CODE NAME: Redemption
A Warrior’s Challenge Series
Book Six
Natasza Waters
Sensual Romance
ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only own ONE LEGAL COPY for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer or device to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the Canadian and United States Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer or device.
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
A Waterfall Press Book
Code Name: Redemption (Book Six) A Warrior’s Challenge series
Copyright © 2017 Natasza Waters
E-book ISBN: 978-0-9952598-2-9
First Publication: August 2017
Cover design by Dawné Dominique
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Epilogue
Excerpt - Code Name: War of Stones
Other Books
Message from Nat
Dedication
To the men and women of the Canadian Forces.
Acknowledgment
Sheri, you’re one heck of a crit partner.
Captain Kimberly, for all the extra little things you do, a heartfelt thank you.
To Waters’ Warriors for sharing my books with other readers and dropping by the site to post and brighten our days.
Dawné Dominique, your ESP skills are beyond belief.
For everyone who loves to read!
Prologue
Tracking a monster
Times Colonist Special Investigative Report
By Mattie Bidault
On February 14th 2016, a day when rose petals and romance should be in the air, the smell of blood and a grisly murder of a local resident found on the streets of the crown emerald city of Victoria left little to love. The city held its breath when it heard thirty-three-year-old Aimee Wallace, a woman with a Master’s Degree in Marine Biology working as a professor at UVIC, lay mutilated at the base of the Johnson Street Bridge. Two days later, Suzanne Bertram, a small bookstore owner from the tourist district, lay on the cold cobblestones of Helmcken Alley. The words serial killer sprang from the mouths of many while the Victoria City Police Department investigated the crimes.
Both women’s throats had been cut and they’d been disemboweled. The residents of this fair city reeled with nightmares that a monster walked the streets of our popular tourist destination, loved for its flavors of old England, historical homes and botanical gardens.
March 1st came with disastrous headlines. Mona Williams, a twenty-four-year-old model with a degree in media relations, lay on the steps of Craigdarroch Castle. Her wounds reflected the two women murdered before her. There could be no doubt, Victoria hid an evil reminiscent of the murders that began in Whitechapel 1888.
What is this monster’s motivation? The question asked in every coffee bar and local pub where residents felt safer in groups. The only difference in each case were the women. They weren’t working in a sexual trade, but professionals who flourished in their community.
On March 16th he struck again. Elizabeth Stevens, a thirty-year-old X-ray technician at Royal Jubilee Hospital, had been found at the base of a spiralling cedar tree at the Mount Douglas viewing area. The Ripper had left the downtown core this time, branching out but remaining within a popular area for outdoor enthusiasts. What made him leave the downtown core? More questions. More police officers added to the task force assigned to find the Victoria Ripper. But no answers.
The face of Victoria changed. The pall could be felt by its residents. Women didn’t venture out alone at night. A quick jaunt to the corner store for milk, which Elizabeth had been doing when she disappeared, became a hard lesson for all. No man with a long black coat and top hat roamed the streets. This monster had to fit in. Go unseen. Steal his victims under the shield of darkness. Does he track his prey or is he an opportunist?
April 1st, the killer’s pattern obvious to all, twenty-five-year-old Sheila Stokes, a real estate agent with a growing clientele, lay in front of the legislature building as a horrific reminder of bloodshed against the Cenotaph. She’d made a date prior to her murder, but never arrived. In fact, all the women disappeared four days before their bodies were found. The thought that this monster keeps them for reasons the police will not divulge can only rise to horrifying ends in the imaginations of us all.
April 16th arrived and vigilance heightened. The silence unbearable. He’d stopped killing.
Today is October 16th, and the Ripper has been silent for months. Is he gone? Did he get his fill of torture? Where has he gone? Why the reprieve from the bloody trail he left behind? No evidence to be found. The echo of fear resonates in the lowest tourism figures of this century and the last. Restaurants and the nightlife in a city once vibrant and exciting, sit empty of an audience. When will the trust return? How long does the Ripper have to be gone before the wounds on this city heal?
Mattie Bidault stopped typing and sat back in her chair to read her article. Since April, she had kept the women alive in her reports. Their killer had to be found.
She pushed her black-rimmed glasses up her nose. Although she’d come from a long line of police officers, including her two brothers, she had opted for journalism, but solving a crime ran in her blood. The Ripper had gone somewhere, but apprehension remained. His mutilated victims lay at the foot of headstones without justice. Mattie couldn’t let go of the story, because something told her he’d be back.
The nightmare wasn’t over.
Code Name: Redemption
> A Warrior’s Challenge Series
Book Six
Chapter One
From a hundred meters up the hillside where the unforgiving heat of the night drew every ounce of moisture from the ground, Lieutenant Commander Greg LaPierre and his team watched the movements of the tiny rural village below their position.
Sliding his camo jacket sleeve to reveal his G Shock, Greg checked the time and the temperature. Just past midnight, the air had dropped to eight degrees Celsius. The eerie glow of the night vision goggles over Greg’s eyes revealed little action, other than a stray dog sniffing a hole dug next to one of the adobe ovens the locals called home.
Secure intel advised their HVT High Value Target used this location as a drop. A small speck of civilization, which was a latitude and longitude more than a name on the map, in a mostly uninhabited valley on the southwestern tip of Niger.
Shimmying on his belly across the pitted rocks and sand, Tasker, one of Greg’s long time Joint Task Force 2 JTF2 team members, elbowed his way into the dark gulley.
“Lieutenant Commander. Spirit’s in firing position fifty meters above us on the ridge. We going to make a move?”
“Negative. We wait,” Greg ordered.
Tasker released a deep breath and settled across from him like a mirror image. “Nothing observed except normal activity. Guess we’re getting antsy.”
Greg turned onto his back, adjusting his butt and legs into the natural sway in the ground. They’d arrived forty-eight hours ago. His men wanted to engage, but Greg needed a sighting before dropping fire on a village with innocent women and children sleeping below.
He understood his team’s impatience. This was their last tasking on a seven month deployment. Canada’s Special Ops Command had ordered his team to deliver an extremist to the coalition. Command requested Greg’s team in particular to track and locate Khaled, an AQIM member Islamist militant organization aimed to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state.
Africa was now the new breeding ground for Al-Qaeda. Although, the African militaries had begun to work together because the continent had reached a tipping point of violence and unrest, they still needed help from the international Special Forces who worked in small teams on specialized missions.
After ten years, Greg’s CPO, Tom Haskell, team name Tasker, knew the protocol.
Tasker swiped at his forehead. Even with the chill in the air, a sheen of sweat covered his camo painted face. Eight hours ago, Greg noticed his CPO showed symptoms of the common cold. Viruses didn’t stand down for a mission. Greg had his share of illnesses during their missions. Not including the three bullets he’d taken on different occasions.
He unscrewed his water canister and thrust it at Tasker. “Drink,” he ordered.
He knew Tasker had already run out. Cover from the day’s hot sun consisted of spindly trees and gnarled branches. Enough to hide their position, but not if the village goat herder decided to check on his flock.
Tasker’s whisker-covered features grinned, pearl-white teeth shining in the darkness as Greg turned his head toward the fucking goat standing next to him. She bleated a quick hello. The damn thing had taken up residence next to him a few hours ago.
“Think she likes you.” Tasker chuckled, and handed back the half empty canister of precious water. “Thanks for sharing.”
Greg scanned the sparse tree line farther up the hillside where the remainder of his JTF2 team watched for best recon. Spearhead and Rock lay fifty meters to his right. Kane and Dog to his left. LV and Spirit covered their rear, entrenched inside the tinder dry forest.
In Greg’s comm set, Spirit said, “Got eyes on the prize, L.C.”
“Roger. I’ll take sixty winks.” Satisfied his sniper assumed the watch, Greg inhaled a deep breath. He should try to get some sleep as uncomfortable as this bed of rocks would be, a Special Operator learned to sleep just about anywhere.
Digging inside the front pocket of his pack, he found the granola bar he was after. The MREs he’d save for later since they tasted like shit. The goat, who’d settled next to him, swung her head with the sound of tearing foil. Her delicate, pink nose twitching with interest.
“All you need now is candlelight.” Tasker teased. “You like brunettes, right?” he added.
Greg grinned and broke off a piece of the bar. His new friend gently nibbled the nugget of food from his palm.
“Hard to believe we’ve been gone since April.” Tasker plucked a stray weed from the unfriendly ground and bent his legs, propping his wrists over his knees. “Command kept us busy this time. You heading back to Victoria when this deployment is finished?”
After shoving the empty wrapper into his pack, Greg unscrewed the cap on his water, gave the rim a rub with his sleeve and swallowed a long gulp. “Probably.”
He offered the canister to Tasker again, but he waved it off.
“Gonna make Diana an honest woman?”
Greg stared up into the cloudless night sky without answering. Diana deserved more than another three years of hanging around, waiting for him to appear between missions and workups. She’d been patient—probably too patient. As a nurse, she had the gift of empathy and yet he couldn’t commit to her or anyone else in good faith.
Whatever faith was left in him.
Out of left field, Tasker dropped the one name that rarely veered far from his mind. “How’s Kayla?”
The utterance of his ex-sister-in-law’s name evoked a response in his chest. She was happily married with two kids and living in Hawaii with the Admiral. They’d kept in touch, but he hadn’t seen her since she’d married Thane Austen, the Navy SEAL who’d given up a lifetime of bachelorhood and combat for her.
“She’s good.”
“Why do you beat yourself up by keeping in contact with her?” Tasker tossed the dry strand of grass and checked his watch. “She’s not technically family anymore.”
A lethal reaction jumped to attention deep in Greg’s soul.
Tasker raised his hand. “Hey, don’t give me that serial killer stare you reserve for Tangos. I’m just saying maybe it’s time to move on.”
“I still worry about Kayla, and she’s family to me.”
Tasker knew his past, just like the rest of the team. Greg’s brother, Daniel, Kayla’s ex-husband, cooled his heels in prison for initially stabbing Kayla twelve times, then back behind bars when he broke parole and tried to find her in San Diego. A few months to go and his sentence would come to an end.
Daniel had come to terms with letting go of Kayla. Greg hadn’t accomplished purging her from his heart completely. He still worried about her. Letting her get on with her life without him was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but it had been the right thing for both of them.
Anger was a weak description of the turmoil he’d experienced after losing her to the SEAL. Somehow he’d changed, and not in a good way.
Months later, Diana literally chased him down. Like all the random women in his life, they’d met, had a night of hot sex, but then she kept calling for a second date. At first he resisted, but the drive to shove Kayla from his mind needed the soft hand of a woman. The drums of war and violence from his missions demanded something in return as well, so he fed it with sex. Eventually, a relationship with Diana took root.
Through the darkness, Greg observed his team mate shaking his head.
As if reading his mind, Tasker said, “Time for you to get on with your life, man. Diana’s a nice gal. What the hell you waiting for? You’re the only bachelor on the team now.”
He wished he knew the answer. Diana was beautiful. Independent. She allowed him to step right back into her life like he belonged there when he visited the west coast. Although he was stationed in Ottawa, home was still Victoria.
“Maybe I will.”
Tasker chuckled. “Nah, you won’t. Women sense shit, ya know.” He hunkered down and crossed his arms, tucking his hands under his armpits, away from the cold nip of the air. “That goat
has a better chance of getting a ring than Diana.” He paused and gnawed on his lower lip. “You been honest with her about your extracurricular activities?”
The little goat nestled onto her knees and closed her eyes, content with her companions.
He shrugged. “Not really.”
Tasker shook his head, then closed his eyes.
The JTF team knew each other’s weaknesses and strengths. They also knew what no one else did. Greg had a dark side that needed to be fed, but it wasn’t information he shared openly.
“You prepared for a new team commander?” he said, changing the subject.
One of Tasker’s eyes popped open. “Planning on dying soon?”
“My term is up. Either I sign on for another three years, or I get out.”
Tasker closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re gonna live and die by the sword, L.C.”
The beard covering Greg’s jaw felt dry when he scrubbed his face. As soon as he returned home, the razor came out. He didn’t mind a day’s worth of stubble. Neither did most women when he scraped his jaw against the soft skin on a silky, toned inner thigh.
“L.C., we’ve got company,” Dog announced on the comm set.
Greg rolled over and tipped the BNVGs over his eyes. The flicker of headlights a mile away, approached quickly.
“Stay in position,” he ordered.
Crawling over the lip of the berm hiding their location, he slid down the slope toward a group of boulders large enough to hide behind. Evaluating his position and the ten ramshackle buildings in the village, he determined he wasn’t close enough. He needed to see a face. The face of Khaled Ashear. The guy ran a feeder cell for ISIL. The kind that gave the rebels money to buy weapons. This guy raised funds through the slave trading of Niger women.
Greg eyed another outcropping of rocks. From above, his men waited on his command. The more movement, the higher the chance they’d be seen.
Code Name_Redemption Page 1
