Page 17 of Out of Control

Drago shrugged. “No idea. This sector isn’t my usual intelligence gig. I specialize in the fighting in the north. If you’ve got a minute, I’d like to take a look around the refugee center, though. Snap some pics to send back to the gang at home. Might as well do my job until you turn me in.”

Spencer trailed behind him, not bothering to hide his revulsion. The people in this shelter had already been victimized by war, and then they’d been bombed again, in a place where they were supposed to be safe.

Kind of like those families and civilians in the Grand Mediterranean Hotel, just going about their lives—

Focus, dumbsquat.Last thing he needed to do now was turn an ankle or break a leg. In a day or two he would have to escape from Spencer, and he would need every bit of his strength and skill to succeed.

A supersonic scream passed overhead, announcing incoming artillery rounds. A handful of looters—women and children, mostly, with hollow bodies and hollower stares—picked over the remains of the refugee center, and they barely flinched at the artillery shell passing overhead. But Drago crouched instinctively beside a huge chunk of concrete with steel rebar sticking out of it like so many broken spider legs.

A distant boom rumbled through the ground as much as through his eardrums.

Welcome to total war, boys and girls. Take the violence to a civilian population, cut off the lines of food and medicine—fastest way to force a surrender, even of a superior military force.

But it was a bitch to live through on the ground.

Maybe when he retired from the more violent aspects of his career as a CIA black ops specialist, he would come back to a place like this—dusty and poor and hot—and work for some charity that tried to make these vacantly staring women’s and children’s lives a tiny bit more bearable. As it was, he couldn’t afford to let himself be distracted by their suffering. Not yet. First he had to kill one of the bastards responsible for this war in the first place.

Of course, with the destruction of that compound in the desert, he’d lost any trail of Kurbaj. The guy would probably go to ground for months after such a near miss. Which meant Drago was back to square one in finding the sonofabitch.

He became aware that the entire right side of his body was pressed up against something warm and resilient. Spencer shifted slightly beside him and their hips and shoulders rubbed together.

He remembered the feel of Spencer’s entire body against his, naked and shy and eager to learn. He’d been the sexiest thing Drago had ever seen—and younger Drago had been a bit of a slut back in the day. He’d been around the block a few times already by the time he was assigned to a mission with a young NCIS agent. Spencer had been so goddamned pure back then. Was he still? Or had he, too, gotten cynical somewhere along the way? Jaded about sex? Disbelieving of true love?

Spencer looked up as some sort of guided missile screamed past. Based on its trajectory traced in white exhaust, Drago extrapolated quickly. It was coming from east of the city. Maybe two klicks out.

“We can’t do anything to help here,” he shouted in Spencer’s ear as a burst of automatic weapon fire rat-a-tatted nearby. “We should head out before the shelling gets any worse.”

Arm flung over his head, he followed Spencer out of the crater that had once been the front half of the refugee center and was now the sarcophagus for God knew how many unrecovered bodies.

They climbed in the Land Rover and took off down a side street at right angles to the incoming tracers, dodging chunks of concrete flung from a parking structure pancaked off to their left.

They cleared the city and Spencer guided the Land Rover to a surprisingly decent road heading west. They drove for about a half hour and reached the Damascus-Aleppo Highway. They turned south on it and headed for Amman at last.

The sun was turning into a red ball of fire in the west as the border guard station between Syria and Jordan came into view. Unfortunately, the frontier was already closed for the night, and they were stuck on the Syrian side of the border.

Drago offered up reluctantly, “I have a safe house not too far from here. We could go there for the night if you want. But I’m your prisoner. It’s up to you.”

Spencer glanced over at him mistrustfully. Fair. The guy had a right to be skeptical.

He added persuasively, “It has hot running water and a flush toilet.”

“Be still my beating heart.”

“Just sayin’. It has been a couple of weeks since I bathed. I have to be getting all kinds of ripe.”

Spencer shrugged. “I didn’t notice. I’m used to the stink of special operators in the field.”

“Huh. You used to be freakishly fastidious.”

“Still am. But I know it for the luxury it is now. Where’s this hidey-hole of yours?”

SPENCER FOLLOWEDDrago’s directions to what looked like an abandoned house on the outskirts of another Syrian city that was more rubble than habitable structures. They carried their gear inside, and he looked around. “Did you steal this place? Kick the owners out… or kill them?”

“Give me a little credit for humanity. It was already abandoned when I moved in. I’ve been protecting this family’s stuff until they come back—if they come back,” he corrected. “I’ve even done a little maintenance around the place. Repaired and replaced some shit by way of payment for the hospitality.”

Fortunately the front door appeared to be one of those things he’d upgraded. Spencer watched as Drago locked the three new deadbolts and dropped a steel bar into slots on each side of the thick wooden panel, waist-high. Good idea to reinforce the door against a casual explosion outside.

Spencer wandered around the small living room, examining the low sofa, bookshelves, and framed photographs. The owners looked to be a married couple with two small children, both boys, if the abandoned toys and family pictures were any indication.

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