Читать книгу Devil in Dress Blues - Karen Foley, Karen Foley - Страница 11

RAFE NEEDED A DRINK. Badly.

Leaving the Pavilion Cafè, he strode along Constitution Avenue until he saw a small pub and ducked inside. He ordered a Guinness and stood at a table near the windows, replaying the interview with Sara Sinclair again in his head.

He hadn’t wanted to meet with her, hadn’t wanted to be sucked in by the radiance of her smile or the guilelessness in her blue eyes. He’d told himself that nobody could be that sincere, and he’d been right. Sara Sinclair wore her open-faced, Ivory-girl looks like a mask, deceiving those around her into believing that she had only their best interests at heart, while hiding her true nature. In that regard, she was exactly like Ann Lonquist, the woman who’d turned him off journalists.

He could still recall the night he and his men had infiltrated the compound where she and the other aid workers had been held by Taliban forces. Up until that point, the rescue mission had gone smoothly. His team had neutralized the guards positioned around the compound, and within minutes they had found the workers locked in a room deep inside the building.

He and his men had swiftly evaluated the women’s physical condition. They were exhausted and frightened, but unharmed. The youngest woman, Ann Lonquist, had clung to him, and Rafe had felt his protective instincts kick into high gear. For just an instant, he’d imagined himself as the big he-man hero and her as the helpless damsel in distress. Then his professional training had kicked in and he’d pushed the fantasy aside. They’d begun working their way out of the compound, using their own bodies to shield the women, when they’d encountered a top Taliban leader. The man had been walking almost absent-mindedly through the corridor, turning an expensive camera over in his hands. The expression of horrified surprise on his face when he rounded the corner and saw Rafe’s team of Special Ops soldiers might have been comical if their situation hadn’t been so perilous. There was no question in Rafe’s mind that he could have eliminated the man without making a sound or rousing any of the other Taliban, but Ann had given a low cry of outrage.

“That’s my camera!”

She’d darted forward, but had been restrained by one of Rafe’s men. Cursing, Rafe had launched himself at the enemy, just as the man jerked a gun out of his belt and fired wildly in their direction, striking Staff Sergeant Brody in the upper leg.

Then all hell had erupted.

They still might have gotten out unscathed had Ann Lonquist not stopped to retrieve her camera and snap several photos of the now-dead Taliban leader. Rafe had hauled her upward by her arm and literally dragged her alongside him, firing his weapon with his free hand as insurgents pursued them, while she continued clicking the shutter.

“What the hell are you doing?” he’d roared.

“Documenting the rescue,” she’d gasped, squirming in his grasp.

Rafe had responded by yanking the camera away and shoving it into a pouch on his belt. “Now move your ass,” he’d growled at her, “or I’ll damned well leave you here.”

Her pretty blue eyes had widened, but she’d snapped her mouth shut and allowed him to shove her ahead of him through the corridors. As he and his men hurried the women toward the exit, gunfire had erupted all around them, and a second man, Sergeant Hager, went down with a muffled cry. Rafe had hauled him up by his flak jacket and supported his weight as they’d made their escape. They’d planted several explosive devices around the compound hours earlier, and now Rafe’s men began methodically detonating them. In the ensuing confusion, the team managed to slip into the surrounding darkness with the aid workers, and they hadn’t stopped until they were several miles into the surrounding mountains.

Rafe had been forced to carry Hager across the rugged terrain. By the time they’d reached a safe spot to rest, Rafe’s entire body had ached with effort. After he’d set the man down, he’d fished through his pouch for his first aid kit, removing Ann’s camera and setting it on the ground nearby. The bullet had struck his friend just below the edge of his flak vest, in the side of his abdomen.

“We need to stop the bleeding before we can head to the extraction point, or he’s not going to make it,” he’d said grimly. “How is Brody doing?”

“I’m fine,” Brody had replied, as another team member wrapped a tourniquet around his injured thigh. “Just a scratch.”

A series of blinding flashes had sent Rafe surging to his feet, his weapon drawn. Fury seethed through him when he saw that Ann Lonquist had grabbed her camera from where he’d placed it on the ground, and was busy snapping pictures of their hasty triage. Had he really thought her attractive? With a feral growl, he’d advanced on her.

“Are you that much of an idiot?” he’d hissed, as she backed away. He snatched the camera out of her hands. “What the hell are you doing?”

“D-documenting.”

“Just who the hell are you?”

“I—I’m a relief worker.” Her voice had sounded high and thin, and Rafe had known she was lying.

“Bullshit. Tell me the truth.”

“Fine. I’m a photojournalist,” she’d acknowledged in a small voice. “But how else was I going to get my story? I never thought we’d be kidnapped and held hostage.”

“Your thoughtless actions nearly got my men killed,” he’d said softly, “and now you’re determined to advertise our exact location with your fucking camera flash.” In disgust, he’d opened the camera and retrieved the small memory card. “What did you plan on doing with these photos?”

He could see from her expression that she’d fully intended to publish them in whatever magazine or newspaper she worked for.

“Jesus,” he’d breathed in disgust. “You’d put all our lives at risk for the sake of your story.”

“I risked my own life for this story,” she retorted. “I’ve earned those photos.”

“The hell you have,” he’d snarled.

He hadn’t spoken to her again, not during the hike to where a helicopter was waiting to airlift them out, and not when they arrived back at Bagram Air Base. He could barely bring himself to look at her when she’d stiffly asked for the return of her camera. He’d handed it to her—minus the memory card—and then he’d turned and walked away.

His men had survived, but Sergeant Hager had suffered so much internal damage from the bullet he’d taken that he’d been forced to leave the Marine Corps on a medical discharge. Rafe blamed Ann for the fact that he’d lost a good man.

He told himself again that he shouldn’t be so surprised—so goddamned disappointed—to realize he’d been right about Sara Sinclair. But he was. There was something about her that appealed to him on a primal level, and it was more than just the ripe lushness of her mouth or her curvy body. There was a kind of innocence to her, a sweet vulnerability that couldn’t be hidden no matter how hard she tried to come across as sophisticated and independent. He recalled the look of confusion in her eyes when he’d refused to accept her hand at the charity ball. The memory still made him cringe. He’d behaved like a dick, and all because she’d reminded him a little too much of Ann Lonquist, with her big blue eyes and guileless smile. His initial reaction to Sara had been too reminiscent of his reaction to Ann, only on a bigger scale. He’d been rendered momentarily brainless. He might have rejected her handshake, but he’d spent the night of the ball wondering what it would be like to have her lips on his body, and to fill his hands with her amazing breasts.

He took a hefty swallow of the dark stout, telling himself again that he was an idiot. He might find Sara sexy as hell, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get involved with her.

A journalist. A freaking reporter.

Go figure.

He wondered again how she had discovered his involvement in the rescue of the aid workers in Pakistan, and who her source was. There were only a select few people who knew about his role in the rescue, and aside from his own men, most of them were in the higher echelons of the Pentagon.

Rafe was in the process of taking another swig of beer when he paused, the glass raised halfway to his mouth. Sara Sinclair strode past the window of the pub, her coppery hair swinging over her shoulders, her breasts gently bouncing beneath her blue sweater. Rafe barely resisted the urge to press his face to the glass and watch her retreat down the sidewalk. Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he raised his glass again and then paused, the motion arrested by what he saw outside on the sidewalk. A man followed Sara, and as Rafe watched, he gestured to someone on the other side of the street.

Rafe’s heart rate kicked up a notch and he swiftly set down the beer and threw some money on the table. Even as part of his brain argued not to get involved, that it was none of his business, he was out the door of the pub before he’d fully realized it. The gesture had been swift and subtle, no more than several flicks of the man’s hand, but Rafe recognized the hand signals. He’d used them himself numerous times during close engagements in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Follow. Intercept. Stay out of sight.

The hand signals were used almost exclusively by the military or law enforcement, but instinct told Rafe the man following Sara was neither. Glancing down the sidewalk, he saw the first man striding purposefully along, keeping five or six pedestrians between himself and his target. Across the street, Rafe saw a second man working his way swiftly through the crowd, presumably to head Sara off.