Page 57 of Hot Intent

That startled her. Why was military intelligence trying to hold on to her? Someone must have reported her presence here up the chain of command, and an order must’ve come back down the chain of command to keep her in custody.

What she didn’t understand, though, was why they appeared not to want her and Alex to see each other.

She asked pleasantly, “Did the intel officer also tell you not to let me see Doctor Peters?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The guy sounded deeply relieved to confess that. As if she would now cooperate fully with him. She snorted mentally. Wild horses were not going to keep her away from Alex.

“Are they interrogating him?” she asked lightly.

“I don’t think so. Last I heard, he was at the hospital.”

“Is he hurt?” she demanded sharply.

“Not that I’m aware of. They killed the guy with him, but he’s all right.”

What guy? Why did Alex come in with someone? And why had the Americans killed that someone? The mystery deepened.

One thing was for sure. She was getting out of here and finding Alex as soon as she could figure out a way to do it.

She sighed in feigned resignation. “Okay, so I’m supposed to stay here until further notice. Is there anywhere I could maybe lie down for a while? It’s been a rough couple of days and I’m exhausted.”

“We’ve got a break room with a couch in it. I’ll show you where it is.”

She followed the soldier docilely down the hall and made sure to give the guy a big yawn as she stretched out on the couch. Oh, Lord, it felt good to lie down. She suspected that were it not for the stim pill Alex had given her, she would be unable to move right about now. As it was, exhaustion tugged at her, coaxing her to close her eyes for just a few minutes.

The guy turned out the lights and pulled the door shut for her. She figured he would give her a little while to fall asleep before he would think about peeking in to check on her. Which meant she had to go right now.

She opened the window behind the couch and was relieved to discover it was properly greased and slid up silently. She had to push out the screen and winced at faint screech it made as she got rid of it.

She climbed out and awkwardly hung onto the sill with both hands. It was a drop of about twelve feet. She took a deep breath and let go.

Ouch! She’d landed in a bush that poked the heck out of her. She bit her lips to keep from making any sound as she extricated herself from the attack bush.

Now, to find Alex.

Hospital. Where was the base hospital? She figured it would have emergency power, so she headed for the nearest lit building at a jog. Unfortunately, it turned out to be some sort of operations center. She picked the next nearest building with lights and headed for it.

A few Jeeps passed by. She dived for cover when she had time, and when she didn’t, she pretended to be out for a late-night jog and waved jauntily at the drivers. Without exception, they whistled or called back. Not many girls in these parts, apparently.

The third lit building, sitting high on a hill overlooking the bay, turned out to be the hospital. The orderly at the front deskwas completely unwilling to grant her access to the building, however. Unlike Alex, she was a terrible liar, and worse, she was too tired to come up with a brilliant lie on the spot.

She finally retreated from the front entrance and made her way around the far side of the building to the emergency room entrance. She crouched outside in the dark to ponder what illness or injury she was most likely to succeed at faking.

A police car was parked in front of the emergency room’s double doors, and as she failed to think of anything halfway believable, a military cop stepped outside. Two more cops came out, hustling a fourth man along between them.

Oh my God. Alex. And it looked like he was under arrest.

The car pulled out from under the portico and she ran after it. Of course, she couldn’t keep up with the speeding vehicle, but she did see that it went back to the first lit building—the operations center.

Cursing under her breath, she jogged back that way.

Now what?

Alex stared at the walls of the holding cell and could scream in frustration. He’d gotten to the very end of the tests before the cops—led by the lab tech from before—barged in and bodily dragged him out of the lab.

At least he’d managed to turn off the chromatograph and erase the results it had recorded before he powered it down. He’d swallowed the tiny flash drive he’d saved the test results on and prayed the Marines didn’t see him do it before they grabbed him.

Why would the Americans stop him from completing those tests? Wouldn’t they be eager to know if the Cubans weresecretly storing chemical weapons close by? Not to mention they’d been smuggled out of the Middle East? It made no sense, whatsoever.

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