Elite Ops.

Easy Target.

Kay Thomas.

Dedication.

For my big sister, Libby-.

who taught me that reading is fun, laughter heals, and champagne is not just for special occasions!.

Chapter One.

December.

Africa.

AS THE TRUCK rolled to a grinding halt, Sa.s.sy Smith braced herself at the back door. This would be her one chance, and she wasn't going to blow it. They'd only been moving for a few minutes, so it wasn't a "rest" stop, at least she hoped not. She'd seen that horror unfold more than once since she was kidnapped off the streets in Niamey two days ago.

She wasn't absolutely clear on the time of day. She was guessing early morning, but it could have been midafternoon. Her internal clock was pretty screwed up. They were close to a town, if the warehouse they'd just been in was any indication.

If they unlocked the back, the doors had to swing out like a big gate, and that momentarily blocked the guards' vision. She'd have a three- to five-second head start to run once they opened. Given the terrain, that might be all she needed. Sa.s.sy was small, but she was lightning fast.

She slipped off her wedge heels as she stood by the doors and knotted the kimar scarf around her waist. It had long ago slipped from her head, but she didn't dare leave the truck without it. She had no idea where they were, and a woman with her head uncovered in some areas of this country might as well be wearing a neon sign and shouting into a bullhorn.

The women around her were already tuning up, moaning and wailing. Sa.s.sy took a deep breath and reached for that inner calm she could always find when everything around her was going to h.e.l.l. Being raised by a crazy alcoholic had made that a necessity. Her brother, Trey, claimed that she had ice water in her veins.

Sa.s.sy shook her head. She couldn't think about Trey right now, or the Mexican prison where he was incarcerated for a murder he hadn't committed. She would shut down completely and be incapable of doing what had to be done here. She needed to focus. What had seemed not so bad initially had turned ugly and frightening in the past forty-eight hours. If she dwelled on her circ.u.mstances for very long, she'd lose her nerve.

Four women on the truck had been s.e.xually a.s.saulted on the journey across the Hoggar Mountains since Sa.s.sy had joined them, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Sa.s.sy'd sat beside one and held her as she'd wept afterward. She had the terrible feeling she might be next if the way these new guards were treating her was any indication.

She dragged her thoughts away from that stomach-turning possibility and instead narrowed her concentration to the back door of the truck. This was just like when she'd been a runner back in high school. You waited for the signal gun to fire, and you never looked back until you crossed the finish line.

She wasn't weeping like the others in the truck; she was gearing up to blast out of here. If she was lucky, only one guard would be opening the door, and he wouldn't be expecting Sa.s.sy. She held a shoe in each hand, ready to brandish them like small clubs if necessary. She heard the padlock rattle in the lock and slipped into "the zone" as if she was in the starting block on the high school track years ago.

The door swung open, revealing a sliver of light, and Sa.s.sy immediately dropped through the gap to the ground, rolling under the truck and scootching out the other side, away from the traffic, before she'd fully taken in her surroundings.

The women were wailing; no one would "tattle" on her. She hesitated a moment, hiding herself beside the two large back wheels. They were on a busy road with a long stream of cars coming from both directions, but beyond that, she couldn't tell anything about her location. There was nothing but a long wall directly behind her. Why were they stopping here and opening the back door? They were in the middle of a town. A very busy town.

Was that a bridge?

She stared a moment. That was the Sidi M'Cid.

She'd been here once before on another story. This was Constantine. The market was just across the road.

Why would her captors stop here, in the middle of all these people? Why open the truck beside the Casbah? These men were not the sharpest tools in the shed. Thank G.o.d.

She studied the guard's feet by the back door and glanced at the wheel on the traffic side of the truck. The tire was as flat as her chest had been when she was eleven years old and praying for b.o.o.bs every night.

The guard would be climbing in the back of the vehicle soon to grab the spare, but he still hadn't realized anyone had flown the coop. She crawled underneath the undercarriage to the traffic side of the truck and checked to make sure no one else was exiting the cab on this side. Seeing no one, she waited for a break in the line of cars coming from the opposite direction. Then she stood, tucked the shoes under each arm, and sprinted across the street. The gravel over the top of the warm asphalt dug into her feet, but she ignored the pain. The guard behind her yelled, but he was too late. Sa.s.sy slipped into the crowds and never looked back, disappearing into the Casbah and the anonymity of market day.

She was free.

She hurried through the labyrinth of stalls strung with the vendors' wares-scarves, food, embroidered baby clothes, electronics, linens, housewares, even chickens. Anything and everything one could imagine was found here. The shoppers were out in force as well.

Was this Christmas Eve? She'd lost track of the days while on the truck. But there was no time to dwell on that. She slipped the kimar up over her head and wrapped it twice, securing it as best she could without a pin or mirror. She shoved her shoes back onto her bruised feet and slowed to a more sedate pace, since a white woman running through the market would draw entirely too much attention.

She paused by a vendor selling beautifully woven rugs and glanced behind her. No one appeared to be following. But she couldn't be sure if the man from the truck was just good at tracking or had given up and decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

Either way she had to keep moving. She gazed to the Sidi M'Cid, its towers rising majestically in the air over the one-lane bridge. That would be her quickest way out of the area.

She looked closer. No, that wouldn't work. The bridge was cordoned off with police and official vehicles swarming it from both ends. She was stuck here for the time being, unless she wanted to venture farther into Constantine or try the urban gondola system.

Despite the sign ahead for one of the gondola stations, she wasn't ready to do that yet. Sa.s.sy wasn't scared of much-in fact, she'd do just about anything on a dare-but her fear of heights would keep her out of that egg-shaped car crossing the Rhumel Gorge unless someone held a gun to her head.

For just a moment she wondered if she'd made a mistake leaving the truck. She could possibly have found out where Elizabeth Yarborough was if she'd stayed with the women. Or if Trey's girlfriend had even been here in Africa, as Sa.s.sy strongly suspected. But the last time they'd stopped, the man in charge had looked at her with entirely too much interest and undiluted l.u.s.t. He'd groped her thoroughly as he'd shoved her into the truck in the warehouse.

She'd known it had only been a matter of time until they'd pull her from the back at one of the "rest stops." As a reporter, she'd been on her own in too many dangerous areas of the world not to recognize the signs. And she wasn't dumb enough to think she could fight them off or talk her way out of it. She wanted to help her brother, but she wouldn't put herself in the position of being raped to do it. She'd be no help to Trey if she was a broken wreck or worse.

She refused to think about what this meant for Elizabeth. Her brother's girlfriend might very well have died on the Sahara crossing, if her journey had been anything like that of the women in the truck with Sa.s.sy. Even if that were true-and Sa.s.sy's heart ached to think it could be-Sa.s.sy had to find the evidence, anything to prove that Elizabeth hadn't died at the hands of her brother at a resort in Mexico, as the authorities claimed.

A wave of dizziness flowed over her. Lord, she was hungry. She estimated the last time she'd eaten a real meal. It had been almost forty-two hours ago. Plus she'd had precious little water on the grueling trek across the desert. She needed food now.

What was she going to do? She looked around her. She had no money, no phone, no pa.s.sport, no way of proving she was an American citizen. She questioned whether or not going to the local police would help or hurt.

She hadn't had great luck with the authorities here in Africa since she'd arrived to investigate the human trafficking problem and the possible relationship to Elizabeth's disappearance. As a freelance reporter, she'd a.s.sumed she'd be ignored to some extent. The corruption was rampant in the government, but she was now certain that she'd stepped on someone's toes with her investigative reporting. If she went to the police station, would the authorities help her, or turn her back over to the men she'd just escaped?

December 24.

Early evening.

BRYAN FISHER SPIED the sparkling lights of Constantine on the horizon. It was a beautiful night, but he didn't give a d.a.m.n about the scenery right now. He'd driven like a bat out of h.e.l.l from the port city of Skikda once he'd learned that Sa.s.sy was in trouble.

All along the way, he'd been telling himself that she had to be okay. There was no way she was hurt. Sa.s.sy Smith always landed on her feet. But the other part of him knew that the men who'd taken her were vicious. He'd seen their handiwork, and there was no telling what could happen if they had her.

The kicker was he'd pa.s.sed the truck and the women this morning on his way to the coast, catching up with his partner, Nick Donovan, and Nick's girlfriend, Jennifer Grayson. They were now on their way home after the harrowing week of attempted murder and kidnapping they'd had together in Africa. He still didn't know who was behind their troubles, but the Vegas and the Riveras were prime candidates in Bryan's eyes.

He hadn't known that Sa.s.sy had been on the truck he'd pa.s.sed-or, rather, that she was supposed to have been on the truck. She hadn't been in the group of women he'd seen taken into custody by the Algerian military at the roadblock that had stopped him on his way through Constantine. He hadn't even discovered she was in trouble until he'd met with Nick and Jennifer in a cafe in Skikda earlier today. He still couldn't believe she'd been kidnapped.

Sa.s.sy was supposed to be in Niamey, writing her freelance article on Mexican cartels and s.e.x trafficking in Africa. She'd never intended to be part of the story itself. He ignored the cold sweat that had taken up permanent residence at the base of his spine ever since Jennifer had told him about Sa.s.sy being on the truck with the traffickers' load of women.

On his wild ride back from the coast, he'd almost chewed through an entire pack of Dentyne gum as he'd tried to contact Marissa Hudson, his boss and the co-owner of AEGIS, Armored Extraction Guards and Investigative Security. He'd had to settle for leaving her a voice mail. Risa had connections everywhere, and he needed her contacts at the emba.s.sy to find out what had happened this afternoon to that truckload of women after they'd been taken into custody.

But things were going to h.e.l.l at the AEGIS office right now with a warrant out for the arrest of Gavin Bartholomew, Marissa's partner. The charges were bogus, but Bryan feared they were enough to dry up Risa's resources in most emba.s.sies on the African continent.

Bryan was just approaching the Sidi M'Cid Bridge when an incoming text message dinged on his phone.

Call me, NOW!.

He pulled off the road just before the bridge and hit speed dial. Risa answered on the first ring. "Glad you caught me. We're getting on a plane. I've got about thirty seconds before I have to turn my phone off. Here's the scoop."

He scrambled for a pen and paper, grateful she was cutting to the chase.

"I talked to my one emba.s.sy contact in Algiers who was still speaking to me. The truck had a flat near the Casbah in Constantine, by the bridge. Driver swears it was the only time the truck door was open before the roadblock. If Sa.s.sy Smith got away, it was there."

"Are they sure the driver is telling the truth?" Bryan couldn't shake the thought that Sa.s.sy was in a ditch somewhere after being used and discarded by the animals running this trafficking ring.

Risa cleared her throat, but her voice still had that hoa.r.s.e tone that reminded him so much of Sa.s.sy's, even though their accents were different. "The same story was confirmed with a couple of the women on the truck, but no one actually saw Sa.s.sy get off the transport. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. Most of these girls were so out of it from dehydration and hunger, they didn't notice much of anything until they were being rescued."

Bryan squeezed his eyes closed and imagined what kind of shape Sa.s.sy might be in at this point. If she'd gotten away at the Casbah, where could she have gone?

Risa's voice interrupted his unhappy train of thought. "I'm sorry. I've got to go. Leave me another message, but on this new number." She recited the number that had come up on his caller ID. "It's a burner. The AEGIS numbers are most likely all being tapped at this point."

He didn't even have time to say Thanks or Who is we? He knew she was with Gavin. Bryan didn't believe the man was collaborating with the cartels, and Marissa was loyal to a fault. She wouldn't leave her partner twisting in the wind on some bulls.h.i.t charges.

Gavin's wife had just died after a long, agonizing battle with cancer. Another example of how loving someone and losing them could eviscerate you. Bryan wasn't going to think about what kind of h.e.l.l Gavin was dealing with.

If Risa could help the man by doing what she did, then more power to both of them. Whatever else was going on between them was none of his business. h.e.l.l, he was only a contract employee, not even a permanent hire for AEGIS. Nothing in Bryan's life was long-term anymore.

He hung up and looked ahead. The Casbah was just across the Sidi M'Cid Bridge. He studied the landscape a moment. He'd never been inside the market, although he'd seen pictures. Located in the oldest part of the city, it didn't look particularly welcoming at this time of night, with its dark, winding streets and narrow alleyways. But it would be the perfect place to hide if Sa.s.sy had escaped her captors here.

This would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. He comforted himself with the thought that he'd at least located the most probable haystack. He crossed the bridge and created his own parking s.p.a.ce on a side street before diving into the maze of the Casbah.

Despite the objections of many Muslim religious leaders in the area, there were signs of the Christian holiday all around the market. Some things had been "adapted" to the area. On one side of the entrance, Santa's sleigh was parked with goats in the harness instead of reindeer. And on the other side-somewhat miraculously-there was a nativity scene complete with angels, wise men, and the baby Jesus. Given the religious climate, this was all most unusual.

Most vendors closed up shop when the sun went down, although there still were a few around the entrance to the marketplace itself. Fear for Sa.s.sy and what could be happening to her right now had him speeding up the incline farther into the labyrinth of streets. The deeper inside he travelled, the more lonely and desolate everything appeared, with only the occasional shop open for business.

Sa.s.sy, where are you?

If she was out here alone, she could be in just as much trouble as she had been on that truck. Bryan rushed ahead into the darkness, hoping for his own Christmas miracle.

Chapter Two.

Sa.s.sY STOOD ON a corner deep in the Casbah, about to cross the street. She no longer worried about the men from the truck finding her. She'd been here for hours now. The traffickers were long gone.

Earlier she'd drunk from one of the older public fountains, using her hands to slurp water from the spigot. A vendor had taken pity on her and offered her a plate of the traditional flatbread and lamb sausage, so even her hunger was a.s.suaged for the moment.

Her most pressing problem was being a woman alone on the street after dark. Here in Constantine, that seemed to signal that she was looking for male companionship, if the gaggle of young men following her was any indication. They were talking to her, some in French, a few in English, but their comments had grown increasingly bold and coa.r.s.e.

They were in a darker area. Earlier there had been shopkeepers and people about. Now the streets were all but deserted. Sa.s.sy felt the first real frisson of fear.

Suddenly the five young men surged forward to surround her.

"Back the f.u.c.k away from me!" she shouted in English.

She knew at least one of them spoke the language because of the lewd suggestions he'd been whispering for the past five blocks.

"That's not exactly the kind of f.u.c.king we had in mind," the English speaker said, and with that the men pressed in, edging her back into the alleyway they'd just pa.s.sed.

Oh G.o.d, this is really happening. Her anxiety switched into overdrive, and a clammy sweat broke out on her forehead and back.

She took a deep gulp of air and struggled to steady her racing heart. She had to think. Concentrate on what Trey had taught her as a kid.

She stopped walking backward and braced herself, with her feet shoulder-width apart. There were five of them, and they most likely would overpower her. But she could hurt a couple of them before they got her on the ground. She rounded her fingers into the shape of claws so her nails would act as talons. They might take her down, but they'd carry marks.

The man who'd spoken in English signaled to the others. One guy came at her and grabbed her left arm, another came from the right. A third, smaller man grabbed her around the waist from behind and pulled himself close to her, his front to her back. She could feel his erection jutting at her rear end. Bile rose in the back of her throat, and she swallowed hard before flinging her head back to pop him in the Adam's apple with her skull. He let go of her immediately, cursing in French as he fell to the ground.

The first two men pulled her farther into the alley, backing her into a brick wall. One of them slapped her. She opened her mouth to scream and saw a knife in the fourth man's hand. He held it up as he approached, and no more words were necessary.

If she screamed, he'd cut her. Oh Jesus. After all this, was she really going to be raped in an Algerian back alley?

The fourth man came closer with the knife. He seemed confident that she was cowed and would no longer fight. She considered her options. Stop fighting and be raped and killed, or fight tooth and nail and be killed. There was no real choice. In that moment, she decided there was no way she could stop fighting.

She went limp, giving the impression that she was relaxing, then she kicked out with her feet, catching the fourth man in the upper thigh. She screamed in rage rather than fear. She'd been aiming for his b.a.l.l.s, but the hit had the desired effect. He doubled over, most likely more surprised than hurt. That left the final man. The one who'd spoken so crudely earlier. He picked up his friend's knife and moved extremely fast. Before she knew what had happened, the blade was pressed to her throat.

A warm trickle of blood oozed down her neck as he pressed the steel against her skin with one hand and fumbled at his pants with the other. His body odor was foul. "I don't care if you're alive or dead when I do this." His laugh was more of a cackle, and she shuddered in revulsion.

The two men on either side of her tightened their grips on her arms. Tears p.r.i.c.kled at the corner of her eyelids. This was happening. There wasn't any way out. If she screamed, he'd just stick that blade straight in and rape her as she bled out.

He yanked at her blouse, pulled up her skirt, and leaned into her, kissing the other side of her neck. There was no reasoning with him, and no cavalry was riding in to save her. She couldn't stand it. She took a breath to scream, and he pressed the knife a little harder.

"No," she whispered.

Now a rivulet of blood streamed down her neck. She could smell the alcohol on his breath. She was going to be sick.

His hands were sweaty on her hips, then her thighs, as he tore her panties. He pressed his lower body against her. She tensed for the horror to come, and closed her eyes to block out the inevitable.

Without warning, the man's weight was lifted up and away from her. Her skirt was hiked to her waist in front, but the back fell into place around her calves. Her shirt was torn open.

She opened her eyes to see the man she'd fantasized about in her teenage years-more than she'd like to admit-tossing the attacker against the wall. Bryan Fisher was throwing the guy into the bricks. The attacker's head hit the masonry with a sickening thud.

The two men who'd been holding her dropped her arms and started toward Bryan. But when they saw the gun in his hand, they ran like scalded dogs. The other two were already on the ground. Bryan had put them out of commission before he'd ever pulled the first one off of her.