“And another two at the gate. But they’re high as fuck. I’m going to smell like weed for a week.”
After a beat, the man I swore I’d never work with again pats the pocket of his tunic. “I’m getting the package. Set the charges and find Foxtrot.”
“Roger that.”
He hurries toward the house while I creep back to the gate. The closest car looks like it hasn’t run in years. Slipping around the back of it, I drop to the ground and roll under the old sedan.
This might be the first time I’m grateful for the headscarf. At least it keeps the sand out of my hair.
I have enough C4 taped to my torso to blow up half the compound. Pulling a pen light from my pocket, I clasp it between my teeth. Two bricks of explosive should do it. With seventeen minutes on the detonator, I connect the wires and get the hell out of there.
The back gate is harder. No abandoned cars to use as cover. Just some wooden crates. The guards on the watch towers don’t pay me any notice. I look like I belong. Move like I belong. The crates are wired to blow in under two minutes.
Fourteen minutes left.
“Tango, you have the package?” I hiss on my way back to the front of the house.
“Not yet. Approaching her door now.”
Voices come from the courtyard. Angry ones. Along with a woman’s cry.
“Take him back to his room. Now,” Faruk snarls.
“No. Mateen is hungry. He needs fresh vegetables and fruit like Dr. Joey says. We are going to the kitchen.”
“You will do as I say!”
Faruk’s wife—Lisette—whimpers, and I stop in my tracks. Her husband punches her in the stomach. She crumples to her knees in the dirt. But he’s not done. Faruk kicks her, cursing her in Pashto while the kid wails next to her.
“I should have ended your life years ago! You make him soft!”
Move it. Now.
Twelve minutes to find Ford and get the hell out of here.
“Papa, stop!” Mateen shouts. The asshole’s slap sends him to his knees.
Big mistake, fucker. No one hurts a kid on my watch.
I take off at a run, then spring, landing on Faruk’s back and wrapping my arm around his throat.
He’s got at least six inches on me—and fifty pounds—but I’m scrappy as fuck and twice as mean. When he tries to flip me, I wrap my legs around his torso and squeeze harder.
“Zaman!” His voice doesn’t carry. Much. I’m cutting off most of his air. His veins bulge, but he’s not going down. Shit. I reach for the knife strapped to my thigh. The angle’s bad, and it tumbles to the dirt.
Still on the ground, Lisette looks from her son to me to the blade. Fierce determination darkens her gaze, and she lunges for the weapon.
I slap my free hand against Faruk’s ear. It does the trick, disorienting him long enough for her to drive the knife into his fancy leather shoe.
With a roar, he claws at me, missing my eyes but taking a chunk from below my collarbone.
“You…are…dead…” he grunts. His uninjured foot connects with Lisette’s shoulder. The sickeningpopsends me into a rage.
The faces of all the women I’ve failed to save over the years flash through my mind so quickly, I don’t have time to blink.
I can’t reach my gun. Even if I could, the shot would blow any chance we have of getting out of this place alive.
Harder.
