cell, they’d talked well into the night. Sleep had been patchy and filled with nightmarish dreams. Like every other night.
Sabine had learned a lot about Samuel in the weeks they’d been held captive. He was steady and family oriented. He loved his wife to the depths of his soul and hated the time he had to be away from her; he wanted to build a house for her and the kids they’d planned to have. It was the reason he’d taken the contracting job.
Dasher headed for the cockpit. Once again, she was alone with the man who’d rescued her.
Rudy closed the door and the whine of the plane’s engines increased. He sat at her feet on the floor, leaning against the adjacent wall that divided this compartment from the rear of the plane. With his eyes half closed and his hands resting comfortably in his lap, he had an outward appearance of calm. Hovering alertness. Physical strength at rest but ready to move. And clever gray eyes. He was a dangerous man.
Her father wouldn’t have sent any other kind.
Sabine didn’t want to believe her father had sent Rudy. She didn’t want to owe a man like Noah Page for something as precious as her life, especially after almost losing it because of him. All those years she’d wasted striving to prove she was worthy of his respect had gotten her nowhere. It made her sick to think she’d allowed him to influence her like that, to know that, at least on a subliminal level, she wanted his recognition.
She closed her eyes. No. Her father hadn’t sent Rudy. This was a military operation. It had to be. Rudy didn’t want to reveal his identity because of the nature of his covert operations and the press her rescue would shake up once word got out that she was on her way home.
Exhaustion overpowered her worry, and she lay on the floor. She woke briefly when they landed for a fuel stop, then again when she felt the plane begin its descent for another. Moments later the tires touched the ground.
The plane slowed until it stopped. Like the last time they’d refueled, the pilot left the plane while Rudy watched from the doorway.
“Where are we?” Sabine asked.
“An airstrip in Egypt,” he said without looking at her.
Then his body went rigid as he peered through the door. Sabine pushed herself up to sit.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “Wait here.” Then he leaped from the plane.
Sabine crawled to her feet. The crack of gunfire sent her heart skipping faster. Someone was shooting at them again. Who? More gunshots exploded.
She stumbled toward the doorway, searching the plane for a weapon on her way. Seeing Rudy’s pistol sticking out of his pack, she slipped it free and leaned against the wall of the plane next to the door, breathing hard from exertion and fear. Peering outside, she spotted Rudy running back toward the plane, a man chasing him with a gun. In the distance, she could see a body lying on the dirt runway.
Forcing her fear down, Sabine lifted the pistol, aimed and fired. The man chasing Rudy dove for the ground, dirt spitting near his feet. Another man appeared in her view and fired at Rudy. She covered him as best she could, until he leaped into the plane, bumping her shoulder on his way. She stumbled as he slammed the door shut, then pounded it once with his fist.
Bullets hit the door. Sabine jumped back at the loud sound.
He turned and she saw the anger in his eyes before he hurried to the cockpit, his strides long and his feet thudding hard on the metal floor.
She followed, jumping again as bullets hit the plane once more. “Where’s Dasher?”
“Dead.” Rudy sat in the pilot’s seat and worked controls, his face tight with fiery emotion. “They were waiting for us.”
Again. How could it have happened again? Who didn’t want her to escape her captors?
Sabine clumsily fell into the copilot’s seat and fastened the shoulder harness. Darkness stared back at her through the window of the cockpit. The plane rolled down the dirt runway, picking up speed. The sound of bullets hitting metal faded. The plane lifted off the ground.
“Who keeps coming after us?” Who had fired at them in the helicopter, and who was firing at them now?
Rudy didn’t answer, his face intense and focused on flying the plane. She let him for a while.
Looking out the window to her side, she saw only darkness. “Where are we going?”
“We have to get to Athens.”
She turned her head toward him. “Do we have enough fuel?”
“Probably not,” he said, still looking straight ahead and at the controls.
“But … don’t we have to fly over the Mediterranean to get to Athens?”
“Yes. And we have to fly low.”
Staring through the dark front window, she took several calming breaths. “We’re going to die.”
Rudy turned his head toward her, his eyes fierce with determination. “Not if I can help it.”
As much as she’d have loved to fall into the warmth his energy stirred, Sabine gripped the armrests of her seat and remained tense.
He must have noticed because he said, “There are lots of islands off the coast of Greece. We’ll find one and land there if we have to.”
Did he actually think they’d find a lovely Greek island and have a nice little landing as if they’d planned it all along? She sat with tight, aching muscles for long, unbearable minutes. Each second felt like her last. At any moment the plane would roar down to the water and it would be over.
“We’re getting close,” Rudy said at last.
“Really?” She couldn’t let herself believe it.
The plane gave her a jolt. The engines cut then roared to life. Cut. Roared.
Her heart thudded sickly in her chest. A lump of fear lodged in her throat.
They were running out of fuel!
“I think I see something,” Rudy said.
Sabine strained to see through the night but saw nothing. Was he hallucinating in the face of death? The plane lost elevation as it sputtered along. She gripped the armrests tighter. They were going down. She didn’t think she was lucky enough to survive two crashes in one day.
“Do you see it?” Rudy asked. He sounded excited.
She turned to look at him. How could he be enjoying this? He glanced at her and smiled, then jerked his head toward the front of the plane.
Sabine looked there and searched once again for something in the distance. She saw faint lights and panic spiraled out of control.
“We’ll never make it!” It was too far.
“We’ll make it,” he assured her. “All we have to do now is find a place to set this thing down.”
“Don’t
