Bodyguard Lockdown

chapter Six



There weren’t too many duties Jim Rayo hated.

Acting as delivery boy, however, was at the top of his list.

He parked his jeep at the crest of a nearby dune, and studied the perimeter. The sun hit the top of the sky, turning the Sahara into miles of molten gold.

He’d been here before. Many times over the years. But most of those times, blood stained the sand, clogged the air. And bodies littered the dunes.

He’d followed Riorden Trygg for twenty-five years. A little more than half his life. Desert Storm. Operation Freedom. Several known occupations and others not so known.

Through it all, Trygg had saved his life more than a dozen times, bailed his butt out of bad situations countless more.

When Trygg had first found him, Jim had been barely in his twenties. He’d been tried and convicted for manslaughter after a drunken brawl escalated into a knife fight.

Trygg walked into his cell like he owned Leavenworth. He’d been a colonel back then. His chest crammed with metals, his hair short and tight, a cigar hanging out of his mouth. And a half a dozen more shoved in the shirt pockets of prison guards.

Trygg gave him a choice. Thirty years in prison, or his full rank back and an opportunity to serve his country the way he’d always intended.

The only thing Trygg required was Jim’s word. His sworn loyalty.

From that day, he’d followed Trygg throughout numerous countries, campaigns and, finally, to Capitol Hill. Neither man had broken his promise.

He even shared Trygg’s goal of creating the perfect soldier.

But all of it had changed with CIRCADIAN.

The whir of a helicopter split the air. Jim watched the bird land several yards away, the pilot giving him the high sign.

Jim waited until a slight, mousy man jumped from the opening. Military gear hung on his small frame along with a briefcase strapped over his shoulder and a gray gym bag gripped in one hand.

“Colonel.” Doctor Lewis Pitman tossed the gym bag into the back of the jeep and slid onto the passenger seat. “Are we on schedule?”

“Yes.” Jim started the vehicle. “We’re in the last stages.”

“Good. Good,” Lewis said. He placed his briefcase at his feet and fastened his seat belt. “And Dr. Haddad? Is she at the camp?”

“No.”

Pitman frowned. “If we are in the last stages, we need her within the next forty-eight hours. I need time to adapt my systems. You realize that, right, Colonel?”

“Yes. And so does the general,” Jim reminded him. “We expect she’ll be joining us within the next twelve hours.”

“Joining us?” Pitman sneered. “This isn’t a goddamn tea party.”

“It isn’t your operation, either.” Jim’s eyes narrowed. “Are we clear?”

“Fine.” Lewis backed down, more out of fear than accord, Jim suspected.

“How much farther?”

“It’s just over the next hill,” Jim replied. “The general is waiting for you at camp to discuss the final plans.”

They crested the dune and Lewis let out a long whistle. His eyes moved to an airbus parked at the base of a five-hundred-foot-high rock formation. The plane itself was forty feet high and well over one hundred feet in length, its white body covered in camo clustered netting from tail to nose.

“Well, hello, sexy.” Lewis jumped from the jeep the moment Jim parked.

“Dr. Pitman.” General Trygg approached from a nearby tent, caught the smile on the scientist’s face. “I can see you’re pleased with our efforts.”

“General,” Lewis answered, then slowly shook his head. “I can’t believe you did it. That you pulled it off.”

“It’s been refit to your specifications.” General Trygg stopped, his eyes flickering over the plane. “At great cost to my operation.”

“The payoff will quadruple your investment,” Pitman assured him. “A moving laboratory will be hard to detect once we disperse the CIRCADIAN.”

Trygg glanced at Jim. “Everything go well, Colonel?”

“Yes, sir. The helicopter was on time.”

“Colonel Rayo informed me that Sandra Haddad is not here. I must point out that without her—”

“You worry about the nanites, Lewis,” the general interrupted. “I will take care of Doctor Haddad.”

“I don’t think you understand the importance—”

“Listen to me. I will take care of Doctor Haddad.”

Jim understood the general well. The emotionless features, the toneless response, the hard set of his shoulders, told him Trygg was just shy of losing his temper.

“Let me show you the airbus, Doctor Pitman.” Jim’s eyes caught Trygg’s. “Go ahead of me. I’ll catch up with your bags in a minute.”

Trygg gave a sharp nod. “Good idea, Jim.”

“All right,” Lewis conceded. “I will do my part, and rely on you to do yours.”

“Thank you, Lewis,” Trygg responded dryly, then watched the doctor head for the plane.

Over the years, Jim had worked with many men and dealt with many personalities. Most, he coped with. But intuition and experience had taught him to quickly identify weaknesses in character. And Lewis Pitman’s backbone would break like a toothpick.

“I don’t trust him,” Jim commented in a low tone. “He’ll cut and run at the first sign of trouble.”

The general clapped him on the shoulder. “He’s already cut and run. Right after I was imprisoned. Remember? A coward doesn’t change. He just moves on.”

“Why ask Lewis Pitman back on this project?”

“Don’t worry,” Trygg reassured him. “I don’t trust the man, but I trust the fact that a coward stays a coward.”

Jim nodded. “Know your enemies. Keep them close.”

Trygg watched Pitman climb into the airplane. “He’ll make an excellent experimental rat.”

“Understood.” Jim had no sympathy for the man. Over the course of the years, he had eradicated many of the same.

“Now—” Trygg’s lips moved into a genuine smile “—I smelled coffee earlier coming from the mess tent. Why don’t I buy you a cup and you can give me a situation report?”

“I have to skip the coffee, sir. We’re missing two more men,” Jim answered, and walked with the general to the tent across their base. “The messengers I sent to get word out on our rewards for Doctor Haddad and McKnight.”

“Where is the good doctor?”

“East of us. Somewhere past Omasto.”

Trygg frowned. “That doesn’t bode well. Tourlay lies farther north. I know those cylinders are there. Or nearby. Otherwise she wouldn’t have booked her flight there.”

“Yes, sir,” the colonel responded. “I’m sending some men out in the helicopter.”

“I’ll show Lewis the laboratory. I want you to monitor your men and then report back when you get done,” Trygg ordered. “We need those cylinders in the next twelve hours.”

“And McKnight? If we take her, should we keep him alive for insurance?”



“No. Keeping McKnight alive is too much of a risk. If it comes to that, it’s best to kill him on sight. We simply find more painful ways of getting Haddad to break.”

Jim’s stomach tightened. Torturing a woman wasn’t in his nature. And it was highly likely, given Sandra Haddad’s personality, she’d die before revealing the location of the cylinders.

Rayo pushed the image of that out of his mind to focus on a question that had been nagging at him for the past few weeks.

“Can I ask where you’ve gotten this intel from, sir?”

“A close friend.”

“In Washington?” Jim pressed.

Trygg laughed, then slapped Jim on the shoulder. But the fingers stayed, dug in just enough to pinch the nerve. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

* * *

“ALL RIGHT, DOC,” Booker demanded. “Tell me exactly where those cylinders are hidden.”

The sun had set an hour earlier. They’d been driving for nearly two hours in unsettled silence. The soft green glow of the dashboard edged the darkness, filling the car with an eerie expectancy.

“They’re in a cave. The landscape might have changed some of my landmarks. It might take a while to find them again,” Sandra explained. “That’s why it’s essential I go with you.”

She dropped her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. “I almost had it, Booker.”

“Had what?”

She opened her eyes. “The answer.” She held up her hand, brought her finger and thumb within a centimeter of each other. “I was this close to figuring out the problem with my formula. I couldn’t walk away from years of research and experiments. This wasn’t about ego or Trygg’s Super Soldier dream. This was about making sick people well.”

She dropped her hand into her lap, tightened the fingers into a fist. “When they confiscated my files, something snapped in me. Something ugly.”

“And you took the cylinders.”

“When I came to my senses, it was too late to return them, and I couldn’t destroy them myself. So I buried them in a cave.”

“It never occurred to you that Trygg discovered your secret?”

She shook her head. “I took them the same day Cain arrested him,” she explained. “There was only one person who could have known. And I thought he was long gone.”

“Lewis Pitman.”

“Yes. He worked closely with me on the experiments.” She stiffened in surprise. “How did you know about Pitman?”

“Let’s just say I’ve had a long time to do my research on the CIRCADIAN project.”

“Including some hands-on research with me,” she reasoned, struggling to keep the sudden surge of humiliation and anger in check.

“What are you talking about, Doc?”

“Our last night together, when I confessed my involvement with the deaths of your men, you already knew about it.”



“I’d known since the trial.”

“Our meeting was no accident then,” she said slowly. “You understood Trygg would come after me if he had the chance.”

“Yes, I figured you might be a target if he ever escaped prison. But I didn’t know about your close relationship with the royals or the fact that our paths would cross often once I started working for Jarek.” Booker sighed. “While our first meeting wasn’t planned, it was inevitable, Doc.”

“And after, when we...” She was unable to go on.

“Slept together?” he supplied. “That had nothing to do with Trygg. Only you and me were in that bed together. No one else.” Booker stopped the SUV in front of a small oasis of brush and rocks. He turned off the motor.

“You should have told me, Booker.”

“It took you three months to tell me, Doc.” He shifted around until he faced her. His elbow rested on the back of the seat and his fingers came dangerously close to her shoulder and hair.

“But I told you immediately after I found out who you were.”

“By the time I realized you didn’t know, we were heading for more than just a casual relationship. At that point, it didn’t make a difference.”

“It would have made a difference in me,” she countered. “Your knowing might have stopped me from...”

“From what?”

From falling in love with you. “From getting involved with you,” she snapped instead.

“That wasn’t going to happen.” His fingers caught a loop of hair. “Something sparked between us the moment we met.”

She couldn’t deny it. Quamar had introduced them at one of the many balls held at the palace.

The moment they’d touched hands, something rippled through them, crackled the air around them.

“We can’t go back in time, Booker. Too much has happened.” She pulled her head away, not liking how each tug on her hair made her pulse jump. “Let’s just finish this. Then we both can get on with our lives.”

Without warning, the air rushed around them. Booker’s head jerked; his eyes narrowed on the darkness. He hit the lights on the jeep. “Listen!”

The soft whop whop of blades hit the air.

Booker swore. “Helicopter.”

His turned the ignition on, kept the lights off and slammed the gearshift into Drive.

The SUV jerked to life. The tires tore through the sand, sending dirt and dust flying. Booker plowed through brush, then shot over a dune.



The vehicle caught air, hit the bottom of the dune. Sandra screamed. “How did they find us?”

Suddenly, a helicopter rose over the next dune. Its engine eerily silent. Muffled.

Stealth.

Its spotlights glared down on them.

“Stop your vehicle.” The order burst from the helicopter’s loudspeaker. “If you do not stop, we will be forced to fire upon you.”

“Hold on to something!” Booker stomped on the brake, slammed the gearshift into Reverse and hit the accelerator.

They sped backward down the hill, swerving and putting the helicopter temporarily out of firing sight.

Machine guns fired. The bullets ripped across the back window of the SUV. The rear window exploded.

“Can this thing fly?” Sandra glanced back, knowing it would be impossible to outrun the chopper for long.

“No. But it can detonate.” Booker hit a button on the dashboard. A drawer from beneath opened up. Six silver disks lay in a line. “These are magnetic explosives. Each has a thirty-second delayed trigger.”

“This is why you wanted the palace SUV?”

“Yes,” he answered. “There’s enough explosives in each of those to flatten a small house.”

“Then why can’t we just throw them at the bad guys?” she demanded, slinging her medical bag over her shoulder. “Out in the desert with nothing but the clothes on our backs is not my idea of a good time, Booker!”

“It’s better odds than dealing with them.” He pointed at the helicopter once again above them.

Booker stopped the car. “Out! Now!” he ordered.

Sandra shoved the door open and she scrambled out.

He aimed the car toward the belly of the helicopter, threw the car into Drive and stomped on the gas.

Closing on the copter fast, he pressed the triggers on each of the discs, counting off twenty-five seconds in his head. He shoved the door open and jumped.

The explosion hit the night air. The helicopter took the brunt of it in its belly and tail. In a grind of metal it started a death spin.

Booker scrambled to his feet, ignoring the rush of pain in his side. Instead, he searched for Sandra.

A thunderous rumble shook the earth beneath his feet. Booker swore and looked to the horizon.

Horses. Fifty of them clambered over the dunes from all directions. Led by the men on their backs, their swords raised.

“Booker!” Sandra screamed from behind him. He swung around. A horse rose on its hind legs in front of her, its front hooves punching the air mere inches from her head.

Booker scrambled after her. Two men jumped in his path. He punched one in the neck, grabbed the man’s rifle and clubbed the other.

“Stay there!” A man, Al Asheera, pointed his rifle at her with one hand while he tried to control the horse with the other.

Booker stopped, aimed and fired. The man stiffened, then slid dead from the horse.

“Come on!” Booker grabbed her arm, hauled her to her feet.

“Where—”

“Not now!” He dragged her across the sand to the horse.

He grabbed the reins, brought the horse around. “Get on!” he ordered. “In front.”

Men yelled, catching sight of the couple. Gunfire strafed the sand at their feet. Booker bent over, grabbed her foot and hoisted her in the saddle before settling behind her.

“Hey ya!” he ordered, and hit the horse’s ribs with his heels. They shot across the dunes, racing across the desert, letting the darkness swallow them whole.