“They just blew up one of the cabins.”
Mason’s cell phone vibrated. He told Finn that it was Drake. “He figures there are six remaining targets. Unfortunately, the way the house and garage were built, it blocks part of his sight.”
“This sure sucks as a compound,” Finn muttered.
“He did take out the motor on the helicopter.”
“Give us Dasha!” the man was screaming now.
“Can’t he take out the guy on the microphone?” Finn complained. Mason gave him a weary smile.
“He heard you. He said to tell you he’s trying.” Mason hung up the phone. They went back to their windows to see if they could get a shot. Finn worried about Angie. Was she shooting? Was she okay? Please God, say she was in the safe room. But deep in his heart, he knew she wasn’t.
***
Laird had assault rifles too, so Angie didn’t have to just shoot with her pistol. Sergei was sitting against a far inside wall. He looked gray. Pops didn’t look much better. She was upstairs with the two of them, while Laird handled downstairs. When she last saw him, he had looked scarily eager. By the time she’d gotten to the main house, Laird had the girls safely ensconced in the saferoom. As soon as Drake’s first shot was fired, Laird shouted for her to go upstairs with her grandfather. He had a brutal grin on his face.
The few shots she had taken had hurt like a son of a bitch. She was going to find Paul Jackson and stomp on his fucking ribs. She saw one man lifting his gun to take aim at the garage. She shot at him, grinning when she saw a spurt of blood fly up.
“That’ll teach you to try to shoot at my man.”
“Did you say something?” Pops asked tiredly.
“Just talking to myself,” she assured him. The muzzle of the rifle was supported entirely by the window sill. He was exhausted.
“Do you need to rest?” she asked.
Pops jerked the butt of the rifle to his shoulder and squinted down the barrel. “I’m doing just fine.”
A bullet crashed through the window, spraying glass like shrapnel all over her grandfather. She watched in horror as pieces lodged into his cheek, his shoulder, and his hand.
“Lou!” Sergei called out and ran over. Angie looked out and took aim. She could actually see the man grinning at her. She shot the smile off his face. She set the rifle down and lurched over to her granddad’s side. He was bleeding a lot.
“Angie, go back to your post,” Sergei said. She looked at the man. He was competently dealing with her grandfather’s injuries. “Angie, go back to your post,” he commanded. She forced herself to stop looking at Pops’ injuries and instead looked into the decisive blue eyes of the former Marine sergeant. She nodded.
“Report!” Laird shouted from the first floor.
“We’re good!” Sergei shouted. He motioned for her to get moving. She took one last look at her grandfather and went back to the window and picked up her rifle. She glanced over to the right and saw the three little windows in the garage. She smiled grimly as she saw a flash as a bullet was fired out of one of the windows. Angie’s gaze was pulled back to the left as she heard the navy blue truck start up.
What the hell?
It started to move. It reminded her of one of the monster trucks she had seen on TV, and it was picking up speed. It was heading towards the front of the house. It couldn’t possibly climb the porch stairs, could it?
Angie watched in horror as it ran over two corpses, and slammed up the steps. She felt the reverberations at the same time as she heard the crash of the timber. Oh God, let Laird be okay. She knew the safe room was in the basement and encased by steel, so the girls were safe, but Laird could be injured or dead.
“Angie, move away from the window.” She knew that. What was she thinking? She moved and helped Sergei pull her grandfather to the far side of the bedroom, away from the front wall. She heard yelling downstairs and then shots fired. She grabbed her pistol and started towards the door of the room. Sergei grabbed her arm.
“Stay here where it’s safe.” She threw off his hand.
“Stay with Pops.” She left the room, and peered over the railing and saw the shattered living room where the truck had come careening through the space. There was a man hanging out of the passenger seat, he looked dead.
Laird had his knife to the neck of another man. She watched in satisfaction as he plunged it deep. Then she saw a third man crawling out of the cab of the truck, he held up a gun, and she squeezed off a shot. It went wild. Laird turned and ducked. He threw his knife at the man, and it hit his shoulder. Laird ran after his knife, and moments after the knife landed, he tackled him. Angie rushed down the stairs. By the time she got there, Laird was holding the man in a chokehold.
“I’m going to make this motherfucker talk,” Laird said through gritted teeth.
Finn pushed his way through the rubble with a man in tow. “Nope, it’s going to be this asshole.”
Hysterical laughter threatened, but Angie managed to tamp it down. “Who gives a shit which man talks first? Where’s Mason? Where’s Drake?”
“Mason’s calling in the reinforcements,” Finn said as he handed off his prisoner to Laird and headed towards her. “Are you okay, baby?”
“We need an ambulance for Pops. Are you sure we got everybody? Where’s the general?”
Laird spoke up. “He’s not here. According to this asshole, he’s waiting for a report. He never left Austin.”
Finn took her hand. “Take me to Lou.”
She led him upstairs. Sergei had removed the glass, and was in the process of using sheets as bandages.”
“I’m okay, Angela,” he breathed out, as she rushed to grab his hand.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” she commanded. His brown eyes started to close.
“No, stay awake!”
“Not goin’ anywhere. Tired.” His hand went lax. She pressed her fingers against his neck, shuddering with relief when she felt his pulse.
“It’s okay. He’s just unconscious,” Sergei explained.
“Where’s the ambulance?” Angie cried.
“It’ll be faster for Drake to drive you and your grandfather to the hospital in Lake Texoma. We still have a little more cleanup to do before the authorities can be called in,” Finn explained.
She looked at him. “What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to finish this, Angie.” Finn’s thumb brushed her cheekbone.
“How?”
“Trust me. You need to be with your grandfather. Trust me to take care of this, okay?” She looked at the man who had been through hell, and tears welled.
“I’ll always trust you.”
“Drake!” Finn shouted for his friend.
“Right here.” Angie turned and saw the large man coming into the room with Laird. They actually had a stretcher.
Laird knelt down beside Pops. “Let me take a look at him.” He had a medical kit, and took her grandfather’s blood pressure and listened to his heart with a stethoscope. “Angie, he’s strong as an ox.” He gave Pops a slight shake. “Mr. Donatelli, can you hear me?”
“What?” came the thin response.
“This is Laird. We’re going to get you to a hospital.”
“Where’s Angela?”
“I’m right here, Pops.”
“Love you,” he slurred, then his eyes closed again.
“He’s doing good. I promise,” Laird said looking up at her. He motioned to Drake. “Let’s load him up. You’re going to the hospital with Angie and Mr. Donatelli.”
“I’ll go,” Sergei said.
“Not you Sergei,” Finn said. He had a plan.
***
The men watched as Sergei wielded the knife right below the man’s eye. He was speaking in Ukrainian. A pinprick of blood welled beneath the man’s eye socket.
Sergei took the knife away, and started to clean his nails with it since it was Finn’s huge K-Bar, he knew just how much skill and delicacy was required. The man kn
ew his way around knives, and it was scaring the piss out of the Ukrainian soldier. Everything in Finn’s soul approved.
“He said he is a Special Forces soldier and will not tell us anything.” Sergei laughed.
The soldier was tied tightly to the chair in what was left of Laird’s office. The old marine sliced a long line along the soldier’s upturned palm with the K-Bar. He screamed. Finn looked on with fascination. The cut exactly mirrored the man’s lifeline.
Fuck, Sergei was good with knives.
The old man crouched in front of the prisoner and yelled in his face, spittle hitting him. The man cringed. He kept trying to respond, but Sergei talked over him until finally he stopped and let him speak. The soldier was obviously begging.
“He said that when he returns, he will tell the general Dasha died in the attack.” Sergei laughed. “Close, but no cigar.”
Sergei gave the man a gentle smile and cupped his cheek. He said something softly in their native language. The man frantically shook his head no. Again he was begging. The old marine persisted. The man started to cry, continuing to shake his head.
Sergei turned and looked at the other men in the room. “He doesn’t want to tell us where his general is.” Finn shivered, but not with shock, or revulsion. No something dark and ugly reared its head. It delighted in what he was sure was going to come next.
Sergei turned and smiled broadly at the soldier and said something in Ukrainian, then started cutting off the man’s pants. For an instant, the room changed, and he was once more in Canada with his gun shoved in Albert Liu’s crotch, revenge roaring through his blood.
When Sergei exposed the soldier’s penis, he pressed the knife beneath the tip, and the soldier started babbling. The man was crying as the blood dripped down from the cut under his eye and his hand.
“Ahh, we have a location. He is in Austin. What a popular town.”
“Now you will call your leader, and tell him you have the girl and are bringing her to him. Do you understand?” The man nodded. Defeated.
They gave the man the cell phone they had confiscated. “Call the general,” Sergei demanded. “If you say one thing wrong, I will not kill you. I will castrate you.”
Finn watched and listened as he made his call. The general was going to meet them at Lou’s ranch. As soon as it ended, he dropped the phone and started crying. Sergei laughed. He turned to Finn.
“It is done.”
What did he mean it was done?
It wasn’t even close to being done. Why hadn’t he killed the man? Finn took two steps forward toward Sergei, intent on taking his knife out of the old Marine’s hand. If Sergei wouldn’t finish the job than Finn sure as fuck would.
Stop! Breathe!
He took a deep breath and looked away from the knife in Sergei’s hand. He took another look at the man in the chair. He was sobbing. Was it done? Maybe it was. He took another deep breath and turned away. He saw Mason looking at him, assessing.
***
“You need me. I speak his language,” Sergei insisted. Finn wasn’t sure which language the old Ukrainian man was referring to—their native tongue or the brutality. But then again, who was he to talk? He had enjoyed every fucking minute of Sergei’s questioning of the soldier.
“Sergei, Mason and I have this. You need to stay with the girls. Laird will have his hands full without you.” Sergei gave him a hard look.
“This man is an animal. You must not be afraid to put him down.” Sergei’s gnarled hands clenched into fists.
“We will make sure he is no longer a threat to your niece,” Mason assured him. Sergei dismissed Mason and looked long and hard at Finn as if he saw a kindred spirit.
“Mason is right. Dasha will no longer have anything to fear.”
“Don’t underestimate the man, even with the call, he’ll be on alert for trouble. Once he sees you don’t have Dasha, he will shoot to kill,” Sergei warned.
“We know,” Finn assured him. “Everything we’ve discussed makes our plan perfect. We can ambush him. You know this will work.”
“But I’ve lived on the ranch for the last six weeks, I’ll be an asset.”
“Sergei, you’ll have to trust us.” Mason’s tone brooked no argument.
“Yes, sir,” Sergei acquiesced.
They trudged out to Drake’s rental truck that miraculously had only suffered minor damage during the shootout.
“Do you think anybody will notice a few bullet holes?” Mason asked.
“Nah, it’s Texas. Well, Oklahoma,” Finn qualified. “But soon to be Texas. We’ll be fine.”
“I’ll drive first, you can rest. Then we’ll switch,” Mason said.
“I’m too keyed up to sleep,” Finn said.
“Then rest your eyes. You need some shut-eye.” Mason’s tone was softer than with Sergei, but he still expected Finn to obey him. The thing was, Finn knew Mason only did it for his own good.
Finn climbed into the passenger seat and was amazed at how fast he fell asleep. He jerked awake when some kind of nightmare caught him sideways. Somebody had been holding Angie one handed, over a cliff. They threw her over, and he hadn’t been able to catch her. He was dripping wet with sweat.
Mason was partly looking at the road, and partly looking over at him. “You okay, Finn?”
“Fine,” he clipped out his answer fast, not wanting to talk about it.
“Want to drive?”
“Sure.” Happy at the idea of something to take his mind off of the nightmare.
They had to go a couple of miles more down the freeway before there was a place to pull over.
“You sure you’re good?” Mason’s voice was even, but it still rubbed Finn the wrong way.
“I said yes, already,” Finn snapped. Mason just nodded and got out of the driver’s side, and they switched seats. God, his head hurt. He didn’t have any sunglasses. He felt like a piece of shit for the way he had talked to Mase. He just continued to fuck up all over the place.
“When do you think we’re going to hear from Drake?” Finn asked.
“He called while you were asleep. He’s about two hours behind us. He’ll meet us at your apartment.” Finn gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“Don’t trust me, huh?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. Mason stayed silent. “Can I get a do-over?”
“God, Finn. I would prefer it if we could do over a lot,” Mason said quietly. “You’re really afraid I don’t trust you?”
“How can you, Mase? I don’t fucking trust myself.” Finn could taste the bitterness coating his tongue.
“You’re one of my men. You’ve saved my life. You’ve literally, all bullshit aside, saved my life, three fucking times Finn.” The steering wheel was slippery, and his head pounded.
“That was before,” he whispered.
“You’re the same man. You’re Finn Fucking Crandall.” Finn could hear Mason’s furious attempt to get through to him, but it was like the words were coming from the end of a long tunnel.
“I was.”
“You are!” Mason said passionately. “I know you have issues. Fuck, we all have them. But it hasn’t changed the man you are. You’re always going to be Finn. You’re always going to be a man I admire, respect, and love. Are you hearing me?"
“Fine. I am. I’m getting there. But then, like tonight, I’m not there. I’m back. Do you know how badly I wanted to pick up that knife and chop off that guy's dick? I have this sickness that crawls inside of my head. And that’s not the worst of it.” He stopped talking. Just stared at the road. Watched, as miles crept by.
Finally, Mason asked, “What’s the worst?”
“For just a minute tonight, I wasn’t in the present. I thought I was in another room. I literally thought I was somewhere else. My head still isn’t right Mason.” He gulped the bile back and had to swallow the sick taste.
“That’s part of it,” Mason said calmly. Just hearing him say it like that helped. “I know you. You’ve
researched this to death. You know this part of the illness.”
“I do. Why do you think I took leave? I thought with time and distance I could heal.”
“Then you decided to get right back into the thick of things.” Mason sighed.
“Well, I didn’t think it was going to be like this. I thought I was just going to search for Dasha’s baby, which I’ve failed to find,” Finn said tiredly.
“Rylie and Lydia should have a name soon, now that they’ve tracked her to Indianapolis. You know this.”
“And I’ve done nothing.”
Mason laughed. “Beat yourself up much, Crandall?”
That stopped him. “Uhm, maybe?”
“Uhm, a lot.” They both laughed. “Let me help you put this into perspective. You’ve helped to save Dasha’s life, and the lives of all the other girls from this fucking Ukrainian monster.” Mason took a deep breath. “But that’s the heart of the matter, you can’t see anything good that you’ve done. Can you?”
“No, I guess I can’t. I only seem to focus on my failures.” Finn paused. “That’s not totally true. Angie helps me see the positives.”
Mason laughed. It was a long laugh. Finn turned his head from the highway to look at him. “What?”
“I think you’ve just found one of the secrets.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sophia was a Godsend when I was having trouble losing Larry back on that mission three years ago.” Finn remembered how closed off Mason had been after that. They had all worried about him.
“Angie brings light into my life.”
“Same with Sophia.” Finn wondered if he said Angie’s name the same way Mason said Sophia’s name.
“But I can’t depend on her for that. That’s not fair to her. I think. I think...” he stuttered to a stop.
Mason didn’t say anything, he just waited patiently.
“I need help. I need counseling.”
“Finn, you know there is no stigma attached to that, don’t you?”
Her Fierce SEAL: Midnight Delta Book 6 Page 19
