Page 95 of Out of Control

The guilt. The remorse. The sense of failure. The stain on both of their careers—

It had been Akaba—and Hamza—all along. Hamza had known he and his cell were under surveillance the whole time. No wonder they hadn’t given away any hint of their plan to blow up the Grand Med.

“It wasn’t our fault,” Spencer breathed.

Drago stared back at him. “Not the bombing. Not those deaths. But maybe we should have figured out Akaba was a double agent—”

“Drago. Don’t borrow guilt. We had no way of knowing. We were supposed to trust the people we worked with. We had no reason to be suspicious of Akaba. Don’t beat yourself up at this late date. We did nothing wrong.”

“Whoa. Captain Guiltoholic just uttered those words?” Drago mumbled in a feeble attempt at humor.

Spencer leaned over and grabbed Dray’s shoulders, giving him a little shake. “It wasn’t our fault!”

“Here’s another thought for you,” Drago said slowly. “What if it was Akaba who got you pulled from your team and sent out here after me?”

“You mean he was teeing up both of us for Hamza to take down?” Spencer blurted.

“It would make sense.”

“Sonofabitch.”

They stared grimly at each other.

“Okay, then,” Spencer breathed. “We take the bastards out once and for all. Both of them.”

Drago raised the wine bottle in a toast. “To redemption.” A pause. “And revenge.”

Spencer grinned. “There’s my guy. Bloodthirsty to the end.”

Drago wielded the half-eaten baguette like a sword. “He’ll pay. After I’m done with Hamza, he’ll pay.”

Damn. Spencer needed Drago’s full attention on the mission at hand. They could go after double agents later, after they got back to Washington and got Drago’s legal problems sorted out. “But first, Hamza. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

They sat in the dark through the evening, mostly silent, lost in their own thoughts. If Dray’s thought process was running anything like his, they were both rewriting the history of the past ten years in their minds, taking into account the bombshell revelation that Hamza’s mole had been their handler all those years ago.

They took turns sleeping and keeping watch through the night. For his part, Spencer spent his turns alternating looking outside and glancing down at Drago sleeping beside him. He barely restrained an urge to lean down and kiss those lips, to run his fingers through that unruly hair, to make love to that magnificent body.

When he thought of his future beyond the military, Drago was definitely front and center in that picture.

They had to draw out Hamza and take down the man once and for all, or else the bastard would keep coming for Drago until one of them died. Tomorrow night was all about his and Drago’s future. Together.

He made a promise to himself: when this was over, he would go away for a good long time with Drago and lose himself in the man. For it was with Drago that he’d truly found himself.

First thing the next morning, they headed out to the back of the property and texted GPS coordinates of the hut to all the contacts on the burner phones. They set the rendezvous time at midnight, and now they had to wait.

And to wonder if this plan would work.

And to pray that Jabril Hamza was on the other end of one of those phones or that Akaba would contact Hamza with a report on where his two nemeses were waiting for a final showdown.

Chapter Eighteen

DRAGO WASmore eager for midnight to arrive than he could believe. Usually he was in no rush for a dangerous confrontation. But tonight he was jonesing to see Jabril Hamza’s face. In his gunsight.

“Easy does it, champ,” Spencer murmured. “I can see your jumpiness all the way over here.”

They’d split up, one on either side of the hut. They’d spent the morning practicing shooting and zeroing in their weapon sights. As it turned out, Drago was nearly as good a sniper as Spencer was, out to about six hundred yards. Using that as a guide, they’d spent the early afternoon clearing out brush and low branches, opening up sight lines that went out in a half-dozen directions from the hut to about six hundred yards.

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