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“Not fit for royalty,” he said, “but it’s the best we’ve got.”

His men were all staring at him. Too bad. If they thought he sounded like he had a ramrod up his ass, fuck ’em.

He had a job to do and he was doing it.

“Okay,” he said briskly. “Olivieri, you take point. Maguire, you’re second. Mr. Ambassador, you’re next and after you, your wife.”

“My wife can walk with me,” the ambassador said. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

Dec decided not to argue. He’d prefer them all in single file—it would be a little harder to take them out that way—but the woman looked as if she’d never make it on her own.

“Fine. Sullivan, you’re behind the ambassador and his wife. Princess, you’re in back of Sullivan. Spanos, you’re next. Then Romano. I’ll take up the rear. Clear?”

They all nodded, shrugged on their packs and shouldered their weapons.

“I’m figuring an hour to reach the ridgeline, then a five minute break. No stopping for anything after that. We have to make the extraction point by oh six hundred. So let’s go.”

The break would be for the civilians. The Unit could keep going for hours, even on this terrain, a narrow, rocky game trail through increasingly dense forest.

There was an easier route and Dec hoped the bandits would assume that was the one they’d chosen. Add in that the camp probably wouldn’t stir for another hour or even two, top that off with Maguire and Romano having disabled as many of the bandits’ vehicles as they could, and STUD One and its rescued hostages had a good head start.

The big question was how quickly the bandits would communicate with the others who’d want to find them—Annie’s uncle, the Tharsalonians, Altair Amjad. Almost anybody could be coming after them, but Dec could only operate on what he knew.

So, yeah, this climb was safer.

It was also a hell of a lot rougher.

Ten minutes in, the ambassador’s wife dropped to her knees. Her husband got her on her feet and put his arm around her. Alex Spanos stepped up on her other side and draped her arm around his neck.

“Easy, Mrs. Carson,” he said gently. “We’ve got you.”

Dec’s job as last man was to check what might be happening behind them. So far, so good. There was no sign of anybody, no sounds carrying to them on the still air.

They were making decent time.

Annie was still going strong.

He watched her as she struggled up a particularly steep stretch of ground. Sullivan looked back and offered her his hand, but she waved it away.

Dec wasn’t really surprised. He knew she was strong. And courageous. One day in California, she’d asked him if he knew how to surf and when he’d said yeah, he did, her eyes had lit.

“Will you teach me?” she’d asked.

He’d been hesitant. She was small. Delicate. And the waves on the beach he surfed were sometimes towering. But she’d been persistent and finally he’d taken her out with him, showed her the basics on a board he’d borrowed for her—and damn if she hadn’t gotten the hang of it quickly enough to ride a couple of good-size waves, laughing with joy as she did, not complaining or even showing fear the times she got dumped.

Afterwards, back at his place, she’d gone into the bathroom to shower. She’d emerged wearing his terrycloth robe. He’d laughed when he saw her. He was six feet two to her, what, five feet four. The robe had been like a tent on her, hanging to her feet, the sleeves rolled up, the sheer size of it swallowing up her sweet curves.

“What?” she’d said, with mock indignation, and he’d grabbed the lapels of the robe and tugged her into his arms, and she’d laughed with him until their eyes met and, slowly, God, slowly he’d reached out, opened the robe and for the first time saw her, all of her, naked and rosy and so beautiful it had almost killed him not to touch her…

Dec shuddered.

They were at the ridgeline.

“Take five,” he said, his voice hoarse.

The men, trained to making the most of every second of downtime, shrugged off their packs and sat wherever they could find a reasonably comfortable spot.

Dec dumped his pack as well and headed for the ambassador and his wife.