Page 2 of Trapped With the Secret Agent

She managed to suck in part of a breath, but her uncle spoke first.

“She’s important to me,” Uncle Theo said, giving the other man a hard look. “Take care of her.”

The photographer glanced at her; one eyebrow elevated. “Yes, sir.” He grabbed Georgia by the arm and hauled her toward the door.

She tried to plant her feet. “No. Stop! We can’t leave him, if they find him, they’ll kill him.”

Peter ignored her and dragged her alongside him.

“Georgia,” Uncle called after them. “Do as he says.”

“But—”

Peter opened the outer office door.

Two Marines stood in front of it, their assault rifles in their hands, scanning the hallway.

“Wait for the ambassador,” Peter told them. “Come on,” he said to her.

She grabbed the doorframe with both hands. “Ambassador!” Leaving him wasn’t an option. Whoever had attacked the embassy could use him as a bargaining chip or a credit card, or they would try. Her uncle had told her the government’s official position on negotiating with terrorists: They don’t.

Peter pried her hands off. “Stop,” he said to her, his tone firm and on the bitter side of calm. “I don’t want to leave him either, but he’s got a protocol to follow.” He pulled her down the hall toward the back stairs. “People to alert, information to secure.”

“You don’t understand. I promised not to leave him in a situation like this, not for any reason.”

Aunt Sara had made her promise, knowing her husband would think of himself last in any kind of dangerous situation. It made him a good man and ambassador, but a worrisome husband.

“I’m sorry.” Peter rushed her toward the stairs at the opposite end of the hallway from the elevator.

Another explosion rocked the building and the lights flickered, sending her heart rocketing.

“If we’re overrun,” he said under his breath, “none of us are going anywhere good.”

They were only a few paces from the exit when the stairwell door burst open. Men with cloth-covered faces and weapons came boiling into the hallway.

Peter forced Georgia to the floor, covering her body with his.

Shouts in English and Arabic were punctuated by the crack and flash of gunfire and the thunder of heavy boots running down the hall.

Georgia struggled under Peter’s body to see what was happening and managed to turn enough to look toward the ambassador’s office. Both Marines lay in front of the destroyed door, eyes open and sightless, blood pooling around them.

Peter was shoved hard down on top of her and he grunted as someone kicked him several times in the side. The boot tip found her back and she smothered a gasp of pain.

Peter was wrenched away from her, and a rough hand on her neck pressed her head against the floor, making it impossible to see anything but the carpet. She expected more kicks or other violence and braced herself.

Instead, after a few seconds where her captor and another man shouted at each other incomprehensively in Arabic, she was grabbed by the hair and dragged into the stairwell and down the dark stairs. It happened so fast she couldn’t get her feet under her. She fell twice and was saved only by the gunman’s grip on her long hair, no longer neat and tidy in its bun.

At the bottom of the stars another man joined the first, pushing her forward from behind. The black maw of a midnight room loomed in front of her and she was shoved inside. Her foot hit a box and she fell forward, jarring her hands on what felt like a waist-high crate.

She whirled around, but the door was slammed in her face. She tried to open it, but though the knob turned, she couldn’t force the door open. Someone had jammed something against it and none of her frantic wrenching at the latch or pounding on the wall made any difference.

She was blind in the darkness and could have been at the bottom of a hole for all she knew. A narrow space with not enough room to breathe or light to see.

She’d been locked in the dark before.

It hadn’t ended well.

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