Hell for Leather: Black Knights Inc. (10 page)

Dumbfounded, Delilah watched Zoelner crouch down and sneak slowly forward. Then the former CIA agent reached out and struck, quicker than—as she’d once heard Mac put it—greased lightning. One of Zoelner’s arms wrapped around Mac’s throat. His other arm clamped tight around Mac’s broad shoulders. A second later, Mac was yanked out of the chair.

The cup went flying. The newspaper fluttered to the ground. The chair tipped, and only after Zoelner dragged Mac halfway across the living room floor, Mac’s boots scrabbling for purchase, did Mac reach up and tap the guy’s forearm, saying, “Okay, that’ll do.”

He stood to his impressive height, adjusted his biker jacket, winced and touched his side like his stitches hurt—yeah, she
still
felt guilty about that—and gestured toward the kitchen. As a group, Delilah and the rest of the Knights turned to look. And, sure as shit, the chair was lying on its back. The paper had settled beside the table leg. And the coffee mug, though not
quite
where it’d been before, was still pretty darn close.

“Jesus,” Ozzie muttered, his face void of its usual grin.

Okay, and now Delilah was a convert, a wholehearted believer in Mac’s Spidey sense. We’re talking ready to prostrate herself in front of the altar of his Spidey sense because…
damn
…

A fresh wave of cold fear crashed over her, chilling her to the bone. Charlie Sander had been attacked and abducted from his own house. And her uncle, who’d come here to meet him, was missing now, too. It was one thing to
suspect
foul play, but another thing entirely to
know
something dark and treacherous had happened here.

She rolled in her lips as all manner of violent scenarios flicked through her head, as every ax-murderer horror movie she’d ever seen scrolled through her mind’s eye on fast-forward. And she must’ve made a noise, or else what she was feeling was radiating around the room, because Fido—finished with his kibble—bumped her limp, dangling hand with his head and stared up at her, whining in doggy concern.

Grateful for his presence—for one, he was warm and wiggly and alive, which was comforting, and two, he gave her an excuse to bend down and bury her face in the scruff of his neck, thereby hiding the tears that threatened at the back of her eyeballs—she hugged him and kissed him and told him he was a
good
boy
before getting control of herself enough to lift her gaze to Mac.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, not surprised her voice came out sounding like she’d been choking down broken martini glasses. “I mean, seriously,
what’s going on here
?”

Mac leveled a look on her. And not a dismissive look, or a disapproving look, or his standard inscrutable look. No. This one was a look of one hundred percent pure confidence. “I don’t know, darlin’. But I sure as hell aim to find out.”

***

“They have stopped at Sander’s house,” Haroun whispered through the phone, and Qasim sat back in the rickety plastic chair, marveling at how easily things appeared to be falling into place. First Theodore’s speedy arrival in Cairo, and now Delilah’s. Perhaps
qadar,
along with Allah, really
was
on their side…

“Your plan?” he asked after impatiently signaling for Sami to get off the big, shining motorcycle parked in the center of the dusty room. Ever since riding Theodore’s Harley-Davidson into the dilapidated Main Street building—they hadn’t dared leave it parked in Sander’s driveway for fear it would draw the attention of some random passerby—the silly man had been mesmerized by the thing.

Qasim, for his part, didn’t understand the allure. The motorcycle was loud and flashy and obnoxious…
Just
like
the
Americans,
he supposed, curling his lip. It was certainly
not
the kind of vehicle he’d ever choose for himself, preferring the nearly inaudible hum of the two electric cars they’d rented in Canada. Not only were the little rentals stealthy, but they also weren’t vehicles likely to draw attention. Just the kind of attributes a man like him both revered and required.

“I am in the backyard, hiding behind a doghouse,” Haroun breathed, his voice so low Qasim strained to hear, “watching them as we speak. My plan is to take the woman as soon as she is alone.”

“And if she leaves with the men before you have the opportunity?”

“I will follow,” Haroun assured him. “I taped the extra cellular phone beneath the seat of her motorcycle. No matter where she goes, I will find her.”

Qasim hadn’t thought they would have a need for the third phone and hadn’t wanted to spend the cash on it
or
the “find my phone” application Haroun had downloaded onto it. But in his firm but respectful way, Haroun had insisted. And that was
exactly
why he’d risen through the ranks to be Qasim’s second-in-command. The man was a consummate professional, always prepared for every eventuality.

Qasim rose from the chair to walk toward one of the large cracked windows at the front of the building. Carefully pulling back the thick, black cloth, he peeked outside. The main thoroughfare was as deserted as it’d been since they first arrived, the golden rays of the sun slipping over the eastern horizon dimly illuminating the decaying facades of the buildings, the trash littering the street, and the broken glass globes sitting atop streetlamps that hadn’t functioned in years.

“It will be daylight soon,” he murmured, as much to himself as to Haroun.

“Which will be perfect,” Haroun said. “People drop their guard during the day. And I know how to stick to the shadows.”

Qasim knew that to be true. Haroun was like those small, electric cars. Silent, unassuming, and incredibly efficient. Still, even if his second-in-command happened to apprehend the woman… “If you take her, the men with her will tear this town apart searching for her.”

“They will,” Haroun agreed. “But it will take them time to do so. And, by then, we will have the information, the Marine and the woman will both be dead, and we will be long gone.”

Haroun obviously had more confidence in the timeliness of this particular plan than Qasim did. Not that Qasim doubted Theodore would—how did the Americans put it?—
spill
his
guts
as soon as Delilah’s life hung in the balance. But he
did
doubt how long it would take the motorcycle fanatics to find them once they began looking. Thirty minutes, he wondered? Forty? An hour at the most? The town was fairly large and sprawling, but it wasn’t a metropolis by any means. Did Haroun’s plan
really
give them enough time to secure the information they were after and silently make their escape?

Qasim ran though the logistics in his head, scowling at the number of ways it could all go horribly wrong. On the other hand, it could also go really,
really
right. And Fate
did
seem to be favoring them…

“Yes,” he finally decided. “Grab the woman when you can. Be quick and quiet about it.”

“Am I ever any other way?” Haroun asked, a hint of pride entering his tone.

Qasim closed his eyes, letting the black cloth drop back into place. “No, dear friend,” he assured Haroun. “You are the very epitome of stealth. And I eagerly await your arrival with Miss Fairchild.”

Clicking off the phone, he turned and sauntered over to Theodore. The man’s head hung limply on the column of his neck, his chin touching his chest. Qasim grabbed a handful of snowy white hair and wrenched the old Marine’s head back, gratified by the grunt of pain he elicited and unfazed by the fury sparking in those aging blue eyes.

“My second-in-command has your pretty niece in his sights,” he said in English, smiling when Theodore’s look of hot fury was replaced by one of cold fear. “She is here. In Cairo. So, now we can… How is it you say? Do this the easy way or the hard way?” He chuckled in delight that he’d found himself in a position to use that particularly charming little colloquialism. “You can either tell me what I want to know, and I will call my man and instruct him to leave Delilah alone. Or you can remain stubbornly mute, forcing me to bring your niece here where I will kill her if you do not give me the answers I seek.”

He leaned down until he was nose-to-nose with Theodore, until the smell of the man’s spilled blood filled his nostrils. “I suggest you go with the first option,” he whispered, loving the way Theodore’s chest heaved with emotion.

Struggling against his restraints, the old Marine mouthed something around his bloodied gag.

“What is that?” Qasim lifted a brow, reaching around to untie the cloth.

The minute the gag slid free, Theodore spit in his face, yelling, “Fuck you!”

Sami and Jabbar raced forward, but Qasim waved them back, straightening. He used the hem of his Western-style T-shirt to wipe the saliva from his cheek, the anger he usually kept in check—it didn’t do to lose one’s head to fury—boiling just beneath the surface.

“Go fuck yourself! You goddamned terrorist sonofa—” That was all Theodore managed, because Qasim slammed his balled-up fist into the man’s jaw, effectively knocking him out cold. Haroun wasn’t the only one who’d learned a thing or two from the
mujahedeen
.

Flexing his hand, reveling in the pain radiating up his arm, Qasim threw the bloody gag to Jabbar, absently noting the black eye Jabbar had sustained in the initial struggle to bring Theodore down. He was getting very tired of the old Marine’s antics. “Put this back on him and then revive him,” he said, walking back toward the plastic chair, sinking into it wearily. Anytime he gave into the violence roiling inside him, he felt both elated and, at the same time, strangely drained. “I want him awake when Haroun arrives with his niece.”

“This little door-to-door operation we’re scheduled to begin in…” Mac watched Ozzie check the big, black Luminox watch on his wrist, “an hour or so would be a whole hell of a lot easier if we knew which residences were actually occupied.”

Mac had convinced the group that it would be best to wait until oh-eight-hundred before going around and pounding on Cairo’s front doors in order to flash Theo’s and Charles’s DMV photos. In his experience, people didn’t take too kindly to strangers demanding answers from them before they’d had their first cup of morning joe. And given the…uh…self-styled hermits liable to still be inhabiting this defunct town? Well, he figured
they’d
appreciate that kind of intrusion even less.

Can
you
say
answering
the
door
shotgun
first,
ladies
and
gents?

And Mac, already a little cranky because he was experiencing the tiniest vestiges of the hangover-that-never-was—a bit of a headache and a craving for greasy cheeseburgers—not to mention the fact that the stitches in his side burned like holy hellfire, didn’t fancy the idea of adding buckshot to his current list of ailments.

Delilah had put up a fight, anxious to charge ahead in the search for her uncle. But she’d finally admitted the logic of his decision to give it a couple of hours. And since she’d still been wearing the shirt stained with his blood, she’d decided to use that time to run up to the second-floor bathroom to grab a quick shower.

Quick
my
ass…

The water had been running for the last forty minutes. Not that Mac had been counting or anything…well, maybe he’d been counting
a
little
bit
.
Forty-one minutes and sixteen seconds,
to be precise. And he
knew
the water heater had to have disgorged its load by now, leaving nothing but frigid H²O pouring from the creaky old pipes. So, what in the world was she
doing
up there?

Inexplicably and seemingly from nowhere, the image of Delilah, cold water sluicing down her heart-stopping curves and raising goose bumps on her pale skin, flashed like a strobe in front of his eyes. And why in the world his stupid-ass imagination picked this moment to conjure up a vision—fantasy?—of her with her arms raised and her luscious breasts lifted, he’d never know. Why in the world it would pick this second to show him a mental picture of those sweet, succulent peaks furled tightly against the chill, just begging for the comforting heat of a man’s tongue,
his
tongue, was quite beyond him. Why in the world it decided to go one step further and—

Lord
almighty!
He blinked away the vision, turning to see if any of his teammates had noticed he’d once again popped a chubby big enough to whittle into a baseball bat. Thankfully, they hadn’t. Too busy, as they were, planning the day in the usual way…by trading insults and discussing the logistics of their next move. Which is what
he
should be doing,
damnit
, instead of fantasizing about Delilah, naked, pleasuring herself as she imagined that her hands were actually
his
hands…sliding over her body, kneading and stroking and—

Oh, for Christ’s sake! What the hell is the matter with me?

But he knew the answer. And the answer was That Woman. That Woman was what was the matter with him. Her and the fact that he’d spent too much time in her tempting company, too much time…
touching
her. And, now, like a true addict, he was jonesing for his next hit.

“What do you think, Mac?” Ozzie asked.

He blinked owlishly, looking around Sander’s orange Formica kitchen table at the expectant faces of his teammates, realizing he’d completely checked out—
sayonara, and see ya later
—of the conversation.

“Uh, sorry.” He shook his head, running a hand back through his hair, grimacing when the move caused his stitches to pull. “I was…uh…I was distracted by the fact that Delilah’s been in that shower a long time.” He pointed to the stained and dusty popcorn ceiling above them. “Maybe something’s wrong. Should one of us go check on her?”

Ozzie’s brow quirked right along with the corner of his mouth. “Are you volunteering? Got a little wet ’n’ wild in mind, do ya?”

Yessir. Wet. Wild. And then some…
“No, I’m just sayin’ that—”

Before he could finish, the water shut off, the pipes groaning like an old man with achy bones.

He blew out a relieved breath, frowning when he discovered all three of his teammates staring at him with various levels of amusement plastering their faces. “Oh, screw you guys,” he grumbled. “It’s not like we aren’t
all
worried about her after that scuffle back in her uncle’s house. And let’s not even
touch
on that breakdown of hers back at headquarters.”

He still got a little queasy thinking back on how she’d been shaking and sobbing. And talk about something he never wanted to see again… A woman who usually had more guts than you could string a fence on breaking down and bawling?
Holy
crow
, he would need brain bleach to scour
that
from the ol’ memory banks.

“
S
í
, amigo
,” Steady nodded, grinning. “But some of us are still able to concentrate on the mission at hand instead of the sexy, sweet-smelling
mamacita
upstairs.”

“I
am
concentratin’ on the mission at hand,” he blustered,
hating
feeling as if he were the weak link here, unable to keep his head in the game because he was too busy being led around by Little Mac.

“Okay, okay.” Steady nodded, lifting his hands as if to placate Mac. “So, then, what do you say to Ozzie’s suggestion?”

Ozzie’s suggestion? Ozzie had a suggestion?
Shit, shit,
shit…

Zoelner—
bless
him
—seemed to see his predicament and decided to take pity on him. “Ozzie thinks I should call Chelsea and ask her if the CIA is willing to point one of their satellites at Cairo, scan for heat signatures to tell us which houses are currently inhabited.
I
say we’re better off not getting the spooks involved. They’re not the kind of people we want to be indebted to. Besides,” Zoelner said, turning to Ozzie as if a thought had just occurred to him, “can’t we just ask Delilah to hack back into the IRS and run a search on last year’s property taxes? See who’s paying what and where?”

“Yeah.” Ozzie nodded. “But that’s not the most efficient way to do it.”

“Screw efficiency,” Zoelner huffed. “And
screw
the CIA.”

For the first time since the water clicked on upstairs, Mac felt like maybe, just maybe, all his synapses were firing in order. And as much as he hated admitting it this time or any other… “Ozzie’s right,” he said, grimacing when Zoelner swung on him, the guy’s expression all about the
what
happened
to
us
former
government
stiffs
sticking
together?
“People could still be payin’ property taxes on houses that are sittin’ empty. Or, people could be squattin’ in empty houses that haven’t had the taxes paid on them in years. The infrared scan would work better.” He made sure his tone was apologetic. Then he did Zoelner one better when he turned to Ozzie. “Couldn’t you just hijack the satellite feed? Do the deed yourself without gettin’ the spooks involved? Lord knows you’ve appropriated Eyes in the Sky before.”

“Sure.” Ozzie smiled, before his expression turned into more of a snarl. “But in order to access Eyes in the Sky, I’d have to use BKI’s routing system, which we all know has been compromised. I’m not saying I couldn’t do it, but they’d
know
I was doing it. And since Zoelner’s friend is now our supposed liaison, I—”

“She’s
not
my friend,” Zoelner interrupted. Something in his tone caused Mac to turn and study him curiously. What was the matter with his face? Why was it all red and blotchy and…hot damn, was Zoelner actually
blushing?

“Well, whatever she is,” Ozzie waved off Zoelner’s objection, ignorant of the fact that something was boiling just beneath the former agent’s surface, “she offered to help. I think this is one instance where we should take her up on it. I mean, geez, it’s just a quick infrared scan.”

Mac watched the muscle on the left side of Zoelner’s jaw twitch, and part of him—the part that could
totally
understand not wanting to get another woman involved here, especially not one who seemed to have the same effect on Zoelner that Delilah had on him—almost told Ozzie,
to
hell
with
it, just hijack the goddamned satellite
. But the
other
part of him, the part he prided himself on, the
professional
part, knew the kid had a point. If the CIA was going to know they were using the satellite system anyway, and if they could do the deed more quickly and more efficiently, why not just let them do it? As an added bonus, it could work as a test, of sorts, to see just how well the spooks were willing to play in the whole “joint assistance” arena.

“Is it
that
much of a problem for you?” he asked Zoelner.

“
No
.” Zoelner frowned hard enough to strain a facial muscle. “It’s not a
problem
. I’d just rather not have to deal with Ch—” He stopped, forcing himself to take a deep breath before continuing. “With those folks.”

Mac hadn’t missed Zoelner’s truncated slip-of-the-tongue. There was definitely some sort of history between Zoelner and this agent named Chelsea. “Look, man,” he placated, “this might be our opportunity to—”

“Fuck it,” Zoelner spat viciously. “I’ll do it.”

Mac opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a
thump
sounded overhead followed by a strange moaning sound. And a handful of hours after he had his first heart attack, he experienced a second one…

***

Beyond disappointed, and exhausted to the point of delusion apparently, Delilah spiked her phone into the orange shag carpeting and groaned her misery. Because the thought had occurred to her while she’d been in the shower that maybe her uncle had called. That maybe his disappearance had, indeed, been some kind of huge mistake. That maybe he and his old Marine buddy, Charlie,
had
gone somewhere to pull a Cheech and Chong, or else get their knobs polished—
erp
, she sooo didn’t want to picture that—and he’d awoken this morning to leave her a message explaining everything. The idea had taken such a hold on her while she’d been shampooing the highway from her hair, that she’d almost,
almost
convinced herself it was real.

But after hastily pulling on a clean pair of jeans and her favorite T-shirt—the hot pink cotton read
Asphalt
Angel
and had been washed so often it was soft as satin—she grabbed her iPhone only to find its screen glaringly blank. And even though Fido snored softly over in the corner of the small, dimly lit bedroom, sprawled on his back, legs bent and twitching as he chased rabbits in his dreams, the stark silence of her phone’s empty voice mail messages seemed to scream.

Tossing the damp towel she’d been using to dry her hair to the floor, she collapsed onto the edge of the bed and cursed the tears that pricked behind her eyes.

Don’t do it,
she fiercely scolded herself.
Don’t you give in, yet. Don’t you give
up,
yet.

But to her utter humiliation, she couldn’t dispel the sense of helplessness, the sense of…
hopelessness
weighing her down like a lead anchor attached to her soul. And, then, as if things weren’t bad enough already, a vision of Buzzard in his last moments invaded her consciousness.

So much blood…

There’d been so much
blood
. Everywhere. All over the bar. All over the floor. And even though she’d had a team come in to scrub it away, even though everybody told her there weren’t any stains, every time she walked into the place she would swear she could still see it there, dripping from Buzzard’s usual stool, falling into a growing pool of red on the floor.

To put it simply, what happened that afternoon…Buzzard’s
death
…it haunted her. And even though she’d moved his favorite song into permanent shuffle on the jukebox, even though she’d started serving shots of his customary whiskey at half price, even though she’d had a plaque with his name imbedded into the bar, even though she’d done
everything
she could think of to memorialize him, she was still…
haunted
. Her heart damn near threatening to burst anytime she was caught off guard, like now, with the memory of him.

Would she soon be attending
another
funeral for someone she loved? Someone who’d still be here if not for her? Because no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise, she couldn’t shake the idea that none of this would have happened if she’d been tough enough to get her shit together and get back behind the bar where she belonged, instead of using every excuse she could think of to avoid the place…i.e., encouraging her uncle to go on an impromptu road trip.
Jesus
, if not for her cajoling, Uncle Theo wouldn’t have taken Charlie up on his invitation for a visit, and he wouldn’t have gotten embroiled in whatever trouble Charlie Sander was obviously involved in.

Throwing herself back on the blue and orange comforter, causing the bed’s rusty springs to squawk in complaint, she tossed an arm over her tear-hot eyes. And that’s when a strange thundering sound, almost like that of an earthquake, rumbled in her ears. It was immediately followed by the bedroom door flying open with such force the knob stuck solid in the sheetrock. She sprang upright—Fido doing the same, popping from his corner with a sleepy-eyed
yorp
—in time to see Mac lowering his biker boot from where he’d kicked the door open. He charged into the room in a fighter’s stance, his big, black Glock up and at the ready. The rest of the Knights piled in behind him, weapon’s drawn, faces like death masks in the dim light of the bedside lamp.