“You wanna tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing?”
“The hostage exchange is due to take place at zero six hundred tomorrow, and I’m requesting backup.”
She heard what sounded like Doc dropping the phone, followed by muttering, probably to Razor and Gunner.
“You know you’re fired, right?” he said, coming back on the line.
“Yes, sir. Although I am a partner, sir.”
“Fill me in, Mondreau, and make it quick.”
“I could hear him all the way over here,” her father told her, smiling.
“Doc Butler doesn’t intimidate me.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I just pretend he’s you.”
He laughed and motioned to a chair near the window. “Come sit with me.”
Their room had a spectacular view of the sun setting on Rawal Lake. It was hard to believe that such a beautiful place could be the center of so much of turmoil.
“We’re in a building constructed in the twenty-first century, yet all around us are people who still live in the dark ages,” her father said, coming to stand beside her. “I’m very proud of your bravery, Manon.”
“You shouldn’t be. If this doesn’t go right, I’m going to get us all killed.”
Her father narrowed his gaze at her. “Do not lose confidence now, daughter. Your plan is sound. Monsieur Butler should be able to execute it effectively.”
She nodded and let out a deep breath. She’d convinced her parents to help her sneak out of a hospital, fly more than halfway around the world, and negotiate a deal worth a great deal of their own money with a known terrorist. Doc Butler should have been the least of her worries, but he wasn’t.
Chapter 27
Dutch
Dutch opened his eyes, wishing he could rub the spot on his head where his captors had pistol-whipped him. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t the only part of his body that did.
He couldn’t quite piece together what had happened over the course of the last few days. The last thing he remembered clearly was arriving at Ramstein. What happened after that was murky.
He vaguely remembered being in a hotel with a naked woman, Malin finding him wandering the streets, and then the same men he’d escaped from earlier in the day, burst into her apartment, taking him hostage for the second time.
He wished he could remember more about her behavior in the short time he’d been with her. Had she acted pissed? Pissed enough to let the men looking for him know she’d taken him in and made him an easy target?
&
nbsp; He’d worry she was being held captive like he was, but he remembered someone saying the rest of the apartment was empty.
He could hear voices speaking in what sounded like Pashto, and they were talking about him. The other name he recognized was Mantis. He understood enough of what they were saying to figure out that he was the bait to lure his friend here, and once Mantis arrived, they’d both be dead men.
“Where is Cassman?” Zamed Safi demanded as he had for the last several hours, each time with a different threat as to how Dutch would die if he continued to refuse to answer him.
“As I’ve told you, I have no idea.”
“Are you prepared, then, to die?”
“You won’t kill me. But there is something else you could do that would be a lot smarter.”
The man looked perplexed. “What?” he finally spat.