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“Annie,” he said sharply. “Stay back.”

Too late. She had already seen the bodies. Dec got to his feet, ready to go to her—this was not a pretty sight and he didn’t know what to expect. But when he looked at her, what he saw was a woman holding his Glock by her side, cool acceptance in her eyes.

He reached for the gun and took it from her.

“The man with the scarf was one of my guards at the kidnapper’s camp,” she said. “The other was one of my uncle’s thugs.”

Dec nodded. The flatness of her speech, the expression on her face told him enough to make him regret he’d killed these two bastards as quickly as he had. He wanted to say something clever, something that would help her, but years of training had taken over.

This was not a time to show emotion.

It was time to get the fuck out of Dodge.

“Okay,” he said briskly. “We have to get moving.”

“What can I do to help?”

He looked over at her. She was standing straight and tall. His throat constricted. How had he gotten so lucky? She was a beautiful woman with the heart of a tigress.

To hell with training. He went to her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

“I love you,” he said. “I’ve always loved you and I always will.”

She wound her arms around his neck. “It’s the same for me,” she whispered. “I love you with all my heart.”

He held her for a moment. It was hard to let go of her, but he had no way of knowing how close on their heels the men who’d sent the scouts might be. One last quick kiss. Then he told her to fold the blanket and stuff it into his pack along with the uneaten MREs, the pot, the cup and anything else they’d left lying around while he stamped out the remnants of the fire and saddled the horse.

“That’s it,” he said moments later. “Let’s go.”

“What about the bodies?”

“No point in moving them.” A muscle knotted in Dec’s jaw. “I want whoever sent these clowns to kn

ow that this isn’t gonna be a walk in the park.”

She nodded, but what he saw in her face made him curse, go to her and take her in his arms again.

“Honey, I promise, I’m going to get you out of this.”

She buried her face against his chest. “I know you will,” she whispered.

Dec kissed her. Held her. Then he led her into the night.

CHAPTER NINE

Dec knew they were deep in the Copper Mountains.

The mountain range was enormous. He’d traveled through it before. From the air, the Coppers looked like a series of dark brown and green folds, one high ridge following the other, interspersed with plateaus and meadows and narrow valleys.

His GPS was gone, probably lost in their wild gallop away from the rescue helicopter. The best he could figure, they were twenty, twenty-five klicks west of the Syrian border, but he wasn’t comfortable taking Annie there. North would get them to Turkey. He knew a little about the area and felt better about it, but to go north they’d have to do another two, three days of riding, walking and climbing.

When they’d first set up camp, he’d walked along the base of the cliff, looking for a way to the top. After about half an hour he’d found something that only an optimist could call a path, but it would do.

He just hadn’t expected to make the climb in the dark, but he didn’t want to use his LED flashlight—why run the risk of putting an illuminated Here We Are sign over their heads?

Luckily, the sky was bright with stars and the way up looked to be no more than twenty, thirty feet.

He led the horse up the rocky slope on foot with Annie scrambling up beside him. The horse was nervous, snorting and tossing its head at the steep angle and uneven footing.