Page 52 of Damned
“He scared you,” Kruze added calmly.
Those beautiful, pale baby blues blinked at him. “You don’t believe me.”
He patted the ground beside him. “Come over here. Sit with me, Bree. I’m too damned banged up to walk over there, but I’d like you beside me while we talk.”
She did as he asked. Kruze put an arm around her and pulled her in as close as he could. Every movement hurt, but once he had Bree where he wanted her, he felt better. “Wrong. I do believe you. General Berfendeis smart enough to pull off that kind of stunt, and he is in America. Let’s say he’s behind my plane going down. How did he know where I stored it? For that matter, how’d he know we were flying north today?”
“I have a theory.”
He tipped the side of her head to his lips and kissed her temple. “I’m listening. Talk to me, Bree.”
“I think he’s had someone watching my parents’ house ever since I came home.” She ducked her head into her shoulders. “He either followed us today, or he had someone else follow us. Berfendemight have put some kind of tracker on my dad’s car, which would’ve led straight to your hangar. He’s behind this, Kruze. I know he is.”
Kruze smiled to himself. Television magic sure made fantastical intrigue look easy. “There’s only one flaw to your theory. True, Berfendemight’ve followed us today, and anyone can buy a cheap GPS tracker. But he would’ve had to get close enough, as in hands-on close, to sabotage my plane. If he’d only just found out I owned it, there’s no way he or anyone else could’ve sabotaged both fuel tanks. Bruce and I were right there the whole time. You saw us. We ran through a very detailed pre-flight check-list before I took off. We would’ve seen him. Personally, I suspect a couple of idiot teenagers were fooling around and put sugar or something in my gas tanks, thinking they were smart. Although…”
He snapped his mouth shut and stopped making excuses for Berfende. One thing was clear, both engines on his planehadflamed out at the same time, and that coincidence was just plain wrong. If they’d died earlier in flight, within a reasonable time of each other, sugar in the tanks made sense. But there’d been no engine trouble the first part of the flight. None at all. That both failed when they did, clearly indicated sabotage. But not by something in the gas. More likely, by a controlled detonation outside the tank. Which meant someone had targeted him once he was airborne, then detonated the charge where they’d wanted him to go down. Which also meant they knew where he and Bree were.
He remembered the slight thump he’d thought was minor air turbulence. Could it have been some kind of rocket? Which sounded as far-fetched as Bree’s theory. Kruze dismissed both wild guesses. Berfendestill wouldn’t’ve known where Kruze hangered his plane, and there was no sense scaring Bree. She already had an over-active imagination.
“I didn’t say I knew exactly how Berfendedid it,” she said, again interrupting Kruze’s internal conversation. “Just that I think that he’s somehow behind what happened today. So is Harvey Lantz.”
And here we go again.“Your boss? You believe Lantz and General Berfendeare out to get you?”
Bree nodded, staring at the fire. “I do, yes. I know it sounds paranoid, and I don’t expect you to believe me, but Harvey Lantz is powerful, Kruze. I’ve had a lot of time to think about everything that’s happened to me. He gets what he wants, and the story he wanted was supposed to have been an inside look at how women live with and survive terrorist organizations. He wanted photos and personal interviews. But out of all the capable reporters he could have gone with, he asked me to write that story. Me, an unknown, untested journalist with no overseas experience. He’s who arranged for me to cross into Turkey from Iran. He told me how to contact Mehmet, where he lived, and gave me a map of the exact route to get into the country without going through official channels. I thought it was a great opportunity. I was excited Harvey even knew my name. I wrote the best piece of my life…” Her voice trailed away.
Kruze waited. Going down this particular memory lane was hard on Bree. Was she paranoid like she’d said, or were her instincts correct?
She shifted away from him and wrapped her arms around her knees. “The day after I finished my first interview and emailed it to my editor, Josephus captured me and Mehmet. We were in the middle of nowhere, but his army drove right up to us, like he knew where we’d be. His men had guns. They had us surrounded, and he made us go with them. We were set up. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Harvey wanted the story of a lifetime, one that would make every other media giant’s by-lines insignificant. I think I was that story.”
She was trembling. Right or not, this Harvey Lantz guy scared her. Kruze put a palm to her shoulder to remind Bree she wasn’t alone. “Let’s assume you’re right.”
“I am.”
He wasn’t dumb enough to argue, just moved his hand up the back of her neck to hold her steady.
“Because one of Josephus’s women called me Brianna Banks the first time she met me,” she whispered quietly. “Right after he jerked me out of the back of his filthy jeep and shoved me to my knees, she ran up to me like she already knew me. She spit on me. She called me Mizz Brianna Banks, only she made it sound like an insult. I heard her, Kruze. I didn’t know the language, but I didn’t have to. She said my name clearly and distinctly, in English, as if she wanted to make sure I knew I was her captive. That she could do anything she wanted to me. It turned out everyone in that camp knew I was coming. They all knew my name, even the children. They were expectingme, not just an American woman, but me. Brianna Banks.”
Kruze paused, trying to wrap his head around how Josephus could’ve known Bree was entering Turkey, not only when but where. Or how Lantz and Berfendefit together, if they did. Kruze’s gut was telling him that Bree was right, at least mostly right. Someone with money was behind her capture, and it was highly possible that person was coming after her again, maybe even using Berfendeto get at her. But why?
Bree turned into Kruze then, shivering despite the blanket draped over her shoulders. She slipped both arms around his neck, and held onto him. Trembling, her breasts mashed against his injured side. Despite the pain, he circled both arms around her, needing her to know he’d keep her safe no matter what.
“The only reason I’m alive today is because someone sent you to rescue me. Who sent you, Kruze? Who’s powerful enough to get someone like me out of Turkey? Away from Berfende? I don’t believe Harvey cared enough. He hasn’t called since I’ve been home.”
Kruze hadn’t known that. “Lantz is an ass, but I honestly don’t know who initiated your rescue, sugar. I get my orders from Senator Sullivan, and I don’t ask questions. I just do what I’m told. But if this Mister X guy is so powerful, why didn’t he send someone to rescue you a helluva lot sooner? I only heard about you the day I found you. By then, you’d already been in Josephus’s camp two months.”
“Sixty-three days and nights,” she breathed against his neck. “In the middle of winter. Most of February and all of March. It was so cold in that hole. I honestly don’t know how I survived.”
That Bree had been stuck in a gawddamned hole during winter got to Kruze every time she mentioned it. Damn it, he had no defense against a woman who’d been treated so badly. Ignoring the pain in his side, he pulled her off the cold ground and settled her on his lap where she’d be warmer. “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he wrapped her up, blanket and all. “I should’ve been a helluva lot kinder to you when we met.”
“You were. The first time.”
He closed his eyes, wanting to kick his own ass for leaving her in Paris, then for minimizing her when he’d thought she wasjust a journalist. “Have I ever told you how big an ass I can be?”
She nodded, the top of her head bumping his chin. “We all have our blind sides, Kruze. We make hasty generalizations, and we label people for the little bit we think we know about them. And forevermore, they become invisible, just because we deem them not worth seeing.”
“You should write a book,” he teased.
A tired sigh lifted her shoulders. “I owe you and Mister X my life.”
