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

the American embassy. Had they really just walked away—and left Abdelaziz behind to face his fate alone?

    An hour ago, Abdelaziz had been in the middle of a meeting with the U.S. ambassador and several key members of his staff. Meg knew that the meeting had been dragging on for hours, as the ambassador tried to convince Abdelaziz that they would do everything in their power to see that he received fair treatment and a fair trial upon his surrender to the Kazbekistani government.

    Meg had heard that at one point, Abdelaziz had requested several K-stani officials be brought into the dialogue—which soon turned into a shouting match that caused the meeting to end and Abdelaziz to be escorted back to her office.

    Where his Navy SEAL companions were no longer waiting for him, having left K-stan without him.

    Or had they . . . ?

    All of a sudden it all made sense. All of a sudden, Meg knew.

    She stood up, nearly knocking her chair over backward. “Laney, finish this for me.”

    “But—”

    She was out of the room before her assistant could complain. She ran down the hall, down the stairs, toward her office.

    Two guards were still posted in the hall. They didn’t try to stop her, didn’t even blink as she breezed past them and opened the door.

    And there he was.

    “Abdelaziz, my ass,” Meg said. “You’re really—”

    He moved so quickly, she didn’t have time to let out more than a very undignified squeak as he grabbed her arm, pulled her inside the room, shut the door behind her, deftly covering her mouth with his hand.

    Her computer’s CD player was on, she realized, and he pulled her toward it, cranking the speaker volume so that Shania Twain thundered throughout the room. If the office were bugged—and it probably was—whoever was listening wasn’t going to hear more than that music.

    Meg could hardly breathe, he was holding her so tightly, one arm wrapped around her, pinning both of her hands. When he spoke, his voice was practically inaudible, his lips brushing her ear. “Don’t you dare do or say anything that will put my men in danger.”

    His accent was completely gone.

    She’d guessed correctly. The SEALs hadn’t left Abdelaziz behind. They’d walked him out of the embassy right under the Kazbekistanis’ noses, while this man had been distracting both the American diplomats and the K-stani government. They’d carried Abdelaziz onto the waiting chopper and flown him out of the country, pretending he was Ensign John Nilsson, injured in the line of duty.

    While in truth, she was standing pressed uncomfortably close to the real Ensign John Nilsson, the very solid and healthy Ensign John Nilsson, his hand clamped hard over her mouth.

    “The helo won’t be safely on board the carrier for another twenty minutes,” he breathed into her ear. “If you give me away, the K-stani Air Guard could try to force it down.”

    And was his plan to stand here, with his hand over her mouth, for that entire twenty minutes?

    Meg made a writing motion with the one of her hands that could still move an inch or two, and somehow he understood. He shifted her over to her desk and gave her a piece of paper and another few inches of mobility to her right hand so she could pick up a pen.

    Meg wrote quickly, in clear block letters, “Promise me I’m not helping a terrorist escape to the United States.”

    She felt more than heard Nilsson laugh over Shania’s rich voice. “I promise,” he breathed into her ear. “He’s not a terrorist, Meg. He’s CIA. But if you tell anyone I told you that, I’ll deny it.”

    Meg picked up her pen again. “What are they going to do to you?” she wrote.

    He laughed again. “What can they do? I’m not the man they’re after.”

    “We better make sure they believe that. Let me go,” she wrote.

    “If I do, will you scream?”

    “About what?” she wrote.

    Again, she felt the warm vibration of his laughter. “Well, good,” he said into her ear. “Just