Read Online The Defiant Hero by Suzanne Brockmann - Free Book Online

wearily up onto his hands and knees, off the floor. “Report,” he said.

    Sam, the SEAL with the Texas drawl, was awake, sitting up with his weapon held loosely in his arms. “The team commander is still asleep. I gave Mrs. Moore permission to get some information she needed from her computer.”

    Abdelaziz lifted his head and looked directly at her. It was obvious that he’d been unaware that she was in the room until Sam had given him warning. He leapt to his feet—she’d never seen a man move that fast before—raking his fingers back through his sleep-mussed hair and straightening his clothes.

    “As far as I know,” Sam continued, “there’s been no change in the political wind. Unless Mrs. Moore has some news she wants to share. Of course, she may not be feeling too kindly toward us, since she’s going on day two without her office.”

    “The only rooms available were on the top floor, which is a far more vulnerable position than here on the second floor.” Abdelaziz’s smile was rueful. “Here I go, about to apologize to you. Again. I’m sorry for any inconvenience we’ve caused you, but I needed to sleep and I wouldn’t have slept up there.”

    “As long as you don’t mind me coming in to use the computer, it’s not that big an inconvenience,” she lied.

    His smile said he knew better. And he was still embarrassed about yesterday, as well. As he should be. “Have you heard anything from the front line?” he asked.

    Meg hesitated, not sure what to tell him. The K-stani government had threatened to kick all the Americans—ambassador, staff, and civilians—out of their country if Abdelaziz wasn’t surrendered to them within the next twenty-four hours. The American oil companies couldn’t afford to be kicked out, so they’d added their voices to the ongoing shouting match.

    The general feeling of the embassy staff—including her husband Daniel—was to placate the Kazbekistani government and secure their shaky position in this oil-rich paradise by giving up Abdelaziz.

    Which would be virtually the same as putting a gun to the man’s head and pulling the trigger. If they gave him up, he would be executed.

    But probably tortured horribly first.

    Abdelaziz read her silence correctly. “The news is that good, is it?”

    “The ambassador doesn’t have much to go on,” she told him, “since you’ve refused to answer his questions. How can he vouch for your innocence when the government accuses you of all these terrible crimes?”

    “What happened to innocent until proven guilty?” he murmured.

    “That might be true in America, but we’re not in America.”

    As she watched, he crossed the room and looked down at the wounded man, the leader of the SEALs, Ensign John Nilsson.

    “Is he all right?” she asked quietly. There was a sheen of sweat on Nilsson’s forehead and his eyes were closed. He was sleeping, but only fitfully.

    “He should be in a hospital,” Sam said tightly.

    Abdelaziz nodded in agreement. “We’re going to do whatever we have to, to medevac him out of here.”

    “Anything short of turning yourself over to the Kazbekistani government,” she corrected him.

    “Yes, that probably wouldn’t be a very good idea.”

    Sam snorted. “Probably?”

    Abdelaziz turned and gave Sam a long, measured look.

    Meg remembered that look later that day, when she received word that the ambassador had arranged for a chopper to fly the Navy SEALs to an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. She was in the middle of translating some desperately needed document, vital for the ongoing negotiations, when she was told of their departure.

    “Navy SEALs?” she asked Laney. “Plural? Are you sure? Aren’t they just flying out the one SEAL—the injured man?”

    “No.” Laney was smug about having received the information first. “All three of them left. I saw them as they headed to the heliport an hour ago. They’re already gone.”

    The three SEALs had left