Page 14 of Dalla’s Royal Guards (Second Chance #3)

Eight

“What have you discovered?” Kramer O’Toole asked in a calm voice.

“The princes of Narva came after the old woman and the child with help from some local rebels just as we anticipated,” Detri Malinski replied.

Kramer clasped his hands behind his back and stared out the massive glass pane of his Dubai high-rise office. He had expected some type of rescue mission from the brothers, but he was extremely disappointed with the outcome. Turning, he walked back to his desk and sat down.

“Tell me what happened,” he ordered.

“My team had them cornered in the old district area. Nasser Al-Rashid was pinned down along with the nanny and child. Team 2 was engaged with Musad Al-Rashid,” Detri explained.

Kramer lifted an eyebrow and stared at the bald man standing in front of his desk. The man was dressed in a suit, a requirement to be admitted into his office. The suit was not inexpensive and fit Detri’s broad shoulders as if it had been tailor-made for him.

Detri’s face bore the pitted scars of teenage acne, etched deep into his cheeks and jawline. His silver-blue eyes were sharp and devoid of emotion.

“If your teams had them contained, then how did they escape?” he inquired with a wave of his hand for Detri to continue.

“The video from one of the vest cams best explains it,” Detri said, stepping forward. He placed his phone in front of Kramer before returning to his position in front of the black glass-and-metal desk.

Kramer’s keen eyes roved over the phone, and then he pulled a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and snapped it open before picking up the device. His caution came from necessity. Though Detri had handled the phone with his bare hands, there were a thousand ways to kill someone.

Through the thin material, he started the video. With dispassionate eyes, he watched the pursuit, listened to the heavy breathing of the man who wore the camera and those around him and the rat-ta-ta of automatic gunfire.

“What the hell?”

“Where did she come from?”

“Look out!”

Kramer paused, rewound, then froze the video again, then paused the video at the point where the gunman was standing with his weapon trained on Nasser Al-Rashid, the old woman, and the child.

The Range Rover was lying on its roof, smoke pouring from the engine.

There was a slumped figure in the front seat; it was obvious the driver was severely wounded from the blood darkening his clothing.

Nasser’s eyes glittered with rage and icy determination while the old woman and child looked terrified.

“Drop it, or the woman and child are dead!”

“I said drop it now!”

Kramer leaned forward, his eyes locked on Nasser when the man dropped his weapon but then picked something up on the ground in front of him. Whatever it was, it obviously meant something to him if he was willing to chance being shot to retrieve it.

He was about to ask Detri a question when the words died on his lips.

The merc looked up, the camera tilting at an odd angle before it caught someone standing on the undercarriage of the SUV.

He watched with fascination as whoever it was fitted an arrow into the shaft of a bow that had to be close to four-and-a-half feet long and fired in rapid succession.

He rewound the video again and again. Every time, the frames showed the same thing. There had been nothing, then a flash and the bowman.

“I want the original video sent to me at once,” he ordered.

Detri reached into his front pocket and pulled out a micro-SD card, stepped forward, and placed it in front of him. Kramer picked it up with handkerchief-clad fingers. Sitting back in his chair, he studied Detri’s face.

“I want you to find this person… and the object that Nasser Al-Rashid picked up,” he added.

“Yes, sir,” Detri said.

“Keep me informed.”

Detri bowed his head in acknowledgement and exited the office. Kramer rolled the micro-SD card between his fingers. He knew that Detri’s own tech had already reviewed the video. He wouldn’t expect anything less of the man.

He lifted his phone and pressed a button. Within seconds, his assistant knocked on the office door.

“Enter.”

A meticulous woman in her sixties entered the room.

Doris Hiller was the epitome of the perfect personal assistant with her salt-and-pepper hair swept up in an elegant chignon, neatly pressed dark gray business suit, sensible heels, and brilliant, photographic memory.

She wrote nothing down unless he requested it.

“Yes, sir.”

“Have IT perform their magic on this,” he ordered, holding out the micro-SD chip.

Doris stepped forward and extended her hand. He dropped the chip into her palm.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” she asked.

“No… Yes. Tell them it is a matter of urgency,” he said.

“Of course, sir,” Doris replied, turning and leaving the office.

He tapped his fingers on his desk, contemplating his next move.

He needed control of Kashir and the ample supply of recently discovered Vasbin, the new mineral composite that was stronger than any known metal found to date.

With Raja Hadi reclaiming power over Simdan, the new partnership between Simdan and Jawahir, and Victor and Hannibal’s failure to eliminate the royal family of Kashir, the situation was about to get very messy.

“Sir, his royal highness is on line one,” Doris said.

Kramer schooled his features and forced a smile to his lips before he picked up the receiver.

“Your Majesty, how may I be of service?”

Musad woke with a stiff neck and the dry grit of sand on his tongue. He grimaced before he glanced around. Nasser was still sound asleep , his head resting on his hands. He nudged his brother with his foot.

“Where is she?” he asked, rising stiffly to his feet.

“How am I supposed to know? You were awake before me,” Nasser growled back.

Musad ignored his brother’s smothered groan of discomfort when he rose off the hard ground and stretched. He scanned the flat area where they had spent the night. There was no trace of Dalla.

“Come on. Maybe she is down with the others,” he said.

Nasser rubbed his hands over his face and nodded. They descended the hill and crossed back to the hut. Donovan was packing one vehicle while Andre was helping Colin into a second one.

“Have you seen Dalla?” he asked.

Donovan shook his head. “No, not since she disappeared last night. Howard, do you have eyes on the woman?”

“Negative,” Howard responded.

“Michel?” Donovan asked next.

“Negative, Commander,” Michel replied.

“I saw her. She came in to say goodbye to me.”

Musad twisted when Cianna responded from the doorway. He walked over to her and squatted so that he was eye-level with her. She was holding her floppy puppy under one arm and the unicorn that Nasser had given her the day before under the other.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She told me everything would be alright. She said you and Uncle Nasser and the other men would keep Nanna and me safe,” Cianna said.

“Did she say where she was going?” Nasser asked.

Cianna tilted her head, confused. “She said she was going home. Did you make her mad? Is that why she didn’t say goodbye to you?”

“No, she just… she must have forgotten to tell us,” Nasser replied with a strained smile. Then he looked at Musad with a puzzled expression. “Home? Norway?” he asked.

Musad rose and shook his head. “No, she was insistent about visiting the mountains along the border.”

“How? Every vehicle’s still here,” Donovan said.

“She wouldn’t try to walk that far, would she? It has to be at least a hundred kilometers from here!” Nasser muttered.

“If what she told us is true, she would be used to slow methods of travel. Her first lifetime would have had walking or horses, and we don’t have any horses.” Musad pointed out.

“You believe her?”

Musad’s eyes narrowed slightly as he considered his brother’s question, and then he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if I—or we—believe it. What matters is—she believes it.”

“We need to leave if we are going to meet up with the helicopter,” Donovan warned.

“Let’s move out,” Musad instructed, but he paused when his brother gripped his arm.

“What about Dalla?”

“Once Nanna and Cianna are in the air and safe, we will go after her,” Musad replied.

Nasser gave his brother a stiff nod and turned to Donovan. “What is the ETA on the helicopter?”

“They are in flight. ETA is forty-five minutes. It doesn’t give us much time to reach the rendezvous spot,” Donovan answered.

“She couldn’t have gotten far. We may find her on our way since we are heading in the same direction. Move out,” Musad ordered.

Dalla knew she had taken the coward’s way out by slipping away after Musad and Nasser had fallen asleep, but she had left out of a sense of desperation.

They were awakening emotions inside her that she thought had been laid to rest long ago—and more besides, because the fact that they were alive was a testament that love was not eternal.

Her emotions were rocketing back and forth between disillusionment, despair, and plain old jealous rage.

Gerold and Pascal had ‘moved on’ after her death.

“Moved on and had a life and children!” she growled under her breath.

She kicked a stone in her path and sent it bouncing. She knew she was being irrational. She should be grateful the two men she’d once loved so fiercely had found happiness. It would never have worked out, anyway.

A distant, unfamiliar noise broke through her wayward thoughts and caused her to look up.

She had never heard the sound before. It was reminiscent of a bird’s flight, but sounded far too large to be one.

A dark speck appeared on the horizon, coming in from the mountainous region she was focused on reaching.

As the spec grew larger, so did her anxiety.