He’s at the warehouse where we’re making the exchange. What does he need me for? He’s already tapped into the feed.
She swallowed hard as another thought percolated.
Or maybe something else is going on here.
If he had wanted to kill Hawk and Alex, McGinn could’ve done it a long time ago. But she’d never felt easy around McGinn from the moment she met him. She needed to talk to Hawk about this, not to mention the other documents she’d found, and time was running out. An opportunity to confide in Hawk about these revelations had yet to present itself. And for the moment, she didn’t even know where Hawk was.
CHAPTER 19
EMILY REFUSED TO ACCEPT her fate as four guards surrounded her. Handcuffed to a pipe running over her head, Emily’s body was stretched far beyond comfort. Her feet were planted firmly on the ground, but her arms extended upward as the blood drained down, causing a tingling sensation in her hands and fingers. The skin around her wrists had been rubbed raw as she struggled to find a moment to relax.
“Allah has been good to us,” one of the men said.
“No,” another man said with a grin spreading wide across his face. “The General has been good to us, allowing us to indulge in some of the spoils of battle.”
“I’m not a spoil, you asshole,” Emily said. “I’m a woman.”
The guard shrugged. “Woman … spoil of war … person to pleasure me … all the same in my book.”
Emily tried to restrain her tongue, but she couldn’t. Not that it would matter. She knew where this was headed, and she figured she might as well make it as unpleasant as possible for the guards.
“You have a book? You know how to read?” she said, sneering at the man.
“You think your insults are going to bother me?” the guard asked. “I like my women feisty, especially American women.”
Emily snickered. “I bet the only type of woman you’ve ever had are the kind you had to—”
Whack!
The guard backhanded Emily in the face. “I suggest you keep quiet.”
“I thought you just said you liked your women feisty.”
Holding up his index finger, the guard wagged it at Emily. “I said feisty, not dead.”
“Oh, I’m very much alive. And I’m going to kill you in a few minutes.”
All four of the guards broke into laughter.
“I wasn’t joking,” she said.
One of the other guards, who’d been looking Emily up and down while licking his lips, spoke up. “I’d like to go first—break her in.”
“Trust me,” she said. “You don’t want to do that. It simply means you’ll be the first to die.”
The guard walked up to her and threw his head back, breaking into a guffaw. He then ripped her blouse open.
“Touch me again, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
The guard smiled. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
Emily yanked down hard, freeing her wrists from the cuffs. Pulling up on the bar over her head, she brought her knees up even with the guard’s head and wrapped her legs around him. The other guards started pointing and laughing. Based on their reactions, Emily was quite certain that not a single guard in the room had any idea they were all about to die.
After a quick twist of her legs, she heard the guard’s neck crack. He crumpled to the floor in a heap.
“Who’s next?” she asked as she approached the guard who’d been in charge for most of her detention.
The guard whipped his gun out and pressed the barrel of it into Emily’s chest. “I think you are.”
In one swift move, Emily pushed the man’s hands aside, forcing him to point directly at one of the other guards. Emily eased her finger onto the man’s trigger finger.
“On the count of three,” she said. “One . . . ”
The gun ignited as she helped the guard pull the trigger, sending a bullet into the chest of one of the other guards. The guard who’d been holding the gun scrambled away from Emily.
“Don’t think I’m finished with you yet,” Emily said.
She proceeded to kick him in the head, knocking him out cold. In all the commotion, she’d lost sight of the fourth guard. Scanning the room to find him, she didn’t see him.
“I hate playing games,” she said.
“So do I,” he said from behind her.
The guard shoved a gun into her back with one hand and wrapped his arm around her neck.
“We can make this be quick and painless or slow and agonizing,” he said. “It’s up to you. But before any of this goes down, you’re going to give me what I want.”
“Really, it’s up to you,” Emily said. “Just depends on how you want to die.”
“Hey, lady, maybe you’ve forgotten who’s holding you down and jamming a gun into your back.”
“I’m more concerned with where the bullets are going to go—and every last one of them is headed for your body.”
The man started to laugh, though he tightened his grip and whispered in her ear. “Is it difficult to get through life as a stupid as you are?”
The crack of a gunshot echoed through room as the guard collapsed to the floor. He quivered for a moment and attempted to say something unintelligible. She stepped on his arm and stooped down to pry the gun out of his hand.
“From the looks of things, you didn’t really need my help,” Hawk said.
Emily stood back up and glanced at him before looking back down at the dead guard.
“Nice shot, but I could’ve handled him. So, how do we get out of this place?”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious as to why these people targeted us?”
She walked toward him. “Quite frankly, we don’t have that much time right now, but I happen to already know why.”
“Please enlighten me,” Hawk said as he crossed his arms.
“They were
