LITMIR.BIZ

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distance from each other, every piece of exercise equipment that could be used as a weapon or for cover. He swore silently at the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that lined the walls and made it impossible to sneak up behind anyone.

      The easiest thing would be to go in predawn when the guards were ready to nod off, exhausted by their night vigil. But he hated the thought of waiting that long. He wanted her out before the Russian counterterrorism team got here.

      He preferred planned and coordinated operations where nothing was left to chance. But those took time. And Kate’s life was at stake. To save her he would do anything.

      “Hang in there.” He mouthed the words as he pulled his gun and screwed on the silencer, preparing to make his move.

      The Colonel had asked him not to leave any signs—meaning a string of dead bodies—that he’d been there, if he could help it. Well, looked like he couldn’t.

       August 10, 00:05

      SHE HAD Parker on her mind and that annoyed her no end. Kate Hamilton stared at the floor, not daring to make eye contact with the rebels.

      They left the hostages alone for the most, but gave orders now and then that they expected to be followed, a problem since Kate didn’t speak Russian. All the embassy staff did, even the French employees; it was a condition of employment here, just as fluent knowledge of English was a condition of employment over at the U.S. embassy. She was smart enough to copy whatever the others did in response to the commands. It had worked so far, but she wasn’t sure how long her luck would hold out.

      “Try something,” Anna, a slightly built, petite young woman whispered barely audibly to her left. She was French and the personal secretary to the ambassador’s wife.

      Try something. Brilliant idea. Except that her hands were bound and three nasty-looking AK-47s were pointed in her general direction.

      Parker would know what to do. He spoke a dozen languages. And he could always handle tough situations. The way he’d handled an attempted mugging when they’d gone down to Florida for a long weekend came to mind. She supposed he’d had to learn. He visited dangerous parts of the world as a foreign correspondent for Reuters. His continued absence had driven her nuts during their engagement.

      She refused to let the memories hurt anymore. She was better off without him.

      She pressed her lips together and looked around the room for the hundredth time, trying to figure out a way she could make a break for it and not be shot within a fraction of a second. Okay, Parker. What would you do? The gunshots they had heard earlier didn’t fill her with optimism.

      Several embassy guards had been killed within the first few minutes of the attack, as well as the sole civilian-dressed bodyguard who had escorted her over from the U.S. embassy for an unofficial visit with Tanya, the Russian ambassador’s wife.

      Tanya had left the dinner table for just a moment to take her two young girls to their nanny when the rebels had rushed in. Maybe they’d been able to escape. The rebels had taken her husband, the ambassador, immediately and herded the rest of the people in here, along with other staff they’d found around the embassy that late in the evening.

      It was Anna who had begged the white coat off a cook’s assistant and given it to Kate, warning her not to speak English, not to reveal who she was. And Kate had kept quiet, although she wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. Being a U.S. consul came with a certain amount of respect for the title and the full backing of the American government. Maybe if she’d spoken up, the rebels would have decided they didn’t want to tangle with the U.S. and would have let her go. She shifted on the hard floor. Maybe she should tell them now.

      Or maybe not. She still wasn’t over the shock of seeing the bullet rip through her bodyguard’s head. She swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to think of Jeff as he’d lain there on the dining room floor in a pool of his own blood. He and the sole Russian guard who’d been inside the dining room were badly outnumbered when the rebels had poured in.

      “Pochemu tu…” One of the armed men launched into a tirade.

      She wished she could understand what he was talking about, what they were discussing. The lanky one seemed to be whining a lot. The oldest of the three ignored him for the most part. The short, pudgy one kept snapping at him, then finally gave up and shrugged with a disgusted groan.

      The whiner swung his rifle over his shoulder and walked out the door, letting it slam behind him.

      “Two,” Anna whispered.

      They were down to two guards. This could be the best chance they were going to get to try something—disarm them, maybe, and get to the phone on the wall by the gym’s door, call for help. Breaking out of the embassy didn’t seem possible. Too many armed rebels secured the building.

      She tried to establish eye contact with the chef who appeared to be in good shape, then with two other guys, tall, beefy and Slavic-looking with hard features and dirty-blond hair. They looked alike, possibly related. They seemed to be the largest and strongest men in the room.

      Come on. Over here. She fidgeted and managed to get the attention of one of them. She wiggled her eyebrows toward the guards. The guy looked back nonplussed.

      Since her hands were tied behind her back, she couldn’t make any hand signals. She kept wiggling her eyebrows and nodding with her head. The guy smiled.

      Probably thought she was coming on to him. Did she look like a complete idiot? Apparently so, because he wiggled his eyebrows back.

      She stifled a groan and rolled her eyes in a never-mind look she hoped translated. And felt a hand on hers.

      She turned slowly toward the other side and met Anna’s gaze. The woman glanced toward the guards then back at Kate with a questioning look in her large blue eyes. Kate nodded. Yes, yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to do.

      “Now,” Anna breathed without moving her lips. She took a deep breath then started to cry.

      The pudgy guard yelled at her immediately. Anna stifled her sobs and leaned against Kate as if for support. She tugged on the nylon cuffs that held Kate’s hands behind her back. Then came heat. Under the noise of her crying, apparently she had lit a match or a lighter that must have been hidden in her pocket.

      Every snarly thought Kate had ever had about smokers blowing smoke in her face at the cafés that supported her French-pastry habit, she took back.

      Ouch. Even a small flame could be pretty hot this close. But the pressure of the nylon eased on her wrists, and in the next second she was free.

      “Hurry,” the girl whispered into her shoulder and dropped a lighter into her hands.

      But then the door opened and the whiny guard was back, carrying a large box, leading with his back. Or maybe it wasn’t the whiny guard. This one looked bigger. But familiar.

      The pudgy rebel barked a question.

      “Da, da.” The newcomer mumbled the rest of his answer and kept advancing into the room, groaning, bent under the weight of whatever he was carrying. But the next second the box flew at the older bandit, knocking his weapon aside while the stranger took out the pudgy one with his gun. He had enough time to shoot the other one, too, before that one gathered himself.

      Her hands were free, but all she could do was stare at the man dumbstruck, unable to believe her eyes.

       Parker?

      She pushed to her feet and stepped toward him, but he shook his head slightly and severed eye contact as if he didn’t want anyone to know that they knew each other. He spoke in Russian as he cut the plastic cuffs off people then distributed the rebels’ guns to the hostages, who were asking questions at the rate of a hundred per second.

      He answered before he pointed at her, said something else in Russian and ripped the gas mask off Pudgy’s belt, then shoved

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