Page 27 of Her Loving Hero

“So, who was doing the talking on the tape? Al-Qaeda? What’s their plan? Who’s their target? When are they planning to do something? What else do you have besides someone possibly coming in from the UAE, and some woman in your bed?” Wyatt hit his brakes, so he didn’t rear end the flatbed truck in front of him.

“They’re al-Qaeda. We know this because they mentioned Hamza al Libi as well as Saif al Fadi.”

Wyatt nodded as he drove over three lanes of traffic so that he could take the exit he needed. “Wait a minute, I thought those two were supposed to have been killed in a raid in Pakistan.”

“We triple checked it. I don’t care what the intel said, it was Hamza, was giving orders according to what Asher and I put together. He's saying he has operatives on the ground in Oman, but now he’s waiting for the loyalists to arrive so he could join them, which should be within the week.”

“Are you saying what I think you are?” Wyatt had circled the block two times before he could find parking. Emily’s neighborhood was great if you wanted to have a bachelor party, but it was a lousy place to live. She had to move. Her apartment might have controlled access to the underground parking, and an actual buzzer to get into the front, but it was like an urban Cancun with all of the revelry.

As he hot footed it to her building, he saw two guys beating the hell out of one another, and another guy puking his guts out into a trash can. He had to get her out of this place.

“Wyatt are you listening to me?” Kane yelled loudly into the phone.

“Yeah, you were saying something about loyalists.”

“Not loyalists, martyrs. I said that it meant that they are pulling in their martyrs for a suicide mission,” Kane answered. “This is going to be big. You need to tell your girlfriend’s sister to stay the fuck out of this and let the adults handle it.”

“I intend to.”

* * *

Emily was perchedon the edge of her couch, counting down the seconds from when she had called Wyatt. She’d told the people at the front desk to let him come up. Even though she knew he was coming, his knock still scared the stuffing out of her, but the good news was, she didn’t feel sick to her stomach when she went to open her door. She felt her lips turning up into a smile. She was getting better.

“Hello, Beautiful,” he said. His hazel eyes smiled down at her.

How did eyes smile?

“Hi. Thanks for coming so quickly. Were you asleep?” She waved her arm for him to proceed her into the apartment. She didn’t like the idea of him following her. She wanted to be able to see him.

“I was at the hospital. Kenna is having her baby.”

“Oh no, you shouldn’t have come.”

Wyatt unzipped a computer bag he was holding. “Yes, I should. Let’s get your new laptop fired up, and you can fill me in on everything your sister said.”

“I was going to go to the electronics store tomorrow and buy myself a laptop,” she said as she looked over his shoulder at the thin, sleek computer. There was no way she would have purchased something like the one that he was opening up on her desk.

“Emily, yours wasn’t secure. It was old and the operating system was so out of date that it probably wasn’t even getting updates anymore. It must have taken forever to access the internet.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” she demurred.

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Really? You want to stick with that answer?”

She knew he was flirting with her to put her at ease while the computer fired up. She appreciated it, but it didn’t stop her from worrying about Carly.

“So, are you good with our plan?” Wyatt asked as if reading her mind.

She bit her lip and nodded her head. “You’re going to pretend to be one of my friends from Oman. Do you think you can talk them out of this crazy scheme?”

“I’m going to do my damndest.”

“Will they believe you? I mean, you can’t be Wyatt Leeds. I’ve talked about you.”

Wyatt snorted. “Don’t worry, Kane’s working on it at this very minute. He’s building me an entire new identity. If it were just Carly, we wouldn’t need it, but this Chris kid sounds savvy. Kane’s building an on-line presence and everything.”

Wyatt’s phone rang. He looked down at it.

“It’s Kane.” He put it on speaker.