Avenged (Hostage Rescue Team Series) (Volume 5) (23 page)

Ayman raised his weapon and fired. The man grunted and fell to his knees, clutching his shoulder. Cries and shouts rose up behind him as he raced past the man and outside.

He squinted against the sudden glare of sunlight and blindly careened around the corner toward where Darwish was supposed to have left the vehicle. He’d only taken two steps when he rammed into something solid. The impact knocked him down.

He rolled to his side and brought his weapon up to fire, at the last moment recognizing Darwish towering over him, pistol in hand. Darwish reached down and clamped a strong hand around Ayman’s wrist. “Come on,” he snapped, hauling him upward.

Ayman scrambled to his feet and ran after him to the car, parked near the entrance to the alley. Security personnel were already converging on the area. A man shouted at them to stop.

“Go!” Darwish shoved him in the direction of the passenger side.

They both veered around opposite sides of the vehicle, ripped the doors open. Shots slammed into the car. Two punched through the rear windshield. Ayman ducked and whirled in his seat, ready to return fire. The engine roared to life. Darwish hit the gas and they peeled away from the curb, tires squealing. More shots sounded behind them, one pinging off the trunk.

“What about Jaleel?” Ayman shouted, casting a desperate glance toward the exit for him. Guards and employees were scrambling into position and he could hear the wail of sirens approaching.

“He’s not coming,” Darwish snapped in a cold voice, speeding away from the hotel.

Ayman’s head jerked around to stare at him. “You killed him.” Even to his own ears his voice was hollow with disbelief.

Darwish’s harsh features were tense with fury and frustration. “He’d served his purpose and became a liability when he ran and gave us away. If they’d captured him he would have talked. I did what I had to do.”

Ayman sucked in a breath and ran a hand through his hair in agitation. Jaleel. It had been Ayman’s job to protect him. He knew Darwish was right, knew he’d done it to protect them, but Allah help them, to shoot Jaleel down in cold blood like that… Was he a liability now too?

“He brought it on himself with his cowardice and now we’re the ones paying the price for his actions,” Darwish spat.

Ayman didn’t respond. He already knew the contingency plan. They’d ditch the vehicle a few blocks over where more members were waiting to pick them up. They’d keep switching vehicles until they reached the Virginia state line, where another vehicle was waiting for them at a designated spot. From there they’d go dark, to a safe house provided by the founders of The Brethren, and wait to be contacted.

Ayman pressed his lips together as Darwish swerved around slower-moving traffic and screeched around the corner, the blare of horns ricocheting in his head like bullets. His freedom seemed so very far away all of a sudden. They faced days of being on the run now, going into hiding and praying they’d evade capture so they could both take part in the big upcoming attack at the trial. Only then could he try to escape the country.

Battling the grief and guilt trying to take hold inside him, he focused on what had to be done now. He’d known the risks, known that Jaleel was expendable to The Brethren. Now his roommate was gone, killed by one of their own. His suffering was over. Ayman’s was coming.

He closed his eyes. First he prayed for Jaleel. Then he prayed for the rest of them.

Allah forgive us.

****

“Tango down.” Nate rushed forward, his attention focused beyond the man lying on the floor of the back entrance, to the sidewalk beyond. The man he’d seen just as he’d turned the corner was gone but he’d heard more shots outside.

“Two tangos escaped on foot to a car. They took off to the south. Locals are in pursuit now,” Vance reported.

“Anyone else?” Nate demanded as he approached the wounded man. He was lying on his back, two bullet wounds to the chest. He’d pulled the two halves of the uniform jacket apart. Still breathing, but not well. Blood bubbled up from the holes, telling Nate he’d been shot through the lungs. Lethal wounds.

“Negative. Entire building’s on lockdown now. Taya’s with me, she’s fine.”

Some of the tension bled out of his muscles. “Thanks. One tango down, two shots to the chest. Get some EMTs in here ASAP. I’ll do what I can.” This asshole was bleeding out because of one of his own, but Nate wasn’t letting him die without a fight. They needed intel and they needed it now.

With Cruz covering him, Nate dropped down to search him for weapons and found a pistol in the back of his waistband. Nate tossed it aside before ripping off his own shirt and kneeling beside the wounded man.

Wide, dark brown eyes focused on him, glazed with pain, hope and desperation. Nate had seen that same look many times before in men’s eyes. He wadded up his shirt and pressed it to the guy’s chest, ignoring the incoherent cry of pain and the way the man thrashed weakly.

Placing two fingers on his carotid artery, Nate leaned over him. “What’s your name?” Pulse was rapid, irregular.

The eyes focused on him once more, glassy now, his breathing raspy, wet. He made a gurgling sound. One hand reached up to curl weakly around Nate’s forearm. Blood gushed out of his mouth and he choked.

Nate rolled him to his side and swept the guy’s mouth, but knew he was running out of time. “Who sent you?” This man, or one of his accomplices that had just shot him and fled, would have killed Taya given the chance. The only reason Nate was even attempting to prolong his miserable life was to get intel from him.

“Hel…help meeee,” he wheezed out, already growing weaker.

I am fucking helping you
, Nate thought in irritation, adding pressure to the wounds. Without advanced equipment there was little he could do but try to slow the bleeding. The guy wouldn’t last much longer and he needed to get whatever information he could out of him before it was too late. It might make the difference in catching the guys responsible, and it might stop another attack.

“Who?” he demanded, a growl this time. “Ambulance is on its way but you need to talk to me right now. Understand? Now who sent you?”

The man’s mouth opened and closed, his body convulsing as more blood came from his mouth, foamy from being mixed with air in his shattered lungs. He stilled, his body twitching. Cruz knelt down on the man’s other side. One of the hotel security guards rushed over with a first aid kit and ripped it open. Nate glimpsed a portable defibrillator in it.

“Who?” Nate barked. The pulse beneath his fingers was thready, growing weaker by the second.

The man jerked at his shout. “B… Breth…”

“The Brethren?”

A slight nod, then a low, anguished moan came from him and his eyes closed. One more gurgling breath and his chest stopped moving.

Dammit
. Mouth compressed into a tight line, Nate rolled him to his back and started compressions. Without his med kit there was sweet fuck-all he could do to restore the guy’s airway and his heart wasn’t going to hold out for long now. When he stopped compressions to check for a pulse, as if on cue, it was gone.

“Give me the AED,” he said to Cruz.

His teammate handed over the automated external defibrillator and Nate activated it, put it in place on the man’s chest. “Clear.” He took his hands off the bloody chest and shocked him. The man’s torso lifted slightly with the force of the current coursing through his body.

Nate’s eyes shot to the heart rate monitor. A slight blip, nothing more, and still no pulse. He set the paddles again. “Clear.”
Come on, come on, dammit. I need more out of you.
Like how many men there were, what they’d been planning to do here, what other plans were in the works. Realistically he knew he’d never get all that from a dying man, but he was determined to try.

Still a flat line.

He shocked him twice more, and still nothing.

Gone.

Nate sat back on his heels, his entire body tight with helpless frustration. “Fuck.
Fuck
.”

“At least you got something out of him,” Cruz said as he stood and safetied his weapon.

But not enough. They’d already suspected The Brethren were behind this latest threat against Taya; the dead tango had merely confirmed it.

Nate expelled a harsh breath and pushed to his feet, rubbing his chin against his bare shoulder. The iron-tinged scent of fresh blood filled his nostrils, conjuring up flashes of memories. O’Neil bleeding out into the dirt. Taya’s upper body soaked in her own blood.

He looked down at himself. He had blood spatters all over his chest and arms and his hands were soaked with it. The security guard handed him a towel. “Any word on the other tangos?” Nate asked him.

The man shook his head. “Not yet. One of our guys was shot in the shoulder. Can you take a look at him until the ambulance gets here?”

Should only be a few minutes and he needed to talk to the cops anyhow before he could go back upstairs. Once he did, he was getting Taya the hell away from here. “Yeah.”

When Nathan finally walked through the hotel room door Taya sucked in a breath and shot to her feet as the blood drained out of her face. He was shirtless, his torso streaked with blood spatters, his forearms and hands stained with it.

“It’s not mine,” he said to her immediately.

She swallowed, willing her heart back down her throat. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He glanced over at Vance, who was on the phone with DeLuca, then back to her. He seemed tense, agitated.

“Whose blood is it?” she asked.

“He hasn’t been officially identified yet.” Meaning, he wasn’t allowed to tell her until everything was verified. “But he tried to deliver the room service earlier.”

Holy shit. Taya put a hand to her throat, sat back down on the edge of the bed. They’d both nearly been attacked. Nathan had put himself in harm’s way by going after the guy. “Were there others?”

“Yeah, but they took off. Cops and some of our agents are going after them now. Won’t be long until they’re captured.”

He sounded so certain that Taya believed him. “So the threat’s still ongoing?” She knew it on an intellectual level, but she needed to hear it from him.

His hazel eyes were grave as he nodded. “Yeah.”

But how the hell had they found her, here in North Carolina? “They followed us here last night?”

“Must have, though we were all careful about watching for a tail.”

Which meant that the men who’d come here were well trained, not to mention motivated. To risk attacking her here while under armed guard, they obviously weren’t afraid to die. It chilled her to the bone. “Vance showed me the files of the men DeLuca sent you yesterday.”

Nathan’s face changed subtly, taking on an unreadable expression. “Do you recognize any of them?”

“No, but Darwish Abbas, the file said he was trained in a militant camp in east Africa. Is he the one who…” She let her sentence trail off, gesturing at the blood staining Nathan’s body.

“No. He could be involved, though. We’ve got agents looking at the hotel’s security footage right now. The guy who died was shot by one of his own men. We think it’s the computer programmer.”

“Jaleel?” She remembered his face, the dark eyes and smooth, light-toned skin. Both his and Ayman’s families had emigrated from Syria a few years ago.

He nodded. “Waiting for official identification. Without his beard, at first I wasn’t completely sure. But yeah, I know it’s him.”

Taya rubbed her hands over her upper arms to ward off a sudden chill. They’d tracked her from the east coast of Virginia to here. How was that possible? Was someone still leaking intel to them? Someone from the Department of Justice, or maybe even the FBI?

Vance got off the phone and spoke to Nathan. “Just got confirmation from the boss. Dead tango’s the hacker. Video footage shows Darwish and another guy fleeing out the back exit.”

“Has to be Ayman Tuma,” Nathan said.

Vance nodded. “Chances are pretty high, yeah. They found two hotel employees in a supply closet just off the kitchen. Looks like they were injected with something in their jugulars. Maybe insulin or a mix of something and fentanyl.”

A wave of cold swept through her as she processed all that and realized how close she’d come to being attacked again. Except this time, her attackers would have killed her outright rather than kidnap her. If not for Nathan and the others, she’d be dead right now. Her skin turned clammy at the thought, nausea rolling in her belly.

Nathan’s gaze shot to her, a mixture of anger and concern there. “I’m gonna clean up quick, then get you outta here,” he said, heading for the bathroom. “Get your stuff together.”

She was already packed and ready, but didn’t bother saying so as he walked past her. Instead she looked at Vance. “Do I still get to go to the hospital?”

He slid his phone into his pocket and folded his arms across his chest. The man was huge, even bigger than Nathan, the muscles in his upper arms looking like they might split the seams of his T-shirt sleeves. “We’re still planning for it, but if we do it’ll have to be quick. In and out within fifteen, twenty minutes, tops, and then from there we get you out of town. I know with your dad still in the ICU that’s gonna be tough on you, but we’ve got no choice now.”

“I understand.” She just hoped she got the chance to see her dad in person, talk to him before they took her back to…wherever they had in mind. Where they’d take her now, though, she didn’t know. And if those other two men and the men commanding them were still hunting her, where would she be safe?

Suddenly she felt small and helpless, things she hated and had worked damn hard to leave behind since returning to the States.

Vance tilted his head slightly. “You met Tuck yet?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“He’s our team leader. And he’s also engaged to agent Morales, who I’m sure you remember. She’s kinda hard to forget.”

The matter-of-fact FBI agent with the scar on her cheek who she’d met at the hotel in D.C. “I remember her.”