:As if.: But Michelle could feel he was gone and had never felt so alone in her life.
Chapter 19
“Anton. Tell me you have a find-phone app that you’re sharing with Michelle.”
“Yeah. She’s always losing the damn thing. Right-hand shirt pocket.” Both of his hands were busy flying them northeast from Soto Cano Air Base.
Hannah had taken the copilot’s seat so that Ricardo could stretch out his wounded leg in the back. She pulled out Anton’s phone and tapped a few keys. Then she pulled out her own and did the same.
“Both her and Jesse’s phones are located at Soto Cano. The kidnappers dumped them.”
He pulled out his own phone and dialed Isobel. A male voice answered on the third ring, “Who is this?”
“I’m calling for Isobel Manella.”
“She is currently under arrest. Who is this?” The man’s voice was brusque. Military.
“Let me speak to your commanding officer.”
“This is the commanding officer. You have three seconds to—”
“Sir. We are members of a task force that was sent in to test your airbase’s security. I am Master Sergeant Ricardo Manella.”
“The one who—”
“Yes!” Ricardo chopped him off. It sucked being right. He was always going to be the one remembered for being tortured for a week in the Honduran jungle. Fucking perfect.
“You were investigating my base without alerting me?” He sounded pissed. A pissed colonel was never a good thing.
“Please take that up later with Colonel Michael Gibson, the Delta Force commander. Your problem is far more immediate. We entered the base as two three-man squads. My sister, Isobel, was the point person of one team, I was leading the other. We have run afoul of a drug-smuggling ring run by your contracted security team led by a former Green Beret Sergeant Jack Harper.”
“Jack Harper? He’s my most trusted—”
“You’ll find ten dead bodies in Hangar 14, which I’m guessing is assigned solely to Security Teams International’s use, along with a very shot-up Humvee filled with unauthorized weapons and several million dollars in cash. I didn’t have time to confirm if drugs were present. Now I need you to arrest the man and find out where his smuggling base is loca—”
A burst of gunfire sounded over the phone and cut him off.
:Ricardo?: The Humvee was slowing and she was guessing that was a bad sign.
Silence.
:Ricardo. (Loud shout)!:
:Busy.:
:They’re stopping!:
:There’s a gun battle at Soto Cano.:
:Are you okay?:
:In a helicopter coming for you. But Isobel’s in the thick of it.:
Michelle cringed. Isobel in danger was far worse than being in danger herself. It was the worst of all possible worlds. And Ricardo was coming for her?
She couldn’t even imagine what that meant.
The Humvee lurched into a final pothole and stopped.
The front doors banged open and then shut.
Should she fight? Could she fight?
Jesse was still out cold.
Would he fight or cower?
Fight.
She prepared herself as well as she could for the moment they opened the rear cargo hatch.
The latch clunked.
Michelle twisted around so that she could kick with her bound feet. She still wore her cowgirl boots and swore she was going to punch the heels hard into someone’s face before she went down. She was—
:Don’t resist.:
:What? Are you fucking nuts?: The curse was forced out of her as the hatch swung up and she’d missed her moment. They grabbed her by the rope around her boots and dragged her out over Jesse like the limp fish she was.
How impossibly lame was that.
:Goddamn you, Manella.:
:I think that ship already sailed. Need you to stay conscious. Tell me precisely what you see.:
She managed only one glance around before they dragged her into a steel storage shed. It didn’t look good.
Chapter 20
Ricardo’s attention whipsawed back and forth.
Gunfire over the phone.
Michelle describing what she’d seen.
Passing on the message to Hannah that Jesse was still alive and still unconscious. Even her Delta-born reserve was cracking badly.
Unable to pay attention to everything, he finally chose Michelle.
:Now tell me again what you saw. Details.:
He passed it on word for word to Anton in hopes that he could do one of his remote viewing things and pin down Michelle’s location. He didn’t hold out much hope. She’d been under a canopy of dense trees and mostly what she’d noticed were the two men dragging her and Jesse out of the Humvee.
“Hang on,” Anton began punching some buttons on the helo’s console. “Gotta set up on autopilot, since neither of you mere Deltas can fly. Hannah, you keep a lookout and tell me if I’m about to fly into something. I can’t ‘look’ and see at the same time.”
That was interesting.
He described Michelle’s brief glimpse again. Asked her for more details when Anton asked, but she hadn’t anything more.
There might not be intonation in their telepathy, but still he could hear that the panic was rising and would soon overwhelm her.
“Nothing, bro,” Anton sounded devastated as he rested his hands back on the controls. “It just isn’t enough.”
“Ricardo?” Isobel’s voice over the phone snapped his attention back to Soto Cano Air Base.
“You’re okay?”
“Handcuffed, but fine. All I got was a graze on the arm. Barely bleeding.”
Ricardo wanted to throw up. Somehow, he didn’t know how, but somehow he should have been there to save her.
“You won’t be getting anything from Harper. He shot the colonel, and the Army’s own forces are hunting him right now. The other three on his squad are already dead.”
“Shit!”
“Go rescue Michelle.”
“I don’t know how to find her,” he could hear his own desperation.
“Remember why we were sent. We—”
She was cut off by another round of gunfire.
“Still safe. Now go save the woman you love.”
“The woman I what?”
“Time to stop fooling around, Ricardo.” And Isobel hung up.
The woman I… Later, Manella. Later. Focus on the now.
Isobel was surrounded by the combined troops of Joint Task Force-Bravo. Michelle was surrounded by desperate drug smugglers on the run.
:Isobel is safe,: he prayed to God he was right.
The woman he…what? Michelle had caught that snippet of Ricardo’s thoughts. Then he spoke to himself, pushing aside the thought and focusing on the now just as he’d instructed her.
She’d…:Hey. I heard you.:
:What do you mean?:
:I mean I heard your thoughts just then. You thought ‘The woman I…’ I heard that.:
:How? I didn’t send it. I’m sure I didn’t.:
Michelle considered trying to explain and then thought better of it. That he didn’t understand also meant that he didn’t get pieces of her own internal dialog. Which was definitely a good thing.
:Look, Ricardo. What it means is that you’re nearby.:
:How close?:
:I don’t know. Usually it only works when I can see you.:
:Can you see our helicopter?:
:I’m locked in a dark, windowless shed that’s probably crawling with spiders.:
There was a long pause. :Can you hear our helicopter?:
She listened. There was a lot of other noise. Generators, what might be barrels banging together, something that definitely sounded like magazines being loaded into weapons.
And in the background…fading away…
:You passed me. Your sound is fading.:
Moments later, the helicopter noise grew louder. She could feel ho
pe surge. Maybe—
The shed roared!
Nearby gunfire rattled the thin metal walls. Echoes overwhelmed the small space.
The scream ripped from her throat.
There was no stopping it. Even the gag didn’t seem to muffle it.
They were going to kill Ricardo. The world… Screw the world! Her life would be such a worse place if he died.
The gunfire tapered off.
:Well, at least we know where you are now.:
:Fine.: She gasped desperately through her nose. :So come get me already.:
:Hang in there, Michelle. I’m working on it.:
Again, what choice did she have?
Chapter 21
Ricardo didn’t dare have Anton shoot down at the drug smuggler’s camp. Not until they knew exactly where Michelle and Jesse were confined.
And there was no way to do that from a hundred meters above the jungle canopy.
Out of ideas, he looked around the helicopter’s cargo bay hoping for some miracle. A TV screen that would show a detailed layout of the camp would be nice.
But this was a medical bird. It had some weapons, but the pair of mounted miniguns was going to do him no more good than the rocket pod or chain gun mounted on the helo’s exterior. A pair of folded-up litters were tied to the ceiling. Two large med bags hung at the aft end of the cargo bay. Nothing in there for attacking a heavily armed camp. For that he needed…
Goddamn it! He needed to be able to drop down into the jungle and do what Delta Force did. Go in with a small strike force and take them down—hard!
Except he couldn’t walk on his leg without risking tearing everything open again. To do that he’d need a lot more than the bandage Hannah had wrapped around his thigh. He’d need—
Ricardo dove for the med bags and yanked down the zippers. The blood loss shakes were still a problem but he managed.
There it all was.
He ignored all the painkillers. He could really use some but pain he knew how to deal with and he didn’t dare dull his thinking or reflexes.
All the bags of intravenous fluids were probably what he needed most. Except he was lacking knowledge and time. Definitely no time for some intravenous drip.
:Hey, Michelle. Can I drink any of the fluids in a med kit to boost my system?:
:You’d probably barf up the saline solution. You can drink the bags labeled ‘Lactated Ringers,’ but it will taste awful.:
He spotted the bag, sliced open the top with the knife strapped to his good thigh, and chugged it back. Better than chewing painkillers. Thinking of which, he spotted a bottle of acetaminophen and chewed a couple of them to get the fastest punch. Yep! Definitely worse than Ringers.
The last was a SAM Splint. He shaped the thick, flexible material around his lower thigh and strapped it down hard. At least if he started bleeding again, it wouldn’t be spraying all over the place. And it just might let him use the leg.
“Anton. Find us a clearing within a kilometer of their camp. Hannah and I are going for a walk.”
“You’re what? Bro, you are so full of shit. I’ve seen the inside of your leg and it wasn’t a pretty sight.”
Hannah’s response was to crawl out of the copilot’s seat and into the back of the helo. She began organizing weapons.
“Michelle and Jesse are alive, but their life expectancy is very short. We’re going in. Now get us down.”
“Well, we’re screwed, bro. Nothing open for a couple miles around.”
Ricardo pointed at a Fast Rope. The forty-millimeter rope hung in a thick coil.
Hannah slid back the cargo bay door and hooked the rope to an outer attachment point.
Anton groaned over the headset. “Okay, okay. I’ll find you a spot for that.”
Hannah had begun handing over rifles, grenades, and other useful toys by the time Anton called back.
“Kick the rope.”
Hannah kicked the coil and it spilled out the door.
Anton was hovering with the Black Hawk’s wheels in the trees, but the cargo door was over a narrow gap.
Hannah pulled on heavy gloves and went first.
Ricardo wasn’t so sure of his control, so he let her get halfway down before he followed.
Hannah caught his waist just before his feet hit the ground, easing the impact on his leg.
In the damn jungle again.
“Down,” Ricardo announced over the radio headset he’d slid on. Even as he and Hannah moved away, there was a snakelike hiss from Anton hit the rope release and it coiling down to the jungle floor.
:We’re coming for you, Michelle.:
:You get killed and I’ll be some kind of seriously pissed.:
:Nothing new there.:
He was right. She’d been focusing a lot of anger in his direction.
How much of it did he deserve? And how much of it was her notorious Missy-tantrums that Anton was always teasing her about?
She wished she could recall what Isobel had said on the flight down, but all of that seemed to belong to a different life. A life before she was punched out and kidnapped. A life before she understood what being truly afraid felt like.
Fear wasn’t not making the dress sale, but she’d always known that.
She’d expected to feel fear of losing a patient when she’d been doing training shifts in various hospital ERs. But none of them touched what she’d experienced in the six days leading up to Ricardo’s rescue.
Now the tables were turned and here she was. At least she was unharmed. Kidnapped perhaps an hour ago compared to Ricardo’s days of suffering.
Yet the terror slid across her like a freezing shadow that chilled her to the very core.
This, this! is what Ricardo had been through. For hopeless days on end. Plus torture.
But she also recalled how amazing he’d been, moving through the Range 37 shoot house with Hannah.
She took strength from that. He’d found his way through something much worse than this. Not only that, but he’d become the man he was despite all of it.
Actually—she thought back to Isobel’s stories when they’d roomed together in college—he’d always been that way. He might worship his big twin sister, but there was no question that their love went both ways.
To be a part of that.
To somehow share in even a thin slice of it couldn’t help but be a very good thing. She’d probably never find a better man even if she—
A burst of gunfire had her yelping into her gag again.
Shouts and return gunfire sounded outside the shed walls.
:Stay low (command).:
He wouldn’t get any argument from her this time. She did her best to meld with the shed’s dirt floor.
Chapter 22
The sweat streaming down his face and the lancing pain of every step fell away as the situation went dynamic.
He and Hannah had planned as well as they could. They’d called up to Anton with both of their GPS locations—at least their starting locations—and the location of the shed close beside the parked Humvee. He’d map those and avoid hitting them from above.
Thankfully, there was only the one Humvee, as there were many sheds and buildings under the sweltering trees, some little better than hovels.
Ricardo wanted someone high in the trees to get the best possible angle, but the memory of being shot in the trees with nowhere to go but down made him reject that option.
That and Kee’s reminder to keep the team tight.
Except that just wasn’t going to be possible taking on a whole camp with only two of them.
He sent Hannah off wide to the right. Hopefully the drug camp would think that a force far larger than two people were coming at them because the gunfire would be coming in from two points ninety degrees apart.
Sure enough, the smugglers began shooting up the middle.
Each shot they fired revealed another shooter’s location for him and Hannah. M4s weren’t the best sniper rifles, but they’d moved within fifty meters
of the camp, making them plenty effective. Flash suppressors effectively masked and silenced their own shots. In quick succession, every unfriendly in the camp who fired dropped to the ground dead moments later.
Hannah had suggested they divide the field of fire to avoid wasting time with multiple shots on the same target, and it was working.
A stream of workers raced off into the jungle.
Not their concern.
The security forces were not slouches. Probably all ex-military, they soon formed up and created protective perimeters.
That’s when he called in an airstrike from Anton. All alone in a helo that really called for two pilots, especially when firing weapons, he kept the engagements limited.
“Hydra 70 at seventy degrees magnetic and thirty meters from my beacon.”
Moments later an angry rocket’s hiss sounded close above the canopy of trees. The 2.75-inch-wide and four-foot-long rocket went supersonic right out of the launcher. Before the sound even had time to fully develop, it plowed into the edge of the enemy’s gathering point. Bodies, at least parts of bodies, were flung up into the air.
Michelle cowered as some explosion punched holes through the upper part of the shed. Sunlight streamed into the darkness.
In the light, she could see Jesse was awake and struggling to sit up.
She couldn’t speak through the gag to tell him to stay down. She threw herself at him and knocked him back to the dirt hard enough that he groaned loudly.
She’d apologize later.
The door flung open.
It didn’t need any blinking against the sudden brightness to recognize who stood in the doorway.
As loud as she could in her head, she screamed.
:Ricardo!:
Ricardo had never before had the volume of the telepathy change. This time it was so loud that his ears were ringing in sympathy, even though Michelle’s cry hadn’t passed through them.
The shed door was behind the Humvee.
He could see that it was now open, but he couldn’t get an angle on it.
At the Quietest Word Page 12
