A woman’s voice, low and sweet whispered in his ear.
“Julian … come …”
He felt wetness against his face. He wanted to touch it, to feel something, anything, but he couldn’t.
“Please … Julian …” her comforting words grew louder. He couldn’t see who she was.
An angel?
Was this heaven?
“Julian … come … please … come … back …”
The voice.
A sharp pang rocked the side of his face.
He sucked in a deep breath, filling his lungs with air as his body revolted in agony. Deep, coarse coughs wracked his body, sending spasms of discomfort through his chest.
The fog in his mind cleared. Julian forced his eyes open and stared up into the most beautiful face in the world.
“Am I dreaming?” Julian whispered, his hands reaching up for her, but grasping nothing but air.
Mena sat on the floor near his head, her body twisted at an awkward angle from the zip ties that bound her wrists and her ankles. She stared down at him, a warm smile spreading across her lips. “Thank God you came back to me.”
“How did I get here?” Julian asked, trying to remember what happened before he succumbed to the darkness. Squeezing his eyes shut, Julian cycled through his fuzzy memories. The targeted attack on the private hangar owned by the Irungu Family, with Reggie and Sunny close behind him. Adam Russell standing in the open doorway of the plane.
“Two of Adam Russell’s men carried you onboard,” Mena said, leaning back.
“What happened to the others?” Julian asked, concern growing for Reggie, Sunny, and the ASF agents who’d charged into the hangar with him. Had they survived the ambush?
“I don’t know. After they got you on board, the plane taxied and took off. I think they were left behind, passed out from the gas,” Mena said.
Concentrating, Julian tried to move his legs, but they didn’t respond. Not yet. He sucked in a sharp breath from the excruciating, electric currents assaulting every muscle in his body as his nerve endings slowly came to life. In a few more minutes, he should have full mobility. “How long have we been in the air?”
“Feels like hours, but I can’t be sure,” Mena said, a look of concern spreading across her face. “Adam is behind all of this. He told the pilots not to take off until you got to the hangar.”
“You know that for sure?” Julian asked, stunned.
“Priscilla Dumay wants both of us brought back to St. Basil. I don’t know what she plans to do to us, but this was all her doing. She paid Tubeec to kidnap me. I’m not sure why he took Wangari, Isaac and Grace as well.”
“Tubeec got greedy and saw a way to use your friendship with Wangari Irungu to orchestrate a personal mission of his own,” Julian said.
“He wanted something from Okeyo Lagat,” Mena said. “Do you know what it was?”
“Evidence that could land Deputy President Kipsang Rono in prison. Tubeec arranged for the evidence to be destroyed. Either Rono paid him to do it or Tubeec was hoping to have the Deputy President owe him a big favor,” Julian said, no longer concerned with the nuances of Kenyan politics. Not when he needed to figure out why Adam Russell wasn’t in witness protection right now and what Dumay wanted with him and Mena.
“How many gunmen are on board with us?” Julian asked.
“Only two from what I could see,” Mena said.
“Two guards, Adam, and two pilots,” Julian muttered out loud, trying to formulate a plan of attack once he was able to break the lock that he was sure had them trapped in the bedroom compartment.
“And Dr. Quentin Tufa,” Mena said. “He’s on the plane as well.”
“So Dumay has us with her beloved adopted brother.” Julian thought about the ramifications of that information. With Adam on board, he was fairly certain they wouldn’t be harmed before the plane landed. But with Quentin as one of the passengers, he knew Dumay wouldn’t take any chances that her brother wouldn’t arrive back safely. He could use this to their advantage.
Mena said, “Once we land, I think we’ll find out exactly what Dumay has in store for us.”
