Double Impact

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AMI LAY PRONE in the dusty street, her face turned to one side, her eyes unblinking. She stared, seeing nothing. Her mind as well as her body was numb.

She felt nothing.

People gathered around her. She sensed more than heard or saw them.

She wondered briefly if she was dead.

Something ached through the numbness.

Her son. She would never see her baby again.

Arms lifted her and she did not resist.

They turned her over with a great deal of care.

She didn’t recognize the voices or the faces around her.

She no longer cared where she was.

Darkness tugged at her.

A bolt of pain erupted, screamed through her, awakening the other senses her mind had shut down hours ago. She groaned, unable to do more. Her tongue slid forward, to dampen her dry, cracked lips and fire rushed through her once more.

Finally she did the only thing she could, she closed her eyes and surrendered to the blessed oblivion.

MICHAL PACED the outer room of the tiny clinic, rage churning inside him. Someone would pay for this. His jaw hardened. Someone would pay dearly.

Anguish squeezed his heart each time he thought of how badly she’d been beaten…of what could have happened had she not escaped the imbeciles who had taken her hostage. To get at him, he knew for a certainty. He’d grown complacent when it came to this city. Felt untouchable. He was respected and feared here. Obviously not feared enough.

That would change.

Carlos and four of his men were scouring Tripoli at that very moment to determine how this had happened. A physician Michal trusted was doing all he could to make Amira comfortable as he tended her injuries. He’d insisted Michal leave the room since his presence appeared to upset the patient. The few patients in the clinic when he and his men arrived had chosen to come back later.

Michal kicked the closest object. The chair skidded across the floor and crashed into the wall. The Spaniard and Thomas moved yet again to avoid his path as he began to pace once more. He kept seeing her lying on that shop floor, crumpled and broken-looking. The owner and his wife had seen her stagger into the street and fall facedown. They had thought her dead the way she’d lain so still and with her eyes wide open, unblinking. Michal could not banish the images their words evoked. The shop owner had called the authorities who had reported her whereabouts directly to Michal.

She was bruised badly, her arms, upper torso, and even her legs. Her left cheek was swollen and discolored, as well. One cracked rib.

His mind went black for several seconds before he could again regain control of the consuming rage.

Thank God she had not been raped.

This was bad enough.

She had told him that she’d barely escaped the man. There had been three, but only one had been with her when she’d managed to break free.

Michal’s fingers curled into fists. This man would die. As would the others.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. She should have been safe, here of all places.

Word had come swiftly to him. The mission had been accomplished, but this necessity had required that he leave earlier than planned. And still it had taken what felt like a lifetime to reach her.

Michal’s gaze moved back to the door that stood between them. He would see that this never happened again. He closed his eyes and fought the urge to roar like a lion with the emotions twisting inside him.

He should have protected her. He had failed.

The fear she must have suffered at the hands of those brutes haunted him. Made him sick with disgust.

This was no life for her. He inhaled sharply, his chest heavy with too many regrets. She was different now. Before she had seemed to enjoy the thrill of living on the edge, the dangerous lure of how he lived. He remembered well when she’d first sought him out. Michal had been certain he had never met a woman more like himself-utterly fearless.

In no time she had worked her way into his heart, and then she had demanded to know his price for killing her father. Shocked at first, Michal had played off her suggestion. But Amira had been insistent. Then the word had come down that Peres was to be added to his list. Michal had not questioned the coincidence at the time, his only concern had been keeping Amira pleased with him. He wanted to make her father suffer for the hurt and neglect she had suffered because of him.

He frowned and stared at the door as if he could see through it, see what the physician was doing now, by sheer force of will. Her continued assertion since her return that she was not Amira Peres nagged at him. Could she have fooled him, as well as Yael Peres? Michal could only assume that her amnesia was so complete that even the most remote aspect of her past was now gone forever. The only other conclusion would be that she was not Amira Peres. He shook his head in protest of that reasoning. That was not possible.

Still, she was quite different now. Whatever bitterness that lurked in her soul two years ago had disappeared along with her memory. She was not the same. But on every other level she felt the same.

This Amira-Ami-was more vulnerable, softer, with no idea how to function in his world. And he had failed to protect her. Leaving her helpless to defend herself and a perfect target for those who would seek to bring him down.

The door opened and the physician waved him inside. His feet moving him forward, Michal’s heart shuddered to a near stop as his gaze fell upon her once more.

She sat on the examination table, her ribs wrapped tightly beneath her torn blouse. Another blast of fury thundered through him. The blood had been cleansed from her skin and her hair had been combed. His gaze flitted to the nurse standing next to her. The nurse’s doing, he imagined. The entire staff of the small clinic had been terrified by his volatile emotions. He was certain they wanted to appease him in any way possible in hopes of surviving this encounter.

“She will be fine,” the physician told him in stilted English. “She must take care for a time until the rib is healed properly. There is no concussion despite the lump on her head. There is nothing more I can do.”

Michal nodded. “Good.” He knew he should at least glance at the doctor and thank him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Ami. She sat so very still, her eyes glazed and empty.

“We can go now?” he asked, finally sparing the physician a glance.

“Yes.”

Michal stepped closer to her, but she made no move to reach out to him or to even stand. She simply sat there, staring at nothing. The nurse scurried to the other side of the room as far away from Michal as possible.

He reached an arm around Ami’s shoulders and she flinched. A blade of hurt skewered him as if he’d been run through with a sword. “We can go now,” he murmured as reassuringly as the emotion clogging his throat would allow. She made no response. Worry thudded in his temples. “You are sure she will be fine?” he asked, suddenly certain the physician had missed some aspect of her injury.

“The shock,” he offered. “It will take time to recover from the shock.”

Satisfied with that diagnosis, Michal gently urged Ami toward the edge of the table until she scooted off the rest of the way on her own. Once on her feet, she wobbled for a moment, but he steadied her against him. He didn’t bother saying anything else as he led Ami from the room. His man, Thomas, would generously reward the physician and his nurse. No other discussion was necessary.

Outside, he helped Ami into the back of the car and slid in next to her. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes as if too weary to do otherwise. Thomas and the Spaniard climbed into the front, Thomas behind the wheel.

“I’m taking you home,” Michal told her softly, again hoping she would respond to his words. “You’ll be safe there.”

A cellular telephone buzzed and Thomas quickly silenced it by answering the call. He pulled out onto the street as he listened. Michal only half listened until Thomas demanded to know the address, then his instincts soared to a higher state of alert. Carlos had found something. He was sure of it.

Thomas ended the call and glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Carlos found him. He’s holding him at the house where they took her. The other two men have not been found.”

“Take me there,” Michal ordered, his fury burning bloodred, clouding his vision.

Ami tensed in his arms. “Don’t worry,” he soothed, his voice still gruff despite his best efforts. “You will be safe. I swear it.”

The ride took only five minutes. Ami prayed every second of those few minutes that she could keep up the pretense. Tears burned behind her eyes, but it was the fear that pounded in her chest that made her weak…made her want to run. If Michal found out what really happened.

She would be dead. If you betray me again I will kill you. His words as he’d made love to her that first time echoed inside her skull.

The car bumped over a rut in the road and she had to close her eyes against the pain that seared through her sides. Her whole body ached, her lower lip felt raw from the split there.

She tried to block the memory of that jerk coming at her, slapping her repeatedly with the back of his hand, shoving her against the wall and then to the floor where he’d kicked her. Had Tanner not interceded, things could have gotten a lot worse. The jerk had been extremely pissed at her. She’d sobbed harder with each blow, hadn’t wanted to, but the pain had been overwhelming. She’d been certain that the extent of the beating wasn’t necessary-that the guy had been out for revenge rather than simply following orders. She tried to think now if Tanner could have stopped him sooner. Maybe not. Maybe he’d done the right thing.

She was definitely thankful for the indisputable evidence of her innocence the brutal beating provided. If Tanner wasn’t going to get her out of this, and he likely wasn’t, she definitely didn’t want Michal suspicious of her.

She pushed away the thought of what Tanner expected her to do. She couldn’t think about that right now. She only wanted out of this godforsaken country. Her thoughts were too fragmented, too scattered to analyze the situation.

She would do what she had to.

A single tear rolled down her cheek at the reality of exactly what that entailed. She pushed it away again, determined not to let it into her thoughts until she could think more clearly.

Her heart lurched when the car stopped in front of the crumbling building where Tanner’s people had held her last night. Where she’d been beaten to within an inch of her life or what felt like it. What if they’d forgotten something? Something that could link her to the CIA?

“I don’t want to go in there,” she said, pulling away from Michal’s hold. Wanting desperately to crawl out the passenger-side door and run like hell. She wasn’t cut out for this cloak-and-dagger stuff. “Please.” Her gaze shot to Michal’s. “I can’t.”

His eyes turned even darker with some raw, savage emotion that went way beyond rage. He took her by the arm, less gently than before. “You must. It is necessary.”

Terror clawing at her, she slid across the seat and allowed him to help her from the car. Every move she made sent pain radiating across her nerve endings. Outside the contusion and the fractured rib, most of her injuries were superficial. Why did she have to come back here? Why was vengeance necessary? Why did it matter who did it? She just wanted to leave.

She shivered as she recalled Tanner saying that he would plant evidence. She didn’t know what kind or about whom; she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to be here. She stalled at the entryway, but Michal prodded her into forward motion. He wasn’t going to leave it alone. She might as well face facts. She doubted he would even consider leaving the country until he’d exhausted all his resources.

Inside the gloomy structure that smelled of urine and disuse, it was evident the place had been ransacked. She remembered distinctly that the front room, the one she now stood in, had been vacant. The room where she’d awakened had been furnished with only a cot, a chair and a rickety old armoire.

She surveyed the room once more as they moved through it. The overturned furniture and shattered crockery had definitely been added since she left. Papers were scattered over the floor. She didn’t remember those, either, from before. Part of the evidence, she presumed.

As they approached the room where she’d awakened, she balked, couldn’t make her feet take the final steps. “Please, can’t we just leave,” she pleaded once more.

Ignoring her plea, Michal turned to Thomas. “Stay with her,” he ordered.

She watched, her heart racing, as Michal shoved the door inward and entered the room. Thomas stood a few feet away as if fearing, like Raoul, she might cost him his life, as well, if he got too close.

The seconds turned into minutes and still she gleaned nothing from the hushed conversation in the room. Ami prayed with every ounce of strength she possessed that they hadn’t found something in the room that would contradict her story. Surely Tanner would not be so careless.

Carlos hated her. He would like nothing better than to nail her. She could imagine him on his hands and knees going over every square inch of the place looking for clues against her. She trembled. God, how much more of this could she stand? She closed her eyes and tried to slow the drunken ’round and ’round sensation in her head. She summoned the image of her son and focused on him, pushing away all other thought. He was all that mattered.

“Ami.”

Her eyes opened to Michal standing in the doorway, looking directly at her. Before she could dredge up a proper response, he had taken the few steps that yawned between them.

“I want you to come into the room and look closely at this man. Tell me if he is the one who hurt you.”

Panic broadsided her. Man? What man? Her gaze flew to the open doorway. Carlos and three other men were crowded around someone seated in a chair. The image of the man tied to a chair in the cellar flashed through her mind. That scene had resulted in death. Not again. Who…

Surely it wasn’t the man who’d actually inflicted her injuries. Tanner wouldn’t have left him to face certain death. Though the idea wasn’t completely without appeal, she didn’t want to be responsible for his death. Michal, without question, had murder in his eyes.

Her mind whirling with confusion and fear, Michal ushered her into the room. Carlos and the others parted, revealing the man tied to the chair.

For one long moment Ami was unable to speak. He was tall and thin, Libyan maybe. She peered into his dark eyes and saw the fear there.

“This man,” Michal explained, “is the leader of a subversive group who has made more than one attempt on my life. According to witnesses, his people moved into this place shortly before we arrived. Carlos has reason to suspect they have had someone watching for our arrival.” Michal turned to her then. “Now, tell me if this is the man who hurt you and I will make him pay.”

Dead silence fell over the room as all present awaited her response. She thought of Raoul and how he had died to provide an excuse for her stupid attempt at escaping. How could she have ever believed even for a second that she could escape this nightmare? Now this man was to die, too.

She couldn’t do it.

Not even to save her own life.

She shook her head adamantly, ignoring the resulting pain. “No, it wasn’t him.”

The pent-up breath the man exhaled echoed in the otherwise silence.

Carlos looked ready to throttle her…or worse. Michal appeared taken aback and Ami felt certain she had just signed her own death warrant.

“Look again…more carefully,” Michal urged. “Are you certain?”

With no other option, Ami did as he instructed. She looked at the man and surmised from the swelling of his face and the blood leaking from his busted lip that he’d already paid a hefty price for something he hadn’t even done.

“No,” she said firmly, determined not to be responsible for another man’s death. No matter what kind of extremist or terrorist he was, she would not be his judge and executioner. “It’s not him.”

Michal peered deeply into her eyes for what felt like an eternity before he turned to Carlos. “Let him go.”

“What?” Carlos bellowed. “We cannot-”

“Release him,” Michal ordered. His attention shifted to the prisoner. “Tell your people that I am far from finished. I will not forget this transgression. Nor will I overlook another.”

Glowering at both her and Michal, Carlos did as he was ordered, cutting the man free then jerking him to his feet. “Go!” He pushed the man toward the door.

Ami recoiled as he staggered past her, at once relieved and fearful. He collapsed against the door frame and didn’t appear able to go farther. She’d been right. Carlos had already worked him over considerably.

“Get him out of here,” Michal ordered, his patience at an end.

Carlos grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to attention. “What are you waiting for, imbecile? Get out!”

When Carlos would have shoved the prisoner through the door the man twisted, his right hand snagging Carlos’s weapon from his waistband.

Ami’s breath left her in a whoosh and the scene lapsed into slow motion. Displaying surprising strength, the prisoner shouldered Carlos aside and leveled the barrel of the weapon on Ami. “American whore!” he screamed.

Michal dove in front of her.

A blast exploded in the room as Ami hit the floor hard on her backside, sending pain piercing through her.

Another blast splintered the air.

The prisoner dropped the gun and crumpled to the floor. He lay facing her, his sightless eyes unblinking.

She blinked, stunned.

People scrambled around her. Muffled voices. She couldn’t understand…couldn’t make out their words. Could hardly hear at all. She turned to see…

Michal.

He dropped to his knees.

Carlos and Thomas instantly appeared on either side of him.

Ami struggled to her feet, scarcely noticing the detonation of agony that accompanied her every move.

She pushed her way between the men hovered around Michal.

Bright crimson spread across the fabric of the white shirt he wore, the spot widening, plunging toward the center of his chest.

Blood.

He’d been shot.

Nausea roiled in her stomach. The room spun. And then the lights went out.