Hard Target: A Cobra Elite Novel Read online

  “You have given me the gift of your hospitality—and you have protected my beloved sister these many months. I am grateful.”

  When he had finished, it was time for evening prayer.

  The men came together, rolled out their prayer mats, and faced Mecca, Farzad taking the role of imam. Derek stepped outside to give them space, Farzad’s singing following him.

  “Allahu akbar.” God is the greatest. “In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful, all praise is due to Allah.”

  Derek stood in the cold, his gaze drawn toward the front gate, which Farzad had closed for the night. Jenna was in there, maybe helping a patient, maybe standing as he was, alone, an outsider.

  He’d told her he would only call if it was important, so he ignored the impulse to text her to say hello. What kind of stupid idea was that, anyway?

  You lonely, man? Tough shit.

  He was used to being alone. Yes, he’d had his share of lovers, but nothing that had lasted. He’d never managed to go the distance with a woman. He’d told Jenna that his work was to blame. Truth was, he had trouble getting close to people and dealing with the messy complexity of relationships. The women he’d been with had wanted him to open up, but he didn’t know how. Or maybe he just hated being vulnerable.

  An image of Jenna’s face, her cheeks flushing pink, flashed through his mind.

  Damn. Yeah.

  She was pretty—clear skin, bright green eyes, long dark lashes. When she’d blushed, he’d felt it down to his balls.

  “It’s not personal,” she’d said.

  But the color in her cheeks had said otherwise.

  He caught himself, shook his head at his stupidity.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  You’re attracted to her.

  Yeah, okay. So what if he was? He was as human as the next man.

  And you wouldn’t mind being the next man, would you?

  That wasn’t going to happen. He left his dick in his pants when he was working. Even if he was willing to break that rule, which he wasn’t, Jenna was Jimmy’s little sister. He owed the man his life. He couldn’t repay that debt by getting Jenna naked. Fucking her would be a serious violation of the Man Code.

  Before he could start trying to imagine what she might look like beneath all those layers of loose clothing, he walked to his Land Cruiser, which he had parked near the gate, and started unloading halal MREs. He’d just set the first box on the ground when his satellite phone buzzed. He pulled the phone out of his coat. It was nine in the morning in D.C. Corbray was probably calling to—

  Senator Hamilton.

  Fuck.

  “Tower here.”

  “I spoke to your partner this morning. He says you haven’t yet managed to convince Jenna to come home and that you’re planning to leave soon.”

  Yeah, the man was pissed.

  “She refuses to leave before she has completed her contract, and I can’t stay here for eighteen months. I can find someone—”

  “I thought I made it clear that I want you either to bring her back or to stay and watch over her yourself.”

  “I never agreed to stay here for eighteen months. I suggest you read the contract.”

  The bastard spent the next minute yelling into his phone until Derek was tempted to hang up on him. Hadn’t he watched Jimmy deal with this same bullshit? Hamilton had tried to procure an honorable discharge for Jimmy while he was in basic training and had spent no small amount of time shouting in Jimmy’s ear just like this.

  “Senator Hamilton!” Derek put a hard edge on his voice. “You can’t intimidate me. If you don’t shut up, I’m going to end this call.”

  “You wouldn’t—”

  “Try me.” Derek took advantage of the silence. “I’ve investigated the security team here. I’ve also installed cameras in various positions to give hospital security a bit of advanced warning if—”

  “It’s not ‘if,’ Tower. It’s ‘when.’ It’s only a matter of time, and you know it!”

  The man was paranoid. There were NGOs all over the country. Though there were occasional attacks, most of the aid workers who came to Afghanistan went home in one piece. He started to say this, but the senator cut him off.

  “I warned James not to join the army. I told him he had a different purpose in life, but he didn’t listen. He died over there without ever having lived up to his potential, and now Jenna—”

  “Your son died a hero.” The words were out before Derek could stop himself. “It’s too bad you never knew the warrior James became. As for Jenna, she’s an adult. Like James, she can make her own decisions. You don’t own her.”

  “You’d best watch your—”

  Derek ended the call, fury slamming through him.

  It wasn’t often that a person could provoke him like this, but that son of a bitch had dared to judge Jimmy’s life and death without knowing a damned thing about it. Hamilton had never put on a uniform, never faced live fire, never had to make a split-second decision that meant life for someone—and death for himself.

  Fuck Hamilton.

  Sniper!

  Rat-at-at-at!

  Derek shoved the memory away and reached for the next box of MREs.

  5

  Jenna dragged the refrigerator out of the way to reveal the entrance of the safe room. It was easy to make out the edges of the doorway, but there was no handle on the outside. The idea was to pull the refrigerator back into place to hide the door before closing and locking it from the inside. She pushed the panel, and the door swung open, cold, musty air hitting her in the face.

  Mina leaned in to look. “I hope we never have to go down there.”

  “My brother said we should practice.” Jenna turned on a flashlight and stepped through the entrance into the dark.

  She found herself on a small landing above a concrete flight of stairs that led down to a small room below. There was no handrail, so she took each step carefully.

  Cobwebs stretched through the air in front of her. Or were they spider webs?

  God almighty.

  She brushed them aside, trying not to look into the cracks and crannies as she made her way down to the safe room. It wasn’t a big space, just large enough to hold the hospital’s staff and a handful of patients. There was no furniture, but concrete benches had been built into the walls, perhaps so that patients could lie down. Thankfully, there was an electric light.

  She pulled the string, glanced around. More webs. Rodent droppings were scattered across the floor, making her wish she’d worn a mask. This was going to be more work than she’d imagined.

  She went back upstairs. “We need to clean it. There are rodent droppings. We need to find some way to protect the food so that mice don’t get into it.”

  She and Mina put on masks and gloves and got to work with brooms, mops, and bleach to make the safe room habitable.

  “I never thought becoming a midwife would mean cleaning up mouse droppings,” Mina said.

  Jenna laughed. “Neither did I.”

  When the room was as clean as they could get it, Jenna washed her hands and then sent Derek a text, explaining that there was a mouse presence and that the food and water, which was in shrink-wrapped boxes, would need some kind of protection.

  I’ll see what I can do.

  Twenty minutes later, he buzzed her to tell her he had located some clean and empty fifty-five-gallon steel drums that had once held medical supplies.

  She found him carrying one of the drums, his coat off in the sunshine, his biceps visible beneath the fabric of his long-sleeved shirt. “Those will be perfect.”

  He flashed her a bright smile. “Is three barrels going to be enough?”

  “I think so.”

  He set the barrel down beside her. “Are you able to carry this?”

  “Sure.” She tried to pick up one of the barrels but found it heavier than she’d imagined. “I could get it inside. The problem is going to be getting it down the stairs.”<
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  “I’ll talk to Farzad.” Derek jogged off, leaving her standing outside the back door.

  He returned with Farzad a few minutes later. “If you ask the women to confine themselves to the hospital wing and lock the door behind them, I’ll carry these inside and down the stairs for you.”

  “This meets with the requirements for modesty,” Farzad said.

  “Thank you, Farzad.” Jenna kept her eyes averted so he couldn’t see how amusing she found the situation.

  Jenna hurried back inside and locked the student midwives together with Delara and Marie inside the hospital wing, then went and opened the door for Derek. “The coast is clear, brother.”

  He picked up the first barrel and followed her to the small kitchen, his body seeming to fill the space. He peered inside the safe room. “It’s not big, is it?”

  He maneuvered the barrel through the small opening and onto the landing and then bent down and stepped through. There wasn’t enough room on the landing for him to stand upright, and he had to keep his head bent as he started down the stairs. “I can see why you thought this might be a problem.”

  “Don’t break your neck.” She followed him down, carrying one of the boxes of MREs. She couldn’t see her feet this time, so she was extra careful.

  Derek set the drum down on its edge and rolled it into a corner, the ceiling barely tall enough for him to stand upright. He lifted the MREs from her arms as if they weighed nothing and set them down on one of the concrete benches. “I can carry those down. You open the boxes and pack the meals in the drums.”

  Once again, she caught the scent of his skin, a spicy, masculine smell. She’d become so accustomed to the odor of unwashed bodies that being near him was intoxicating.

  Good grief!

  He hurried back up the stairs, making four more trips—two for the remaining two drums and two for the rest of the MREs and the water—while she tore off the shrink wrap, opened the boxes, and piled the meals into the barrel. Then she fitted the lids onto the barrels, stepping back as he pounded them firmly into place with the heel of his palm.

  “That ought to keep out the mice.”

  “I’d like to store some medical supplies down here, too, just in case—first aid supplies, IV fluids, pain meds.” Her headscarf had come loose, and she instinctively reached up to straighten it.

  He caught her hand. “Don’t. I want to see your hair.”

  Jenna forgot to breathe.

  * * *

  What the hell are you doing?

  This hadn’t been part of Derek’s plan. The words had just come out of his mouth, but for some reason, he wasn’t taking them back.

  A part of him tried to convince himself that he was just doing his job, just trying to win Jenna over. But he knew that was bullshit. He truly did want to see her hair.

  Jenna stood, frozen in place, looking up at him, green eyes wide, her pupils dilated. “I-I probably shouldn’t…”

  He took hold of the damned headscarf and pulled it off to reveal thick auburn hair that hung well below her shoulders.

  She reached up, ran a hand self-consciously over her hair. “I’ve gotten used to covering up. I don’t spend any time styling it or…”

  Her words trailed off when he lifted a handful of silky strands, raised them to his nostrils, and inhaled, the feminine scent sending a dart of arousal to his groin. “You smell like flowers.”

  “It’s … uh … my shampoo.”

  Had he managed to fluster her?

  Good.

  “I like it.” He slid his fingers through the thick tresses, grazing her cheek with his palm, his fingers finding her nape.

  Her eyes drifted shut, her lips parting on an exhale.

  Lust punched through him, sharp and bright.

  Reluctantly, he drew his hand away, fighting an irrational impulse to pull her close and kiss the hell out of her. “You’re a beautiful woman, Jenna.”

  She shook her head, her cheeks flushing pink. “I’m not wearing any makeup.”

  “You don’t need it.” He truly meant that.

  Her skin was nearly translucent, her eyelashes dark and long, her lips full and…

  Hell, he should not be thinking about her lips. If anyone caught them kissing, they would both end up very dead. Not that anyone would wander in just now. The women were shut in the hospital wing, and Farzad was likely too afraid to set foot in this place.

  Don’t take chances.

  He wouldn’t, not where Jenna was concerned.

  Besides, kissing her wasn’t his mission.

  “I wish you would come with me back to the U.S.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “There are men not far from here who would tear you apart if they could.”

  “Are you trying to scare me? It won’t work.”

  “No, I’m just telling you the truth. I’ve seen the aftermath of more than one Taliban massacre—women and girls raped to death or shot in the head, entire families slaughtered.”

  She took a step backward. “I know it’s dangerous to be here, but it’s more dangerous for these mothers. If I bail out of my contract and go home because I’m afraid, where does that leave them? Where does it leave Marie, Delara, and the students? The world can’t just abandon these women. I know that what I’m doing is a drop in the bucket compared to what’s needed, but at least I’m doing something.”

  Derek could tell she meant every word, and he respected her. That didn’t change the fact that he had a job to do. “At least think about it.”

  “I should get back to work.” She reached for her headscarf.

  “Let me.” He draped it over her hair, tucking it beneath her chin and drawing it around her so that the ends fell over her chest to cover the gentle curves of her breasts. “That should do it. Not a single strand is showing.”

  She adjusted it, smoothing her hands over her covered head. “Thank you.”

  He followed her up the stairs, climbed out into the kitchen, closed the door, and pushed the refrigerator back into place. “I’ll be on duty in the waiting room tonight.”

  “Was that Farzad’s idea, too, like the security cameras?” The tone of her voice told him she already knew the answer.

  “I need his good will.”

  “Thanks for the help. Have a good day.”

  “You, too.” It took no small amount of effort for Derek to turn and walk away.

  He found Farzad waiting outside. “The barrels are in the safe room. I carried the boxes of meals and water down, too. The stairs are steep, and the boxes were too heavy for my sister.”

  Farzad’s expression told Derek that he’d wondered why it had taken him so long. “That is good. It is right to be prepared.”

  “I tried again to persuade her to come home with me, but she is determined to fulfill her agreement with the hospital.”

  “Your sister has honor.”

  “She does.” Derek just hoped it wouldn’t get her killed.

  * * *

  “There is no way Behar’s baby can be born.” Jenna spoke to Behar’s mother-in-law quietly so the girl wouldn’t hear. “She is young, and the opening in her pelvis is smaller than her baby’s head. If we can’t do surgery, she and the baby will both die.”

  Behar, who was only twelve, had arrived with her husband and mother-in-law an hour ago after a long day of hard labor. Her cervix was fully dilated, but her contractions weren’t bringing the baby down. They’d done everything they could to facilitate delivery—squatting, being on her hands and knees. But after three hours of pushing, the baby was as high in Behar’s pelvis as it had been when she’d arrived.

  Marie and Jenna had reached the same conclusion—cephalopelvic disproportion. The opening in her pelvis was just too small for her baby’s head.

  “I will speak to my son.” The mother-in-law pulled her burqa over her face and left the room, just as Behar’s eyes opened.

  Another contraction.

  Marie stayed with Behar, held her hand, while Jenna followed the mother
-in-law to the door that separated the hospital from the waiting area. She couldn’t step into the waiting room, but she wanted to hear what the older woman said to her son so she would know whether she delivered Jenna’s message accurately. She waited until the older woman had closed the door then pressed her ear against it.

  “They say Behar needs to have surgery to take the baby out or she and the baby might die. They say she is too young to give birth, but I had my first baby at her age.”

  Damn it!

  That wasn’t it at all. Yes, she was too young, but more to the point, her pelvis was too small. She and the baby would die—there was no question.

  Jenna held her breath, listened for the husband’s answer.

  “Nachair. Nachair.” No. No. “These surgeries—they leave women unable to bear more children. Many girls give birth while young. It is in God’s hands.”

  Jenna’s heart sank.

  Back in the delivery area, Behar cried out, sobbing in fear and pain.

  To hell with this!

  Jenna opened the door just a crack and spoke in Dari, not to the husband, which was forbidden, but to the mother-in-law. “Grandmother, hear me. If we don’t take the baby out through surgery, it will never come out.”

  Shouts of outrage.

  Jenna raised her voice to be heard. “Behar’s body is too small, Grandmother. The baby cannot come out. Its head is too big. It is trapped inside her. If we do not operate, she and the baby will die but only after many long hours of needless suffering.”

  Someone jerked the door shut from the other side, and Jenna turned to find Delara and several of the student midwives staring at her in shock. It wasn’t the custom in this rural area of the province for a woman to speak if she could be overheard by men who were not close relatives.

  But Jenna was beyond caring. “I must do all I can to save Behar’s life. Her mother-in-law didn’t tell her son the full truth.”

  She could see on their faces that they understood, but they were also afraid for her and for themselves.