Ricochet (2 page)

“Sorry, honey. It’s Ryker. The airline has changed his flight three times, and he just called to let me know he’s coming in today instead of tomorrow morning. This shoot is going to run late tonight, so I got him a room at the Crowne. All you have to do is drop him off.”

Ryker.
His name brought fluttering memories of the flirty, snarky conversation they’d had over the phone a little over a week ago. If she had to battle the 405 parking lot, she couldn’t think of a more interesting pickup. She been wondering if he was as sexy as his voice, but...

“If he’s just going to the Crowne, why am I picking him up? Why can’t he just catch the shuttle like everyone else? It runs between the Crowne and the airport every fifteen minutes.”

“I need you to bring him the bridge plans so he can look them over tonight. We’re closing in on a real time crunch here. “Have you heard from Townsend today?”

Rachel winced internally as she rounded the desk, picked up her purse, fished out her keys, and lifted the strap over her shoulder. She didn’t know what she’d do if the contracting blaster wasn’t able to fit this bridge explosion into his schedule.

“Not yet, but he usually calls late, after he gets off the jobsite.” She picked up a roll of plans from a shelf near the door. “You know I’m going to be a mad woman by the time I get to the airport, right?”

His mouth curved into the cute grin that drove his girlfriend, Lexi, crazy. “More than usual?”

She pushed off the desk with a smirk, and started toward the door.

“Ryker’s coming in on American. Terminal four.”

“How will I know him?”

Jax shrugged. “I’ve never met him. I’ll ask Troy and let you know.”

“If he suggests I stand at baggage claim with a sign that reads ‘Ryker,’ slap him for me. And have Troy send me the guy’s flight information too, please.”

God, she was so not looking forward to the stop-and-go, the cutting in, the blaring horns…

At the door, she paused an poked Jax’s rigid shoulder with her index finger. “You. Owe. Me. Big-time.”

Ryker paced the sidewalk in front of terminal four at LAX and looked at his watch again. It was after seven p.m., and he’d been waiting for someone from Renegades to pick him up for two hours.

He was hot. He was tired. And he was damn sick of the noise and chaos throughout the terminal.

God he
hated
LA.

He pulled his phone from the pocket of his pants and hit Redial. The call rolled into voice mail. “Dammit.”

Ryker clenched his teeth as he waited to leave yet another message, and stuffed his cell away. He had to accept the fact that he was on his own tonight. He clasped his hands behind his head and paced at the curb. Grab a taxi, find a hotel, get something to eat… What a pain in the ass.

Exhaustion crept in. He’s spent way too many late nights partying in New Orleans. And he was going to head back as soon as he talked to Troy about this job.

“Things we do for friends,” he muttered and waved to grab one of the three taxis approaching.

They all must have seen his gesture, because they veered toward the curb at the same time. One of the taxis swerved from an outside lane, cut in front of a second, and pulled up in front of Ryker. The second cab swerved to avoid hitting the offending cab, barely missing the third. Taxi’s two and three hit their brakes but couldn’t stop in time, and ran into the first cab, now sitting at the curb.

Crunching metal. Horns. Screeching tires. Shouts from pedestrians. The noise echoed off concrete like a grenade in a tunnel and tore across Ryker’s exposed nerves.

The drivers threw their doors open, stood, and started yelling at each other in a mix of broken English and Pasto, an Afghan language Ryker recognized well.

His mind cracked a little around the edges, and he found himself moving before he’d made a conscious decision to intervene. He would have anyway, but it would have been nice of his brain to inform him of this shit before he was standing in the middle of three dark-haired, dark-skinned taxi drivers, shouting.

“You always do this.” The second driver, the one who’d swerved into the first taxi’s rear panel, was a big man. Ryker’s height but fifty pounds heavier. “This the third time in a week you cheat me out of customer. What your problem,
spee bachee
?”

“You hit my car.” The driver who’d taken the coveted curb spot inspected the damage to his cab. “What wrong with you,
dawoos
?”

The Afghan language, the aggression, the swearing, chipped away at Ryker’s mind. He cut in front of the third driver, who was skirting the T-boned taxis toward the first. Ryker put his hands up. “Hold on. Calm down—”

“
Ghwal ukhura
,” he yelled over Ryker’s shoulder. “You deserve it.”

The second driver started around his trunk, closing in as well toward the offender.

“Don’t do it, man,” Ryker called.

Driver two paused at his trunk, but not to reconsider. He pulled out a tire iron. “You going to learn a lesson.”

“Shit.” Ryker turned and sprinted toward the crunched cars, stepped on a bumper, a hood, and dropped to the ground again between the two men. He faced the one with the tire iron. “Just cool down. You don’t want to go to prison over this guy.”

Ryker might as well have been invisible. All the drivers kept shouting obscenities, escalating the confrontation. Real alarm tore up Ryker’s spine.

“Back off,” Ryker ordered the attacker as he inched closer.

The third driver came around cars, joining the second in taunting the first.

“
Back. The fuck. Off,
” Ryker repeated.

“
Zma ballolai wichisa!
” the first driver yelled from behind Ryker yelled.

The man’s order to the other cabbies to suck his dick yanked on the last string of the other two men’s threadbare patience. Driver two with the tire iron bellowed, and his yowl echoed off concrete. His face twisted in fury. The hand holding the iron rose.

Ryker’s alarm amped to fear and flashed like fire. His mind crackled a little more, and he lost a few more pieces. And as if the fragments created a passageway in his mind, Ryker saw through those holes to the past and jumped onto a Ghazi dirt street, eight thousand miles away.

“
Wadrega!
” he yelled with every ounce of authority he’d developed over the last sixteen years. “
Wadareja ka ne daz kawam
.”

All three men froze, just as he’d ordered in Pashto. Their gazes darted toward Ryker, confusion replacing anger. He reached for his weapon, something he should have already done. It would be good to have a gun aimed at someone he threatened to shoot. Christ, he hoped none of his guys had seen that rookie screw-up.

But his hand landed on an empty hip where his 9mm should have been holstered. Confusion tore away a few more pieces of his brain.

He slapped both hands against his chest. No M14.

What the hell…?

“Put that down,” Ryker said, fighting to clear his soupy mind, adding the threat of shoving the tire iron up the guy’s ass. “
Pelay ke dala ona mandam
.”

The driver behind Ryker laughed. “That’s where it belongs,” he yelled at the others, “up your ass.”

Rage coiled in the second driver’s face as he lunged for the first. Ryker blocked the strike with his forearm, gripped the attacker’s wrist with the other hand, and twisted until the iron clattered on the asphalt. Then he spun the man around and wrenched his hand up between his shoulder blades.

“
Wadrega!
” he ordered again, his own voice fading in a buzz filling his head. Nothing made sense—his missing weapon, the sound of the metal on pavement…

Pavement?

His mind stalled like the batteries had run out. But his body was still functioning, his training buried somewhere in his fuzzy head. He turned the attacking driver by the arm, fisted his shirt collar, and rammed him face-first against the hood of the nearest car.

With the threat neutralized, Ryker’s immediate fear ebbed. But when his senses returned, he found himself in the middle of chaos—people running, horns blaring, men shouting.

Panic pinched his chest again, and Ryker reached for the radio on his shoulder. Where was his team? Why was he out here alone?

And
where
was his radio?

“Let him go and step away.”

The authoritarian American voice sounded behind Ryker and kicked his shaky world into another spiral. He jerked the attacker from the car and swiveled, putting the other man’s body between his own and the new threat—men in blue uniforms. Men…and uniforms…Ryker didn’t recognize.

Two of the uniforms stopped, their weapons drawn and pointing at Ryker’s chest. More came from another direction and secured the three taxi drivers.

“LAX police,” one of the uniforms called, voice clear and confident. “Let him go and put your hands up.”

LAX police… LAX police…

Ryker’s brain touched on every extremist group he’d encountered, every paramilitary unit, but he’d never heard of LAX. Didn’t even know what it stood for. A new terrorist group his unit hadn’t been briefed on? A civilian corps of men filling in the gap between Afghan military and police?

“Sir,” Uniform repeated, “let the man go.”

American. Definitely. Why didn’t Ryker know him? Why couldn’t he figure out what unit the man was with? Afghan police wore gray uniforms. And they had patches, not shiny gold badges. Afghan military wore fatigues, just like Ryker’s.

He cut another look around. Where the
fuck
had all these blue uniforms come from? Maybe this was just another one of his wicked nightmares…

“Is okay, friend,” the man in his chokehold coughed out. “I sorry. I lost my head. You can let go. I not going to fight no more.”

Ryker darted a look right, then left. The bystanders were a mix of every nationality—black, white, Hispanic, Asian. He scanned the traffic, the complex paths of asphalt creating walkways and bridges between buildings. So many buildings. So many cars. So many people who didn’t belong…

The fog in his head slowly parted, like the retreat of rain clouds, and reality slivered back in.

America.

Los Angeles.

LAX police.

He was at the goddamned airport.

A mixture of relief and shame mingled with lingering confusion. He lifted one hand in surrender, fisted the back of the attacker’s shirt in the other, and pushed the man toward the cops. One officer secured the attacker with cuffs; the other kept his weapon on Ryker and ordered him to the ground.

Beautiful.

Once he was cuffed and searched, the cop pulled him to his feet by the arm and pushed him, face-first, to the hood of a police unit that had just arrived. The attacker had been positioned the same way over the front fender, putting them at right angles to each other.

Ryker glared at the cop over his shoulder. “I’m the one who
stopped
the fight—”

“Just give us a few minutes to get everything straightened out, sir.”

Perfect end to a cranky-ass day.

He dropped his forehead against the hood and breathed through the anger. Then turned his head toward the cabbie. “
Spay Bachai
.” The curse—equivalent to son of a bitch—didn’t seem to faze the guy. “All this over a fare?”

One of the cops yanked Ryker from the hood and walked him away from the driver.

“Can I get my bags?” Ryker scanned for his gear. “I don’t want them to disappear.”

The cop glanced that direction then called to one of the other officers to pick them up, and walked Ryker into a corner, where he was questioned.

His use of the Pashto language had the cops bent on creating a terrorist conspiracy linking him and the three taxi drivers. With every question, Ryker’s patience slipped a notch. Anxiety mushroomed in his chest like a storm cloud. And after thirty minutes of answering the same questions asked eight different ways, Ryker’s nerves were raw.

“Dude. I’ve been in the army for sixteen goddamned years, and I don’t appreciate the terrorism insinuations. Arrest me if you want any more answers. I could use a ride into town.”

His attitude alone warranted the arrest, but Ryker didn’t give a shit. The cop—if he were even a real cop; what the hell was LAX police anyway?—gave up on the interrogation and finally cut Ryker loose.

He threw his bags over his shoulder and headed back into the airport in search of the nearest bar.

“I need a fucking drink.”

But after fifteen minutes of searching, all he’d found was a splitting headache. He finally wandered into the international terminal, where he located the first restaurant with a bar and planted his ass in a chair near the wall.

The bartender was a pretty woman, probably in her forties. She wore a tight tank top that showed off a killer rack, and gave Ryker a familiar, interested smile as she leaned on the bar with both hands. “What can I get you, handsome?”

Normally, he would have played on her interest. Rolling around in the sheets with an older woman who knew exactly how to give and receive in bed sounded like a nice end to this day of travel from hell.

At least in theory. In practice, he’d rather have been picked up two hours ago and now be sitting in the corner of a comfy couch, watching a ball game with Troy.