The sliding door scraped along the track as one of the men pushed it open. He played the flashlight over the interior with clumsy skill. A voice called out from the hallway, and the guard turned just before the flashlight would have illuminated their spot. The guard muttered something in Spanish and retreated from the room.
Tory waited until they could no longer hear the guards, then pushed her way past Bennington, intent on getting some answers. She stepped out of the closet and turned on him. “What was that all about?”
“Keep your voice down—they could come back.”
“I know that.” Damn, he’d made her forget her Athena Academy training.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. Every line in his body was tense. He vigilantly watched the door. Tory couldn’t reconcile the man standing before her with the man she knew as Alex’s brother.
“I’m looking for Thomas King. I came here to interview him.”
“How did you know he was here?” His eyes narrowed, she felt caught under his eaglelike glare.
“My boss got a call from the minister of foreign affairs, Juan Perez. I don’t think it’s been leaked to every network yet.”
“It shouldn’t have even been leaked to you.”
“How do you know that? And what are you doing here, Bennington?”
Before he could answer, they heard footsteps approaching again. The person stopped outside their door, and Tory dropped into a fighting stance as the door-knob turned.
“Stay behind me, Ben. I have a third-degree black belt in tae kwon do. I’ll protect you.”
“Like hell. You Athena grads think you can take on the world one-handed,” Ben said.
“We can.”
“Not today. I’ve got a gun, and a gun trumps a black belt any day.”
Chapter 4
T ory didn’t like taking a back seat to Ben, but she hadn’t made it to the top of a very competitive profession by making stupid choices. And though she wasn’t sure of his abilities, he had a point—guns did trump martial arts.
He motioned for her to stand to the left of the door as he glanced around the room. She did as she was ordered.
He kept the barrel of his M-9 pointed toward the door. “You know how to use that thing?”
He didn’t look at her as he took a pillow from the bed and held it in front of the gun barrel, then moved into position on the right side of the door. She realized he’d been searching for a silencer so as not to announce their presence to the guards searching the hospital for her.
“Believe it or not, men trained outside of Athena have some ability with weapons.”
“Did I offend your manhood?” she asked. Ben knew a lot about Athena because his and Alex’s grandfather Charles Forsythe was one of the academy’s founders.
He did look at her this time, and even in the shadowed room she could make out his cocky grin. “Not yet.”
He edged forward and she stayed in position, poised to attack. She remembered midnight training sessions at Athena in which she’d run through the dark, wooded area outside of teacher housing, knowing that other students, all black belts, were waiting to take her down. The exercise had honed her reflexes and stealth skills.
The door opened and a nurse froze in the doorway. Before she could speak, Tory reached past Ben and pulled the woman into the room with them.
“We won’t hurt you.”
Her eyes widened and she started to scream. Tory clamped her hand over the woman’s mouth and pinched her carotid artery. The woman slumped against her. Tory took her under the armpits and laid her on the bed.
“Let’s go,” Ben said.
“I need to get to Thomas King. Something weird is going on with him. I can sense it.”
“Why are you concerned about King?” Ben watched her with narrowed eyes.
She was surprised that he knew who King was. Some pieces of the puzzle that was Ben Forsythe were morphing shape. “Why are you here in the same hospital as he is? And why are you armed? What do you know about him?”
“Nothing really,” Ben said.
“Or if you do, you’re not saying, right?”
“Tory, just pretend this never happened,” he said, gesturing to the room and himself.
“You know that as a journalist I can’t ignore this story, Ben. I’m not leaving the hospital until I’m sure King is here and he’s unharmed.”
“The less you know the safer you’ll be.”
“I’ve already started asking questions. And I’m not going to stop until I have this story figured out.” Tory moved past Ben, intent on searching the floor and finding out where Thomas King was.
“I was afraid you’d say that. King’s being moved tonight.” Ben stopped her with a hand on her arm.
She was surprised he gave her the information. “Where to?”
“A more secure location.”
“Ben, what are you doing here?”
“Listen, I’m kind of busy. Can we talk later, Patton?”
“Right.”
Ben tucked his weapon into his ankle holster, and they left the room. The corridor outside wasn’t busy, and Ben glanced both ways before leading her toward the stairwell.
“I don’t want to—”
“Trust me, Patton. You’ll still get your exclusive but you need to get out of here now before those guards come back.”
She nodded. Ben was tall and ruggedly good-looking in this light. He scarcely resembled his newspaper pictures. A beard covered the bottom half of his face, he wasn’t grinning and his eyes didn’t have that vacant expression he usually wore. In fact, he seemed like a highly trained military man.
Funny that he’d never really looked muscular in his evening wear.
“I thought you left the military years ago,” she said as they went down the stairs.
“Who says I didn’t?”
“I’m trying to put the puzzle together, Forsythe. And most of the pieces don’t fit.”
“Then don’t force them.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and walked out of the hospital past the guards as if he owned the place.
Once they were away from the entrance, Tory tried to move away but Ben wouldn’t let her.
