Page 34 of Edge of Danger

They jumped up and ran like bats out of hell for the scant cover of the boulder. He noted that she knew to zigzag and make herself a harder target to hit. He dived behind the rock just as another volley of gunfire exploded behind them. From the direction of the driveway.

“Gotta be the white guys who went into the house after the Palestinian left,” he muttered tightly.

A distressed look crossed Piper’s face. Under her breath, she muttered, “They had betternotbe shooting at me.” Louder, pitched for him to hear, she suggested, “Maybe it’s locals who don’t appreciate foreigners poking around.”

Doubtful. Despite being on the wrong side of a violently disputed border, this place was out in the middle of nowhere.

She asked low, “How much ammo have you got?”

“Not enough for a gunfight. You?”

She pulled a pistol out of a holster in the small of her back. “Two partial clips. Call it twenty rounds.”

“How are you at stealth evasion?”

“I guess we’re about to find out,” she replied wryly.

Good point. They couldn’t sit here and get picked off like sitting ducks. He held up his fist and gave her the signal to move out.

8

Thank God Ian had stopped creeping around in the bush for a second. Breathing heavily, Piper tried to have a heart attack quietly, but feared she was failing.

Why had the PHP guys Ian had spotted—for surely he’d seen the same two men she’d already spotted behind them—set the house on fire? And furthermore,whyhad they stuck around to shoot at her and Ian? Had they gotten orders to make sure nobody put out the fire?

If so,whogave the order? And why would the Americans follow orders from anyone associated with that nightmare lab in the basement?

For all the PHP guys knew, she and Ian had been innocent passersby who’d only gone into the burning house to make sure no one was trapped inside.

Right. Because anyone innocent would happen to be strolling past a hidden lab in the middle of freaking nowhere. If one of the most dangerous countries on earth could properly be classed ‘nowhere.’

She could not wait to get her thumb drive and those dead mice back to a lab and figure out what had been going on in that secret lab. Memory of bloodshot, dead eyes staring accusingly ather, nearly made her wretch. Fatima said El Noor was shipping girls with hemorrhagic fevers south. To die horribly and end up in body bags? Why?

The lab equipment in the basement gave credence to the idea that someone was researching hemorrhagic diseases. To what end? And why would the Patrick Henry Patriots give a damn?

The only possible answers she could think of frankly made her stomach want to heave.

She flashed a hand signal at Ian asking if they could talk aloud.

He shook his head in the negative. Paranoid, much? Not that she was in any position to cast stones at him for that just now. He’d saved her life for crying out loud.

She wouldn’t have had any idea the house was on fire until the ceiling fell in. And knowing her luck, she would’ve been elbow deep in those body bags when the roof caved in on them. An involuntary shudder rippled through her. Sheesh. That had been way too close a call.

Something slithered away into the weeds no more than three feet from her nose and she lurched hard against Ian. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

She was never, ever, crawling around on her belly in the African bush again. She’d seen more gigantic, creepy bugs—and snakes—and lizards—nose-to-nose today than she ever cared to, again. Knowing Africa, most of them were wickedly venomous, too.

Her throat was parched and the back of her neck must look like boiled lobster. She stifled a cough against the inside of her elbow for the hundredth time—she was still hocking up phlegm after inhaling all that smoke.

The bottoms of Ian’s boots disappeared around yet another clump of the local sawgrass that had already sliced her cheeks ahalf-dozen times this afternoon. She followed grimly, hesitating to imagine how it was possible to be any more miserable than this, lest she jinx herself into finding out.

Ian rose to a crouch in front of her and a sharp knife of hope stabbed through her. Please God, let this be the end of their ankle-high safari. He scanned in a 360-circle around them through his infrared goggles and gestured her to stand up beside him.

Praise the Lord and pass the potatoes.

He put his mouth on her ear to whisper, “My Jeep’s just ahead. I think our shooters have left the area.”

Grateful nearly to tears, she followed him behind a big clump of scrub and climbed into the passenger seat of his Jeep. She had no idea where her motorcycle was at this point. She wished it and whoever found it godspeed. Ian started the engine, but more importantly, he turned the air conditioner on full blast.

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