Alone, he ran fast and low to the next visual point and hunkered down just in time. Two men in white robes appeared from the one story adobe building closest to the roadway.
A long rush of bleats from Greg’s little friend made him chuckle.
“She misses you,” Tasker said a second later in the headset.
“Keep her busy.” He grinned and slid around the rocks to get a better view.
The lone vehicle rounded a long sweeping curve on the gravel road. Greg could make out the panel truck as it sped in their direction. Two armed men stood in front of the building like a receiving committee.
“Dog?”
“Go ahead, L.C,” he answered.
“Advise Road Crew we’ll need an evac in one five mikes.”
“You think this is our tango?”
“Better be. I’m ready to smell the ocean and have an extra-large Tim Horton’s. How about you, men?”
“Roger that, L.C.,” the men responded.
If Greg was wrong, the unmarked standby helo used for Special Ops would extract them to a new position. Regardless of the outcome, their cover would be blown. He wanted to pluck Khaled clean and neat from this village. If wrong, they’d be forced to dig information from the locals who were usually too afraid to share information or risk their family’s lives. The entire country lived in fear from the regime’s violent hand.
“LV, you got a lock on the target vehicle?”
“Affirmative.” LV was Spirit’s spotter. The panel truck came to a jolting halt, sending dust swirling into the air. Greg waited as two men exited a truck covered in dents and rust.
The passenger wasn’t Khaled. He watched as the village men walked to the cargo hold, and the driver joined them.
Speaking in Arabic, the lanky driver raised the truck’s back door and shouted an order to get out. Greg watched as ten women were yanked from the rear compartment.
Two of the girls tripped and fell to the ground. The driver’s passenger gripped the women by the hair and yarded them to their feet. The girls cried out and pulled away, huddling with the others in a tight circle.
Greg adjusted his BNVGs, the binoculars zooming in on the driver’s face. He smiled, and the dark warrior he kept in check for his missions rattled its chains to be unleashed.
“Confirmation attained. Khaled identified,” he announced to his men.
The women were rounded up and escorted toward the building situated on the far left of the village. Behind him, Greg heard the nearly silent approach of his men taking cover closer to his position. “Hold your secondary positions.”
“I’ve got a kill shot,” Spirit confirmed.
“Hold fire. Command wants him alive,” he responded.
Greg negotiated the terrain on his belly with deliberate movements. One last clutch of boulders to conceal his location lay ten meters away. From there it was open ground to the village.
They needed to move quickly. Khaled never remained in one place for long. When Greg gave the command for his team sniper and the rest of the men to exterminate the tangos outside, the next step would be to apprehend Khaled.
“Dog, take out the truck if Khaled makes a run for it.”
“Roger that.”
When the last woman disappeared inside the red adobe building, Greg let a second pass then said, “Take ‘em out.”
His men fired with precision. All but Khaled fell. His HVT ran for cover. Dog took out the tires on the truck.
Greg ran hard across the open terrain. At six-foot-four, he had a long stride. A thirty meter dash for cover while Khaled darted into the building closest to him, causing irate voices and yelling from inside.
“On me,” Greg ordered.
LV, Spirit and Tasker caught up to him and took position against the east wall, offering cover fire for the rest of the team now making their way across open ground.
The rest of his team positioned themselves on the other side of the building, flanking Khaled’s escape route. Silence crept over the village again, then Greg heard the door creak open and craned a look around the corner.
A small boy, no more than six years of age, was pushed outside. He clutched something between his little hands.
Fuck.
“He’s rigged,” Tasker said quietly, peering around the corner beneath Greg.
The boy nodded when someone from inside the building gave him an order. The children of Africa were nothing but sacrificial lambs to the insurgents.
The boy headed their way. His scarred, bony legs revealing a hard life.
“I can bring him down,” Dog said, but the disgust was evident in his voice.
“Negative.”
“Aw, fuck no,” Spirit muttered.
The danger redlined with this kind of contact, but Greg wasn’t willing to let the kid die if he didn’t have to.
He waited, and the moment the boy rounded the building, he clutched his hands over the kid’s tiny fingers and pulled him in.
The boy’s eyes grew wide and he shouted with fear.
Turning, Greg held the kid while Tasker worked fast to pull the grenade from the kid’s hand. With a quick toss, and a three second pause, the explosion forty feet away sent rock and sand into the air. With no windows on the adobe building, the occupants inside didn’t have a visual.
Spearhead checked the back side of the building and reported. “All clear.”
“LV, Spirit, check on the women. Get them ready to transport.”
“We’re taking them with us?” LV confirmed.
“Not going to leave ‘em here. This is a drop location.”
“Copy.”
“Guess I’m babysitting,” Tasker muttered. The kid coiled under one of his thick arms, kicked his legs and wiggled to free himself. Unsuccessful, the kid tried to take a bite out of Tasker’s forearm.
Greg unclipped a smoke canister from his belt. Unless they had masks in there, they’d come out choking on the noxious fumes. “Hold position.”
He slid down the front face of the building and signaled again for his men to remain where they were. Instead of sending his Lead Breacher in first, he would ferret out the bad guy.
Putting it into a run, he tossed two canisters into the open doorway. Weapons fired from inside, the cartridges causing the sand to spit into the air on impact.
The canisters exploded. Smoke rolled from the entrance of the building. Coughing and shouts erupted from inside. Three men ran from the structure, smoke swirling around their departure. They hit the dirt on their stomachs.
These men were villagers. Again—a tactical move on Khaled’s part. If Greg’s team moved in and revealed themselves, someone would take a bullet shower.
He waited for Khaled. “Spirit, are the women secure?” Greg queried.
“No, sir.”
The short comm conveyed trouble.
“Dog, Kane, cover the main building. Roust Khaled.” Greg hurried down to the last building where he’d seen the women enter. Taking a sideways step into the dark, one-room space, he surveyed the situation.
Spirit had his weapon leveled, but so did one of the women. At LV!
Greg shouldered his rifle. The women huddled in the dim corner gripping each other, but the one holding the weapon, an old Russian rifle from the looks of it, grilled LV with eyes that could shrivel any man’s bravery. She shouted in French. Calling LV, Spirit’s spotter, a rapist.
His gaze roamed across each face, some of them as young as eleven or twelve. Surveying each woman, he paused on one in particular. She watched his movements, her almond shaped eyes eclipsed by beautiful dark hair falling past her shoulders. She was older than the rest. Maybe in her late twenties.
Moving slowly, he removed his helmet and nodded to her. “Vous allez à la maison.” You’re going home. More of the girls turned their attention toward him. He laid his weapon on the ground and raised his hands. “N’ayez pas peur.” Don’t be afraid.
He could feel the connection between himself and the dark-haired beauty. Th
rough her eyes, he read her fear, her strength. The woman with the weapon stepped ahead of the girl, then swung the barrel, aiming it at his belly.
If they were the bad guys, she’d be dead already, but she didn’t know that. The dark-haired beauty spoke softly to the woman with the weapon.
“Maison?” he asked. French was the main language in Niger. Since he was French Canadian, there was no language barrier.
The beauty tilted her head. She wore a thick sheaf of white fabric wrapped around her slender body. Her dark nipples peaked behind the cloth.
“Maison,” she replied and stepped toward him.
The woman with the weapon looked nervously between them, the end of the rifle wavering with the weight.
“Oui.” He nodded.
“Khaled secure,” Kane reported in the comm set.
A ripple of words ran through the women clustered in the corner. The older ones he surmised belonged to the village. Greg waited for the dark-haired beauty to approach him. No one had lowered their weapon yet.
Within reaching distance, she stopped. Her exotic eyes blinked as her slender finger stroked the badge sewn onto his fatigues. “Caa-na-da. S'il vous plaît. Aidez nous.” Please. Help us.
He nodded. “Yes, we’ll take you home.”
LV and Spirit lowered their weapons because the old girl wasn’t pointing hers at them anymore.
“Man, if we could can that slick talking shit, L.C., we’d at least have the female population on our side,” Spirit joked.
LV chuckled. “Must be those snake charmin’ green eyes of his.”
“Chopper’s incoming,” Dog announced on the comm set.”
Greg heard the familiar whip whip of the Griffon’s blades and turboshaft engine as the bird hovered above the village. Spearhead communicated with Road Crew that all was clear to land.
The women ran from the building, no longer prisoners of Khaled, but the dark-haired beauty remained, then knelt and picked up his weapon, handing it to him.
“Merci,” she murmured, uttering the word carefully. “Alia.” She pointed at herself and the tiniest of smiles curved the ends of her full lips.
Alia’s eyes settled on him with gratitude and the offer of something more intense. After a mission Greg’s adrenaline ran hard, looking for another high to replace the one draining from his pulse. Too often sex came to mind, but his intensity was too dark for most to handle. The need to use a heavy hand got worse and worse after he’d severed his ties with Kayla.
Looking into Alia’s eyes, he saw her desire seeking a connection, but he’d experienced every aspect of hostage and rescue situations. Hormones, adrenaline and fear mixed a cocktail that could get a warrior in deep shit.
He gripped his weapon and placed a hand to her back, guiding her out the front door. Alia clung to him as they ran for the chopper. His team had boarded the other women. Only ten troops fit in each Griffon.
A second chopper landed sixty meters from the other. Dog and LV rolled their HVT onto the metal deck, then the helo crew secured Khaled’s hands and feet. Dog gave Greg a short wave as the chopper lifted into the air with half the women and half his team.
Thirty minutes later, the helos landed at an American FOB Forward Operations Base south of Niamey. The women were assisted off the aircraft by US Marines, except for Alia. She’d sat beside him on the chopper and waited for him to pull her into his arms and settle her feet on the sand. There was something extremely exotic about her and wrapping his hands around her slender waist didn’t help.
A Marine waited to take her with the other women being hustled into the camp. They’d be fed and a translator would try to extract information from the women.
Alia tipped onto her toes and kissed his cheek. “Au revoir, Canada.”
The team surrounded him and watched as the women were herded away.
“I’m fucking ready for a Canadian Maple and a cup of dark roast,” Tasker said.
“Time for a shower and some half-decent grub.” Spearhead led the way, and the team followed, except for Tasker. He stayed beside Greg.
“Still thinking about calling it quits?”
He knew Tasker would ask him again once the op was finished. “I need something, and I’m not finding it here anymore.”
His friend cradled his C7A2 rifle in his arms. “You just need some warm, soft skin that doesn’t smell like one of us. Come on, I’ll buy ya a warm beer.”
Greg had been eighteen when he’d signed up. Stepping from a childhood draped in violence to a life of combat and missions, chaos had become second nature. The woman he desired most in this world belonged to someone else. He remembered Admiral Thane Austen telling him that before Kayla came into his life, all he’d had was fight and fuck.
Looking toward the rising sun on the horizon, waves of heat already shimmered over the rolling sand. Greg knew he needed a taste of home before he made a decision about his future. After his boots hit Canadian soil, he’d head west to the Pacific and take some time to shake combat off his back.
Tasker elbowed him and they caught up to the team. Later, under the hot stream of a well-deserved shower, Greg summarized his life. He went through the motions of eating, sleeping, sex and killing. It weighed heavy on his mind. He wasn’t sure if any woman could calm the drums of unrest that threatened to throw him off balance all his life.
His brother succumbed to the darkness, but Greg wouldn’t slip. Not like Daniel.
Diana was waiting for him. Maybe Tasker was right. Make an honest woman out of her. Cut his extracurricular activities as his team mate called them, and salvage his life.
Chapter Two
Kelly shivered from the cold air licking the sweat from her bare skin. Her gaze strayed to the heavens where a full moon hung over the corn maze. Transparent clouds swept by at a pace matching her heart rate. Brilliant light illuminated their diffuse edges, offering an eerie veil across the sky. Terror wasn’t just a silent rush of adrenaline and the chaotic pulse in her chest. It had a voice. Tonight it came with the brittle cornstalks swaying in the wind, seasoned with salt from the ocean nearby.
To him—it was a game. To her—a race for survival.
Thick, strong fingers gripped her throat, digging into her flesh. “I’m giving you a chance to live,” he said, dwarfing her in stature. Instilling double-edged empathy, a smile of deception clung to his handsome face, hiding the monster beneath. “I would have kept you, if you’d behaved.”
Her eyes strained in their sockets, seeking the nearest refuge. She would head straight for the lights attached to the trim on the old barn. A pitched roof layered with cedar shingles in the distance called to her as a safe haven.
Run silently. Run fast.
Kelly lifted a bare foot with a sucking release from the thick mud, prepared to die because living another day in his captivity would break her.
More shivers wracked her body as she stared into his hypnotic eyes. “I may not live, but you’ll be caught. Someone will put you in handcuffs for a change. I hope it’s a woman and she watches as they throw you in a cell to rot for the rest of your life.”
Not a stitch of emotion. Not even a blink. “Unlikely. Right now, your only concern should be if I catch you. The penalty won’t be a whip this time.”
“What made you this way? Why do you hate so deeply?”
His expression broke into a handsome smile. The type women swooned over until they faced the monster hidden behind the mask. His mind embraced sick, dark, misogynistic fantasies he nurtured into reality.
She flinched at the touch of his large palm against her cheek. A loving brush, instead of the extreme pain he’d inflicted over the last four days.
“I don’t hate you. I love to make you cry. Love the feel of my cock deep inside you. I love your pain.” He thumbed her jaw. “And I will savor looking in your eyes as your life drains away.”
He released her. His strength and certainty she'd die, intimidated her.
“Run, little girl.”
She c
rushed the thought of begging for her life. It hadn’t worked while he’d played his sick games with her body. “That’s right. I am somebody’s little girl. And once, you were somebody’s little boy.”
An uncommon flick of expression brought his brows together. “Outrun me, and you’ll live.”
Fear cracked a whip. Instead of running toward the lights, Kelly darted in the opposite direction. Before turning toward the only place she would find help, she needed to lose herself in the maze. She avoided the middle of the trail thick with mud and skirted the edge until she reached a fork in the rows of corn, and veered right.
Dead-end.
She stopped to listen. The sounds of the night and rustle of cornstalks only interrupted by her breathing. Was he moving? With narrow shoulders, she could pass between them without too much noise. She listened again, held her breath, and then darted between the stalks, headed for the light in the distance. Once she broke from the maze, she’d keep low and run for her life.
She crossed another trail thick with mud and turned sharply to the left, ignoring the pain in her foot when a root caught her frozen toes. Reaching another fork in the trail, she stopped and listened.
Nothing.
Her neck prickled with fear. She turned to look over her shoulder and nearly jumped out of her skin. Not more than twenty feet away, he stood in the middle of the path. His arms relaxed, a knife gripped in his right hand.
She closed her eyes for an instant as her courage drained.
Hope abandoned her.
She darted to the right. Thrashing through the next row, the dying husks snapped at her skin.
“No,” she screamed.
His presence closer. She’d experienced a chase nightmare before, but reality was much darker. She slipped crossing the next trail in the greasy mud. Vaulting to her feet, she charged ahead.
Closer.
She was getting closer to the light.
Closer to the edge of the maze.
She passed a hand painted sign with a fat, little jolly pig. The irony of it making her want to scream. She entered a clearing, taking a sharp left and went down on her knees, but before she could rise, his fingers coiled in her hair. She swallowed her fear. Ignored the sharp sting of her roots when he yanked hard, and she fell against him.
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