Wade by Jennifer Blake

where maimed ex-soldiers and old women begged and died in streets that smelled like sewers, and the government was doing its level best to destroy all trace of civilized living.
    Ahead of him in the darkness, he caught the glow of a flashlight and the sound of booted footsteps. Two uniformed policemen with cudgels swinging from their fists came into view. Wade slid immediately into the nearest alley. Pressing his back to the mud brick wall, he tried to make himself a part of it. It wasn’t so much that he feared arrest as it was the need to avoid drawing attention to his after-dark activity. You never knew when the wrong person might hear about it. It was always possible, too, that his name could show up in some semiobsolete database of diplomatic security service personnel. That was one of the risks that he had weighed before agreeing to this operation. But of course that part of his past was the main reasonJohn Madison had tapped him for it in the first place. Well, that and the need for a man he could trust not to take advantage of the situation and, just possibly, of his daughter.
    The patrol came closer. Wade reached to unsnap the shoulder holster nestled under his armpit and palm the weapon it held. The move was silent, practiced, natural. He could sense the familiar closing down of thought and emotion, of everything except animal-like nocturnal perception and steel-hard will. Even as the old readiness spread through him, he felt his gut tighten. Nobody had mentioned killing in order to get Chloe Madison out of Hazaristan, but the possibility had been understood. Wade could do the job if he had to, but he didn’t like it, hadn’t needed to worry about it for a long time.
    One of the policemen laughed in a low rumble of sound that marked him as all too human. He and his partner were talking, their voices gaining in volume as they neared the alley. They strolled past with their turbaned heads nodding in unison and the sticks they carried tapping the sidewalk now and then in random patterns. They didn’t even glance toward the alley.
    Wade sighed and replaced his weapon as the pair’s footfalls receded. He stretched his neck to relieve tense muscles while he waited to be certain the street was clear again. Emerging from the other end of the alley as a precaution, he made his way toward the hotel with all possible speed.
    It was good to shut the door of his room behindhim and secure it for the night with his own hardware. The place was a dump, yes, but it was his dump for now, his little spot of America in this too-strange land.
    He glanced at his watch with a frown. The timing was wrong for a call to the far side of the globe. It would jerk his old buddy and former boss, head of Vantage International Security on the Virginia edge of the Beltway, from a sound sleep. Wade shrugged, then hauled out the satellite cell phone from his black leather duffel that sat at the foot of the bed. Activating the built-in scrambler, he punched in the numbers.
    It was picked up on the second ring. Nat Hedley’s voice was a little husky but disgustingly alert otherwise. Wade wasted little time on preliminaries, but gave a succinct rundown of the problem and the delay it was causing. Then he waited.
    â€œChrist, Wade, what happened to the famous Benedict charm? I thought that moonlight-and-honeysuckle drawl of yours was guaranteed to melt the pants off any female in ten seconds flat.”
    â€œThis one doesn’t wear any pants to melt.”
    â€œFound that out already, did you?”
    â€œDrag that wad of fat cells that passes as your brain out of the toilet, my man. I only meant that underwear has never quite caught on over here as in the West. Besides, I don’t think the lady has much use for men.”
    â€œYou mean she’s…”
    â€œHell, nothing like that,” Wade said hastily. “She’s been taught by experts to avoid contact.”
    Nat grunted his understanding, though he