“The girl I'm tracking is part of a top-secret, deep-cover op that went south. I gotta find her. And Dani's been helping me. I swear to you that I'm only trying to protect her.”

“By making her a target?” Conner kept his voice low, but Will heard the danger in it.

“She's … so …
stubborn
.” Will's frustration spilled out, and he fought to reel it in. “She went out ahead of me, and I couldn't talk her or Sarah into quitting, so I tagged along.”

“You used them for your own gain.”

Will clenched his jaw. “I didn't expect her to follow me here today. And when I saw her, I was stuck. I couldn't send her back, or they'd find her—”

“Who'd find her?”

Will glanced past Conner, toward the cabin. “There are a couple of guys looking for this girl. They tried to take me out during a storm yesterday, and I have this gut feeling they're still around.”

Conner glanced at the cabin. “We need to get Dannette out of here. But not tonight. We'll camp here and head out at first light.”

Will nodded, feeling relief loosen his chest. “Thank you.”

“Don't thank me, Wild. I just don't want Dannette to be around when Micah finds out who you are—and I'm not talking about your lying about being a reporter.” He shook his head. “Of all the ladies to charm, Wild, you sure picked the wrong one.”

Chapter 16

“SERIOUSLY, MICAH, WHAT are you doing here?” Dani walked onto the porch of the cabin, aware of a chill lacing the air as the sun slunk behind the horizon. They were surrounded by the smell of pine and the sounds of twilight—chirruping crickets and the rush of wind. Micah's and Conner's sudden arrival had begun to chip away at her confidence, add credence to the very real possibility that she had helmed a wild-goose chase.

Not to mention Will's cryptic
“I'm not at liberty to say.”

What did that mean? She had the eerie feeling that Will might know more about this missing girl than she did. A smart woman would pack up Kirby and head back to Moose Bend before Sheriff Fadden found out she'd defied him. Again. And, oh, again.

Maybe Will was just protecting his source. And while that stung, that supposition only confirmed the reason for his weird behavior. Will wasn't an unscrupulous reporter. He did have integrity.

Dani poured out water for her dog and set the bowl down before taking a chair next to Micah's. The words
breaking and entering
throbbed in her brain like a second-degree burn.

Micah sat forward in his chair, his arms dangling over his keens. His low, powerful voice hummed under her skin when he spoke, and she couldn't deny she felt glad to see him. Even if he had tackled Will.

For a second there, she hadn't known whom she should protect. And that confusion in itself had her heart in a painful tangle. Since when did she side with a guy she hardly knew over one of her best friends?

“Sarah was really worried about you. She thought you might be feeling strung out after the last couple of days, and she dropped a few hints,” Micah said.

“Which you were all too happy to take?” But Dani couldn't help smiling. The fact that Micah and Conner had tromped through the forest to find her felt nearly like family.

“Lacey came with me to Moose Bend to talk wedding stuff with Sarah and Andee, and … well, a guy can only take so much pink. Who knew that Lacey would turn into a Southern belle, complete with frills and froufrou?”

Dani laughed. She had a hard time wrapping her mind around that image also. Especially since Lacey had made a living as a hard-living CIA agent for most of the past fifteen years. “C'mon, it can't be that bad.”

He shrugged but smiled, and his expression radiated such joy it felt nearly palpable. The guy turned into a mess of goo around his fiancée, a woman he'd waited twenty years to marry. Dani knew that Lacey could march down the aisle wearing combat gear and a full-metal jacket and Micah would think she was the most beautiful woman on four planets.

She sorta wished she knew what that felt like.

“I am glad to see you, Micah. But only if you're going to join in the search. I know she's out here—I can feel it—and the very fact that Will is still here, beating the bushes with me, tells me he believes it too.”

“That's what you call what he's doing? Beating the bushes?” Micah asked. “Excuse me for stating the obvious here, but he's a wee bit strange.”

Dani gave him a mock glare. “He's nice. And harmless. I don't know why he's got makeup on. But he is a nice guy. I think he's even a Christian. He's trustworthy and kind and loyal and dedicated. And under normal circumstances when you're not holding a gun on him, he's patient. You'd probably like him if you got to know him.”

“Really.” A small smile played at the corners of Micah's mouth.

“Yeah,
really
,” she said. “He's honest—he even told me about his best friend who got killed.”

Micah's smile dimmed. “How did he die?” Too late Dani remembered that Micah, too, had lost his best friend. Only his friend John had been a CIA agent, and the lady Micah was about to marry had been his accused killer.

“A bombing in Macedonia, I think he said.”

Micah frowned, and she saw his gaze rove the forest beyond her, as if searching his mental files. “Not the Red Cross bombing?”

“I don't know; he didn't say. It happened three years ago.”

Micah's expression turned grim, and something about it made her heart seize. Micah had been a Green Beret for much of his adult life and knew the gruesome details of some of the most brutal terrorist attacks across the world, especially in the eastern European theater. “The Red Cross incident redefined the land-scape of the war on terror, at least for those behind the scenes. Until that point, we thought we were dealing with many tiny blazes around the world that had to be stomped out. This bombing woke us up, made us realize we needed to refocus our efforts.”

Dani shook her head. “I don't follow.”

Micah rubbed his large hands together and sighed deeply. “In an effort to help the Macedonians deal with the crush of refugees from Albania and Yugoslavia that had fled after Milošević's reign of terror, the US and most of the NATO countries banded together and funded a huge Red Cross effort. We set up housing, opened hospitals and schools. And staffed them with military from all these nations: Australian, American, English, even Polish and Turkish personnel. The United Nations at work in a very experimental capacity. Obviously also the perfect opportunity to shake all of us up.”

“How?”

“We were attacked, the entire camp—buildings, ware-houses, vehicles were triggered to blow simultaneously. The devastation was …” Micah shook his head, and in his eyes Dani saw the horror of being faced with the ugly realities of the war on terror. “Before the attack, they caught one of the terrorists—actually a refugee who knew that the bombs had been planted. She and her daughter had escaped from the terrorist cell behind it and had gone into hiding at the camp. Their intel gave the soldiers who were on peacekeeping detail enough evidence to start a search. As some of the teams evac'd the camp, another unit did a systematic search.”

He closed his eyes. “I specifically remember at least one Green Beret unit.” The look he gave her when he opened his eyes made her want to cry. His voice dropped. “They didn't find all the explosives before they blew. There were hundreds killed, most of them military personnel.” He shook his head. “They brought in my team to help clean up. It wasn't pretty. And of course the countries blamed each other for lack of surveillance or supplies. Most importantly, no one took the blame. Not al Qaeda, not Hezbollah. Not any of the splinter groups tucked away in Europe. No one. Which felt pretty odd to us, but it played right into the information our informant told us.”

“Who was responsible?”

“Until this time, we'd only heard whispers of this group, and I hadn't given them any thought. They weren't linked to religious zealots or a political agenda. They were a phantom group called Hayata.”

She'd heard that name before. Somewhere. “Wait, isn't that the group that tried to steal Lacey's Ex-6 program?”

Micah smiled. “Roger that. And Lacey nabbed one of their key players. Hayata's agenda isn't religious or political. It's about purity. Purity in power. According to this woman—who disappeared right after the attack—they believe they are descended from one ruler and that they are decimating the world powers, systematically maneuvering to take out their communications or economic base to prepare for this ruler.”

“Okay, that's very freaky, Micah. So Left Behind series. I'm not buying it.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, they're a phantom organization in many ways. They don't get their hands dirty, but they supply resources to many other groups in trade for allegiance. They're extremely wealthy, and their endgame is one-world government.”

She gave a fake shiver. “The Third Reich, take two.”

“A few Nazi groups are linked to Hayata.” His face betrayed his feelings. “But the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. Only the mother ship has control. Think bees. They have a queen bee, which feeds the rest of the bees until she sends them out to make new hives. Hayata is the queen. We think the Red Cross bombing had a twofold purpose—to keep our attention focused on eastern Europe while they did their business in Asia and to introduce them to the world. To make the UN nations fight amongst themselves and stumble around in confusion.”

Dani petted Kirby, then dug a ball out of her backpack and threw it. Kirby sprang after it, diving off the porch. “So, Will's buddy was in this bombing.”

Micah stared out into the gathering darkness. His profile spoke louder than his words. “They found only pieces of some of the guys.”

Dani closed her eyes against a spasm of pain in her chest. “His friend left behind a wife and three daughters.”

“Wow. That's hard.” Micah had recently resigned from service, but Dani knew he understood what it meant to leave loved ones behind.

“Yeah. What's worse, I think he sorta blames himself. He didn't tell me why, but I have a feeling he's still grieving.” She couldn't tell him that Will had nearly cried in her arms, but the image pressed against her eyes.