The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection Page 4

  Her dark eyes rose to meet his. “Really?”

  Corey was surprised to find that his next words weren’t a lie. “Really.”

  Kika’s eyelashes fluttered in that way only she could pull off. Taken by the moment, Corey kissed her. Not hard, like the-smelly-Austrians-have-finally-left-so-we-can-have-a-quickie kind of kiss. Instead, it was a soft kiss. Just like the one he gave her when they decided to screw saving for grad school and use the money for two weeks in Europe.

  He held her cheeks between his hands. “Is there anything we can do—do tonight—to make up for the Louvre?”

  “Well…” She blushed and batted her eyes toward the bejeweled Tower. “The Le Jules Verne is supposed to be the most romantic restaurant in the whole world.”

  Okay, he was hoping she might suggest a threesome, but if an expensive dinner inside the Eiffel Tower was what it took to have an unforgettable lay, then that’s what he would do.

  Corey took her hand in his. “All right, let’s get some directions.”

  “It’s on the second floor,” she stated promptly.

  “I wonder if we have to take the stairs up, or—”

  “It’s got its own elevator in the south pillar.”

  He glanced at her, but she just swung their hands up and down in a playful, girlish way. She certainly seemed to know a lot about this restaurant. Which made him wonder exactly how long she had been angling for this dinner. Could the plot have reached all the way back to the car museum? She had complained, but she certainly hadn’t put up a Kika-level fuss about staying late to look at the Lamborghini collection.

  Corey smiled. That devious bitch! She knew he would never spring for more than ten bucks a plate. She had set this whole thing up.

  Maybe he could fall in love with her.

  As they strolled toward the base of the Tower, Corey couldn’t help but notice the one woman on the entire causeway who strode alone. Who in the hell hung out at the Eiffel Tower, at night no less, without a date?

  “Look at that loser,” Corey said as he nodded to the solo pedestrian. “And what kind of fashion sense to wear a scarf on a warm night like this?”

  Kika tsk-tsked as only Kika could. “That’s not a scarf. It’s a hijab.”

  “Whatever. She isn’t going to catch a man in that thing.”

  “I think that’s the point. Now hush.”

  They arrived at the elevator door right before the lone woman. There were several other couples already waiting. Kika reached out and hit the antique button, but it didn’t light up.

  “Already tried that,” one of the men said.

  A woman with a thick French accent explained. “A water main broke yesterday. There’s flooding under the foundation. It’s affecting the electrical.”

  “They’re still serving dinner, though, right?” his girlfriend asked anxiously, like a child whose ice cream cone might be melting.

  The woman just shrugged and went back to her cigarette. Kika frowned so deeply that her face and mouth risked forming wrinkles. “No dinner, no dessert.” And by the glare, she was definitely not referring to pie.

  “I’ll go ask at the main entrance what the scoop is,” Corey conceded.

  Kika nodded vigorously. One hand shoved him on his quest while the other punched the button in case her urgency could fix waterlogged wiring.

  Chuckling at her determination, Corey heading toward the east pillar as he spotted the overly modest woman, only now she was kneeling near a girder, having trouble with her purse.

  Feeling vaguely guilty for judging her so harshly, he went outside of his comfort zone to sound chivalrous. “Can I help you?” Corey asked. When she didn’t respond, he gave it a stab in French. “Est-ce que je peux vous aider?”

  Still, she seemed intent on her baggage. He tapped her shoulder. “Est-ce que—” She turned, and Corey realized her sleeve was caught in her backpack.

  “Here, let me—” He stopped short as the contents of the pack became visible. It was chock-full of gray bricks with red and black wires sticking out at odd angles. Okay, he’d seen enough Alias episodes to know that it was C-4.

  “Bomb!” Corey spun on his heel toward the elevator. “Bomb!”

  In this day and age, it didn’t matter what language you spoke. Everyone knew “bomb” when they heard it. Tourists scattered as he turned the corner.

  “Run!” he yelled, but Kika was still pushing the button. “Get down!”

  He felt the blast more than heard the explosion. The force was like wiping out on your surfboard inside a twenty-foot pipe, only worse. This blast knocked the wind from his lungs and threatened to break his back. He somehow found Kika in his arms. When had he grabbed her?

  In an enormous gust of C-4 fueled air, they were thrown past the girders, and then smashed onto the unforgiving ground. His ears rang a thousand notes, but he kept Kika’s head tucked under his shoulder as dust rained down.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, but her words sounded far off.

  Corey didn’t answer as terror transformed into anger. Who the fuck bombed the Eiffel Tower? Of all the fucking landmarks, why here? Why tonight?

  It wasn’t until he was certain that the danger of a second bombing was well past that he cautiously allowed them to rise.

  A strange silence greeted them, as if this moment was suspended outside of time and space. No shouts, no panic, and even Kika stopped crying. They, and the Tower itself, were in shock after such a brutal attempt on its life. The other patrons hadn’t run off, either. Instead, strangely enough, they were gathered around the bombing site.

  “Everybody okay?” he asked, but couldn’t really hear his own words.

  No one answered, only nodded as they dusted themselves off. Everyone seemed shocked to have survived with only minor cuts and scrapes. The Tower’s structure was also in remarkably good shape. Its girders were only a little singed.

  A sob escaped the girl in his arms. Not even her Madison Avenue blush could bring color to poor Kika’s cheeks. Her mascara was smeared across her face, which pretty much epitomized the effects of the bomb.

  Cosmetic damage only.

  Corey kissed the top of her head. They were going to be fine, but if the effectiveness of a terrorist attack was based on civilian casualties and destroying an international monument, this baby was going to go down as the lamest suicide bombing ever.

  But he knew this was only the calm before the storm as the Eiffel Tower suddenly had competition in the lights department. Red, blue, and yellow lights flashed as the police and fire trucks bore down on their location. Very soon, all hell was going to break loose.

  With his ears still ringing, Corey thought he heard someone say “bodies.”

  “I thought everyone was okay?” Releasing Kika from his embrace, he joined the man who he knew spoke English.

  “We’re fine, but…” the German said as he pointed to the hole.

  Corey carefully stepped toward the edge. Now it made sense why there was so little damage to the Tower itself. When the chick was screwing around with the pack she must have accidentally refocused the blast downward, creating a ragged opening in the stone.

  But why, after barely surviving a bombing, were these people making such a fuss about a stupid hole in the ground?

  Then as the dust settled, Corey felt even himself gasp. Buried beneath the most romantic landmark in the world was a crypt full of bodies. No, not bodies, but skeletons. Lots and lots of skeletons, but after the explosion, they were just a tangle of rib cages and shattered leg bones. It was as though the crypt keeper had put them into a blender and then thrown them into the trash.

  “What the fuck?” It didn’t make any sense. What terrorist wanted to blow up dead people? Way dead people?

  “Corey, help me.” It was Kika who spoke, but it sounded as if she were calling from another dimension.

  His head still rang, but past it, Corey heard sirens bearing down on them. It took a few seconds to locate his girlfriend next to the only piece o
f mangled metal around. Why the hell did she pick the one unstable area of the Tower to set up shop? “Kika, keep back.”

  “I think someone’s injured!”

  Oh, shit! Corey rushed forward. The bomber. “Don’t!”

  But Kika decided this day, of all days, to be a Good Samaritan. She had already pulled the woman out from under the twisted girder.

  “It’s the chick with the bomb,” Corey explained as he tried to tug her away, but she had her heels dug in.

  “It couldn’t be.” His girlfriend looked up, confused. “She’s not even Muslim…” Kika pointed to the dead woman’s chest. “Look…”

  Hanging around the suicide bomber’s neck, gleaming under the Tower’s twinkling lights, was a large silver cross.

  CHAPTER 1

  ══════════════════

  Ecuadorian Rain Forest

  Dr. Rebecca Monroe gasped in the moist rain forest air. It took the effort of breathing underwater. Of course, the vine wrapped around her neck wasn’t helping matters, either.

  Genus: Chondrodendron. Species: tomentosum.

  No matter her scientific accuracy, each time the frenzied villagers circled her, they tightened another loop around her windpipe. Rebecca concentrated on breathing, but she was so very alone. Her research students had deserted days ago. Then the loss of her guide during her capture…

  There had not even been time to cry.

  The communal drums resonated at such a primitive level that the jungle jarred with each beat, whipping the warriors into a rage. Their native tongue clicking was punctuated by loud, guttural incantations. It did not take her triple PhDs to know they were in a state of religious fervor.

  Vision blurred from the blow to her head, Rebecca focused on the torches. They flickered brightly under the heavy canopy of the Ecuadorian rain forest. So dense that not even a single star peeked through.

  Maniacal warriors writhed in the firelight, skin glowing, illuminating ruby tattoos and ritual scars. The body art flowed across their flesh, brought to life by flames and screams. Given enough time and oxygen, Rebecca could have told their life stories by the swirling patterns on their skin. As it was, she could barely remember her last name.

  Tribal women, breasts bared, chanted by the edge of the clearing as children huddled at their feet. The boys had bands of red across their eyes, while the girls had black, making their eyes glow, suspended in the night.

  They stared at the tall, blonde outsider who had stumbled into their midst. This ceremony would be told and retold for generations to come. Even now the communal drums not only kept beat for the entranced warriors but also told the tale of this humid, panicked night, transmitting the story to tribes miles away. A kind of primitive radio.

  The vine jerked her head against the wooden stake. Sweat soaked her clothes as blood trickled down her cheek from a scalp laceration, but from the brandished bows and spears, things were only going to get worse.

  Suddenly the chief jumped in front of her, landing so close that his tattooed face was within an inch of hers. He bared a set of filed teeth. Rebecca tried to pull away, but had nowhere to go. She turned her face to the side, but found the forked tongue of an anaconda.

  Its huge triangular head filled her vision.

  Genus: Eunectes. Species: murinus.

  The chief waved the snake’s head wildly in the air as the other warriors supported its twenty-foot-long body. Already struggling to breathe, she writhed as they wrapped the smooth tail around her feet. She shivered at its cold touch. Painfully, slowly, they coiled the beast around her legs, then her waist, then her chest. Finally they let the snake encircle her neck, ending with the anaconda cheek-to-cheek with her. Its tongue flickered along her bloody temple, trying to get a taste of what was to come.

  Flailing, Rebecca fought panic as the monstrous reptile followed its evolutionary instincts. Coils tightened, constricting her chest, squeezing her breath down to a desperate wheeze—then even that died. How Rebecca wished she didn’t know that an anaconda had enough muscular strength to break a jaguar’s rib cage within five minutes.

  Rebecca’s only comfort was that the end must be near.

  * * *

  The first poisoned dart bounced off Sergeant Vincent Brandt’s body armor. The second nearly penetrated his Kevlar vest.

  So much for stealth.

  With their presence discovered, it was time to crank up the beat.

  “Double time!” he shouted.

  Released from their painstakingly slow pace, Brandt heard the rest of his team burst forward, charging through the tangle of vines, ferns, and bushes, heedless of the noise. The natives responded with Stone Age reflexes. Dozens of poisoned darts spat toward them in deadly puffs of air.

  Brandt kept his weapon aimed as he crashed through the undergrowth, but the warriors knew this forest and slid effortlessly between shadows, never allowing him to get a bead on them. Davidson, Lopez, and Svengurd spread out to either side, hurling toward their specified coordinates.

  A burst of gunfire to the left.

  “Non-lethal only!” Brandt shouted into the dark undergrowth.

  Like it or not, he had his orders. Stinger bullets and beanbag grenades, only. Not exactly the stuff a swift covert operation was made.

  A monkey screeched overhead, jumping through the canopy, raining debris down upon him. Batting away fronds, he lunged into the clearing—then stumbled to a halt.

  What the—?

  Awash in crackling torchlight, a woman, his extraction target, writhed on a stake. Desperate, struggling with blue-tinged lips. A massive snake, as thick around as his thigh, wrapped her in a death coil, shifting, constricting—its tongue flickering at her cheek.

  A scream to the right.

  He twisted. A tribesman attacked with a long stick. Swinging up his weapon, Brandt squeezed off two rounds. Rubber bullets struck the native in the forehead, knocking him back, stunning the stick from his grip. Another two rounds in the back sent the native packing into the damp forest.

  Brandt trusted his team to scatter the rest of the villagers as he rushed to the panicked woman. Grabbing the snake’s head, he pried the huge reptile from her neck. The woman gasped like a fish flopping on the deck of a boat. The snake had a death grip around her chest. Still clutched in his hands, the serpent hissed. Hot, foul breath blasted Brandt’s face.

  Fuck you too, buddy, the sergeant thought as he struggled to unwind its length, but the beast was just too damn strong.

  “Lopez!” he yelled.

  “On it, Sarge!” The stocky private ran over, shouldering his weapon.

  Between the two of them, they wrestled the coil from around her chest. She took in a long, rattling breath. Then the snake slithered from Lopez’s grasp, retightening its hold. The woman had just enough air left to cry out.

  “Svengurd, here!” Brandt hollered. “Davidson, set the perimeter!”

  It was dangerous to leave only one man to protect their flank, but if his target died, then their entire mission would be a bust.

  With Svengurd’s aid they gained traction, pulling the snake from her mid-region. Brandt handed off the reptile’s head to Lopez and the body to Svengurd, as the sergeant ripped away the vines that bound her neck. Once loose, he brushed the bloody hair from her face.

  “You’re safe, Dr. Monroe. We have you.” She croaked out a whisper. “I didn’t hear that.” He brought her face level with his.

  “Are you… a…” Monroe coughed and gagged, but then quite clearly choked out, “Are you a moron?”

  * * *

  Rebecca’s coughing fit prevented her from finishing her diatribe. “You… You almost got me killed!”

  The hulking soldier backed away as his face clouded. “Pardon me, ma’am, but we just saved your life.”

  The snake, removed from her body, slinked away into the underbrush.

  “Saved? You shot the men who were protecting me.”

  “They tied you to a stake and then se
t a python on you.” His cheeks blushed red. Obviously, he just didn’t get it.

  “It was an anaconda.” She reflexively corrected his inaccurate identification of the reptile, and then got pissed off all over again. “Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how long it took to convince them to allow me to participate in that ritual?”

  “Ritual?” The man’s eyes narrowed.

  With a sigh, Rebecca explained. “I needed the tribe’s cooperation to collect DNA samples to test my hypothesis. In order to get those samples, I had to be proven worthy. Hence the stake and the snake. Five more seconds, and I would’ve had the keys to the kingdom, but no, you had to barge in.”

  Turning her back on the soldier, Rebecca gathered her gear. She had to hurry if she were going to catch up with the villagers. Perhaps she could salvage weeks of tracking natives who didn’t wish to be found.

  The man’s tone wavered, sounding confused. “But we had reports from your grad students that you were in danger.”

  She snorted. “Students? More like the biggest bunch of wimps ever assembled at a university.”

  Where was the pack with her GPS equipment? She tried to cut across the clearing to retrieve it, but the soldier stepped in front of her.

  “We found your guide…” His voice didn’t have a hint of confusion anymore. “Dead.”

  Her throat constricted as tightly as it had with the snake wrapped around her neck. All those unshed tears threatened to make an appearance, but she refused to give them permission. The tribe would be on the move, fleeing deeper and deeper into the jungle until their trail was lost. Rebecca had come too far and sacrificed too much to lose them to her grief.

  She went to push past him, but the soldier grabbed her arm. “These new friends of yours murdered that tracker.”

  Rebecca tried to jerk away, but his grip was unyielding. Her instinct was to yell something juvenile like “get your hands off me,” but his gaze stopped her. His blue-gray eyes were devoid of arrogance or even anger. They held only concern. Even his grip, which was firm, didn’t hurt.