Bodyguard Lockdown Read Online Free PDF Page B

heresigned.”
    “He said he needed a change of pace,” Jarek remembered. “So I kept him on.”
    “He must have anticipated Trygg’s escape,” Cain speculated. “Or wanted to keep an eye on Sandra.”
    “Or both,” Jarek inserted.
    “Trygg planned his freedom for five years,” Quamar reasoned. “To him, freedom without power and respect is a poor existence. For both, he will need to obtain the formulafrom Sandra, then eliminate her. Booker understands this.”
    “If Booker wants Trygg, he’d make sure Trygg came to him,” Cain added. “That’s what we’d all do.”
    “And there is no better way to do that than to stick close to the one thing Trygg wants,” Jarek agreed. “The only thing that would bring him out of hiding.”
    “Sandra,” Cain stated. “She’s Booker’s bait.”

Chapter Four
    “Was that necessary?” Sandra demanded. “Hijacking the man’s car and leaving him sprawled in the street?”
    “You’re right, maybe I should’ve shot him,” Booker quipped, then pushed his foot farther down on the accelerator.
    “Very funny.” She shifted, then winced. Bruises tattooed her arms, blackened her wrists. She reached into her bag, pulled out a few aspirin.
    “Are you okay?”
    “I’ll live.” She swallowed the aspirin dry. “Which is more than I could have said six hours ago.”
    Run-down and empty streets flew past them. Sandra could see the railroad tracks, the warehouses and the Sahara that lay just beyond.
    “You’re driving us into the desert,” she commented, frowning.
    “Change of plans,” Booker responded. “We’re not going back to thepalace.”
    “Because of Jarek’s dead guard back there?”
    “I hired him several months ago. American. Ex-military. Impeccable record and references. Top security clearance. All of them checked out,” Booker admitted, his neck muscles rigid with anger. “If Trygg can get to him, he can get to others.”
    “You said you hired Jarek’s man. Are you still working for Jarek, then? As his head ofsecurity?” Sandra asked quietly. She hadn’t seen him in months. Hadn’t talked to him in a year.
    “I’m guessing not anymore.” He downshifted, dodged some loose brush and then glanced at the rearview mirror. “I was in a meeting with the Prime Minister of England, Jordan Beck. We were planning his family’s visit to Taer when I got word you were taken.”
    “I was flying to Tourlay when Trygg’smen took me.”
    “Tourlay’s a border town filled with lowlifes,” Booker stated. “What the hell were you doing traveling there?”
    Sandra sighed. “I have...friends in Tourlay who can help me stop Trygg.”
    “Friends?” Booker commented, annoyed that she’d turn to someone else for help.
    “Actually, they are ex-rebels.”
    “By rebels, you mean Al Asheera rebels?”
    She nodded. “Forthe past year, I’ve been smuggling medicine and other supplies to their camps,” she explained. “They live in poverty, Booker. The men are afraid to work for fear of arrest. The women and children starve.”
    “Is Jarek aware of your charity work?”
    “No. And neither are my parents,” she admitted. “They would forbid it simply because I’m putting myself at risk. But it’s my choice. It’s notJarek’s—or my father’s decision.”
    Booker understood the anger, the bitterness.
    Sandra’s father, Doctor Omar Haddad—at one time, a world-renowned genetic research scientist—didn’t approve of the choices she’d made in her life. Her schooling. Her career. Her decision to return to Taer years before.
    “Your parents will be sick with worry, Doc.”
    Sandra gazed out the window. Streetlampscast a jaundiced glow against the shadowy buildings.
    “My parents will be safer without me around.”
    An engine gunned behind them. Booker swore, his eyes focused on the rearview mirror, his grip locked on the steering wheel. “Hold on!”
    A sedan darted around a corner, slammed into their back bumper. Sandra flew forward, hit the