Page 93 of Rescuing You

“Should I have a codename? Maverick. You can call me Maverick.”

“I’ll call you Moron, like always.”

“Ha. That would make you Putz.”

Michael couldn’t help smiling at the Grumpy Old Men reference. If Derrick could see him in his geriatric disguise, he’d roll over laughing.

“Oh,” Michael said, back to business, “could you get your hands on a paper map of Munich?”

That earned a long pause. “Ever heard of GPS?”

“Can you order one off Amazon? Or go to a travel agency?” By the time this was over, he was going to owe Derrick a lot more than the cost of a map. “We need it on the plane, if you can.”

“Anything else, Your Highness? Tibetan sea salts to soak your feet? Peruvian pumice stones? A venti macchiato from Starbucks?”

He wouldn’t say no to the last suggestion. “Let me know your ETA. We’ll do our best to beat you to Mytilene, but we might not.”

“Hey, bro?” All amusement leached from Derrick’s voice. “Be careful. Mom and Dad don’t need any more heartache.”

“Always am. See you tomorrow.” He ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket.

Getting his little brother to fly his Cessna to Greece—that was the easy part. Telling Leila the plan…

Better hurry and rip off that Band-Aid.

A few minutes later, Michael let himself into his hotel room, closed and locked the door, and toed off his shoes, leaving the annoying pebble inside. Unfortunately, he’d need it again.

One thing he liked about Antalya—the prices. At less than a hundred bucks a night, he hadn’t had high hopes for this place. Turned out to be a pretty fancy hotel, practically brand new, all modern and shiny with tile floors and lightly stained woodwork—nothing to distract from the view beyond the sliding glass doors and narrow balcony. From his sixth-floor room, he could see for miles. Sandy beaches, a marina, a few boats, some whizzing past, some meandering. Parasailing tourists drifted by.

Not a bad place to rest after driving all night. Before that, sleeping on a lumpy sofa in a dingy apartment in Baghdad. And in a crate.

And before that, collapsing in a cave, just lucky he didn’t bleed out in his sleep.

Speaking of…

He hit the restroom, lifted his old-man style button-down plaid shirt, and removed the gauze he’d applied that morning after his shower. The stab wound was healing. He dabbed on more antibacterial ointment. There was no puffy red skin indicating an infection, and he wanted it to stay that way. He protected the wound with fresh gauze and wrapped the bandage around it again.

The injury hardly hurt, as long as he took ibuprofen every four hours.

He knocked a couple of tablets back now, washing them down with tap water.

Back in the bedroom, he plugged the flash drive he’d bought into his laptop, loaded it with the script Alyssa had sent, and shoved it into the port on the terrorist’s laptop.

The light flickered, so it was doing something. Hopefully, eventually, it would give him access.

He knocked on the door to the sisters’ room.

It swung open. At the sight of him, Jasmine gasped and backed away.

Whoops.

“It’s me.” He lifted his hands in the universal sign of not gonna hurt you. “It’s Michael. Sorry.”

Leila walked toward him from the far side of the room.

Both women studied him through narrowed eyes—like a lab specimen. Which made sense, considering he looked like an eighty-year-old man.

“Michael?” Leila said. “How did you…?”