Page 8 of Her Fearless Warrior

She grabbed her abdomen. “My baby.” Another phrase she mispronounced, but it was enough for the kid’s eyes to widen.

She did not know if this ploy would work, but she prayed it would.

“Please help me,” she said in English.

The kid put his cell phone back in his pants pocket. He looked frightened. He pointed his gun at Landry, then pointed to the back of the room, clearly telling him to go away and join the others. Landry ran faster than The Flash, his bloody gut wobbling all the way.

The kid bent down in front of Leila and reached out with his left hand, not quite touching her, but obviously freaked out.

It was the chance she needed. She grabbed that hand and yanked, rolling so that her legs could get into position to kick the kid’s gut. In one smooth move, she yanked his arm that wasn’t holding his weapon and pushed up on the kid’s stomach so that he went up and over her head and landed on his back. Before he had a chance to do anything more than grunt in surprise, Felix was there to stab the knife into his jugular, spraying blood all over himself.

Annie shrieked softly.

“Really?” Leila shook her head. “I’m covered in blood.”

“Did he yell for help?” Felix asked. “No, he didn’t.”

“We need a plan.” Leila said grimly.

“What we need to do is to negotiate with the terrorists. That’s what I do best,” Landry blustered. He stepped over the third dead man in the hollowed-out board room. “That’s the reason I was brought here. Let me take care of things. Leila, you need to come with me and translate.”

She looked at him. Her job was to keep everybody in the dark. Nobody was supposed to know what the actual mission was. Supposedly, they were there to do business with al-Assad’s government here in Syria so that their economy could be helped, thus helping thousands of displaced and starving nationals.

Yeah, like America would do this kind of business with al-Assad that would be lining his pockets. The US had their AID program that ensured the Syrian people directly got the food and medical care they needed, totally keeping al-Assad out of the loop. Leila was still amazed that Landry had bought into this bullshit story, but he had. She was pretty sure that Katherine saw through the bullshit, but she was on board because she and Elijah had a past together. Anyway, it was because of those two that it had been so easy for them to come to Damascus and do their actual business and that was to negotiate the release of four Americans who had been living through hell in Syrian prisons for what must seem like eternity.

Katherine had ripped down one of the curtains and had torn it up and was using it to help Felix wipe off the blood that had sprayed on him.

“Here, Leila, you need to clean up as well. Besides the blood…”

That was when she remembered that Nottingham had been shot right beside her, and she had been sprayed with… with…

Never mind. Put it away. Think about it some other time.

“Thanks, Katherine.” Leila gratefully took the cloth and wiped up. She didn’t look at what was coming off her face, hair, and neck. She didn’t want to know.

“Now that you look more presentable, let’s go.”

Leila looked at Felix, who was checking out the dead man’s AK-47. It’s what she would do too, not trusting that it was in good working order. Felix was also grabbing all the ammunition he could from the dead man’s body.

“I’ve got another knife. You want it, Leila?” Felix asked.

“Give it here,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Are you crazy?” Landry said, looking at Felix. “Why would you give her a knife? Give it to me. Give me the rifle, too. Back home, I’m a hunter. Even been on safari twice. I know what I’m doing.”

Felix continued to check the body for anything else that might be helpful. He pulled out the cellphone and tossed it to Leila. “Is it password-protected?” he asked.

Leila looked at the old-fashioned flip phone and smiled. She opened it and smiled grimly. “No password. There are even pictures beside the names. I’d say we hit pay dirt.”

“Quit talking about the goddamned phone and give me the rifle. We need to show strength. I need the rifle to go down to those assholes and tell them who’s in charge.”

Leila looked over at Felix. He’d been a dark horse since their little group had shown up together in Germany. Elijah had clearly been their leader. He’d provided brief biographies of each player. Of course, Robert Landry had expanded his.

Pompous asshole.

Leila was the translator and a perpetual student. Supposedly, she knew Arabic and English and had been translating for over eight years.

Full stop.