Page 61 of Wait for Me

Logan stumbled across the carpet toward Marie, but before he could reach her, Marie lunged forward and pinned him to the floor.

Logan heard gunfire. He closed his eyes.

He heard more gunfire, and then a thud.

He opened his eyes to see a man wearing night vision goggles sprawled out on the floor.

“Get up.” Marie rolled off Logan, and pulled him out of the stateroom.

In the hallway, at least twenty feet away, more security personnel had assembled in the nook where they served snacks and morning buffet.

“Logan needs medical attention.” Marie pointed to his left arm.

Someone nodded and radioed the ship’s medical center.

“You’re coming with me, right?” Logan asked.

“Soon. Zaid needs help.” Marie surprised Logan with her answer.

“Zaid?” So their rescuers were Aliyah’s bodyguards?

How did Marie recognize him behind his mask?

How well did Marie know Zaid?

A question for later.

Someone ran down the hallway toward them, his handguns by his side. It was Aliyah’s third bodyguard.

Marie said something to him.

It sounded like Arabic.

Logan remembered that Marie had translated Arabic into French and English before. Which led him to wonder how much interaction Marie had with Zaid.

A small wrinkle of jealousy gripped Logan’s heart.

Logan heard the name Omar, and guessed that it could be the bodyguard’s name. He did not understand the rest of their back-and-forth in Arabic. The conversation ended when the bodyguard handed Marie two guns that somehow appeared out of his flak jacket.

Logan thought it was odd that the man trusted Marie with his weapons. Did he know who Marie was?

More than Logan knew?

Marie turned to one of the ship’s security personnel who looked about the same size as she was. “Your vest, please.”

Logan’s heart beat faster. He didn’t want her to die. “Marie?”

“Pray, Logan.” And she followed Omar down the hall, back into her stateroom.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

By the time Marie and Omar returned to her stateroom, Zaid and his bodyguards had made a short work of the carnage. Gruffy was dead. So were his two accomplices and the second trio of assailants who had arrived via jetpacks.

Marie caught the end of the mess at the moment when Zaid kicked the handgun out of Gruffy’s arm and stabbed his neck with a twisted blade.

When it came to close-contact combat, Marie had never seen anyone else better than the Zaid’s men. She was impressed, and slightly scared at the same time. Her own Krav Maga training seemed like child’s play compared to what Zaid had.

Maybe she could ask him to teach her how to disarm Buchanan’s men that quickly. It was like Zaid had superhuman powers—either that, or Buchanan had sent rookies into the fight.

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