Page 22 of Her Ruthless Protector

“The conference is taking place at Switzerland’s Embassy,” Raiden said. “Ambassador Hoag called them and explained the situation. They were one hundred percent cooperative and are flying in more troops from Switzerland to assist with security. They don’t intend to let anything happen on their watch.”

“What about the delegates? Is there any chance that they’ll bring some kind of device into the conference?” Max asked.

“It’s always possible,” Raiden said. “But they have sophisticated scanning equipment for all incoming guests. We went through it, and then we got a behind-the-scenes tour of their security set-up. I think that the American Embassy could learn something from them.”

“You should inform Ambassador Hoag,” Max said.

“Already did,” Raiden said.

Max smiled.

“So, it’s agreed. If we have to prioritize, OPEC is number one, right?” Kane asked.

“Definitely,” Max nodded. “I think we can put the Swiss Embassy down to number four because of the security that’s going to be in place, so that puts the airport at number two and the European Music Extravaganza at number three.”

Kane gave Asher a hard look when he saw that he was getting ready to correct Max again on the name of the contest.

“Right now, I’m going to increase the number of men at our top two targets. Asher, I don’t want to hear shit from you. You cook and Kane doesn’t, so you’re stuck with me at the Al Bustan Palace. Leo, you’re going over to the airport with Cullen and Nick.”

“I can learn to cook,” Kane said.

“You might hate the show, but you were jonesing on A.J., so don’t act like this is a hardship.” Asher gave him a sideways look.

“Who’s A.J.? Is she hot?” Cullen asked.

“She drives a gold BMW Mini Cooper with raven stickers,” Kane informed his friend. “You wouldn’t be interested.” Everybody laughed.

“You better keep Cullen away—when he realizes she’s sane and fills out a pair of jeans it will be game over,” Asher warned.

He was right.Kane glared at Cullen.

“We’re meeting back here the day after tomorrow. Gray or Dex will be reporting in from Afghanistan to let us know what they’ve found out.”

Everyone nodded.

* * *

Kane started runningthrough the tunnel as soon as he heard the screaming. Screams turned to shrieks, and he pounded the ground even faster as he broke through into the blinding sunlight. He heard them coming from the right. It was the same stage that A.J. had shown them yesterday. There were sparks coming from the stage.

Holy fuck.

As he got closer, he saw that a big set of overhead lights had two women and a man pinned on the stage. Three of the six lights were still on, and one of them was throwing up sparks, and another was blowing smoke.

“Cut the electricity!” he yelled.

He recognized two of the women acrobats from the day before trying to lift the lights, meanwhile there were at least a dozen people milling around doing nothing but watching, yelling for help, crying and screaming. Kane counted three men in the crowd. Assholes.

The lights went black.

“Are they off?” A.J.’s voice yelled from behind the stage.

“Yes,” he yelled back.

Seconds later she was running onto the stage and pushing through the idiots standing around with their thumbs up their asses, and positioned herself next to the two other women to help lift the lights. With Kane lifting the opposite end, they were able to move it off the three people who had been trapped.

“Don’t just stand there!” A.J. yelled. “Move the injured out of the way. We can’t hold this forever.”

The dumbshits finally did something and started lifting the three hurt people to safety. When they were out of the way, Kane and the others slowly lowered the lights.