“Call your parents.”
She tried to hold the phone but she dropped it. It clattered to the hood, then fell to the dirt. One of the men picked it up and handed it back to her.
“Don’t be stupid. Hold onto it this time and call your parents.” El Jefe said in a mean whisper. Jan trembled as she pressed in numbers. El Jefe snatched the phone from her when she was done and put it on speaker.
“You have reached Covington Dry Cleaners, our hours of operations are—”
El Jefe’s fist hit the back of Jan’s head and she slumped down onto the hood, then her body slipped down onto the dirt of the jungle floor.
Lisa, free from El Jefe’s grip, scrabbled off the hood and got on her knees next to Jan, resting her head in her lap.
“That’s a minor punishment. The next person who lies to me will get cut.” He looked around at the rag-tag group and pointed at Phyllis Agar, who was standing in front of Roxanne.
“You! Get over here.”
Camilla stepped around Roxanne and put her arm around Phyllis.
“Let’s go,” she coaxed. She felt the girl trembling, so Camilla had to pull her along to the front of the crowd. When they got to the Jeep, Phyllis couldn’t take her eyes off Jan who was crying in Lisa’s arms.
El Jefe held his hand out to Phyllis, and once again Camilla coaxed the young woman. “Take his hand.”
Phyllis turned pleading eyes at Camilla. “You need to do this,” Camilla responded calmly.
Phillis took the man’s hand and he hefted her onto the hood.
Camilla thrust out her hand. “Let me up,” she demanded.
El Jefe glowered down at her.
“She’s scared out of her mind,” Camilla pleaded. “She’s going to be of no use to you, let me help.”
This time the man gave her a considering look and grunted. He held out his big hand and Camilla took it gratefully. She clambered aboard the Jeep and Phyllis practically fell into her arms. El Jefe shoved the satellite phone at Phyllis.
“Call your parents.”
“Which one?” Phyllis asked.
That stumped the man for a moment. “Your father, he’s rich, right?”
Phyllis looked up at Camilla for direction.
“Honey, who will pay a ransom for you?”
“They both will.”
El Jefe let out a laugh. “I get more money.” He looked out into the crowd. “Two ransoms for the price of one,” he yelled out. He grabbed Phyllis’ hand and slapped the phone into it. “Call your father.”
Again, she looked to Camilla for direction. “He’s at work. I don’t know his work number, it’s programmed into my phone. I think I know his mobile number by heart.”
“Call it!” El Jefe yelled at her.
Phyllis’ fingers trembled as she pressed in the numbers. Before it had a chance to ring, the big man grabbed it and put it on speaker.
“Who is this?” A man’s voice answered the phone angrily. Phyllis’ whole face seemed to crumple as she started to cry.
“Answer him,” El Jefe growled at Phyllis.
Camilla nudged Phyllis. “Say something, Phyllis.”
“Phylly, is that you?” Her dad’s voice changed, he suddenly sounded scared and anxious.
“Daddy? It’s awful,” she gasped out between sobs.
“Tell me where you are and I’ll come and get you.”
“It’s not going to be that easy.” El Jefe laughed. “Talk to your daddy, tell him everything the bad man has done. Tell him everybody I’ve killed.”
Phyllis sobbed harder.
“Phylly, has he hurt you?” her father shouted.
El Jefe pulled out his knife. “Talk to your father,” he said as he let the knife play with the hem of her fluttery top.
“Talk, Phyllis,” Camilla used her school teacher voice.
“Talk!” El Jefe roared.
Phyllis jumped and the knife pierced her side. “Ahhh,” she screeched.
“Phylly, what happened? Are you all right?”
“Daddy, he wants money. I’m afraid. Please pay him so I can come home. Please.”
She sagged against Camilla who couldn’t hold her upright. They both ended up in a heap on the hood of the Jeep.
“Did you hear that, Daddy?” El Jefe sing-songed. “Get as much money as you can ready, otherwise your daughter is going to die a horrible death at the hands of my men. I’ll let them have fun with her first.”
“Keep your fucking hands off my daughter! I’ll get you your damned money.”
“You have forty-eight hours. I’ll give you the wiring instructions then.”
El Jefe severed the connection and turned to Camilla. “Now it’s your turn.”
Of course, Asher was leading the way, didn’t matter if they were jumping into the desert, the water, or the jungle, somehow he was always the first man out of the plane. It always pissed off Cullen Lyons. The third time Nic looked over at Zed, the man rolled his eyes at him.
“I’m fine,” Zed yelled over the roar of the plane engines. “Have a doctor’s certificate to prove it and everything. If I didn’t know better, I would say you were a parent.”
Nic stiffened. He didn’t want anyone to accuse him of having mothering instincts; that would blow his entire cover. Ezio laughed.
Before more laughter could ensue, Max shouted out. “Formation.”
Everybody got in line behind Asher. Drone images had found the tour bus off the major highway. It was on its side. They still didn’t have a list of passengers, but Nic’s spidey senses were going off the charts. It was like he was channeling Zed. It had to be because it was Cami’s alma mater.
Head in the game, Hale. Head in the game.
Nic closed his eyes for a second, then opened them. He watched as Asher jumped, then Cullen. He was the fifth man out of the plane. Nothing but green below; he was going to end up a tree for sure. Nic grinned. Asher and Cullen be damned, he lived for this shit too. He loved the float—it was serene, and for just a second Nic saw a hint of silver.
The bus!
He pulled his cord, trying to maneuver in that direction, but the wind was against him. He pulled harder and angled his feet. As he got closer to the ground he found himself moving to the north. Not close, but at least in the right direction.
Nic changed position, arrowing his feet and legs downward so he was less of a target to the tree limbs.
Nothing but leaves, baby. Nothing but leaves, he prayed.
Nic thumped onto the loamy jungle floor, his parachute tangled low in the trees above him. His grin damned near split his face as he gave a fist pump. He released the parachute and pulled, but it was no use, the thing was stuck.
“Who needs help, before I head for the bus?” he asked into his mic. Nic pulled out his handheld mini comp and pulled up his coordinates and where the bus was. One and a half klicks. Not bad.
“I have a visual on the bus,” Zed said. “Just have to cut down.”
“I’m at the bus,” Max said. “Need help, Zaragoza?”
“No, I’m good.”
“I see you, Ezio. Coming your way,” Leo said.
Nic heard Raiden give a soft chuckle. “Asher, looks like you’re in quite the predicament.”
“Fuck off, Sato.” Asher sounded off to the soft-spoken medic. Raiden laughed louder.
“What’s so funny?” Kane asked.
“He’s tangled in his parachute cord,” Raiden said. “He’s cutting his way out, but I’m loving how his leg is higher than his head.”
“Enough. All of you get to the bus. This is not good.”
A shiver ran down Nic’s spine.
6
“You’ve got to let some of the girls ride in the Jeep,” Camilla begged for the umpteenth time.
Let me ride in the jeep.
She gritted her teeth so she wouldn’t cry.
They had stopped for a brief respite so the soldiers could eat. They gave Camilla and the rest of the prisoners some food from their backpack
s and some of the water from the jugs that they had on the Jeeps. It wasn’t enough for everyone to keep up their energy for the miles that they’d been walking. For the first time in her life, she really wanted something good for herself, not a Ding Dong. It had just made her crash hard.
“What is she complaining about now?” El Jefe yelled in Spanish from the front Jeep.
“Same thing as the last time, she wants some of the bitches to ride in the Jeeps with us. But she’s right, they’re slowing us down.”
“Are you telling me how to run this operation Marco?”
Marco held up his hands and shook his head. “No. Whatever you think is best, you know I trust you.”
El Jefe gave a satisfied grunt. He pointed his finger at Camilla. “Come here.”
Camilla walked slowly over to the big man who was grinning at her. “Your father hasn’t called back. Why is that? Doesn’t he love you?”
“He’s probably out of the country. He works overseas a lot,” Camilla said. It was the truth.
“Then you need to come up here and call your Mama.”
Camilla broke into a cold sweat, praying that her mom wouldn’t answer the phone. He reached down with his meaty paw. It was dirty, his fingernails were black. He must have seen her cringe because he laughed again.
“Poor princess, she doesn’t like having to live in the real world. Get your ass up here.” Camilla gave him her hand and he swung her up like she weighed nothing. She landed on her knees with a thud onto the hood.
“Isn’t this a pretty picture?” He roared with laughter in Spanish. His men and Maria clapped. Camilla pushed herself into a standing position, jutted out her chin, and forced herself to look in El Jefe’s face.
“Oh look, she’s all brave.”
More laughter.
He grabbed her chin and jerked it sideways, then he jerked it back the other way. “Not bad. If her parents don’t pay, we can make some money if we sell her.”
Don’t listen. Don’t listen. Think of something good. Something precious. Hazel eyes staring down at her, as his hand stroked down her belly—
“Listen to me!”
Camilla lurched over as he punched her stomach with the satellite phone. “Make the goddamn call.”
She fumbled with the phone and caught it before it hit the hood. Gasping for air, she looked up at El Jefe, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
“—better hope your mother answers the phone since your daddy didn’t call back.”
Camilla bit back a sob and then sucked in another deep breath.
“Use the phone, bitch.”
It was hopeless, she had to make the call. With trembling fingers, she dialed. It barely had a chance to ring and she heard her mother’s voice.
“Camilla?” She’d never heard her mother sound so upset, so utterly frantic.
“Camilla, is it you?”
“Mother—”
El Jefe yanked the phone out of her hand and shoved her off the Jeep. She grabbed at the top of the vehicle, trying to stop her fall. But her efforts just swung her around so that her chest hit the hubcap. The bolts bit in deep as her head hit the hard rubber tire before bouncing off the ground.
“Owww,” she cried out. Her mouth tasted like dirt and copper.
“Just tell me what you want,” her mother was saying.
“What is your daughter worth to you?” El Jefe chuckled.
“Let me talk to her.”
Camilla rolled onto her back. Looking up she could see the canopy of trees and a small swatch of angry gray clouds. She grunted as the phone hit her belly in the same spot as last time.
“Talk to your mommy, chiquita.”
Her arms didn’t seem able to move, her hands felt like lead. Camilla rolled to her side, letting the phone slide to the ground.
“Camilla,” she heard her mother say through the speaker. “Talk to me.”
She pushed herself up so she was leaning against the wheel. Was her shoulder broken? She couldn’t move her right arm. She picked the phone up with her left hand and dropped it in her lap.
“Mother,” she lisped. Blood drooled down her chin.
“Is that you Camilla?”
“Yeth, ith me.”
Don’t cry. Crying never helps anything.
“What’s happening? Tell me what precisely is going on. I want exact details.”
When Camilla laughed, she coughed blood. Yep, her mother was still the same uptight physics professor.
She spat on the ground so she could speak clearly. “Precisely, I’m inth the Mexican jungle, with a bunch of students. We’ve beenth kidnapped. Some of the students have died. You need to tell this man you can raise at least a million dollars, otherwise, I will end up worse than dead, do you understand me?”
Thank God he had let Camilla talk to her mother to prep her. Her mother might be an unfeeling robot, but she was smart. She knew how to read between the lines of any situation.
“How do I get them the money?” Enid Ross finally asked.
Camilla flinched as El Jefe landed beside her. Once again he yanked the phone out of her hands.
“Hello, Mommy. In two days I will give you wiring instructions. You better answer the phone. Your daughter was telling the truth; there are things worse than death.”
“I understand.”
He broke the connection and shoved the phone into one of the many pockets on his cargo pants.
“Who else wants to ask for special consideration?” El Jefe yelled out to the students. Nobody said a word. He gripped Camilla beneath her armpits and jerked her into a standing position. She screamed in pain.
“Ahhh, poor girl, do you hurt?”
Camilla refused to answer. He pressed down on her injured shoulder and she screamed again.
“Answer me, do you hurt?”
“Yes,” she bit out. At least the blood seemed to have stopped.
“That’s good. Maybe you’ll remember who is in charge.”
He looked up, scanned the crowd of students, and pointed. “You, come here.”
Camilla looked up and saw Travis Driver jogging toward her. He looked anguished. “Yes, sir?”
“Make sure she can keep up.” He shoved Camilla into Travis’ arms.
Shit. Three shot and two dead due to injuries from the bus crash. No identification. By the looks of the clothes, one looked to be one of the kidnappers. The other four were American students who were in the bus. The dead kidnapper was already missing some body parts, likely due to a jaguar since he’d been outside of the bus.
“Par for the course, the kidnappers gathered all of their belongings so they could figure out who they had and make ransom demands,” Kane said.
“Any luck on a passenger manifest?” Nic asked. He thought about some of the younger kids he knew before graduating who might have gone to William and Mary College. Were they on this bus?
Kane looked down at his tablet. “Not yet. The ETA is an hour. Not that it really matters, we just need to get to them before any more end up dead.”
“Wrong,” Max inserted. “If we could get the backgrounds of some of these kids, maybe we could find out if some of them have any hope of helping themselves or helping us. So far, the only one who seemed to be on their game was the tour guide.”
“Point taken,” Kane nodded.
Nic still wanted to know who was on the bus. He didn’t recognize the two women or the one man who was shot in the chest. The second man, there was no hope of recognizing him, since half of his head was missing.
“What’s wrong?” Raiden asked as he sidled up to Nic.
Nic stared at the girl at the back of the bus, her neck clearly broken.
“She looks so young.”
Raiden sighed. “She’s a baby. After what we’ve seen and done, I can’t ever remember being so young.”
“I know. Even when I was that young, I felt older.”
“We’ve got to go,” Raiden said as he motioned with his chin.
Nic
nodded.
They stepped easily along the sides of the bus seats and hoisted themselves up and out of the bus door. They closed it up tight behind them. Kane and Leo were almost done burying the remains of the kidnapper. They didn’t need his carcass attracting more predators to the other bodies in the bus.
“The Mexican authorities should be here in two or three days to recover the bodies,” Max told the team. “The first two ransom demands have been made. Not surprisingly it was two of the girls. According to the manifest, there were fourteen passengers, as well as the bus driver and the tour guide.”
“Do we have names?” Nic asked.
Max gave him an odd look, then answered. “Just the two who’ve called their parents. Their names are Phyllis Agar and Camilla Ross.”
Time stood still and Nic went icy cold in the middle of the hot jungle. His vision narrowed so that he could only see Max. He couldn’t hear anything, just watch as his Lieutenant’s mouth moved.
He swayed and someone grabbed him.
“What the fuck, Hale? I hit you in the shoulder and you’re down for the count? Did you get injured on the jump?” Cullen demanded to know.
“Huh?”
“Are you okay?” Cullen waved his hands in front of Nic’s face as he spoke slowly and loudly.
“We lost him. It was bound to happen eventually. All those women finally drained him of his manly fluids and he’s of no use.”
Nic’s fist shot out and glanced off Cullen’s jaw. If the man hadn’t stepped backward in time, he’d be down for the count.
Max twirled Nic around and grabbed both of his shoulders. “Hale! Look at me. What the fuck is going on?” he roared.
Nic shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to focus on his boss. “What were those two names again?”
“Ross and Agar,” Max clipped out. “Which one do you know?”
“Camilla Ross, sir.” Nic’s voice was just as unemotional as Max’s.
“Is this going to be a problem?”
Nic swallowed.
“Fuck. It’s going to be a problem,” Max growled. He looked over at his second in command. Kane immediately came over. “Watch him.”
“It’s not going to be a problem. I can do my job,” Nic said. He kept his voice level and unemotional, but inside, his mind was swirling. How was it fucking possible that Cami was out here in this jungle? He jerked his head back to the bus, thinking of the young girl with the broken neck.
Her Faithful Protector: A Navy SEAL Romance (Night Storm Book 6) Page 5
