Page 43 of Her Fearless Warrior

“Why are we stopping?” Leila wanted to know.

“There’s one more member of our team.”

“I know you, don’t I?” Leila stared hard at Linc’s face. “You were in Turkey. In Batman when we were working on that situation with Damla Akbas.” Leila twisted her neck so she could look at Jase. “And you were there too.”

“Good to see you again, Ms. Cloud. Sorry we couldn’t get to you sooner,” Jase said as he brought the Humvee to a halt.

* * *

Leila felt like Alice must have after she fell down the rabbit hole. That seemed like the best comparison, all things considered. How was it the same men she had worked with over a year ago were now in Syria saving her ass?

Does it matter?

Katherine moaned and Leila cringed. She hated what things had come to, and all because she agreed to work with Elijah, and she hadn’t given Vugar the information he wanted.

The right back door opened and another man from Turkey got into the car. Gideon. He nodded at her. He shoved what looked like a computer tablet underneath his body armor and threw two white kaftans up at Linc, then he turned to her. “How are you doing, Leila?”

“Better now. I’m worried about Katherine.”

“I see you have her laid out on the console,” Gideon said, referring to the wide flat space between the driver and passenger seat that extended back between the two backseats. “Can you tell me what her status is?”

“She’s been unconscious for five hours.” Leila had checked the time on Katherine’s watch when she’d finally passed out. “I told Linc,” she looked back up to the passenger seat, “that’s you underneath all that mud, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I’m Lincoln Hart, and the driver is Jase Drakos.”

“And I’m Gideon. I’m thinking you remembered me since I’m not covered in mud,” he teased.

Leila gave a short laugh and nodded. Then she turned her attention back to Katherine. “Are you a medic?”

“No, none of us are, but we have had basic medic training. Tell us what’s happened.” Gideon had his fingers to Katherine’s neck, looking at his watch. He was obviously checking her pulse.

“Yesterday, at about noon, she developed excruciating pain from her sciatic nerve. We’d been standing up since we’d been put in the hole. We would lean against the wall and each other. It was too filthy to sit down.”

Gideon moved from Katherine’s head and sat back down in his seat.

“How’s her pulse?” Leila asked.

“Low and thready. I got forty-five beats per minute. I took it twice.”

“After her pain started, then what happened?” Gideon asked.

“She had to kind of lie down. There wasn’t much room, so she sat down and stretched her legs. The pain got steadily worse, and I tried massaging her thigh. That helped for a little bit, then it started to make things worse.”

“Understood. There isn’t much you can do without medicine,” Gideon said.

“When it got dark, her body started jerking. She couldn’t control it. It wasn’t a stroke. She was still talking, but she’d have involuntary jerks. Then one was so bad she passed out. But the jerks continued, and one seemed like a true convulsion. No, I mean it was a true convulsion. What little saliva she did have bubbled out of her mouth. By that time, the rain had stopped, and she was slumped over. There was so much water in the hole that I had to crouch down and put her head in my lap. I’m not sure how long that was. The next thing I knew, I heard Linc calling down to me.”

Gideon nodded. “We’ll get you both to safety.”

“Guys, pull over and put on the robes. According to Rankin over at the base, the al-Assad government is for real about this shutdown. Humvees are normal, but not driven by muddy Americans.”

Jase stopped the Humvee and yanked the bigger kaftan out of Linc’s hand. “This time, you can look like a sausage.” They both shimmied into the robes, then Jase got to driving.

* * *

It took about twenty minutes for Leila to go to sleep. Linc twisted his head to look back at her. She looked nothing like the buttoned-up professional he’d met in Turkey, but she was just as gorgeous. Maybe even more gorgeous, knowing a little bit of what she’d gone through and she kept her head and didn’t give up.

“She’s out,” Linc whispered. “Who have you been in contact with?” he asked Gideon.