Enemy Mine (The Base Branch Series Book 1) Read online

  She could only blink as more men rushed from the apartment across the hall. Three, plus the lug on top of her. Through the pain, she tried to kick free, but her legs and right arm were pinned. The midnight-black skin of a forearm levered from her chest to the lee of her chin, limiting her intake of air. Bad position. Bad timing. Bad all the way around.

  Rather than fight, Sloan relaxed.

  “That’s right, bitch,” the big man said with a thick African accent. “Submit.”

  Yeah, right.

  Relaxed, her middle finger stretched enough to reach the blade in her sheath. Swiftly, she slid the blade out, fisted it, and rammed the metal between the man’s ribs. His bellow vibrated her eardrum, but before she could push him off the muzzle of a pistol pressed into her temple.

  His voice was deep. The one from the radio. The one from her memories, but different. So different. “Don’t move.”

  She couldn’t see Baine. The pressure of the gun held her head in place. Trapped between a thug and a bullet, she couldn’t fight. She couldn’t avenge her parents. Couldn’t stop the bad guys. This was not the way things were supposed to end, but it didn’t look like there was much hope for that now. Rage and loss filled her as it had in the days after the schoolhouse attacks, as it had before Baine had shown her hope in the life she had.

  The man atop her wheezed as blood filled his lungs. “Shoot her,” he gargled.

  The barrel lifted from her skin and everything went dark.

  6

  Blood and brain matter dripped down the walls. Pooled on the polyester carpet. “Son of a bitch,” came a familiar voice. It pitched higher than she ever recalled it doing and took on a panicked quality. The room blurred in a swirl of whites and reds then went dark. The room quaked. A sharp pain reflexively tightened her jaw and brought forth a drunken, unwelcome consciousness.

  Dead eyes stared back as Sloan opened her eyes again. A warm breeze stifled the air, but she breathed easier than before the earthquake. But then it happened again. The room shook, jarring her tender body. She wanted to curl into a ball. She wanted to sleep for a week. Fatigue weighted each limb. Even her fingers refused to move. Reality pricked the thick veil of fog as again the room convulsed, only it wasn’t the room moving. Something moved her. Hands. Two hands explored her sternum. They trailed over her chest then up her neck.

  The need to move, to defend herself, was so strong the haze lifted in an instant. Pain or not, Sloan turned her head to find her assailant. Instead she met the tightly drawn face of Ryan Noble.

  “Slo?” The question in his tone told her she was in a world of trouble. Oh God. Everything came back in a whir. Oh God. Were her brains scattered across the floor like all the others? How could she see Ryan? Hear him? Feel the warmth of his touch? Was she paralyzed?

  Panic had her scrambling. Dizziness hit the moment her head moved. Still she continued feebly, making little headway.

  Ryan’s hand shot out. “Whoa, take it easy.”

  She clamped onto his arm and clawed her way up off the blood soaked floor, and practically onto his back.

  “Jesus,” he said. “You must be okay, because you’re stubborn as ever. Here, let me help.” His other arm cradled her back and he pulled her to her knees.

  Sloan slumped over him. Her face rested on the back of his neck. One arm looped over his shoulder and under his opposite pit. Her other arm draped his back and both her hands clutched his vest. One ragged sob escaped her lips before the question that wrought it from her did as well. “Are my brains on the floor?”

  He hugged her tight. “No.”

  But his clipped tone told her there was more to the story. “Tell me,” she demanded.

  “You’re covered in blood and it’s fucking everywhere. I swear to God, I thought you were dead. I just... I...need to check you out. I need to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re gonna have to let me go, so I can do it.”

  “Okay,” she said, but didn’t move. Just clutched her only lifeline.

  Ryan loosened his hold around her waist. “Let me take a look.”

  Reluctantly Sloan slid back to the floor. Sitting this time, she took in the aftermath of the room for the first real time. Four bodies littered the perimeter. All four were head shot. Their limbs lay in contorted positions about their middles. The guy who lay next to them was the one who tackled her. The one she killed.

  The table sat empty to her right, gun missing. Baine was missing too. Several things didn’t follow logic.

  Surprise. Surprise.

  All business, Ryan asked, “Where do you hurt?”

  She winced when Ryan prodded her skull, but ignored his question for one of her own. “Did you…do this?”

  “The men? No. I heard the sniper shot. Four pistol shots followed in rapid succession. When I got here—”

  “Is Bakou dead?”

  “Yes. Died after they put him in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Which is where you’re going. You’ve at least got a concussion, if not a fractured skull.”

  “It’s not fractured,” she dismissed, swatting his hand away. “Where’s Baine? I know he was here. He held the pistol to my head. I thought...”

  Ryan’s fist bumped her shoulder. The featherlight gesture didn’t jar. “You’re okay. Thank holy hell.” His jaw worked before he answered her question. “The gun and Kendrick were both gone when I arrived. The other units went after him, but turned up nothing. Fucker vanished.”

  “Why’d he kill his men?”

  “He knew we were on him. Maybe he didn’t want anyone getting caught and talking. Maybe they weren’t his men.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Say he’s tired of being the errand boy. Eliminating those loyal to Devereaux, especially when he has an excuse, could make a move against his father that much easier.”

  They were both quiet for a few seconds. Sirens wailed from far off, heading their way. His open palm grabbed her shoulder. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” Sloan shook her head. The action stabbed pain into her skull like tiny shards of glass being forced into the meat of her brain. “I’m sorry he got his shot, but mostly I’m sorry he got away and we lost the only link to Devereaux.”

  Sloan placed her palm on his shoulder. “I may have screwed the mission, but he didn’t get away.”

  One of Ryan’s brows arched in question.

  She wiped a blood-covered hand down her pants then pulled a GPS locator from her pocket and offered it to him.

  His brow rose higher—if that were possible, since his brow already practically grazed his hairline. “No way.”

  “I put a tracker on his gun before everything went upside-down. I knew something was off when I found the riffle and the room vacant.”

  “Nice work. He’ll lead us straight to Devereaux, but we can’t move on him until we have his black book in hand. We needed Baine to locate the book and get the codes.”

  “As luck would have it, I took out an insurance policy a few hours ago. It covers situations just like this. I know exactly how to get to Devereaux and his precious black book. And I know exactly how I’m going to kill him.”

  7

  Baine cruised along the thin strip of asphalt with an arm draped over the wheel. The other propped on the window sill. He wiggled his fingers, flirting with the currents of sunbaked air sailing by. Only a handful of clouds dotted the sky alight with blinding rays and the clearest blue of his mother’s eyes. The horizon called to him with its dusky mixture of waist high grasses and squatty trees hosting limbs that stretched wider than they were tall.

  Zebra speckled the view like sheep did back home. More than once in his time in Africa he’d been stopped by a moving herd of the striped animals, wildebeests, and even elephants. The real treasure was catching a glimpse of a big cat. Something about their predatory and virile nature shot a thrill through his veins, just like it had when he was a kid. He grimaced. No lions or leopards today. But he was about to deal with
something far more dangerous and far less beautiful.

  The Land Rover dipped with the pitted dirt then evened as Baine steered the sleek black utility vehicle off the rutted road onto a smooth stone drive. Uniformly cropped grass hugged the edge of the private entrance and precisely circled the rows of lush Leadwoods that shaded the path from the harsh South African sun. Past the drive a manicured garden bloomed, lending a vibrant prism of colors to the near-blinding green of the lawn. Florets clustered around birds of paradise that strutted leaves of blue and orange along his way. Red flowers sprayed high from the ground like a fountain of spurting blood. A curving line of buds exploded along the border of the estate’s perimeter wall. Thick, flowing vines distracted from the bastille impression the protective barrier might otherwise give. Perennials wound their way from the drive to the opulent estate, warmly welcoming guests.

  Two guards packing fully automatic machine guns negated any warmth in appearance the parcel held. Not that he’d been fooled by appearances in a long time. Both ebony-faced men lowered their weapons that had been fully prepared to turn the fine machine he drove into nothing more than a sieve. One, Rute, Baine thought his name was, came to the driver’s door.

  “Apologies, sir. We did not know it was you,” the man said, repeatedly raising his hands in peace.

  Easing a forearm onto the black metal of the door, Baine’s skin sizzled. He ignored it. He’d felt plenty worse over the years. The man took a noticeable step back as Baine tilted his head through the open window. Sweat slicked Rute’s face. With a flick of his index finger, Baine gestured toward the other guard still blocking the thick metal gate behind the guard. “Mind telling him to move?”

  Rute nodded, and flapped an eager hand at his comrade. “Yes, sir. Apologies again. Just when you left, you drove a different car.” He paused for a moment, studying the vehicle. “Master Kendrick’s men will be following shortly, sir?”

  Baine leveled his gaze on the man’s deep brown eyes. “No,” he said simply, before straightening behind the wheel. Within a few heartbeats the gate opened and he continued up the pristine path to his father’s estate.

  Four whitewashed gables rose high into the clear blue sky. Their ornate curves hooked and dove in the air, punctuating the two-story Cape Dutch roofline. From the grand white wall the front entrance’s rich bois de rose wood gleamed more robustly than mahogany. Baine maneuvered the car through the circular drive, past the four-car garage connected to the front of the house, and parked the SUV by the rear courtyard.

  He’d delayed laying eyes on Devereaux or his lackey Kobi for forty-eight hours. The flight from a private D.C. runway to Kruger’s Mpumalanga International Airport had proved an insufficient amount of time to deal with the shit bouncing around his skull. With only a two-hour drive to conclude his journey from Nelpruit to the isolated game lodge his father currently called home, nestled between Ulusaba Game Park and Blyde River Canyon, Baine went off grid. He snagged the cheapest hotel he could find in Hazyview, and enjoyed hot stale beer in the deepest hole-of-a bar he could find. He hadn’t worked much out in his head, but it had been nice not being Baine Kendrick for a while.

  Still, his nerves weren’t ready to confront the men. Not without pulling his Reeder twins and blowing them straight to hell. The 1911 custom 10mms hung ready for action in the shoulder holster over his grey tee. A gift from a stateside friend, they hadn’t let him down yet. But no matter how much his trigger fingers itched, he’d have to wait. Plans only worked when followed. And this plan had been years in the making. Baine refused to give the impulse life. His plan had far better aftermath.

  He retrieved his bag and rifle case from the back and made his way past the scrawling gate toward the pool. With only one hour until drinks, then dinner and the confrontation sure to erupt when his father discovered half his men were dead, he opted for the back entrance to avoid inquiry. Not to mention the revulsion the sight of the man wrought inside him.

  The intake of breath followed by a groaned sigh told him his fortune continued to run the hard line. Luckily, if there was anything lucky about catching his father with one of the maids, he’d already come and they were on the opposite side of the water from where Baine walked.

  “Son,” the man’s voice was practically jovial. And why shouldn’t he be? He’d just gotten head. Baine stopped, but didn’t turn. He caught quite enough in his periphery, as Devereaux discarded the woman with a flick of his wrist. She scurried into the servants’ entrance, one hand covering her mouth, the other shoving her breast back inside her shirt. His grip tightened on the straps of luggage he carried.

  “I heard poor President Bakou died from injuries sustained in an assassination on American soil,” he said with a hint of his Texas drawl.

  Baine enjoyed his own British accent all the more because it differed from his father’s. One more thing to thank his mum for. “I heard the news also.”

  A silk robe billowed as the man walked around the pool toward Baine. Thankfully, he’d knotted the front closed by the time they faced one another. His father was a big man. Thick and ruthless. With black hair and eyes and a soul to match. Baine looked down on him. Literally and figuratively.

  The older Kendrick’s too-white teeth flashed behind red lips. “Well now. I’d say that’s cause for celebration.” He turned his palms up, as if in offering. “We have a fresh batch of beauties due within the hour. A gift from Madam Walters for our successful contract. Now, go get a shower, and make yourself presentable. You look like a dust-covered mountain gorilla.”

  “You smell like one too,” he added with a wave at his crinkled nose.

  Certainly he did, since he’d driven through the bush in the heat of the day with all the windows down. Any excuse to shove off was ace. Baine stepped into the rear foyer and shut Devereaux out with a nudge of the door. A series of sobs echoed across the high ceiling, presumably belonging to the woman who’d retreated from the courtyard. He turned away from the noise, walked up the grand staircase, and to his room.

  When most people entered their own personal space—a home, a bedroom, a thatched hut on the hard dirt—visage gave way to their true nature. For some, the distance between the two was no more than a face of make-up or a forgotten hand over the mouth when belching. For others, the space between was more like dead bodies in a corner. Baine’s demeanor held firm as he stepped inside his suite, for his were not the only pair of eyes in the room. Three pairs, in fact, captured every move he made. One caught the bed. Another his desk. One more the balcony doors. The one in the bathroom he’d repeatedly accidentally splashed water on. Oops. There were ears too. Of course all of them were electronic and chapped his arse. But they were part of the game he fancied as much as his adversary.

  Baine turned on a bedside lamp. Three ten-foot-high beige walls appeared from the darkness, supporting a thick pattern of woven, dark wood beams overhead. The fourth wall, just as tall, painted the most vivid shade of red possible, abutted the headboard to a mammoth bed, where he deposited his clothes bag. Rifle case in his grasp, Baine walked to the balcony doors opposite the bed and flung back heavy curtains. Brilliant light filled the room, giving it a tinge of warmth.

  Beyond the glass over the hideous fence, the grass grew tall and wooly. It deviated in color from green to brown and shifted with the wind. Above it, a few scarce trees breached the horizon. Most barren arms of wood reached out for the sky. In the distance a herd of elephants ambled, no more than a series of wide dots. The sun leaned toward the limit of the magnificent view. The only real view from the compound. Africa in its unruly state.

  He could watch it for hours, and had many times before. Sometimes the only thing that let him maintain his grasp on sanity was the view. And his view of the big picture. Reluctantly, he moved away. He ignored the desk at the far end of the room and marched for the bathroom. After a quick sweep with his homemade detector Baine felt certain no more bugs had been added while he’d been away. He stowed the gun in the massive safe hidden in the
closet wall.

  A shower being next on the list, Baine crossed from the closet to the vanity. His father wasn’t right about much, but the gorilla comment had been rather accurate. A thin layer of dust coated his face and arms. Dark stubble shadowed his chin further. The sod-off glare he presented added to the effect. Before he began the long process of disrobing, he twisted on the faucet. Warm water rushed out and he washed the grime off his hands. In the basin, brown marred the pristine white. Surprisingly, it wasn’t red. It should have been. There was so much blood on his hands.

  While he undressed and arranged his weapons within easy reach of the shower door, Baine thought about the cock-up in Washington, D.C. And wondered, not for the first time, how in the bloody fuck they’d found out about the hit. His fists clenched, bunching the grey shirt in his hand. The obvious loose wire in the circuit of information for Kendrick business was the one with loose legs, of course. But before leaving the capital, he’d paid her a visit.

  “Surprise,” he’d said when Madame Walters stepped from her shower. She hadn’t started like most women, or men for that matter, would when attacked from the rear while wearing only water droplets. Considering what she did for a living, the woman was probably used to it. Probably one of those who liked to get banged that way. Rough and tumble. Even in a chokehold, slammed against the cold white marble by a man twice her size, she didn’t so much as whimper. Though, she stiffened like a day-old corpse when he positioned the point of his ka-bar against the flesh of her belly.

  “Who did you tell about the arrangement? Know, if I don’t believe your answer, you won’t live to hear your scream.” His words were only a whisper, but he watched her reflection turn ghostly white.

  Since reaching adulthood Baine hadn’t met anyone who could successfully lie to him. Tracy Walters’ wide-but-steady eyes and forthright expression had convinced him, she hadn’t told a soul.

  Kobi Ross looked to be the next most likely suspect. Sure in his place as Devereaux’s underling, he’d place a high-stakes bet by tipping off the authorities in an operation the senior Kendrick had a piss load of money riding on. But the pay off—Baine in jail, or better yet, dead, and him the only option to take over the business—could have been a risk worth taking.