Seducing the Mercenary

She needed to focus on someone else’s pathology, not her own.

Emily was almost at the customs booth now, and her pulse quickened. She shot a look at the other line, saw the last of the science team leaving the terminal, and cursed silently.

While FDS leader, Jacques Sauvage, had hastily cobbled together a deal with their sponsors that allowed her to tag on to the Geographic International team, the scientists themselves had no idea why Emily was actually here, and they were under no obligation to coddle her. In fact, they’d been instructed by their sponsor to ask no questions at all. She cursed herself again. She should have forked over the damn bribe.

The customs official motioned for her to approach.

“Passeport?” he commanded in heavy African bass.

She handed it over along with her currency declaration form.

He flipped open her passport, glanced at her photo, looked up and met her eyes.

Her mouth went dry.

He smiled, teeth bright against gleaming ebony skin. “And what have you got for me today, Dr. Sanford?” he asked in deeply accented English, using her alias.

She slid a hundred dollar bill across the counter, watching his face. He stared at the money, his smile fading.

She pushed another note slowly across the counter. “It’s all I have,” she said in English.

“Vous êtes Américaine?”

Her heart beat faster. It was patently obvious from her passport what her nationality was, and now he was refusing to speak English. “Oui, je suis Américaine.”

“Raison de visite?”

A ball of insecurity swelled suddenly in her throat. “I’m here with the Geographic International science team,” she said firmly, in English, wishing to hell the crew hadn’t left without her. She unfolded and handed him another piece of paper that had the Ubasi palace stamp on it. “See?” She pointed to the signature. “We have permission from the Laroque government.”

The official didn’t even pretend to look at the piece of paper. His eyes continued to hold hers. “Currency declaration form?”

“I gave it to you, with the passport.”

“Non—”

“I did! Look, it’s right there,” Emily said, pointing.

The man shook his head, raised his hand high above his head and clicked his fingers sharply. Two armed guards left their station at the exit doors and started making their way toward his booth. Emily’s heart pounded wildly against her rib cage. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

“There is a problem with your currency declaration,” the customs official said in French, before turning to the next person in line. “Passeport, s’il vous plaît?”

“No, there isn’t. Wait! You haven’t even looked at my form. You—”

The guards took her arms roughly. “Venez avec nous.”

Emily jerked back. “Why? Why must I go with you? Where to?”

But the guards hauled her briskly away.

“What about my luggage?” she snapped, dangerously close to losing her temper. “I haven’t collected my bags yet.”

But they remained mute as they forced her through a crushing crowd of people, all of whom studiously averted their eyes. The reaction of the crowd wasn’t lost on Emily. She saw it as a blatant sign of fear of government authority. These people were terrified of Laroque’s goons, she thought as the guards forced her into an interrogation room. She whirled round as they shut the door and locked it.

Stay calm. Breathe.

But no matter how Emily tried, she couldn’t. The room was airless. The temperature had to be more than 100 degrees, humidity making it worse. Her jeans clung to her legs, her hair stuck to her back, and rivulets of sweat trickled between her breasts. Emily shoved the damp strands of hair back off her face. She refused to let this man or his country get the better of her!

She refused to let any autocratic male make a fool of her.

The heat of humiliation burned into her cheeks again. Damn, she was displacing her anger and she knew it. She needed to focus on this tyrant, not her ex. That’s why she was here. She was a profiler for God’s sake. She could do this.

She clenched her jaw, forcing herself to take stock. She still had her knife, her traveler’s checks, her satellite phone, camera and, most important—her computer.

Anything she typed or downloaded into her laptop would be relayed via satellite to a monitor on the FDS base on São Diogo Island. It was state-of-the-art military communications technology, and it was how she would file her daily briefs, along with her final report on Laroque.

Just as she was thinking she’d be okay, the door banged open against the wall. Emily jerked in fright, heart pounding right back up into her throat.

The customs official loomed into the room. “I will see your checks and francs.” He held out his hand, palm up.

“I…beg your pardon?”

He didn’t budge.

Emily reluctantly opened the pouch strapped to her waist and forked over the wad of traveler’s checks and francs she’d had to declare on the form.

The man thumbed through the wad slowly, mouthing the amounts as he did. He looked up sharply. “There is a discrepancy. The amount here is not the same as you declared on the form.”

“It is. I—”

“This is illegal. You are smuggling currency. You will pay a fine of fifty thousand francs.”

“What! That’s ridiculous. That’s…almost ten thousand dollars. I don’t have that kind of money on me!”

“But you can get it, yes? You will have your passeport confiscated until you return to the aéroport with the francs for me personally, ça va?”

Emily looked at him, stunned. Without her passport she was a prisoner in Ubasi. And illegal. She wouldn’t be able to obtain the visa all tourists had to buy in Basaroutou within twenty-four hours of landing. This was pure corruption. She cursed viciously under her breath. These men had targeted her because she was American, female, separated from her crew, and because she possessed expensive equipment. She was, in their eyes, a perfect candidate for extortion. And who the hell could she complain to? Their dictator, Jean-Charles Laroque?

She cursed again as the customs official abruptly departed, leaving the door swinging open. A guard waited outside with her bags, which no doubt had been searched.

Emily grabbed them from him as the guard took her arm, marshaled her toward the exit doors, and dumped her and her belongings unceremoniously onto the dusty streets of Basaroutou.

A riot of colors and sounds slammed into her, and for a second she just stood blinking at the chaos. People jostled her on all sides, dressed in everything from swaths of brightly colored fabric to tattered western dress and stark white tunics. Women carrying baskets on their heads hawked the contents, and on crumbling sidewalks vendors peddled everything from exotic fruits and strangely shaped vegetables to mysterious oils in brown bottles and weird-looking shriveled animals.

Poverty was clearly evident, as was a mélange of cultures. But the faces Emily saw were not ones of milling discontent. Her first impression was an air of industry and purpose.

She hadn’t expected this, but then virtually nothing was known about Ubasi under Laroque’s rule.

She shaded her eyes, sun burning down hot on her dark hair. Most of the buildings were dun-colored and flanked by impossibly tall, dull-green palms that rustled in the hot wind. Cerise bougainvillea clambered up walls pockmarked by years of war and roads were dusty and cratered with disrepair.