Page 43 of Wired Courage

Armita eventually allowed Sophie to remove the knives from her hands. Zombie-like, she turned and went back toward the house. Sophie frowned, and was relieved to see Armita headed toward the storage shed. The nanny returned with a length of electrical cord. She knelt and tied the unconscious Pim Wat cruelly, fastening her wrists to her ankles behind her back so that she was arched and helpless—and then Armita stood up and kicked her, hard.

“Thank you,” was all Sophie said.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Day Twenty-Seven

Jake jogged down the potholed jungle road. He had a long way to go to get to civilization, but at least he didn’t have to do it bushwhacking through virgin jungle in stealth mode, the way he’d come. Thinking of that made him remember all the good men who’d died, coming with him and Connor for this stupid mistake of a mission.

Jake couldn’t forget the sight of Connor’s eyes, fearful and devastated. What was Connor afraid of? He wasn’t scared of Jake physically—the dude was plenty brave. He was afraid of something else that Jake’s words had told him—that Jake would rat him out as the Ghost vigilante to the authorities? Because that sure as hell would be happening.

And that other expression—sadness? Grief? What was that about? Was Connor actually sorry to lose Jake’s friendship and trust? Or was it something else?

Connor’s head was shaved. He was wearing thegiof the recruits. What was going on? Was the dude in trouble?

“Screw him,” Jake growled. “Two-faced liar.”

Jake ran on, his bare feet taking a beating on the uneven terrain—but walking just wasn’t fast enough to get away from that place.

A dense tree tunnel engulfed the road. Arched branches of teak trees screened out the sunlight overhead, drawing a curtain of deep green darkness over the muddy road. Shrill cacklings and cries of animals, not small ones either, rang through the underbrush. The scream of a monkey overhead competed with the piercing cry of some bird giving an alarm. The smell of wet and rotting things, as well as green and growing things, filled Jake’s nostrils.

The bodies of the men Pim Wat had executed, buried in that unmarked mass grave, would be halfway decomposed by now.

Jake fought down a wave of nausea. Death was a part of life, and especially a part of the life he had chosen. Any of them could go at any time; in fact, no one was getting out of here alive, even those who played it safe.It had never been his style to play it safe.

If it had been, he’d never have fallen for a woman like Sophie.

He had some hard questions for Sophie, and they’d make or break the future. For the first time since he realized that he was in love with her, Jake felt capable of walking away.

He’d died, and there was no heaven.

Jake emerged out of the tree tunnel.

The roar of an approaching helicopter brought his gaze up to the sky. Hours had passed and he was miles away from the Yam Khûmk?n stronghold.Why would they be coming after him now?

But the chopper dropping through the canopy into view to settle on the road ahead of him was a fully loaded American Apache, and he’d bet his left nut the Yam Khûmk?n didn’t have one of those.

“Holy crap!”He was being rescued.

Jake forced his tired body into a last push forward.

He reached the chopper as a portly white man dressed in jungle camo got out of the chopper. “Jake Dunn?”

“Yep. Boy, am I glad to see you.”

“Devin McDonald, CIA.” The jowly agent shook Jake’s hand and clapped him on the shoulder. “Hop aboard. The Yam Khûmk?n has plenty of anti-aircraft missiles at the compound, I happen to know, and they’re allowing this pickup—but we shouldn’t be around if they change their minds.”

Jake had wonderedwhat kind of headquarters the CIA would have in Thailand, and he might have known it would be a five-star luxury hotel. Freshly shaved, showered, and shoveling in a gigantic room service porterhouse steak, Jake thought through the statement he would be making to the CIA.

As if reading his mind, McDonald, seated across from him in the room’s dining area, wiped his mouth on a napkin and sat back with a belch. He lifted a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in a brief salute. “To expense accounts.”

Jake lifted his glass as well. “To a well-timed pickup. How did you guys know where I was going to be?”

“Sophie Smithson has been rather persistent in asking for help.” The man set down his glass. “It took the agency a while to decide how we could assist. A full-frontal attack on the Yam Khûmk?n compound was out of the question for obvious reasons. But we set up surveillance on approaches to the compound, hoping that any of you who’d been on the mission would make an appearance. Where is everyone, anyway? I was given to understand you had ten men altogether.”

Sophie.Sophie had badgered the CIA until they got off their butts . . . “You never had any intention of rescuing us?”

McDonald’s cold blue eyes hardly blinked. “This situation went all the way to the Oval Office, if you can believe it, and we got no authorization for anything but a covert support transport.” He took another sip of his wine. “I don’t need to explain the diplomatic ramifications of acknowledging a mission like yours, let alone sanctioning a group of US mercenaries mounting an attack on the Yam Khûmk?n facility.”

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