Jefferson Randall Stanley Winston. The name didn’t fit him at all. He ought to be called something like Gorilla Man.

Or Jungle Giant. She snorted. Or Sasquatch. Aloud, she asked, “Did the Ethiopians hurt you?”

He frowned as if he wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that.

She rephrased. “Did they torture you?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

What the heck did that mean? “Care to elaborate?”

“Nope.”

She tried a different tack. “Your grandfather arranged for your release. He’s been very worried about you.”

That elicited a completely indecipherable grunt from him. Could be disgust, could be gratitude. No way to tell. Sheesh, talking to this guy was like conversing with a brick wall. She gave up. If he wanted to talk, he would clearly do it in his own time and on his own terms.

She watched him through slitted eyes as he leaned back in his seat once more and seemed to all but pass out. Exhaustion, maybe? Except it looked more as if he was bearing incredible pain in stoic silence. What was up with that?

What was up with everything about this man? What in the hell had happened to him?

Dear Reader,

It’s always fun to write a story for (and hopefully to read about) a character who’s shown up in a number of previous books. I don’t know about you, but it gives me a deep sense of relief to make some poor, unloved soul happy at last. Hence, it is with great joy that I present you Jennifer Blackfoot’s story. She’s had to watch most of her colleagues run off and find their happily ever after, but now it’s her turn. And might I add, she finds love in a most unexpected place!

For his part, Jeff Winston is fully yummy enough to deserve a woman as awesome as Jennifer. Furthermore, as I close down H.O.T. Watch Ops for now—and in rather spectacular fashion if I do say so myself—it’s really exciting to let Jeff introduce you to a whole new set of heroes and heroines who will sweep us off our feet, whisk us off to exotic locations and plunge us into love and danger.

I hope you enjoy reading the climax of the H.O.T. Watch series as much as I enjoyed writing it. Buckle your seat belts and hang on tight because the adventure continues …

Warmly,

Cindy Dees

About the Author

CINDY DEES started flying airplanes while sitting in her dad’s lap at the age of three and got a pilot’s license before she got a driver’s license. At age fifteen, she dropped out of high school and left the horse farm in Michigan, where she grew up, to attend the University of Michigan. After earning a degree in Russian and East European Studies, she joined the US Air Force and became the youngest female pilot in its history. She flew supersonic jets, VIP airlift and the C-5 Galaxy, the world’s largest airplane. During her military career, she traveled to forty countries on five continents, was detained by the KGB and East German secret police, got shot at, flew in the first Gulf War and amassed a lifetime’s worth of war stories.

Her hobbies include medieval re-enacting, professional Middle Eastern dancing and Japanese gardening.

This RITA® Award-winning author’s first book was published in 2002 and since then she has published more than twenty-five bestselling and award-winning novels. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at www.cindydees.com.

Her Hero After Dark

Cindy Dees

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter 1

Jennifer Blackfoot climbed out of the air-conditioned Land Rover into a muggy night echoing with the maniacal laughter of hyenas. She jumped as something screamed in the dark nearby. Whether it was a howler monkey or maybe a big cat, she couldn’t tell. Nuwazi, Ethiopia, was about as far removed from the New Mexico homeland of her people as a person could get.

The African mercenaries with her were nervous, swinging their AK-47s from side to side like they expected a lion to leap out of the bush at any second. It was not reassuring that even the natives were unsettled.

A broad strip of dirt road stretched before her, thick with underbrush on both sides. “You’re sure this is the place?” she asked her driver.

“Aye, Missy. ‘Dis de place.”

She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes till midnight. Her counterparts from the Ethiopian government still had a few minutes before they’d be late for this clandestine rendezvous.

American entrepreneur Leland Winston was one of the wealthiest men on the planet if the rumors were true. His fortune supposedly extended into the hundreds of billions of dollars. She snorted. It was enough, apparently, to buy her personal services as a CIA field agent.

Winston’s grandson, some kid named Jefferson Randall Stanley Winston, was in trouble with the Ethiopian government and needed extraction from the East African nation. Why Leland couldn’t have just bullied the State Department into collecting the kid was beyond her. Repatriating American citizens fell under the State’s formal auspices, not the CIA’s. Although this wasn’t exactly a normal repatriation. In point of fact, it had turned into a prisoner trade.

To that end, she gestured at the hired muscle with her to remove her prisoner from the backseat of the Land Rover. He was an Ethiopian national who went only by the moniker, El Mari. Big surprise, it meant The Leader in Ethiopia’s primary language, Amharic. The guy looked and acted like a warlord of some kind. Although he’d been mostly silent on the ride here, an annoying gloating quality clung to him.

Whatever. Her job was to get Winston’s grandson and bring him home. She seriously doubted Rich Boy was worth turning loose the man now standing beside her on the good citizens of Ethiopia. But it wasn’t her call to make.

Headlights came around a bend in the road at the other end of the long clearing. A big flatbed truck with bare metal ribs arching over the cargo bed came into view. The mercenaries arrayed across the road at her side tensed, pointing their weapons at the vehicle.

“Stand down, gentlemen,” she murmured.

They relaxed only fractionally, as if they knew something she didn’t. Her tension climbed another notch.

The truck stopped about a hundred yards from her Land Rover. Green-camouflage-clad Ethiopian Army soldiers swarmed from the truck in a flurry of activity. She watched, perplexed, as they used a motorized lift on the back of the truck to lower a large wooden crate to the ground. Its side was pried open with crowbars and a dozen machine guns pointed at its contents.

Jennifer gasped as a tall, muscular man staggered out of the box. He was filthy, bearded and long-haired, and looked more like a wild animal than a human being. What in the world had they done to Rich Boy?

As the American stepped away from the crate, her shock intensified. He was wearing some kind of heavy leather collar around his neck, and four soldiers wielded what looked like long broomsticks attached to the collar. They wrestled him forward between them toward her. The American’s hands were cuffed with metal bracelets to a chain around his waist, and his ankles were shackled. Just how dangerous was Rich Boy?

Unaccountably, the prisoner beside Jennifer laughed. It was a deep, full-throated thing that resonated with cruelty.

“It’s not funny,” Jennifer hissed. “How would you like it if we’d done that to you?”

He scowled over at her. “I am not crazy son-of-bitch.” He lifted his chin toward his American counterpart and muttered in disgust, “Mwac arämamäd.”

The hired guns around her surreptitiously held up their hands, making tribal warning signs against evil. Mwac arämamäd? Dead Man Walking? Her Amharic was rudimentary at best, but she was fairly sure that was what it meant. She glanced back at Rich Boy as one of his guards warily unshackled his ankles. Greasy strings of hair obscured his face as he staggered forward. He did look pretty close to dead at the moment. Or at least pretty savage. Nothing that a shower and a shave wouldn’t correct, though. No one had told her Jefferson Winston was that huge and strong. The guy was over six feet tall and looked like a walking muscle. Alarm skittered across her skin. Was she taking custody of some sort of violent psychopath?

“Let’s go,” she ordered her prisoner.

She walked forward slowly with El Mari beside her. The closer they got to the American prisoner, the more appalled she was by his condition. His eyes were unfocused, and his lips drew back from his teeth in a feral snarl. Even the man beside her seemed to cringe a little at the sight of Rich Boy. Dead Man Walking, indeed.

The cluster of soldiers around Jefferson Winston stopped not quite halfway between the two vehicles. At a nod from the Ethiopian Army officer who appeared to be in charge of his side of the swap, she turned to her prisoner. El Mari held out his wrists and she unlocked his handcuffs. They fell away and she stuffed them in her pocket. Oddly, though, the Ethiopians didn’t turn Rich Boy loose. Rather they gestured for her men to come and take positions on the collar poles.

Her men moved forward hesitantly.

Not interested in waiting for the handoff of the wild American, El Mari strode toward his own people, passing up her hired mercenaries and sneering at the American prisoner.

As the warlord drew even with the American, all hell broke loose. Rich Boy yanked his fists sharply and the chain around his waist snapped. With a single, violent twist of his torso, he wrenched the poles free from all four guards, leaped forward and pounced on El Mari. His attack was vicious and efficient. In a single shockingly swift move, he knocked the Ethiopian man to the ground and broke his target’s neck with his bare hands, all but tearing the warlord’s head off. There was no question that El Mari was dead as his body fell at a grotesquely unnatural angle.

Jennifer watched in stunned horror, uncharacteristically frozen in place as the crouching American unclipped the poles from his collar and flung them away. His limbs bunched. He sprang, charging her in a half crouch like a raging silverback gorilla.

He shouted something incoherent and took a flying leap at her, slamming into her just as a barrage of gunfire erupted. He barely knocked her out of the way of the flying bullets in time. Had he intentionally saved her life, or had that just been luck? The American was unbelievably heavy and smashed her flat, his large body completely covering hers. No air could enter her lungs, squashed as she was by his massive weight.

He pressed up and away from her into a bestial hunch. Galvanized into motion, she snatched her pistol out of its holster. Rich Boy’s eyes flashed in chagrin as she scrambled to her knees and pointed the weapon at him.

But then she yanked his shoulder down with her free hand and fired past him at his captors, emptying her clip rapidly, and providing much-needed return fire for her men to reload their weapons and resume, effectively if not intentionally, covering their retreat.

The dismay in Winston’s eyes turned to gratitude. She shrugged. One good turn deserved another, right?

He nodded briefly in thanks and then growled hoarsely, “Let’s go.”

“Right.” So. There was a man inside the beast.

They sprinted for the Land Rover. A quick glance behind her revealed wholesale carnage on both sides of the firefight. The American shoved her at the passenger door and raced around to the driver’s side. They jumped in simultaneously, and he slammed the car into gear without bothering to close his door. Gunfire aimed at them erupted. She ducked as the rear window shattered. The tires spun on the gravel as the Land Rover did a fish-tailing one-eighty and peeled out.

“My men!” she shouted at him.

“Paid to die,” he retorted as he horsed the Land Rover around the first bend. The vehicle careened forward wildly for several miles before he finally eased his foot off the accelerator a little.

Terrified, she risked a look at the killer beside her. He truly did look more beast than man with hair hanging in his eyes and most of his face obscured by a heavy beard. What skin was visible was filthy, which only lent to the whole ape-man look. She rapidly rethought her childhood attraction to Tarzan. Jane could have him.

“Where’s your plane?” His voice was guttural. Frightening, frankly. She ought to be terrified of him, but that brief glimpse of humanity in his eyes back on the road had reassured her just enough that she didn’t bail out of the moving vehicle. Maybe she was stupid to trust him based on a single look, but her gut instinct was rarely wrong about people.

“Akimbe Airport,” she replied, her mind racing. How much trouble was the United States in for letting El Mari be killed? What would the diplomatic ramifications be? And what on God’s green earth was she supposed to do with Rich Boy now?

He drove on grimly. Since he didn’t ask her for directions, she gathered he was familiar with the local area. The intelligence analyst within her duly noted it.

The Land Rover pulled up next to a sleek, unmarked business jet on the tarmac at Akimbe. Hmm, interesting. He knew which plane was the U.S. government bird without being told.

“Get on,” he ordered, pointing at the plane.

Was she his prisoner? Was he planning to use her as a hostage to assure landing permission somewhere? Did he plan to kill her when they got wherever he was going? The trick in playing a game of cat and mouse was to make the other guy think he was the cat when he was the mouse all along. But she sensed this man was going to be very tricky, indeed, to manipulate. Where did a savage murderer flee to, anyway?

Jeff scowled as the beautiful, raven-haired CIA officer huddled in her airplane seat, hugging herself. He poked his head into the cockpit long enough to snarl a destination at the pilots, and then he fell into the seat across the aisle from his rescuer.

He couldn’t believe she’d shot at the Ethiopian Army on his behalf. He’d been sure when she’d pulled out her gun it was with the intent to kill him. He would never forget grim determination in her eyes as she had shoved him out of harm’s way. As if she could actually protect him from anything. It was laughable, really. But her impulse sent a ripple of warmth through his gut, nonetheless.

Bad idea to think about his gut. He became aware of the pain ripping through it until he was nearly crazed with the hellish agony consuming him. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to scream aloud.

“Buckle up,” he gritted out at the woman.

Her hands shaking so badly she could barely follow his command, she managed to get the seat belt fastened around her lap. He followed suit, although he highly doubted it was necessary in his case. Probably not worth finding out the hard way, though.

He threw his head back, closed his eyes and gave himself up to the ever lurking, ever patient pain. Just a little while longer. He’d almost made it home. Soon. Soon he’d be able to give his body what it so desperately craved—what every last cell was begging for, and would keep begging for, until the pain drove him mad … or killed him.

Doc Jones would fix him up, though. He’d finally get some relief from the beast consuming him from within. And then maybe the beautiful woman beside him would quit looking at him like he was some kind of monster.

A groan escaped his throat.

Jennifer watched surreptitiously as the man across from her moaned in what sounded like tortured agony. He thrashed about, and she prayed he didn’t accidentally stick his fist through the window beside him. He looked strong enough to do it.

Under normal circumstances, she might try to assist him. To hold his limbs down gently so he didn’t hurt himself in his apparent delirium. But the idea of laying her hands on the monster across the aisle was repellent, not to mention terrifying. She had no intention of coming within arm’s length of him. At least not without a taser on its highest setting in her hand.

She eased her cell phone out of her pants pocket and dialed a phone number quickly. She spoke in a bare murmur, “I have the American prisoner, but El Mari is dead.”

Navy Commander Brady Hathaway—he supervised military operations run out of H.O.T. Watch while she was in charge of all civilian intelligence operations in the surveillance facility—exclaimed in surprise. “What the hell happened?”

“Rich Boy got away from his guards and all but tore the Ethiopian’s head off with his bare hands. Who is this guy?”

A shocked pause was her only answer. Then Hathaway replied, “I have the same file on Winston that you do. Private prep schools. Harvard math undergrad. Master’s in microbiology from MIT. Jet-set lifestyle since college—beaches in Monaco, skiing in St. Moritz, fast cars, yachts, beautiful women. Classic spoiled, rich kid.”

“He violently murdered a man tonight. What the heck am I supposed to do with him now?”

“I wouldn’t bring him back to the States. Our extradition treaty with Ethiopia will get him sent right back there to face murder charges, and I don’t think that would make Leland Winston very happy. Go ahead and take him to Paradise Island for debriefing like we planned. Meanwhile the powers that be can sort this mess out.”

Paradise Island also had the advantage of being close to the volcanic island in the Caribbean that housed the H.O.T. Watch facility. Normally, Paradise was a private getaway for H.O.T. Watch’s staff when they needed a break from their high-stress jobs, but it occasionally doubled as a debriefing site.

Brady spoke again. “I’ll do some more digging and see what I can find on your prisoner.”

She caught a flutter of the American’s eyelids. Awake, was he? Well, then. She murmured aloud in a theatrical whisper, “News flash. I think I may be the prisoner.”

“What?” Brady squawked.

A quick movement made her look up sharply. It was the American. Holding out his hand expectantly, calloused palm up. The veins in his wrist were big and prominent. But then she already knew the guy was incredibly strong. It took tremendous strength to break a man’s neck the way he had.

Without answering her colleague, she laid her cell phone in Winston’s outstretched palm. She stared in shock as he crushed the thing in his fist, the plastic case shattering and the metal motherboard nearly folding in half.

No doubt about it. He thought she was the prisoner.

She forced herself to look him in the eye. She expected to see the same wildness from the road, the same murderous madness. But the blue eyes that stared back at her looked reasonably sane. At least for now. Was the guy schizophrenic or something?

“Why did you kill El Mari?” she ventured to ask.

“He was an animal. A butcher.”

That was almost comical coming from him. She thought back frantically to her hostage training. Her best bet to stay alive was to get on this man’s good side. Convince him she was a person with thoughts and feelings, and not some object to be crushed like her phone and cast aside.

“Would you like me to get that collar off of you?” she asked.

Surprise flickered momentarily in his cobalt gaze. Maybe even a hint of warmth shone there. The American was becoming more human by the second.

He slid out of his seat and knelt in the aisle beside her, offering her the back of his neck. Temptation surged to clobber him as hard as she could across the base of his skull. Except she wasn’t at all sure she could hit him hard enough to knock him out. And if she failed, he’d do the same to her that he’d done to El Mari. Or worse. Memory of his ridiculously muscular body smashing hers flat flashed through her mind. She shuddered.

Nope, her best bet was to befriend this psychopath for now.

She laid her hands on the buckle, but jerked them back when the American groaned in what sounded like intense pain.

“Continue,” he ground out.

What had the Ethiopians done to him? They must have tortured him brutally for even her lightest touch to hurt so badly. “I’ll try to be gentle,” she murmured, “but this buckle is really stiff.”

The thick leather was almost too rigid for her to undo. But finally, the tail of the buckle gave way and slid free of the metal. The collar fell away from him. She kicked it toward the back of the plane in disgust. No matter how crazy this guy was, nobody deserved to be treated like an animal. His neck was raw and bloody where the collar had been.

“Let me get the first aid kit and clean up your neck. That must hurt.”

One corner of his mouth turned up sardonically. She wouldn’t exactly call it a smile. The distant relative of one, maybe. It was a start, though. As gently as she could manage, she swabbed the raw flesh ringing his neck. As the filth surrendered to her gauze pads and peroxide, his dirt blackened skin took on a pink and mostly human hue. She worked her way around to his heavy, dark growth of beard. She estimated he hadn’t shaved in several months.

“How long were you in Ethiopia?” she asked.

He shrugged. Not the talkative type. Or maybe he’d just gotten out of the habit. If he’d been in solitary confinement for a while, he might not have had much opportunity for conversation with other humans. In her experience, once freed, such prisoners either wouldn’t shut up at all, or they became intensely taciturn like this man.

Jefferson Randall Stanley Winston. The name didn’t fit him at all. He ought to be called something like Gorilla Man. Or Jungle Giant. She snorted. Or Sasquatch.

Aloud, she asked, “Did the Ethiopians hurt you?”

He frowned as if he wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that.

She rephrased, “Did they torture you?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

What the heck did that mean? “Care to elaborate?”

“Nope.”

She tried a different tack. “Your grandfather arranged for your release. He’s been very worried about you.”

That elicited a completely indecipherable grunt from him. Could be disgust, could be gratitude. No way to tell. Sheesh, talking to this guy was like conversing with a brick wall. Okay, Plan C. “Where did you tell the pilots to take us?”

He didn’t even bother to acknowledge that one.

Ohh-kay. “Do you have any other injuries that need tending?” she tried.

He made a noise that might almost be a snort of humor.

She gave up. If he wanted to talk, he would clearly do it in his own time and on his own terms. Normally, she would get a man like this a good meal, let him take a shower and sleep a little, and then she’d sit him down and debrief him on what exactly had happened to him. But how she was going to get this guy to talk was a mystery to her.

She watched him through slitted eyes as he leaned back in his seat once more and seemed to all but pass out. Exhaustion, maybe? Except it looked more like he was bearing incredible pain in stoic silence. What was up with that?

What was up with everything about this man? What in the hell had happened to him?

Chapter 2

Just a little while longer. The plane would land in Bermuda where he’d told the pilots to go, and he would finally get the drugs his body was screaming for. And then, blessed relief. The pain would recede. It never went away entirely, but it would retreat into tolerable background noise. Until then, though, his entire skeleton ached as if every bone in his body was shattering into a million pieces. To call it excruciating didn’t even begin to do it justice.

He was no doubt scaring the hell out of the woman across the aisle, but he was in too much pain to care. A need to do violence, to lash out against the agony eviscerating him from the inside out, nearly overcame him. He clenched his fists until he feared he might break the bones in his hands.

Finger by finger, he forcibly unfolded his hands until his palms pressed flat against his thighs. He could do this. He could survive this nightmare. Just a little while longer.

The woman’s eyes popped open as the sound of the engines changed pitch and the plane began its descent into Bermuda. Leland had a beachfront mansion there where Jeff could stay. More importantly, Doc Jones could fly there with his drugs relatively easily. He envisioned the hilly island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean bristling with gracious, white stucco homes. He had good memories of summers there as a kid. It would be nice to be surrounded by familiar things again. It had been a long time. The past few years had been pretty crazy, culminating in the disaster in Ethiopia.

The plane bumped onto the runway and a groan escaped from between his tightly compressed lips, in spite of his best effort to restrain it. It was probably a perfectly fine landing, but even the lightest jarring sent daggers shooting throughout his body.

He glanced outside as the airplane came to a stop and frowned. Heavy tropical jungle? Since when did Bermuda have such vegetation? Alarmed, he surged out of his seat.

A pair of ominous, metallic clacks froze him halfway out of his seat. He looked toward the cockpit where both pilots, grim-faced, pointed heavy-gauge pistols at him. A glance to his right showed that the woman had joined them in aiming her sidearm at him.

Well, well, well. The lady had teeth, after all. Reluctant admiration coursed through him. Unfortunately, his soft tissue was as susceptible to lead as the next guy’s. He subsided in his seat cautiously.

“Welcome to Uncle Sam Airlines, Mr. Winston,” the woman bit out. “We do not necessarily fly the Friendly Skies. This is my plane and my crew. And you are my prisoner, not the other way around. Is that understood?”

She had guts to stand up to him like this. He’d be amused if he wasn’t hurting so damned bad. But the prospect of having to wait even longer for his drugs threatened to swallow him in panic. He was out of strength to hold on. Out of endurance. Out of time.

With a roar, he surged up out of his seat. But the woman was surprisingly fast. She ducked down the aisle and out the door before he could lay a hand on her. One of the pilots passed her something as she raced by the cockpit, but he couldn’t see what it was.

He followed her outside and came up short as she aimed a double-barreled shotgun at his chest. Her black gaze, leveled at him down the length of the weapon, was lethal. What little sanity he had left recognized death in her eyes. He pulled up short.

“Need us to restrain him, ma’am?” one of the pilots asked from the doorway of the plane.

Her gaze remained locked on him. She spoke slowly, as if she doubted his ability to understand her. He supposed he couldn’t blame her for that. “Let’s establish a few rules of engagement right up front, shall we, Mr. Winston? If you will give me your word of honor that you will not harm me in any way, I will swear not to sedate you or physically restrain you. But, if you break your word, I will not hesitate to do the same. Nor will I hesitate to kill you if it becomes necessary. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” he answered wryly.

“Do you give me your word?” she demanded.

He studied her curiously. She was a courageous woman to face him like this. But, then, she probably didn’t realize exactly how courageous since she had no idea who he was—what he was. “I give you my word.”

“Say it. What do you swear?”

Another wave of pain slammed into him and he ground out from between clenched teeth, “I give you my word I will not harm you.”

She spoke to the pilot still hovering in the door. “If you’ll off-load my bag for me, Captain, I’ll let you be on your way.”

“Are you sure you want us to leave, ma’am? We can stay here until more backup arrives to, uhh, help.”

“No. The two of us will be fine. We have an understanding. I need you to go.”

Jeff wasn’t sure whether to be complimented that she trusted his word of honor or to despise her naïveté.

“All right.” The pilot sounded deeply doubtful. Smart man.

The woman stood statuelike and continued to point the shotgun at him as her bag thudded to the ground, the jet behind them cranked up its engines and taxied off. He glanced away from the woman and her shotgun long enough to watch the white jet accelerate down the runway and lift off into the afternoon sky.

There went his best and fastest hope for relief from his private, living hell. He swore under his breath and looked back at the woman. How to convince her to get his drugs for him before he died from the agony of his withdrawal?

“Now what?” he asked her cautiously.

She lowered the weapon slowly. “Now we head up to the house. I imagine you’d like a shower, shave and a decent meal. Then we’ll talk.”

What he’d like was a nice fat injection of Doc Jones’s magic serum. Although he had to admit, a shower didn’t sound half bad. In the first days of his imprisonment, before his world collapsed down to a pinpoint of exquisite agony, he’d craved a hot shower almost more than he’d craved a good meal.

The foliage looked Caribbean … No way. They wouldn’t have brought him to the one place he’d kill to go, would they? A low-level hum of eagerness to do violence vibrated in his gut. Patience. Someone would pay someday.

He fingered his thick beard. He must look like some sort of wild mountain man. Although maybe the look wasn’t so far from the truth. Without comment, he followed as she slung the strap of her duffel bag over her shoulder then turned and walked toward a small, metal storage building.

She grasped the lock and dialed a combination. It didn’t open. She tried again. No luck. She swore under her breath.

“Problem?” he asked.

“They must’ve changed the lock since the last time I was here. I’d call and ask for the new combination, but you destroyed my phone.”

“What’s inside?”

“A golf cart. Trust me, it’s a long, steep hike up the mountain to the house without it. And it’s really hot out here.”

He shrugged. After the searing heat of Africa, this tropical climate felt almost gentle. Daytime highs in Ethiopia at this time of year routinely hit the high one-twenties. But the lady did look badly overheated. He eyed the lock and muttered, “Step aside.”

“Excuse me?”

He brushed past her and she gasped as his arm came into brief contact with hers. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the light sound. He took the lock in his hand and gave it a sharp jerk. The hasp tore half off the building. He yanked again and a rectangular piece of galvanized metal sheeting gave way. The entire lock tore free in his hand.

“Door’s open now,” he announced.

She stared at him in shock. “How did you do that?”

He shrugged. There wasn’t much to say. She’d seen exactly how he did it. He grabbed the lock and ripped it off.

“Do you have any idea how much strength it took to do that?”

He frowned down at the ragged hole in the building. “Aluminum of that gauge can typically hold something like twenty pounds per square inch. Given the size of the hole … maybe thirty square inches … that means it took about six hundred pounds of force.”

Her jaw sagged.

“Of course, if there was metal fatigue, the required force might have been much less,” he added lamely. What in the hell was he doing? He knew better than to show off for some woman he’d just met! Especially one who worked for the U.S. freaking government. It would be disastrous if she caught even a hint of his secrets, and here he was, laying them out before her like an open book for the reading!

He grabbed the handle and lifted the garage-style door hastily. Must distract the woman. Fast. His ploy seemed to work, for she ducked under the door as it was still rising and headed for the golf cart inside.

The vehicle groaned as he eased his weight down onto it. She threw him a strange look, which he pointedly ignored. After tossing her bag in the back, she drove the cart outside. He waited, arms folded, as she got out and closed the door behind them.

She guided the cart onto a dirt path that zigzagged back and forth up the steep side of a substantial mountain. It looked like a dormant volcano covered in heavy tropical undergrowth.

Near the summit, a small clearing opened up and a gracious one-story home came into view under a canopy of trees. It was long and low with a deep, covered front porch stretching its entire length. A ceiling fan cooled a pair of cane rocking chairs, and plantation shutters slatted the windows. Unquestionably Caribbean architecture.

The Caribbean, huh? So his guess had been correct. He eyed his companion speculatively. What were the odds she was attached to the secret government surveillance facility in that region of the world? The one that had gotten so many of his men killed and caused him no end of problems?

His more immediate problem asserted itself as a wave of molten agony engulfed him. He needed his drugs, and soon. At least he wasn’t far from the United States. He should be able to get his drugs flown in here fast.

Assuming the prickly woman beside him allowed it.

He stared at his beard in the mirror. He would need clippers to trim it down enough to be properly shave-able. Not to mention, the idea of dragging a razor across his super-sensitized skin made him cringe in abject terror. There were not many things in this world that scared him, but the prospect of inflicting that kind of pain on himself was one of them. He was already stretched just about to the limit of his tolerance.

For now, he’d leave the beard be. He eyed the shower stall warily. Desire to finally be clean warred with his fear of the water hitting his skin. What if he couldn’t take the pain? What kind of a wimp would he be if he couldn’t even tolerate that small pressure? Fear won out over filth. Like his mother always said, a little dirt never killed anyone. But more pain could very possibly break him in his current state.

He backed out of the bathroom and headed down the hall toward the mouthwateringly delectable smell of meat charring.

“Steak okay for supper?” the woman asked from beside one of those indoor grill stoves that sucked down the smoke into a powerful fan.

He groaned as his mouth puddled with anticipatory saliva.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you make a sound of pleasure instead of pain. What did your guards do to you, anyway?”

Not much, truth be told. He’d ripped out of a pair of metal handcuffs trying to save his guard’s life that first night in jail when the guy was murdered, and the rest of the jailers had stayed well out of arm’s reach of him ever since. They thought he’d been the one to garrote the cop in the interrogation room with him. With what, he’d like to know, since he had no wire, rope, chain or other material on him or in the room strong enough or long enough to wrap around a man’s neck and choke him to death. But that hadn’t swayed the Ethiopians.

His big problem had been the other prisoners trying to kill him for the huge bounty El Mari had put on his head. As miserable as he’d been never coming out of his tiny, dark, sweltering cell, it had been better than getting killed. But three months living in a five-foot-by-eight-foot box had been hellish.

The woman was speaking again. “Look, you’re far from the only guy I’ve debriefed. Nothing you can say to me will shock me. I’ve heard it all before.”

He highly doubted she’d heard anything close to the story he could tell. He’d bet a million bucks his tale would shock her speechless. But that wasn’t a theory he planned to test.

Wincing, he eased himself into a sturdy-looking kitchen chair. It held his weight, thankfully. If he were at anything remotely approaching full speed, he’d offer to help with the meal. Not that he could cook a lick. But he could’ve set the table or poured drinks or something. As it was, the room was starting to spin while invisible bad men poked him with cattle prods. His body jerked spasmodically as the pain assaulted him.

Clenching his teeth, he ground out, “What’s your name?”

She slid a juicy slab of sizzling steak onto a plate and set it down before him. “Jennifer. Jennifer Blackfoot.”

Desperate to distract himself, he concentrated on her name. Blackfoot? That sounded Native American. She looked Native American, too. Her face tended to roundness, her skin was a lovely walnut hue, and her exotic brown eyes were so dark they almost looked black. Her hair was true black with almost blue highlights glinting out of her long braid. He’d wager her hair reached past her slender hips when it was loose.

“What tribe?” he bit out.

“Despite my last name, I do not belong to the Blackfoot nation. My family is Chiricahua Apache. And yes, we were the violent ones who scalped white settlers and kidnapped white children. I am, in fact, a direct descendent of Geronimo, although in our tongue, his name was Goyakhla.”

A warrior woman, was she? Not surprising based on what he’d seen so far.

“Do your friends call you Jefferson?” she asked as she sat bowls of cold Caesar salad and hot green beans dripping with butter on the table.

“No. Jeff,” he muttered as he picked up a steak knife and fork. He swore as his palms cramped so violently he nearly cried out. The utensils clattered to his plate. His hands were too tightly clawed at the moment to master the fine motor skill required for steak carving.

The woman frowned but asked matter-of-factly, “Need some help with that?”

He scowled at her, too humiliated to admit that he couldn’t control his hands.

She leaned down next to him and efficiently cut his steak into bite-size pieces. Through the haze of his despair, he noticed incongruously that she smelled good. It was a floral scent, but not overwhelmingly sweet. It was green and wild and entirely fitting for her. His instincts flared in response to the light musk.

She stepped back a bit too hastily. Scared of him, was she? Smart girl. She mumbled, “If the fork’s too much to handle just now, go ahead and eat with your fingers. It won’t bother me. It’s how my people traditionally eat.”

Too famished to stand on pride, he ended up doing just that. God, he felt like a savage, shoveling food into his mouth with his bare hands. But to Jennifer’s credit, he didn’t catch even a single glimpse of disgust or revulsion in her eyes. He was stunned when she mimicked him and skipped utensils to eat with her fingers. She managed it quite a bit more daintily than him, of course. The compassion of the gesture startled him.

Near the end of the meal, which tasted better than anything he could ever remember eating in his life, she asked, “Any reason you didn’t take a shower?”

Glaring, he muttered, “I need a bath.”

She nodded evenly. “No problem. My bathroom has a soaker tub that even you should fit in. After supper, it’s all yours.”

He made eye contact with her just long enough to nod, but then he locked his gaze on his plate and refused to look back up. There was only so much embarrassment a man could stand.

Jennifer carried the empty plates to the sink as Jeff disappeared down the hall toward her bedroom. What a strange man he was. He’d fumbled with that knife and fork like he had no idea whatsoever how to use them. Which was absurd. The man was from one of the wealthiest families in the world and had the finest in education and lifestyle. Had he suffered some kind of weird memory loss where such basic skills were lost to him? More strange yet, she got the distinct impression that he was appalled at his own eating habits. Why, then, did he persist in eating like a savage?

Surely he wasn’t trying to make some grand social statement, was he? The man didn’t strike her as the type. He wasn’t defiant enough for something like that.

He seemed about equal parts angry and desperate. But desperate for what?

The longer she was around Jefferson Winston, the more the mystery deepened.

Jeff eased into the tub of steaming hot water and was overcome by ecstasy that momentarily overwhelmed his pain. The bliss was so intense as to be almost sexual. He exhaled a long, slow breath of relief.

That same wild, sweet perfume he’d caught before swirled around him as he luxuriated in the water. His body shocked him by responding hard and fast to the scent of the woman. She was extremely attractive if a guy went for that whole earthy, natural thing. Which, he had to admit, he definitely did at the moment.

Just how much comfort was she authorized to give him, anyway? He pushed away the idea of bedding Jennifer Blackfoot. Not only was he in no shape to withstand the physical rigors of sex, the woman was so wary of him she looked about ready to jump out of her skin most of the time. And then there was that shotgun of hers to consider. Did sex constitute harming her? Would she kill him afterward for violating their deal?

That outcome was likely enough that he satisfied himself with merely imagining her slender, bronze limbs wrapped around him, her black eyes sparkling in pleasure, her body taking his into her and satisfying his long-denied lust.

When the additional pain of his aroused flesh became too much to bear, he forcibly turned his thoughts to his mission gone terribly wrong. That first night in jail, to his shock, instead of questioning him, his Ethiopian interrogator had whispered urgently of a conspiracy. Of classified military intelligence from the United States being sold to El Mari and used to ambush Jeff and his team. The interrogator’s last words before the door burst open and a masked man jumped him and garroted him were that El Mari was determined to kill him. Even here in jail, Jeff would not be safe.

The guard had been right.

Thankfully, the other prisoners vastly underestimated his strength the first time they tried to kill him. They only jumped him with a half-dozen men armed with shivs. He beat them all to a pulp, retreated to his cell and never came out again to give them a second chance.

Jeff added more hot water to the cooling bath. When he found out who in El Mari’s organization had stepped into the bastard’s shoes now that the guy was dead, he vowed to himself to take that guy out, too. The unholy work of El Mari’s mercenaries had to be stopped.

But more importantly, he would find and punish whoever in the United States government had sold him and his men out. Five good men dead on his watch. God help Jennifer Blackfoot if she was part of the conspiracy that had killed his men.

His grim thoughts grounded him back in the reality of his suffering. He supposed it was fitting that if he was the one man on his team to survive, he was also the one who would suffer the most for it.

The steaming bath gradually soaked loose the accumulated filth ground into his skin over a period of months. He picked up a surprisingly pink loofah—Jennifer didn’t strike him as a peppermint pink kind of woman, but obviously he was wrong—and very, very carefully scrubbed the crusted dirt and caked sweat off his skin. It hurt like crazy, but being clean felt so good he was able to grit his teeth against the sensory stimulation long enough to finish washing.

As the tub drained, he stood up, naked, and let cold air wash across him. His skin puckered with goose bumps, but it felt good. Even the most minor relief from his pain right now was a blessing. But it did not last. His skin dried and the fires of Hell resumed searing away his flesh layer by blackened layer.

Eyeing his disgusting clothes in a heap on the floor, he couldn’t bring himself to don the filthy garments again. Gingerly, he wrapped a towel around his hips and headed for his hostess.

She was in the living room, reading a newspaper. Eagerness to find out what was going on in the world gripped him. Later, he’d read that thing front to back. But right now, he needed something to wear or access to a washing machine.

She glanced up and made a faintly choked sound. “Problem?” she croaked.

“Clothes. Mine are gross.”

“Aah. If you’ll look in the dresser in your room, you should find some men’s clothing. Although I’m not sure any of it will fit you. But maybe you can find something that’ll work until I can have larger clothing sent out.”

He pounced on that like a lion on prey. “We can get things sent here? How fast?”

A delicate eyebrow arched over her right eye like a swallow’s wing. “Is there something in particular you want?”

He eyed her warily. He didn’t for a second underestimate the intelligence of this woman, his adversary. “I’ll need to have some things couriered to me. Clothes for one. Medications. Business documents. I’ve been away from my company for too long. Things are probably a mess there by now.”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully but made no immediate comment.

Rather than stick around to let her say no, he retreated to his bedroom in search of clothes.

Oh. My. God. Jeff Winston in a towel was one of the most incredible sights she’d ever seen. Sure, she worked around a lot of buff special forces operatives who were blatant exhibitionists when it came to showing off their muscles, but every last one of them would slink away in shame if they ever had to stand next to Jeff. Something primal and female stirred deep within her at the sight of this overpoweringly alpha male.

He looked a bit like a world-class body builder. Except where a body builder would sculpt his body for beauty, symmetry and an idealistic form, Jeff’s body was built for sheer, raw power. The man looked like a rock. Or more accurately, a pile of bulging boulders and slabs of granite stacked into a humanoid shape.

No wonder he’d been so unbelievably heavy when he had landed on her and knocked her out of the way of the gun battle erupting over their heads. The guy hadn’t ever heard of body fat, apparently.

As he retreated down the hallway, she noted that his back was no less defined than his front. He looked like he could lift a truck. Heck, he looked like he could pick up a truck and throw it.

Heat flared in her cheeks as she realized she was ogling her prisoner like some hot-to-trot college coed. She was a grown woman, thank you very much. Fully in control of her desires and not the slightest in need of a man in her life. But good heavens, what a man. She’d seriously never seen a specimen even remotely like him. He was a beast.

But as soon as the word crossed her mind, she frowned. His current appearance wasn’t his fault. But with all that hair and that wild look in his eyes, it was hard to separate the man from the animal he’d had to become to survive whatever the Ethiopians did to him.

She cranked up her laptop and fired off a quick email to Brady Hathaway at H.O.T. Watch. She asked for additional steak to be sent to the island, along with a new cell phone for her. And then she ended the message with,

See if you can back channel an off-the-record conversation with the Ethiopian Army. What in the world did they do to this guy in prison to turn him into what he is now?

Chapter 3

Jeff stared at himself in the mirror. Both the T-shirt and cutoff sweatpant shorts he wore stretched too tightly across his massive physique. But they were the only garments that even came close to fitting him. If nothing else, they highlighted his power pretty blatantly. Hopefully, it would be enough to intimidate his hostess into sending for his drugs immediately.

He rejoined her in the living room, where she was most of the way through the newspaper now.

“Better?” she murmured as he sat down on the sofa opposite her.

“Indeed.”

He waited until she glanced up at him questioningly, debating with himself while he waited. Indirect subtlety or direct and straightforward? How to get Jennifer to order his drugs brought in? His gut told him to go the direct route, but habit told him to approach all women circuitously.

“What’s put that frown on your face?” she asked.

“I’m debating how to handle you,” he replied frankly.

She smiled sardonically. “How about you let me do the handling for now?”

That sent his right eyebrow sailing upward. Did she mean the sexual innuendo? Surely, it had been intentional. She was too smart to make a sophomoric slip of the tongue like that. Thought she could use sex to manipulate him, did she? If he weren’t in so much pain that he could hardly see straight, she would probably be right to think that. He’d played the field as hard as the next guy over the years. Maybe harder than most.

But since he’d met Dr. Gemma Jones, that had changed. The drugs had taken over his life. Now they were his one and only mistress.

“You didn’t answer my question before,” he announced. “How long does it take to get things shipped in here from wherever they get shipped in from?”

“Is there something specific you need in a certain time frame?” she retorted.

He glanced down at the shorts and T-shirt straining across his muscular body. “Some clothes that fit would be nice. Not that it would bother me to do without clothes altogether.”

Her eyes widened and went an even smokier shade of coffee brown. That’s right, honey. Two can play that game of sexual innuendo.

“I can have more clothes for you in the morning,” she mumbled.

Overnight, huh? That meant this island was reasonably close to civilization. And fairly substantial civilization at that. Clothing in his size didn’t come off the rack in just any old store. Back home, everything he wore was custom-tailored to fit his extreme physique.

He tried, “Is there a phone? I need to talk to my business partner. Not to mention my grandfather is no doubt waiting to hear from me.”

Jennifer shrugged. “He’ll have to wait a little longer. Until I finish debriefing you, no one speaks to you.”

“Sorry,” he replied lightly. “I’m not wearing any briefs.”

Her gaze dropped involuntarily to his lap and spots of pink erupted on her cheeks.

“So what does this debrief entail?” he asked.

She blinked up at him as if she was struggling to organize her thoughts. “Uh, for a start, I need to know what happened that led up to your capture. And I’ll need a full report of what happened to you while you were in the custody of the Ethiopians. And I need a satisfactory explanation of why you killed El Mari.”

“And if I refuse to answer your questions?”

“Then you’re not leaving this island any time soon.”

He glanced out the picture window over her shoulder at a spectacular sunset over the distant ocean. If this place was close to the classified facility that had set up his men, he was happy to stay right here. “I can live with that. Can you?”

She leaned forward, forcing direct eye contact with him. “You will never be allowed to go home, Mr. Winston. Ever.”

He shrugged. “I haven’t been able to go home for a long time. That’s nothing new.”

She leaned back, frowning. “Why not?”

“Long story—”

“We’ve got all the time in the world, apparently,” she replied dryly.

“—and I’m not sharing,” he snapped.

“I’m going to keep at you until I get my answers,” she warned him.

“Then you are doomed to intense frustration and the bitter taste of failure,” he replied grimly.

She studied him intently like she was measuring the truth of his words. Finally she asked reasonably, “Why? I’m not the enemy.”

He snorted. “From where I sit, that’s debatable.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

He studied her, as well. The temptation to confide in her, to tell someone the truth, to explain the real logic of his apparently inexplicable decisions, was strong. But he dared not. His secrets were far too explosive to share with anyone, particularly this woman who embodied the United States government.

“What did my grandfather say to you?” he asked.

She leaned back in her armchair. “I’ll answer that question if you’ll answer one of mine.”

Aah. Clever. “Depends on what your question is.”

“Why did you go to Ethiopia?”

Hmm. He could work with that. He nodded once, but immediately regretted the gesture. Daggers of pain shot down his spine and radiated out through his nervous system to every corner of his body. He groaned and fought down a wave of pain-induced nausea.

“Deal,” he gritted out.

“You first,” she retorted.

“Nope. You.”

She stared at him curiously. She wished. He would never, ever explain the source of his pain to her. Finally she commented, “Your grandfather said you were in Africa on a humanitarian aid mission. That you and a team of your co-workers went out of radio contact about three months ago and that he was worried about you. He said he had hired private investigators, and they found sources in the Ethiopian government who said you had been thrown in prison.”

She tapped a French-manicured nail on the wooden arm of her chair. “However, when we investigated through our sources, we found no evidence of a trial or even any charges being filed against you. For some reason, the Ethiopians ignored all of their own laws and simply locked you up and threw away the key. Why is that, Mr. Winston?”

“Jeff.”

“Why is that, Jeff?”

“Not the question I agreed to answer.” What sources was she referring to? Was it possible?

She huffed.

“I went to Ethiopia to solve world hunger.”

She stared at him expectantly. “And?”

“And that’s it.”

She surged up out of her chair. “Look, Jeff. This isn’t a joke. You murdered a man last night, and I have no compunction about returning you to the Ethiopian government to stand trial for your crime. You will be executed or worse. And believe me, in Africa, worse can be much worse than death.”

She was magnificent in her fury. Anger sparked off her like fireworks and her body literally vibrated with her passion. She’d be a hellcat in the sack, for sure. The thought startled him. Since when did he sit around lusting after a woman like this? It had been years since he’d been that libertine playboy punk.

He leaned forward matching her intensity. “I’m telling you the truth. I went to Africa to solve world hunger.”

She sank down into her chair. Watching her pull herself back in, containing her fiery energy was fascinating. In less time that he’d have imagined, she was able to ask him calmly, “And did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Solve world hunger.”

He started to shrug but thought better of the unnecessary motion. “I have a good idea how to solve a substantial chunk of East Africa’s food shortage.”

“And how’s that?”

“I didn’t agree to answer that one.”

She glared at him, but was otherwise outwardly composed. “Don’t make this a war between us. I can make your life incredibly unpleasant.” Her voice softened just a touch. “And I’d hate to have to do that.”

He suspected he could make hers pretty unpleasant, too, but he refrained from mentioning it. He had no desire to antagonize her any more. After all, she really did seem to want to help him. Problem was, she had no idea how to do that. He’d asked for his drugs twice already, and she’d put him off both times. She didn’t understand. And he couldn’t explain it to her. But maybe he could talk around the edges of it.

He said in a conciliatory tone, “Look. I take certain medications, and I haven’t had them for far too long. I need to get in touch with my physician and order up new prescriptions as soon as possible.”

“Our doctors will have to review and approve anything you’re prescribed. It may take several days.”

Could Doc Jones disguise his meds so the government doctors wouldn’t recognize them? Or would they be suspicious enough to run independent tests on the serum? No, he dared not even chance letting the government get its hands on any of his highly experimental medications.

He settled for, “In the meantime, could your people at least fly out some antibiotics and pain pills to help me get over the worst effects of my captivity?”

“Are you ill?” she asked sharply.

“I’m about to be,” he replied soberly.

“Why?”

He shook his head. Nope. Not going there with her, either.

Thoughtfully, Jennifer watched Jeff retreat to his bedroom. He wasn’t much less incredible in those tight clothes than he was in a towel. What would it be like to be with a man in such extraordinary physical condition? She made a policy of never dating any of the special forces operatives who worked out of H.O.T. Watch, so she didn’t actually know.

The classified facility was home to a half-dozen Hunter Operations Teams. They did covert missions around the world with the help of the sophisticated satellite surveillance technology and intelligence analysts housed in the H.O.T. Watch headquarters. That facility was hidden on its own Caribbean island about twenty miles from here.

She added a few more details to what she knew about Jeff Winston. Beneath his rough exterior, he was highly intelligent. Cunning, even. And he was desperate to get his hands on some sort of prescription drugs that he was clearly in full-blown withdrawal from. That was the third time he’d mentioned getting medication sent to him.

She frowned. Was that why he’d been so wild and violent in Ethiopian custody? Had it been nothing more than the guy going through drug withdrawals? An odd sense of disappointment coursed through her. She’d hoped for better than that from him.

She opened her laptop computer and connected to the island’s private wireless network to fire off a message to Brady Hathaway.

Please investigate possible drug addiction by Jeff Winston. And send out some giant clothes. Think NFL lineman … on steroids … and you’ll have the dimensions about right.

Hathaway’s response was swift.

Drug addiction?!!!

Correct. He appears to be experiencing some sort of drug withdrawal symptoms.

Do you need us to send out a team of doctors and relieve you from this debriefing?

She considered that one for a minute. In spite of her revulsion at Jeff’s beastly appearance and behavior, there was something … fascinating … about him. He inspired a twisted compulsion in her to figure out what made this strange man tick. It had nothing at all to do with the unwilling attraction she bizarrely seemed to feel for him, of course.

Common sense told her this guy was a complete nut job. Definitely a candidate for a padded cell and a psychiatric team to pick his brains apart. Except, he’d been perfectly lucid through the meal and their recent conversation. He might be driven half-mad by the pain of his drug withdrawal, but that didn’t make him crazy.

Was she seriously talking herself into turning down Hathaway’s offer of a medical team to replace her? Apparently. Because the next words she typed were,

I’d like a few days to work on this guy. I’ve established the beginnings of trust with him. I think he’ll talk to me given a little more time. I highly doubt he’d cooperate with a psych team.

Your call, Jenn. But be careful.

Right. Careful. There was nothing at all careful about being alone on this island with Jefferson Winston.

One thing he hadn’t lacked for in prison was sleep. There’d been nothing else to do to while away the endless days, and sleep had been his only relief from the creeping advance of his pain.

Jeff dozed in his room for a few hours after he heard Jennifer’s bedroom door close across the hall at about midnight. When he judged she’d had plenty of time to fall into a deep sleep, he eased out of bed and opened his door. He glided stealthily down the hall to the living room.

Triumph surged through him. Jennifer had left her laptop computer sitting on the coffee table. Now he could only pray it wasn’t password protected. He turned it on and waited anxiously for it to boot up. Bingo. A welcome screen popped right up.

It took him a few missteps, but he figured out quickly enough how to connect to the island’s wi-fi network. An internet connection opened automatically. He opened an anonymous public mail server and typed fast.

G., I’m somewhere in the Caribbean, and I’m a mess. Don’t know how much longer I can hold on. You know that pain you predicted if I ever went off my health regimen? You have no idea how right you were. Have L. pull strings to find me and get me what I need ASAP. Hurry. J.

He hit the send button and leaned back, sighing in relief. He poked around her files for any hint of an association with the classified surveillance facility he sought, but found nothing. He’d be relieved if he didn’t think she was too smart to leave that sort of evidence laying around. Quietly, he emptied the computer’s cache and deleted all internet cookies and browsing history before shutting down the system. He crept back to bed and prayed for sleep to relieve him temporarily from his living hell.

Jennifer leaned back against her pillows thoughtfully, staring at the twin computer to the laptop she’d left out in the living room as bait. Who was G.? L. obviously referred to Jeff’s grandfather, Leland. The regimen in the note no doubt was an oblique reference to whatever drugs the guy was addicted to, and his exhortation to hurry meant she was right. The guy was experiencing heavy withdrawal.

She forwarded the entire keystroke sequence from the time Jeff turned on the laptop until he turned it off to the computer guys at H.O.T. Watch. Her technicians should be able to track down this G. person with ease through his or her internet service provider. Her men’s expertise, combined with the legal authority of the federal government, should unravel the mystery in a few hours. Probably by the time she woke up in the morning, they’d know who Jeff’s drug supplier was and what drug he was hooked on.

She shook her head. No way was she letting Jeff get a fresh supply of his drugs. He’d been off them for a couple months already in jail in Ethiopia. He had to be pretty close to busting his addiction for good after so much time had passed. If he could just tough it out a few more days or weeks, he’d be clean. And then he could make a rational decision about his health. He didn’t strike her as the kind of man who actually enjoyed being dependent on drugs.

Something about him suggested a sense of decency, honor even, under that uncivilized facade. And she was just the woman to help him rediscover that side of himself.

The State Department could probably spin the attack on El Mari as an unfortunate manifestation of his drug withdrawals. Temporary insanity.

But first, she had to get the real Jeff Winston back. For as sure as she was sitting here, the animal across the hall was not the man she’d read about in her dossier.

Chapter 4

“Wake up!” Something sharp slapped him across the face and Jeff howled in pain. He was being slow roasted in a giant oven and any second his entire body was going to burst into flames. Ye Gods, what a horrible way to die.

“Wake. Up.”

Was that insistent voice aimed at him? Surely not. He’d died and gone to Hell.

“I’m not kidding. I’ll dump a bucket of ice water on you if you don’t open your eyes and tell me what on God’s green earth is going on, Jeff Winston.”

The demon knew his name. And frankly, a bucket of ice water sounded like bliss. A fresh wave of agony ran over him like a ten-ton steamroller and he succumbed to white pain that blanked out everything else.

And then something else dawned on him. That was a female voice. “Gemma?” he mumbled. “Quit hitting me.”

“Then wake up and tell me what’s wrong with you!”

It was an enormous battle, but he managed to peel open one eyelid. His vision swam fuzzily as the vise crushing his skull tightened. God almighty, he was tough, but even he couldn’t stand this. He whimpered, half in pain and half in terror. How much worse was it going to get before he lost his mind or his heart simply gave out and he kicked off?

The tone of the dark blob softened. “Where does it hurt?”

Everywhere. Dark blob? Gemma was fair and blond. Everything about her was pale, even the light blue of her eyes. He squinted at this woman. Memory hovered close by. He was not in Ethiopia. And this woman wanted something from him ….

The pain receded just enough to allow him a moment of lucidity. Jennifer, not Gemma. His captor. Although she was calling herself something nicer than that. Debriefer. Yeah, that was it. And she wouldn’t let him have something—

She laid a hand on his shoulder, and the joint felt like it had literally exploded.

It was as if everything he’d suffered so far was a bare shadow of the pain that slammed into him now. As much as he hated himself for doing it, he screamed. And once he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop.

Jennifer reeled back from the man thrashing on the bed before her. A high-pitched keening tore from his throat, shocking her to her core. She didn’t do anything! She just touched his shoulder. And he acted like she’d gouged out his eyes with hot pokers.

He barely looked human. He was hairy, huge and bathed in sweat. As if she’d landed in a really bad rendition of Beauty and the Beast. Where was the man from her dossier? Jefferson Winston was suave. Elegant. Sophisticated. He bore no resemblance whatsoever to this man.

Sheesh. If ever there’d been a better advertisement for the evils of drug addiction, she’d never seen it. The man had become little better than a wild animal. It would be a tragedy if it weren’t his own darned fault. She flinched as he let loose another bloodcurdling scream. And this time he didn’t stop.

Freaked out, she retreated to the living room and turned on her laptop. She initiated a voice over internet protocol and called H.O.T. Watch headquarters on the Red line. It was reserved for life and death emergencies.

The duty controller answered with a terse, “Go.” Most callers on this line had no time to fool around with the niceties.

“It’s Jennifer Blackfoot. I need to speak with a physician who specializes in drug addiction recovery right now. I’ll stay on the line.”

“Roger.” The controller’s voice came back in a few seconds. “I’m patching you through to the substance abuse team at Wilford Hall Medical Center, ma’am,” the controller announced.

A male voice came on the line. “This is Dr. Kinchon.”

“Hi, sir. Jennifer Blackfoot. CIA. I’m debriefing a man who appears to be suffering from severe drug withdrawal symptoms. I need to know what to do to alleviate his reaction.”

“What substance is he withdrawing from?”

“I have no idea.”

“I need to know what he’s coming down off of if I’m going to suggest a treatment. It could be dangerous in the extreme to respond incorrectly.”

“Sorry, sir. He just came into my custody yesterday.”

“What are his symptoms?”

She frowned. “Extreme pain. Delirium associated with his more extreme pain episodes.”

“Is he scratching at himself? Hallucinating? Sweating profusely?”

“Yes, he is sweating!” she exclaimed, relieved.

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since his last fix?”

She had yet to hear back from Brady on what his off-the-record conversation with the Ethiopians had revealed. She pictured his thick growth of beard and guessed, “At least two months. Possibly several.”

“Months?” the doctor exclaimed. “That’s not possible. He would be long past any delirium tremens if that was the case. He must have taken something within the past few days.”

At that moment, Jeff let out a scream that echoed through the house and sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. He sounded like he was dying.

“Please, Doctor. He’s in terrible pain. Isn’t there anything I can do?”

“You can try hot or cold compresses.”

“He screams any time I touch him.”

“Aah. Extreme tactile hypersensitivity. Don’t touch him, then. Even the slightest contact may very well feel like a knife stabbing him. You might consider restraining him for his own safety.”

Lovely. Just what she wanted to do. Torture the poor man. Not to mention she doubted any of the rope in the house would hold him down. “Please, Doctor. There has to be something more I can do to help him.”

“Find out as quickly as possible exactly what he’s been taking and when the last time he had it was.”

“Done.” She wasn’t sure how she was going to track down G. and bully the information out of the guy, but by golly, she’d make it happen if she had to show up on this G.’s front porch herself and beat it out of him.

Abruptly, silence fell over the house. Jennifer disconnected the call and raced for Jeff’s room. Funny how the silence scared her even worse than his screams. At least when he was screaming she knew he was still alive.

He was alive when she got there, but he didn’t look good. His skin was a ghastly shade of gray and his eyes were rolled back into his head. She risked touching him in his unconscious state and he was burning up. She’d never felt a fever burn so hot on a person’s skin before.

A flash of her grandfather, who’d been a traditional medicine man, came to mind. What would he do with a patient like this? She recalled his whispery voice murmuring, “Heat a cold man, cool a hot man, child.”

She sprinted for the linen closet and yanked out a bed sheet. She threw it in her bathtub, soaked it with cold water, and carried the sodden mass into Jeff’s room. She spread it over him, settling the cloth against his body as gently as she possibly could.

His thrashing diminished slightly. But as soon as the sheet warmed to his body temperature, his whimpering increased in intensity. Damn. She fetched her laptop and called H.O.T. Watch again.

When the call went through, she demanded, “Who’s G.?”

“Standby one.”

She waited in an agony of impatience.

“No idea. G. has a dummy internet server. From it, your guy’s message was routed all over the world. Assuming we can track it at all, it’s going to take a while to follow the trail back to the target.”

“Define a while,” she demanded tersely as Jeff moaned beside her.

“Two, maybe three, days, ma’am.”

“I don’t have that long.” She thought fast. “Put me through to Leland Winston.”

“Uhh, it’s four o’clock in the morning in New York.”

“Tell him his grandson is dying and I need his help. He’ll take my call.”

She wasn’t wrong. The billionaire’s gravelly voice came on the line in under a minute. “Who is this? And what’s this about Jeff dying?” he demanded.

“Agent Jennifer Blackfoot. Your grandson’s CIA debriefer. He’s in horrendous pain. Appears to be withdrawing from some sort of drug. We need to find out what it is and when he last had it.”

Strangely, Leland devolved into a bout of cursing fit to embarrass a sailor. Now why on earth would he react like that? Was this drug use an old problem of Jeff’s that had resurfaced, maybe?

In an effort to break the old man’s tirade, she interrupted. “Do you know someone with the initial G.? A friend or associate who might be supplying drugs to Jeff?”

Even more strangely, Leland abruptly went dead silent. So. He did know who G. was.

“Where’s my grandson?”

“I’m sorry, sir. That information is classified—”

“Classified, my ass!” he bellowed. “Tell me where my boy is!”

“I can’t, sir.”

“Agent Blackfoot. That’s your name, right? I’m about to roll a crap pile downhill onto your head like you’ve never seen before. Tell me where Jeff is, or I swear, I’ll bury you.”

She didn’t doubt for a second he could make good on his threat. Men like him didn’t have to bother with empty threats. She sighed. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to pull your strings, sir. I have rules to follow and it’s above my pay grade to deviate from them.”

Leland’s cursing grew so imaginative that, in spite of herself, she was a little impressed. She’d have to remember a few of his choicest phrases for the next time a Spec Ops guy stepped out of line and was due for a butt chewing from her.

He wound down soon enough, though. Into the heavy silence, she said merely, “And Mr. Winston?”

“What?” he snapped irritably.

“Hurry, sir.”

Time ceased to have any meaning for Jeff. He was aware only of varying degrees of pain. Once his formidable self-control cracked, there was no putting that genie back in the bottle. The pain had gotten the best of him and no amount of self-discipline could give him the upper hand again. His bones felt as if they were being bent by degrees in vises. Which, in a more lucid moment, he wryly noted wasn’t that far from the truth.

He’d known from the first that this outcome was a possibility. But he hadn’t counted on the ambush in Ethiopia, nor upon being captured and thrown in prison for months before anyone found out he was even alive, let alone freed him.

The next time Gemma Jones said something might become a little uncomfortable, he was going to run away from the woman as fast and as far as he could and never look back.

With daylight came an apparent lessening of Jeff’s pain. Jennifer offered him a glass of water with a straw to sip on. He’d been sweating like crazy for hours; he had to be badly dehydrated by now. She dozed in a chair beside his bed for a while, but woke immediately when he moaned. Her eyes popped open in alarm as she braced for the screaming to resume.

“What’re you doing here?” he rasped.

“You had a rough night. I was trying to help. Although there’s precious little I can do without knowing what you’ve been taking.”

He frowned like he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Your drug addiction,” she said impatiently. “I need to know what you were on so the doctors can tell me how to ease your symptoms.”

“Need my doc,” he muttered.

“Give me a full name and I’ll get him for you right now.”

Sharp intelligence abruptly shone from Jeff’s blue-on-blue gaze. “Not nice to take advantage of the sick guy.”

She frowned. “I’m not trying to trick you. I really need to know your supplier’s name. You might die if we don’t find out what you’re hooked on and help you come down off of it safely.”

He made a growling noise that might be a snort in a less torn-up throat. “Not. An addict.” His teeth clenched as a wave of pain clearly assaulted him. “Call Leland.”

“Stay with me, Jeff. I need more information.”

His eyes started to fog over. “You stay. With me. Please …”

Her heart broke a little at the entreaty in his voice. He sounded so utterly lonely. She lashed out in sudden, irrational anger. “Look at you. You’re a mess! You are an addict.”

“Got that wrong …” he gasped before his voice broke and the screaming began again.

It was midmorning when a motorboat pulled up at the dock visible from the house. Jeff was unconscious for the moment, and she happened to be in the kitchen pouring herself a cup of coffee when she spotted the boat. Thank God. She’d asked for the strongest pain killers and sedatives in H.O.T. Watch’s infirmary to be sent over here immediately.

She was startled to recognize the tall form jumping to the dock. What was Brady Hathaway doing here in person? She didn’t have long to wait to find out. He strode through the front door, a backpack slung over one shoulder, a few minutes later. He’d made good time up the mountain. She was gratified to seeing him huffing.

“What’s up, Jenn?” he demanded.

“I might ask the same of you.”

“Where’s the wild man?”

“Asleep right now. And for God’s sake, keep your voice down. At all cost we don’t want to wake him up.”

“Gonna have to if Rich Boy wants the painkillers and sedatives I’ve got in my bag.”

She leaped for the backpack eagerly.

“Whoa there, sister. You should use them as a bribe to get him to cooperate in your debriefing.”

She laughed without humor. “Trust me. He’s in no condition to answer questions.”

“What are you talking—”

Jeff chose that moment to wake up, which meant he let out a banshee wail that sent Brady a foot straight up into the air. She was too exhausted to appreciate the humor of it. His face showing minor shock, Brady handed over the backpack. She rummaged in it frantically, as if she was the addict herself.

Meanwhile, he detailed, “My Ethiopian contact got back to me just before I left to come see you. Interesting report. He swears they did nothing to your boy. A guard tried to rough him up the night he arrived at the prison and Rich Boy supposedly killed him. But there are glaring discrepancies in that story. For example, the guard was garroted, but no murder weapon was anywhere in the room when the police arrived. And the prisoner was still handcuffed by one wrist to the table.”

She demanded, “How do you strangle someone with a table dangling from your wrist?”

“Good question,” Brady replied. “Apparently, the prison guards wouldn’t get near him after that. His first day with the other prisoners, Winston beat the crap out of a bunch of them, then refused to come out of his cell again the whole time he was in jail. My guy is adamant that no one tortured him. Says your boy gradually went from crazy to really crazy. My contact sounded genuinely relieved to have gotten rid of him.”

She poured out a handful of pills. Given his body mass, she figured she’d start with double the recommended dosage of both the sedatives and painkillers and see what those did for Jeff. She headed down the hall and Brady followed curiously.

Jeff had gone completely rigid in his bed, his body unnaturally arched off the mattress and statue-still. She rushed forward. “Jeff! Are you all right?” She knew it was a stupid question. But it was the first thing that popped out of her mouth in her panic.

He managed to open his eyes and seemed to struggle to focus on her voice. She spoke encouragingly as she picked up his water glass. “I’ve got painkillers for you, Jeff. I need you to swallow them. Can you do that for me?”

His entire body trembled with the effort, but he lifted his head off his pillow.

Brady jumped forward to support Jeff’s shoulders while she fed the pills to her patient. He swallowed the last one convulsively and she caught herself sagging in relief.

Frowning, Brady eased Jeff back to the mattress. “Man. He’s really dense.”

“As in stupid to have done this to himself?”

“No. As in unnaturally heavy. The guy weighs a ton.”

“Look at his arms and shoulders. His whole body’s that muscular. Of course he’s heavy.”

Brady shook his head. “I’ve carried my fair share of injured Spec Ops guys across my back before. I know how much muscular, fit men weigh. And I’m telling you something’s weird about this guy. He’s really, really heavy.”

She recalled Jeff landing on her during the gunfight. And the way the golf cart had groaned under his weight. Maybe there was something to what Brady was saying. “Well, I can tell you he’s the strongest guy I’ve ever seen. He ripped the combination lock right off the side of the garage down by the airfield.”

Brady glanced down at her patient. “Who is this guy?”

She threw up her hands. “That’s what I’ve been asking. Now you know why I’ve been so hot and bothered for you guys to dig up everything on his past few years. How did he go from Ivy League, spoiled rich kid to this?”

She stared down at the man in the bed. Sympathy for his plight shuddered through her. No matter what transgressions lurked in his past, no human being deserved to suffer like this.

She and Brady spent the rest of the morning on their respective phones and computers, pushing their staffs mercilessly for any and every thing they could find on one Jefferson Winston.

A little new information was forthcoming. Jeff had apparently experienced some sort of political awakening after graduate school. He worked on the campaign staffs of several politicians who were generally social liberals and foreign policy conservatives.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.