Talon: Combat Tracking Team (A Breed Apart) by Ronie Kendig

opposite happened. They were ambushed, lost their equipment while escaping, and he’d taken a bullet—in the arm. No big deal, he’d already tended it.
    What had he done wrong? Mentally, Neil went over his notes, over the plays, over their moves. Just as he’d been taught, and he’d been trained by the best. It just didn’t make sense.
    As the night deepened, so did the silence and void between them. He’d thought he was in love with her. He’d never forget meeting her at the embassy gala. Man, she looked good in that red silk number. And she knew it. Lina Bissette, admin to a French envoy’s assistant. Diplomatic relations swiftly turned to romantic relations between them.
    Then things went south.
    Neil wouldn’t let this trip define their relationship, if they still had one by the time they got back. If she didn’t stop blaming him and whining and complaining, he might kill her before then. Nah, he wouldn’t kill her. It made sense, her fear and panic making her emotional.
    Her hand slipped into his as they trudged down the dusty road. Resignation allowed him to tighten his fingers around hers. It wasn’t her fault. Nor his. Getting out of Djibouti had been crucial to staying alive.
    “Sorry,” she muttered.
    Neil pulled her head closer and kissed the top of her dusty, dirty hair. “We’ll make it. Just trust me.”
    Trekking through the barren savanna that was Djibouti fried his brain. But onward he went, hand in hand with the woman who had stuck with him for the last four months. They’d been chased from a mine, hunted across the Sudan, and now walked for four days—well, nights were cooler so that’s when they made their way across the land that had no natural resource. Thus the extreme poverty that landed Djibouti on the list as a third-world nation.
    Get back to the hotel, dig out his secret stash of money and passports, then vanish again. That was his game plan.
    “Do you think they’ll stop looking for us?”
    “Eventually,” Neil responded, his mouth dried, his lips cracked. “As long as we don’t blow the cover on their operation.” The thing was, Neil had no intention of keeping quiet. He intended to rip this thing wide open, once he found the right vein and the right conduit under which to do it. “But I want to stop it.”
    “Do you have enough to do that?” She hustled a step to catch up with him. “You asked me to go with you—”
    “No.” Neil stopped and turned to her. “I told you I was leaving. And I said there were a lot of people coming after me—I told you it wasn’t safe to stay with me. You could’ve stayed, made it to your embassy, and worked to prove your identity.” She could’ve, but it would’ve been a long shot.
    “Yeah, but you and I both know someone in that French embassy was involved, too. My passport suddenly invalidated? My name not showing up?” She shuddered then stopped short. Looked at him. “Did you want me to stay behind?”
    “Lina, you’re the best thing that has happened to me in years.” Neil grunted. “Stupidest thing I ever did, leaving. Anyway, come on. We’re about fifteen klicks outside Djibouti city.”
    “Listen.” She tugged his hand and stopped him. “I don’t think it’s so smart to go back to the city. There are too many Americans there, and many who would recognize you.”
    “Exactly.” He felt a smile for the first time. “It’s the one place where I fit in, where I don’t stand out. We just go in and act like nothing is wrong. Slip into the hotel room, get some food and rest, then…” What, he didn’t know. He had information that could bring down a lot of people, and most of them didn’t want him alive to breathe word of it.
    “Then what?”
    Squeezing her hand lightly was all the answer he could muster as they plodded down the side of the dirt road that led back to the city that had sent his life into a tailspin. An hour and a lot of blisters later, Neil led her to the bay of the Red Sea.
    “Okay,