Chapter 16 #2
Capretti took a seat and flipped through some paperwork.
Kev studied him for a long while, his mannerisms, the precise way he scanned the files.
Capretti was former military for certain.
Probably CIA, but since he wasn’t their contact, he wasn’t going to self-identify.
Just as they’d not identified their affiliation with the military either.
After a few moments, he found what he wanted. “Ah, yes, we have an opening at the Prince Faisal School for Girls for an English teacher. Does that sound good to you folks?”
The Prince Faisal School was precisely the one they wanted.
Lucky confirmed it while Kev sat silently and waited.
Sometimes he hated these games they had to play between the services, but that was the way the government worked.
At least they were cooperating these days, unlike in the past when one branch didn’t want to share intel with another.
They’d learned the error of their ways, but not before a whole lot of people died.
“It’s very exclusive, Mrs. MacDonald. Only forty students in the whole school. They’ll rotate through your class in groups of ten, so you’ll need to spend four hours each day teaching. Is this acceptable?”
“Of course.”
The man switched into Arabic then, and he and Lucky conversed for several moments that way. Kev wasn’t precisely comfortable with it, but it was her job. What she was here for. And if he needed to know something that was said, she’d tell him.
The interview finished and David Capretti stood. The door behind them opened and the brown-haired woman walked in again. “Lisa will show you out. Mr. MacDonald. Mrs. MacDonald,” he said, shaking each of their hands in turn. And then his face grew solemn before he added, “Good luck to you both.”
They left the embassy and filed out onto the street to catch a taxi outside the perimeter of the embassy’s security zone. Kev scanned the area out of habit, but he knew at least three of his team members were close by, watching and ready to leap into action if it was needed.
He found Knight Rider leaning against a wall. Iceman was down the street, playing with a dog. And Hawk—cool, lethal Hawk—strolled down the sidewalk like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Lucky didn’t see them, and Kev didn’t point them out. “What did that guy say to you?” he asked as they waited for a taxi to pull up.
She glanced up at him. “He told me about protocol at the school, which echelon of society the students came from, and some general information. He was making sure I could understand the dialect.”
“You must have passed.”
She rolled her eyes. “I have no accent. He does. Of course I passed.”
“Why don’t you have an accent?” He’d never thought about that kind of thing before, but of course there were accents in other languages.
“Okay, it’s not that I don’t have an accent at all—I don’t sound like a Qu’rimi, precisely, but more like a Saudi national.
My father left my mother very early, when I was still a baby.
Before she met and married my stepdad years later, she had to work a lot to take care of us.
We lived in California then, and it was very expensive for a single woman with a child.
The neighbors were Saudis, and I spent a lot of time with them.
” She shrugged. “That’s where I learned Arabic.
The Defense Language Institute perfected it.
But that was the beginning. When we moved to Montana, I didn’t forget, though of course I had no need to speak it there.
I got rusty, but once you learn something as a child, you’re much more likely to retain it. ”
He didn’t want to think about the things he’d learned as a child. “Yeah, it’s hard to unlearn what you learn growing up.”
She shaded her eyes as she looked up at him. He knew she couldn’t see his because he was wearing the reflective Ray-Bans. And he was glad of it because he didn’t know why he’d said that.
“What did you learn that you want to unlearn?” she asked. She was too perceptive not to sense the undercurrents.
Kev held up his hand as a taxi approached. It began to slow and steer toward the curb, though the driver cut off everyone in his path to do it. Cars honked and people shouted curses in the air. A donkey brayed.
The taxi jerked to a stop and Kev reached for the door. Then he stopped. She was still waiting for an answer, and he found he wanted to give it to her.
“Evil,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless. “I learned about evil.”
Lucky reached out and put a hand on his arm. “Oh, Kev.”
But whatever else she might have said was cut off when a blast of hot air knocked her against him. They fell to the pavement together, Kev rolling to shield Lucky with his body as the shockwave blew out windows and set off alarms in the street.
His heart pounded with fear as he waited for a second blast. But it didn’t come and he pushed up to get a look at Lucky. Blood slid from a cut on her forehead, staining her cheek red. The windows of the taxi were gone, which is where she’d gotten the cut.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded, running his hands over her body.
“I don’t think so.” She pushed herself up to a sitting position.
Kev raised his head to look at the taxi driver. The man was slumped over the wheel, his body unmoving. Blood poured from a wound in his throat, and Kev realized that a piece of glass must have sliced his jugular. Poor bastard.
Hawk bounded up to them, his face creased with worry. Kev gave him a thumbs-up and he knelt beside them, his gaze bouncing from one to the next.
“We have to get out of here,” he said.
“Definitely. Iceman and Knight Rider?”
Hawk looked fierce. “Waiting for the go signal.”
Kev looked around at the scene. The destruction wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before, but it rattled him in a different way now that he had Lucky to take care of. This wasn’t the life she’d signed up for, and it pissed him off that she had to be exposed to it. That she was in danger because of it.
Sirens wailed in the distance, and people yelled and cried. He blocked it all out and focused on the woman in front of him.
“Then let’s go,” he said.
“We have to help.” Lucky grabbed his arm when he started to stand.
“We have to go,” Kev told her. “We have no idea if there are more bombs, and we need to get back to the hotel. You’re the asset, and we have to protect you.”
Panic was a bubble in the bottom of his throat, trying to claw its way up and out. And all because of her. Because she was in danger and he had to protect her.
She stuck her chin out and stared at him and Hawk both. “We can’t leave these people here. Some are hurt, and the two of you have medical training. So do Garrett and Sam. You can’t walk away. It’s not right.”
Hawk met his gaze and frowned. Kev knew that Hawk was on the same page with him, but she looked so hopeful and determined.
“It’s too much of a risk.” But Kev knew when he said it that she wasn’t buying into it at all. This was the part of the job that was hard—knowing when you had to leave a situation, and knowing that people were suffering. Lucky wasn’t accustomed to that, and she wasn’t going to be anytime soon.
She grabbed his hands and held them hard. “What if it were Marco lying there? Or Jim? You guys wouldn’t have left them, would you?”
Kev’s jaw ached with how tightly he clenched it. I will never leave a fallen comrade. It was part of the warrior ethos and she knew it. “No.”
Her gaze slid to Hawk, who looked equally uncomfortable. “We have to help,” she said. “At least until the ambulances get here.”
Kev closed his eyes and swore. Goddammit. “We’ll stay as long as we can, but I can’t promise you it will be long.”
She shuddered with relief, and he wanted to yank her into his arms and hold her tight just because she was still breathing. Instead, he reached out and wiped the blood off her cheek. “Leave my side for an instant, fail to obey me, and we’re going. No second chances, Lucky.”
“Copy,” she said, her eyes on his, sucking him in. Goddamn.