“Aren’t you afraid of growing old alone?” Sheila asked.

Melanie laughed again. “I’ve got you, silly. We’ll be old ladies together, maybe get a ton of cats and rocking chairs. When we feel like it, we’ll go on those cruises and eat ourselves silly and ogle all the young men.”

Sheila nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

Melanie held up her wineglass. “To our future as little old ladies.” She smirked as she clinked her glass against Sheila’s. “Rich old ladies. Stinking rich old ladies. Maybe we’ll get a few Italian boy toys and they can feed our little pu**ycats for us.” She laughed merrily at her innuendo.

Azami kept the disgust from her face, sitting there with Frankie squeezing her thigh and the two women who had sent a team of soldiers to their death, toasting their own futures. She didn’t understand, especially Melanie, who saw the work the teams did all over the world, the lives they saved, how it was possible not to admire them and want to keep them safe.

And Whitney. She could barely look at his double without her stomach lurching. She found it hell sitting in that room with all of them. Whitney’s supposed soldiers, men like Frankie, with no honor. Women like Melanie and Sheila, who took money and sent men to their death while they drank wine and ate chocolate. The realization came slowly to her: Thorn didn’t belong here. She was useless to Whitney. She needed to rejoice in that. She needed to be proud of herself that she wasn’t like those two women, or these men willing to do a monster’s bidding for his money and approval.

What had she been thinking all these years? She had a father who had shown her the way to live with honor, two wonderful brothers who loved her, and Sam. Her Sam. She had a narrow escape when so many others suffered for years at Whitney’s hands. Why had she made him so big? So omnipotent? She’d allowed Whitney to color her judgment of herself for years. These people were those he considered worthy and she despised them.

Melanie and Sheila rose to leave. Melanie looked right at Azami and pursed her lips to send her a kiss. Sheila laughed. “That’s so mean, Mel.” There was a slight nervous giggle in her voice, as if she really didn’t like what her friend had done but was afraid to call her on it.

In all the time Azami had been following Sheila, no one had ever made her nervous. She’d seemed cold, without feelings and very little nerves, yet Melanie brought out her submissive nature.

Melanie deliberately winked at Frank. “You really enjoy yourself now,” she told him.

Azami realized Melanie knew she was making Sheila uncomfortable and wanted to prove she could do it. They had an interesting relationship. Sheila seemed dependent on Melanie. Once she was gone, what would happen?

Frank tightened his hold on Azami’s wrist and stumbled to his feet, jerking her close. “I do intend to have a good time, little China girl. And you’d better make me very happy. You embarrassed me tonight and no one does that to me and gets away with it.”

Azami let him yank her out of her seat. She caught up the small glittering bag, shoving it onto her wrist, allowing her hand free. Teetering on her heels, she took small, mincing steps as Frank dragged her toward him. The moment she was near the table where Melanie and Sheila had been seated, her fingers swept beneath the tabletop to acquire the tiny bug she’d planted earlier. Deftly she palmed it, allowing her purse to slide down her arm so she could shove it inside with a poke of her finger.

Frank was going to learn a little lesson in how to treat a lady when they reached the back parking lot. She hoped they’d get there before his friend, so she would be long gone and his friend could escort him to the hospital.

“Stop struggling or it will be worse for you,” Frank hissed, giving her a little shake as they approached the table where the Whitney double was standing to leave.

“A little anticlimactic,” the Whitney double said to his bodyguard. “I don’t know what I expected, but the meal was good.” He gave a little laugh.

She noted that the bodyguard ignored him. Whoever the man was, he was considered disposable. He’d been nothing but bait and no way were the bodyguards there to protect him. He would have been sacrificed in a heartbeat. Had she made her move on the Whitney double, the “bodyguards”’ sole purpose would have been to kill her, not save him.

Out in the night air, Frank’s head cleared enough that he realized if anything happened to her, the waiters had seen his face. He didn’t care much if they identified him, the records would show he had died in South America two years prior, but still … He pulled Azami in close to him and walked her quickly toward the back parking lot.

She went willingly across the asphalt, weaving through the few cars there toward the narrowing alley. A broken wooden fence partially hid the alley behind the parking lot. The gate, hanging by one bracket, was long gone, splintered and broken like much of the fence. Frank thrust her through it and paused to lean against the rickety wood, sweat breaking out on his face. Every step had to be painful with his groin so full and heat rushing through his body, elevating his temperature.

Azami took the opportunity to step away from him, kicking off her heels as her heart sank. Not one but two men were already waiting, wearing evil grins. She was really growing tired of the entire mess. Frank would present no problem to her. He could barely stand, but these two men were a different story.

He grinned at the two men. “Ross, I see you brought a friend. The more the merrier.”

Ross laughed. “Damn right.”

Her phone buzzed in her purse. She pulled it out and looked down at the text.

Team Two called out of the country.

She sighed. There was no way that was a coincidence. If most of Team Two was away as Daiki indicated, that left both compounds vulnerable—and that left the babies at risk.

“Gentlemen, I’m going to give you a chance here and just say, let’s call this a misunderstanding. Frank is in no shape to party and I’m not really up for it, so let’s just all go home while you still can.”

The grins faded. She wasn’t running, screaming, or in the least bit scared. Frank made a grab for her and she slapped his hand away and slammed her foot into his groin. He shrieked and went down hard, the breath exploding out of him along with a sound much like an animal in pain. He lay writhing on the ground, holding his groin, the scream fading to moans.

The two men separated, Ross pulling a gun, the other a knife.

“You bitch. I’m going to f**k you up so bad no one will ever want to look at you again,” the one with the knife said.

“Like I haven’t heard that before,” Azami said.

“Don’t you move,” Ross warned. “I’ll gut shoot you and we’ll still f**k your brains out before you die. You’ll just die hard.”

Frank staggered to his feet behind her. She could hear his continual cursing directly behind her. She took three steps toward the gunmen and then put on a burst of speed, angling toward the man with the knife just as the gun went off.

Frank folded in half, screaming, a crimson stain spreading across his groin. She slapped the knife hand away as she went in, the tiny one-inch blade a ridiculous contrast to his ten-inch blade, but razor sharp, it went into the side of his neck easily. She turned the blade as she withdrew it, twisting behind the man as the gunman fired again at her. His second shot hit his buddy in the chest.

Azami kept moving, coming up behind Ross while he was still firing shots at the spot behind his falling buddy.

“Oh, no, oh, no,” he chanted over and over, but continued firing as if his finger was stuck on the trigger.

She took him from behind, slicing his throat and stepping back quickly, moving out of his sight so that the shots wouldn’t have a chance of hitting her.

She waited until the last shot had been fired and all three men lay still on the ground before she collected her heels and went over the fence to walk calmly away. She walked several blocks until she found a dark doorway. Quickly she shimmied out of the dress and pulled off the wig, sweeping her hair back in a ponytail. She wore a spaghetti tank under the dress. From her small bag she took out a pair of trousers rolled tight. The dress was rolled and put in her bag, the wig shoved in it as deeply as possibly. Scrubbing her face clean with the wipes, she pulled out her phone to text her brother.

On my way.

She came out of the doorway looking like any teenager out to meet friends.

CHAPTER 18

Kadan glanced at his watch. It was 02:30. “Suit up. Check your oxygen. We’re thirty minutes out. Double-check each other’s gear.” He did the same and waited for Sam to nod that he’d made certain Kadan’s gear was good to go.

At 02:50 Kadan signaled the men. “Make final in-oxygen check. We’ll depressurize in five minutes.”

Sam nudged Jonas with his foot. “Wake up there, circus man. Your snoring has been keeping me awake.”

Jonas opened one sleepy eye and glared at Sam.

“In-oxygen check,” Sam said. “Get on it.”

“On it,” Jonas conceded.

Kadan said, “02:55. Depressurizing mask up.”

Sam kept his eye on Jonas. He appeared to be asleep again, but he obediently put his mask in place.

At 02:59 Kadan was on his feet. “One minute … thirty seconds. First jumper in the door.”

Sam took a breath and looked out into the night. It was a damn dark, moonless night. The engines roared as the wind clawed at him, trying to jerk him out of the plane. Adrenaline poured into his body along with that familiar tug of fear. The cold bit at him, the temperature at that elevation was about minus fifteen. He could smell the jet fuel and felt the sting of the wind on his face. The aircraft was traveling around a hundred and fifty knots and he was about to fling himself into that night sky.

“Go!”

At the command, he dove, and in a flash everything changed. The wind hit him hard, buffeting him, pulling at him, and he fought for control. He was carrying two hundred pounds of gear. His rucksack hung between his legs, straining his movements. Then, just like that, there it was. He realized the roar of the engines was gone and he was soaring through the sky, freefalling, the feeling euphoric, his heart racing with the love of the jump.

Sam pulled his chute and abruptly went from one hundred and twenty miles an hour to about twenty. The opening shock hit his body and then he was flying, the wind rushing by, his helmet muffling the sound so that he was flying in a peaceful, surreal world. For a few moments there was freedom and absolute peace as he dropped through darkness in silence. He was very aware he was suspended by a sheet of silk in a commercial air traffic space, and the thought of splattering on the window of a passing jet was there in the back of his mind.

He went in and out of the clouds, a bad fog, and then he could see the ground rushing at him. The jungle appeared nothing more than a green sea spreading out in front of him. Jumping without a strobe was always a tricky business. He could tell the difference between trees and grass by the shades of green. Thirty feet out he flared his chute, slowing him down.

He landed with a light jolt, much like jumping off a single step, reeling in his chute fast. He had the same reaction he often did—thankful to be in one piece, and ready to go again. He glanced at his watch. 03:02. Everyone should be down.

Kadan was a few feet from him. Nico a meter away. Jonas had his back to Sam and was pulling in his chute as fast as possible.

“Get coms up, Jonas; bury the chutes, Sam; and, Nico, you’re on security,” Kadan said.

“Chutes are good, Bishop,” Sam replied to Kadan.

“Okay,” Kadan said. “Let’s get the hell out of this clearing. GPS has us thirteen klicks southeast of Kinshasa. This will be our RP if we get separated.”

The rally point was a good one—plenty of cover but easily found should they need it.

Jonas spoke into the radio. “Valhalla … Valhalla, this is Reaper One. Do you copy? … Over.”