Page 40 of Her Fearless Warrior

Linc stepped back four feet from the house and looked upward. The lights were on. He saw shadows against the curtains. It was easy to tell that it was a man and a woman. For a split second, his heart dropped. Then he smiled.

“Vugar has a woman with him. The way she’s wound around him, I’d say she’s willing, so not Katherine or Leila,” Linc whispered into his mic.

The man was occupied. He couldn’t hope for anything better.

“Last resort is questioning him. Try to find the women and get the fuck out of there without being noticed.” Gideon said.

“Thanks for pointing out the obvious,” Jase responded.

Linc rolled his neck, then went back to checking for cameras and peeking into every window that he could. He had to stop when he got to the courtyard. It was covered in flagstone and was used more as a parking area. There were no bushes in the front, just some tall cypress trees that were planted beside the courtyard.

“Jase, I’m going to check out the windows up front. I can do the climbing. Check out to see if there are any keys in the Humvees.”

“Gotcha.” Linc heard the smile in his teammate’s voice. They were on the same page. If they could find a set of keys, they could use one of the Humvees to get the fuck out of here. All it would take would be for them to take out the other vehicles so they couldn’t follow. It was possible.

“Found one,” Jase whispered, as Linc was looking into the third-floor front window. He saw a hallway with a man in front of a door. He was almost asleep. Obviously, he was guarding Vugar’s bedroom door. No hostages there.

He continued to move sideways across the front of the building and ended up on one of the balconies. He looked in, hoping that maybe he would find Leila and Katherine. What he found was a guard who was smoking weed.

“I found one to question,” Linc said into his mic. “In the room with the balcony.”

He slid in through the balcony’s French doors. The guard didn’t even notice. Linc took out his all-purpose tool and flipped open the small knife. It would have to do.

He went up behind the guard and gripped him around his neck. He pointed the knife just under his eye, pushing in so that he could feel the tip.

“Jase, he’s in the mood to talk. Where are you?”

“I’m here.”

Linc turned around a little with the guard still in his arms. “Nice move, Linc.” His words came out like he’d eaten rocks for breakfast.

Then Jase took out his own all-purpose tool and pulled out the small knife. He made quick work of the man’s pants and jerked them down to his ankles. He pressed the knife against his scrotum.

Both he and Jase were silent for a while. Then the man started to cry. He started to whisper words.

Jase held up his hand. He started talking. It was obvious he was asking questions. The man kept shaking his head. Jase’s knife pushed in and blood dripped to the floor. The man was sobbing. A spate of Arabic came out of his mouth. Jase took away the knife and smiled.

“Knock him out, Linc. With the weed and his bleeding balls, he should be out for hours.”

Linc hit the guard in his temple and he fell to the ground. They both made quick work of tying him up and shoving a doily they found on a fancy-assed chair into his mouth.

“We need to go out the same way we came in. The women are outside,” Jase said.

“Outside?”

“There’s a hole in the middle of the courtyard. It’s covered by a grate. They’re in there.”

“What are you talking about?” Linc wanted to know.

“Apparently there is some kind of hole cut into the flagstone that Vugar puts people in when he’s pissed at them. He does it to guards that fuck up. Now he has two women in there.”

Jase and Linc went to the balcony and crouched down so that could view the courtyard. They used their binoculars so that they could pinpoint where the grate was.

“Found it,” Linc said as he pointed.

It wasn’t near anything. It was away from the gate, the staircase to the entry, and the garage. Instead, it was near what Linc thought might be a path that would lead to the shed that he had seen on his trip around the house.

“There’s a lot of cover to get to them,” Jase said.