Enemy Mine (The Base Branch Series Book 1) by Megan Mitcham Read Free Book Online Page A

he made. One caught the bed. Another his desk. One more the balcony doors. The one in the bathroom he’d repeatedly accidentally splashed water on. Oops. There were ears too. Of course all of them were electronic and chapped his arse. But they were part of the game he fancied as much as his adversary.
    Baine turned on a bedside lamp. Three ten-foot-high beige walls appeared from the darkness, supporting a thick pattern of woven, dark wood beams overhead. The fourth wall, just as tall, painted the most vivid shade of red possible, abutted the headboard to a mammoth bed, where he deposited his clothes bag. Rifle case in his grasp, Baine walked to the balcony doors opposite the bed and flung back heavy curtains. Brilliant light filled the room, giving it a tinge of warmth.
    Beyond the glass over the hideous fence, the grass grew tall and wooly. It deviated in color from green to brown and shifted with the wind. Above it, a few scarce trees breached the horizon. Most barren arms of wood reached out for the sky. In the distance a herd of elephants ambled, no more than a series of wide dots. The sun leaned toward the limit of the magnificent view. The only real view from the compound. Africa in its unruly state.
    He could watch it for hours, and had many times before. Sometimes the only thing that let him maintain his grasp on sanity was the view. And his view of the big picture. Reluctantly, he moved away. He ignored the desk at the far end of the room and marched for the bathroom. After a quick sweep with his homemade detector Baine felt certain no more bugs had been added while he’d been away. He stowed the gun in the massive safe hidden in the closet wall.
    A shower being next on the list, Baine crossed from the closet to the vanity. His father wasn’t right about much, but the gorilla comment had been rather accurate. A thin layer of dust coated his face and arms. Dark stubble shadowed his chin further. The sod-off glare he presented added to the effect. Before he began the long process of disrobing, he twisted on the faucet. Warm water rushed out and he washed the grime off his hands. In the basin, brown marred the pristine white. Surprisingly, it wasn’t red. It should have been. There was so much blood on his hands.
    While he undressed and arranged his weapons within easy reach of the shower door, Baine thought about the cock-up in Washington, D.C. And wondered, not for the first time, how in the bloody fuck they’d found out about the hit. His fists clenched, bunching the grey shirt in his hand. The obvious loose wire in the circuit of information for Kendrick business was the one with loose legs, of course. But before leaving the capital, he’d paid her a visit.
    “Surprise,” he’d said when Madame Walters stepped from her shower. She hadn’t started like most women, or men for that matter, would when attacked from the rear while wearing only water droplets. Considering what she did for a living, the woman was probably used to it. Probably one of those who liked to get banged that way. Rough and tumble. Even in a chokehold, slammed against the cold white marble by a man twice her size, she didn’t so much as whimper. Though, she stiffened like a day-old corpse when he positioned the point of his ka-bar against the flesh of her belly.
    “Who did you tell about the arrangement? Know, if I don’t believe your answer, you won’t live to hear your scream.” His words were only a whisper, but he watched her reflection turn ghostly white.
    Since reaching adulthood Baine hadn’t met anyone who could successfully lie to him. Tracy Walters’ wide-but-steady eyes and forthright expression had convinced him, she hadn’t told a soul.
    Kobi Ross looked to be the next most likely suspect. Sure in his place as Devereaux’s underling, he’d place a high-stakes bet by tipping off the authorities in an operation the senior Kendrick had a piss load of money riding on. But the pay off—Baine in jail, or better yet, dead,