Anton tugged at her skirt. He wavered as he pulled himself to a sitting position and clung to her arm. “She cooks and cleans for you, but she will not be your whore.”
Mostek flicked his hand and the guns went up again. “Then you will die.”
“Papa…”
Mostek spun away, arguing with the man on the phone. “I have been your loyal servant, carried out every secret…”
“These are very dangerous people, Tasiya.” Anton reached for her hand. “I knew the risks when I embezzled their money.”
She knelt beside him. “But the punishment does not fit the crime.”
“These are terrorists, my love. They do not care who they hurt, only that their cause endures and is triumphant.”
“And what is their cause?” A long-suppressed anger blended with her fear. “Who benefits from their so-called patriotism?”
“Do not question them.”
Tasiya cupped her father’s swollen face between her hands. She unbuttoned the cuff of her white cotton blouse and dabbed at the blood collecting in his eye. “You are a good man who has been loyal to king and country as long as I have known you. And how do they repay you? With threats and violence.” She blinked back the tears that stung her own eyes. “You are all I have in this world. I will not let them hurt you.”
“Tasiya—”
“It is done.” Mostek stuffed his phone into his pocket as he hooked his hand beneath her elbow and pulled her to her feet. Away from her father. “The arrangements have been made.”
“What arrangements?”
Mostek nodded to the others. “Take him away.”
“No—” Tasiya lunged for her father as two of the men grabbed him beneath his arms and dragged him toward a long black limousine adorned with two flags bearing the Lukinburg coat of arms.
Mostek jerked her arm in its socket, drawing her up against his chest. He moved his thin, shapeless lips against her ear. “In exchange for allowing your father to live, you are going to take a small journey for me.”
Tasiya swallowed hard to keep the bile from scorching her throat. “Where am I going?”
“To America.”
“America?” So big. So far away. The country that had given Crown Prince Nikolai asylum after speaking out against King Aleksandr at the United Nations. America—the country Aleksandr had called an empire-building bully. The country that would join the international movement to overthrow the Lukinburg government.
“My superior…” He seemed to find the word distasteful. Any man Dimitri Mostek feared and reviled must be very dangerous and powerful, indeed. “…believes you can be useful to our cause.”
“I don’t believe in your cause. There has to be a better way to find peace and prosperity for our people.”
He smiled. She hated that loathsome sneer. “Your beliefs are irrelevant. I’m putting you on a plane to America where you will be delivered as a gift to some friends.” Tasiya shriveled inside at the implication. “They will be warned not to touch you. That—” he kissed her temple, making her skin crawl “—will be my reward.”
Tasiya pulled back as far as his unrelenting grip allowed. What else did she have of value, if not her body? “Then what am I to do in America?”
“What you do so well. Cook. Clean. Serve my friends as you have served me.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a squarish device that looked like a miniature version of his own phone. He pressed the ultramodern gadget into her palm and curled her fingers around it. “And call me every day on this secure line to let me know exactly what they’re doing.”
“You’re asking me to spy on the Americans?”
“I’m telling you what you must do to save your father’s life.”
Chapter One
Devil’s Fork Island, U.S.A., November 7
12:00 a.m.
“Alpha-Bravo-Tango—Abort! Abort! Abort!”
“Negative!”
Sergeant Bryce Martin defied the command crackling over his vest radio and slipped a large safety pin into the land-mine housing, holding it in place while he dismantled the trigger assembly. The charge was still there, but it could no longer be detonated by simple pressure.
Taking deep, steady breaths to counteract the racing fury of his pulse, he spared a moment to glance up at the women, children and old men huddled like live bait in the center of the rows of cultivated coca plants turned minefield.
Only three more to go and they could lead the hostages out through a safe zone. He had the mechanics down now. Though the jungle of San Ysidro was laced with these deadly contraptions, their design wasn’t any more complicated than a hand grenade. After diagnosing and learning the procedure on the first one, he could neutralize each mine in just over a minute. He’d come this far, he’d finish the job. “I need three minutes, sir.”
“I don’t have three minutes to give you, Sarge.” Colonel Murphy’s signal was breaking up. His soldiers were on the move. “The damn setup’s an ambush. You gave it your best shot, but you need to get the hell out of there. Cordero’s men are lining up mortars. They’re going to blow your position. I order you to abort. Powell’s hijacked an evac chopper. We’re buggin’ out. Now!”
Bryce moved on to the next mine and dropped to his knees, his big hands surprisingly agile as he opened the trigger housing and slipped in another safety pin. He couldn’t leave these innocent people behind at the mercy of a greedy dictator and his drug-funded army.
Not when he’d been so close to finding something meaningful in his life. Not when he’d been so close to caring.
He jimmied the housing apart and snipped the wire before risking a glance up at Maria. Some of the men in his Special Forces unit saw her as the village madam—older, plumper, past her prime. But he saw her as something special. A kind soul who looked beyond his scarred-up face and truck-size body to offer him comfort and friendship in a decidedly unfriendly country.
Her world-weary eyes had tears in them now as she shook her head.
Two minutes.
“Dammit, Martin—get your ass out of there. You’ve got incoming.”
Bryce averted his ears to the telltale thump of mortar fire. Their fiery trails lit up the sky.
He couldn’t tell the civilians to run.
He gripped his assault rifle and rose to his feet.
He couldn’t save them. He couldn’t save Maria.
“I’m sorry.” He barely mouthed the words. He was already backing up.
“Sarge!”
