by Angela Rush
“Thanks for everything, Hawk. I care about Warren, too. I would never hurt him. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me.” Elise’s eyes mist with tears. “I hate that I was kidnapped and tortured, but I would do it all again if it meant finding Warren and spending the rest of my life with him.” Hawk is beaming when he looks at Elise. He gives her another hug and then turns her toward her gate.
“Have a safe flight, little one. Let us know when you arrive and are safely home, ok?” Hawk watches until Elise boards the plane. After the plane has taken off, he heads back to his SUV and home to his wife and boys. Hawk is so thankful that Deadeye has found himself a good woman. There is nothing like the love a good woman to make a man complete.
Chapter 21
Deadeye enters his empty apartment. He is thankful to be home at last. This mission had been torture. It was the first time he had been out of country and unable to see or talk with Elise every day. He couldn’t wait to call her and let her know he was home and wanted her back at his place. It 0300, too early to call and wake her up. He can catch a few hours of sleep, then attend the debriefing before heading north to collect her. He startles when his phone rings loudly in the quiet apartment. It’s Hawk. Why is he calling this early? They aren’t due for the debriefing for several more hours.
“Hey, Hawk. What’s up?” Deadeye answers.
“You need to sit down.” Hawk growls into the phone. Deadeye gets a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“What’s wrong?” Deadeye growls back. “I’m sitting so tell me.”
“Elise is missing.” Hawk states simply. “Her parents called me a few minutes ago. She went for her therapy session over 12 hours ago, but never returned. They are frantic trying to find her. They thought maybe she had come to you. Did she?”
“No Hawk, you know I would have told you immediately.” Deadeye growls in frustration. “I wouldn’t keep something like that from you.”
“I know man, but I had to ask.” Hawk returns. “Look come to base I’m calling in the team. We will get on this and we will find her. We have contacts that don’t have to follow the rules. I’ll call Tex and have him track her phone. He can access security cameras and a lot of other shit I don’t even want to know about. He will help us find her.”
“Alright.” Deadeye lets how the breath he was holding. “I will text her and see if she is on her way here.”
“That’s a good idea. Let’s focus on finding her. I’ve already called Straw and Tank to come pick you up. I don’t want you driving while worrying about her.” Hawk tells him. “They should be there any time now.” His doorbell rings right on time.
“They’re here. I’ll see you in a few.” Deadeye says as he ends the call and heads to his door. They need to get to base and find her now.
Several hours later, the team is meeting in the conference room. Hawk has contacted Tex, but they are waiting for him to report back. Deadeye has texted and called Elise several times but gotten no response. That has made his blood run cold. She hasn’t read the text and her phone went straight to voice mail. Where can she be? Why isn’t she answering her phone? Charlotte had even called her, but still nothing. Deep in his gut he knows she is in grave danger. She didn’t just take off. Someone has taken her. He is burning with the need to do something, anything to find her. They obviously aren’t getting anywhere sitting in this damn room. When he feels like he can’t take anymore, Deadeye jumps to his feet.
“I can’t sit here doing nothing. I’m going to head to Maryland see what I can find out.” Hawk moves to stop him before he can make it to the door.
“Look I know exactly what you are going through, but we can’t go off half-cocked. We need intel before we can begin looking for her. Give Tex time to do his thing.” Hawk squeezes his shoulder gently. Deadeye nods but doesn’t look happy.
“You should understand that I need to be doing something. As I recall you were ready to tear the world apart when Charlotte was taken.” Deadeye smirks at Hawk. “I can’t just sit here!” Deadeye shouts with a growl. Ace, Straw, and Tank move to intervene in case Deadeye goes off the deep end. At that moment, Hawk’s phone begins to ring.
“Hawk here…Let me put you on speaker.” Hawk places his phone in the center of the table. “Go ahead Tex, we are all here.”
“First let me say, Deadeye, I’m sorry this happened to your woman. Now, I have scoured the surveillance videos from her therapist’s office, but she apparently never made it there. Her phone is off, so I can’t track it.”
“Then what the hell can you tell us? Dammit we need something to go on!” Deadeye yells at the phone.
“As I was saying, it’s a no go on the phone so I began looking at street cameras between her home and her destination. She had driven herself which was a little out of character as her parents had insisted that she be driven by their personal driver, but her mother had a charity meeting to attend and Elise had convinced her she would be fine to drive.” Tex pauses and Deadeye is seething. He wants to yell at the man again but knows it will only delay getting the information he needs.
“She made it almost to the therapist’s office. She was stopped at a traffic light when she was rear-ended by a large SUV. She opened her door and got out of her car with her cell phone to her ear. Two men exited the SUV. She stopped and tried to run away, but they grabbed her and put her in the back seat of the vehicle. One of the men got in her car and drove away.” Tex pauses again. “The SUV is a rental. I’m still working on tracking down the name on the rental agreement. I followed the cars until they left the city heading South and there were no more cameras to follow them. I will be checking each city along the route and will give you an update as soon as possible. It’s been hours though; they could be anywhere by now. I’m sure once I get intel on the rental agreement, I’ll be able to give you more information. Hang on, I’m getting something.” Tex is quiet for several minutes. The only sound coming from the phone is the clacking of fingers on a keyboard.
“Alright, the SUV was rented to Mason’s enterprises. When I traced that down, which wasn’t easy. They have covered their tracks really well, using alternate IPS addresses…”
“We don’t need to know that shit, Tex! Get to what we need to know.” Deadeye thunders at the phone.
“Right, well they have ties to ISIS, in particular one Odmiar Hussan. His brother, Oden Hussan is the owner of this company. He has been in the States for a couple of years. He’s on Homeland’s watch list. I’ll be sending you all the known locations of his residences and hideouts. It’s not much but it’s all we have for now. I’ll search for cameras around those locations.”
“Thanks, Tex. Let us know if you find out anything else. We owe you, big.” Hawk says to the phone.
“Anytime, Hawk. You don’t owe me anything, but a visit in the near future would be nice. I’ll keep you posted.” The line went dead. Hawk’s phone pinged with the sound of an incoming email. Hawk linked it to the whiteboard in the room and posted Tex’s email on it so they could all see the information.
“Damn! There’s at least 10 addresses on there. How are we to decide which one to start at?” Hack asks the room. No one answers for a long time. Then Hawk says what they all know.
“We need to wait for more information from Tex.” He looks to Deadeye then. “I’m sorry man, but it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Deadeye drops his head in defeat. How is he to ever find her? What are they doing to her? She has to be terrified and wanting him to come find her. He slams his hands on the table. “I say we start with the addresses closest to where she was taken until we hear back from Tex. I can’t just sit here.” Deadeye tells the room, not caring if they agree or not. He isn’t going to sit still another minute while she is scared and hurting.
“Ok, I have a plane on stand-by. Let’s go.” Hawk tells the room. All the men are out the door and headed for the base airport in no time. The flight to Maryland is the longest one of Deadeye’s life. He
was itching to get on the ground and find Elise before those bastards hurt her. Once they were on the ground and had rented a couple of Toyota Highlanders, they set off to check the first address. Unfortunately, is was a useless trip other than to rule it out as a location. They didn’t find any useful information on Elise’s whereabouts. While at the third location and still not turning up any evidence, Tex calls again. Deadeye’s heart sinks when they hear what Tex has to tell them this time.
“Head to the airport. I have a plane waiting for you.” Tex begins the conversation. Without waiting for an explanation, the team moves toward their vehicles. “I have footage of them putting her on a private jet about 6 hours ago. The flight path filed with the FFA is for Southern California, specifically San Diego. I have already called Wolf. The SEAL team is on stand-by. I am working the security camera footage at the airport and traffic cameras. I will have you a location by the time you arrive in California. Have a safe flight, gentlemen.” Tex pauses. “Deadeye, hang in there. She looked good on the video, pissed, but unharmed.” Tex ends the call.
Five hours later, Deadeye is frantic to find Elise. She has been gone too long. They are pushing the 24-hour mark since Elise was taken. Time is rapidly running out. They haven’t heard back from Tex, but at least Abe and Cookie were waiting for them at the airport. Once they are all loaded up, they head to base where the rest of the team is waiting for them with Commander Hurt.
They enter the conference room where they had once gathered to plan the rescue of Charlotte, when she had been taken by a Columbian drug lord. The SEAL team is gathered around a map with their heads down. Wolf looks up as the team enters. He immediately goes to Deadeye and gives him a man’s back slapping hug. Deadeye looks the worse for wear that’s for sure.
“Hey, how are you holding up?” Wolf asks as the men part. Deadeye shakes his head. He can’t speak for the emotions making his throat tight. He is more than thankful this team of SEALs are here to help him find his woman. “We’ll get her back.” Wolf gives him another slap on the back before he moves to greet Hawk and the rest of the team. They engage in some small talk while Deadeye stares out the window wondering where his woman is and if she will be the same woman when he finds her again.
Chapter 22
The ringing of Wolf’s phone has all the men gathering around the table in the middle of the room. They are anxious to hear what new information Tex has gotten on Elise’s location.
“I have tracked their movements from the airport to a remote cabin in the mountains near Big Bear Lake. Mozart, I know you are familiar with the area. I’m sending GPS coordinates of the cabin’s location. I was able to verify via satellite in real time they are there. I’ll only have the satellite for a couple more hours, so you guys need to get on the move.” Tex ends the call as Hawk and Wolf’s phones ping with the incoming coordinates from Tex. The teams jump into action and head for their waiting SUVs parked out front.
The coordinates are for a location about an hour and 20 minutes away. Tex tells them that he saw them taking Elise inside the cabin a few hours ago, but they haven’t emerged. He has his eyes on the satellite hovering over the location and will call immediately if there is any movement. He has been working to see if he can find any surveillance cameras in the area.
The team is already on their way before the phone call ends. They race through traffic and Deadeye prays some ticket happy cop doesn’t try to stop them. Deadeye stares out the window at the rapidly passing scenery. He vows that he will save Elise again and when this is all over, he’s going to ask her to marry him. It may be crazy because they haven’t known each other very long, but he knows there will never be another woman for him. He loves her and wants her to always be in his life. After a mad dash across the city and into the mountains they finally arrive at their location. They park about a half-mile away and begin to move to surround the cabin.
Once both teams have gotten into position, they begin to strategize how to get into the cabin and save Elise without her captors harming her first. There were several ideas tossed around, but without knowing for sure how many they were dealing with it was hard to settle on a plan.
“We need to get eyes inside.” Hawk tells the team as they get into position. “Hack and Worm see if you can get on the roof and find a way to find out what is going on in there.” Both men nod and move toward the side of the cabin where there was a large tree. Five minutes later they were reporting back over their mic that each man wore when in the field.
“There are five tangos, repeat five tangos. One posted at the front and one at the back door.” Hack’s voice comes across their ear buds. “There are three men in the cabin. There’s no sign of the target.”
Deadeye’s heart sinks to his stomach. Where is she? What have they done with her? While he is worrying about where she is and what has happened to her, Worm’s voice comes across the mic. “I have eyes on the target. I repeat eyes on the target.”
Deadeye breathes a sigh of relief. She’s here and soon she will be in his arms again. They just need to be stealthy and not alert the men in the room with her that they are there until it’s too late.
Hawk’s voice comes over the com. “SITREP, Worm.”
“Target is in the kitchen area of the cabin.” Worm reports. “One man is near her. She looks unharmed.”
Hawk signals Ace and Straw to take out the man at the front door while Tank and Wallace take out the man at the back door. Both teams of men move silently into position to take out their targets. It takes them several minutes to slip up on to their positions. Once they are in place, it all happens in a blur. The men move quickly, silently and have taken out the guards in less than a minute. The rest of the team moves up to head inside to take out the men holding Elise and liberate her once again.
Deadeye is trembling as they move into position to enter the building. It is imperative that they make no noise and alert the men guarding Elise. He fears they will kill her before they can free her. No mission has ever been so important. Not his first-time saving Elise, not saving Charlotte from crazed drug runners. This is his test. He has to get to her. He can’t live without her another day.
Hawk, Wolf, and Abe take point and move into the cabin launching flash grenades into the room prior to entering. After a beat, the men flood into the cabin, with the Ace, Straw, Deadeye, Benny, and Dude on their heels. At the same time, Tank, Wallace, Cookie, Mozart, and Bull enter from the back. They all have guns drawn and are ready for battle.
The men in the cabin are caught completely off guard. Two of them are lounging on the couch and the third is in the kitchen area. They dazedly try to reach for their weapons, but it’s too late. The teams take each man out with a quick bullet to the head. Deadeye scans the room, but there is no sign of Elise. His heart sinks into his stomach. What have they done with her? He runs into the room and looks for a possible location of where they may have hidden her. Spotting a closed door on the far-left side of the room, Deadeye makes a run for it.
Deadeye kicks the door open and it bangs against the wall. He quickly scans the room and his eyes fall on Elise. She is again tied to a bed and gagged, but at least she has all her clothes on this time. Her eyes are wide and fearful until she sees Deadeye. Despite his face covered in war paint and him being dressed in black from head to toe, she would know his eyes anywhere. Her eyes light up when she realizes it is Warren and his team that have come to rescue her. Warren rushes to her side.
“I’m here sweetheart.” Deadeye declares as he takes her in his arms. He grabs his knife from its strap and cuts the rope holding her to the bed. “I believe we have done this before, sweetheart.” Elise rolls her eyes at his arsine assessment of the irony of their situation. Before she has time to think about it any longer, Warren’s lips are on hers. He kisses her long and deep with all the passion she has missed while he was gone. When he pulls back from her, he looks in her eyes. Elise sees tears in his eyes. “I love you, sweetheart. God, I thought I had lost you.” Warren’s voic
e has gotten husky with emotion.
“Warren, I love you, too.” Elise wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face into his shoulder. “I was so afraid I would never see you again. Thank you for finding me.”
“I would come for you a hundred times, sweetheart, but I hope this is the last. Are you hurt?” Warren’s face is drawn with emotions.
“No, Warren. I’m not hurt. Just thankful to be in your arms again.” Elise wraps her arms around him and kisses him again. They share a few more moments in each other’s arms before they are interrupted by Hawk and Wolf entering the room.
“Deadeye you need to get her out of here. We need to clean up this mess.” Wolf tells the couple. “We are going to have some explaining to do about why there are 5 illegal alien bodies in and around this cabin.” Elise’s head jerks up from Warren’s shoulder. Her eyes are wide with fear.
“Come on sweetheart.” Warren lifts her up in his arms. “Keep your head down and eyes closed, baby. You don’t need to see what’s left of the bastards that were holding you.” Elise nods in agreement and buries her face in Warren’s chest. They move out of the cabin at a fast clip. Warren carries Elise down the driveway to their waiting SUVs while the remainder of the team cleans up the mess they had made in and around the cabin.
A few hours later they are back in the conference room with Commander Hurt giving a debriefing on what had led them to kill 5 men. Elise gives them an accounting of how she was kidnapped off the streets of Annapolis and brought to California. Deadeye has refused to leave her side for a moment. He had requested she be evaluated at the ER, but Elise had refused. She assured him that she only have a few abrasions on her wrists from the ropes.
“Elise please tell us what happened.” Commander Hurt asks softly. “We saw the footage from the camera at the intersection, but I’d like to hear it from your perspective.”
