by Elle James
“Everyone out!” she yelled. “Run for the brush, hide.”
The three local women who helped with cleaning ran out of the tent.
Jonathan, Miller and Ramsey entered the tent. Miller and Ramsey scooped Dash up between them and left through the rear of the tent, heading for the ambulance at the far end of the compound.
An explosion shook the ground beneath Beth, and gunfire sounded much too close for comfort.
Jonathan hooked his arm around the Team Charlie patient and led him to the back exit of the hospital tent. “Get out, Beth.”
“I’m coming.” Knowing how precious antibiotics were, she hurried to the lock box where the vials were stored and shoved the key into the lock. Her hand shook so hard she almost couldn’t turn the key. When the box finally opened, she scooped as many of the vials and pills as she could into her pockets. Shouts outside the tent made her abandon the rest and race for the back exit.
Beth made it through the tent flap and out into the open, heading for the field surrounding the camp. She’d made it to the edge of the camouflage canopy when she was hit from behind and tackled to the ground.
She fought, kicking and screaming, but the man on top of her was much heavier and effortlessly held her pinned.
More men in black outfits with black turbans wrapped around their heads surrounded her. They bound her wrists with duct tape. The man who’d originally tackled her slung her over his shoulder and carried her to a truck, tossing her into the back. With her arms rendered immobile, she was unable to break her fall. Her head hit the hard metal and everything went black.
Chapter 11
By the time the Deltas returned, the Army camp and the village were in flames.
Dawg’s heart sank to his knees as he leaped out of the helicopter onto the ground and ran toward what was left of the tents and the camouflage canopy.
Villagers stumbled out of the grass and underbrush, tears in their eyes as they surveyed what was left of their homes.
Dawg’s hopes lifted when he spotted PFC Miller and Corporal Ramsey with Dash’s arms looped over their shoulders, emerging from a nearby field. He ran toward them, his gaze sweeping the field for more of the military personnel who’d kept the small tent city running. Several soldiers came out of hiding, helping older villagers. One of the villagers who’d worked with the US military assisted the wounded Team Charlie Delta from his hiding place in the brush.
As others emerged and the smoke cleared, it became clear. Beth and Colonel Parker were gone.
Rucker got on the satellite phone and asked for assistance locating the missing doctor and nurse while Dawg paced, feeling useless in the wake of the attack.
“That’s excellent news,” Rucker was saying. “We’re loading up now. I’ll relay the coordinates to the pilot.” He ended the call. “Our guys at Langley are on top of it. They’ve been conducting satellite surveillance in the area since we landed, trying to nail the location of the Boko Haram base. They’ve been moving at least once every three or four days.”
“How is that going to help us if they’ve been moving?” Dawg demanded. “We need to know where they’ve taken Lieutenant Drennan and Colonel Parker now. Today.”
Rucker held up a hand. “Fortunately, they had their satellites trained on our position when the terrorists struck. They were able to follow them to their current base. But they say it appears they are preparing to bug out. We have to get there before that happens. Gather the teams.”
Dawg was running before the last words left Rucker’s mouth.
Within minutes, they had the Deltas loaded into the helicopter and were lifting off the ground. They swung east, heading in the direction the men at Langley had indicated.
They rode with the doors open, the wind whipping through, making the heat more bearable. Dawg had chosen a seat on the outside edge of the helicopter. He stared down at the darkened landscape, straining his eyes to see more, to find Beth before Boko Haram did horrible things to her. Hopefully, they would keep her alive and well in order to ransom her and the doctor for money. However, with them being US citizens and members of the military, the terrorists might decide to kill them as an example to others.
Dawg couldn’t let himself think that way. If they’d decided to kill them, they would’ve done it already and left their bodies in the ashes of the village. The fact that they’d taken only the doctor and the nurse could mean they had need of medical assistance, and then they might ransom them later.
Either way, the Deltas were going to get them back.
Alive.
Beth woke several minutes after she’d passed out in the back of the truck and wished she’d remained unconscious. Every time they hit a rut in the dirt road, her head hit the metal floor of the truck bed, making her head hurt. She pushed her way into a sitting position, propping herself up against another body lying beside her. In the light from the stars above, she could see the body belonged to Jonathan.
Her heart lodged in her throat. He lay so still. Was he dead? With her wrists secured behind her back, she couldn’t reach out to press her fingers to the base of his neck to feel for a pulse. Instead, she scooted around to touch her fingers to the inside of his wrist, also secured behind his back. It was difficult to feel anything with the truck bumping along. After a few minutes, she gave up.
Then Jonathan moved, his arms twitching and his legs pushing outward. The terrorists had secured his ankles but hadn’t secured hers. Somehow, she had to break the duct tape free around her wrists and figure out a way to escape. She couldn’t just roll out of the back of the truck because there were four other men seated on the sides, armed with AK-47s. Even if she managed to roll out and not die from the fall, they would plug her so full of bullets, and she wouldn’t survive anyway.
Until the odds improved, she was stuck in the back of the truck.
Several more jarring bumps later, Jonathan came to and pushed to a sitting position.
The four men aimed their AK-47s at him as a show of force.
Jonathan shook his head and looked around. When he spied Beth, his shook his head. “I told you to run,” he whispered.
She gave him a weak smile. “I didn’t want them to steal the antibiotics. That stuff is like gold around here.”
“Are you okay?” he asked, his brow furrowed.
She nodded. “And you?”
“I am, though my head’s a little fuzzy.”
The truck slowed as it climbed into the hills and eventually came to a halt.
The man surrounding Beth and Jonathan leaped out, then reached in and dragged their captives out and onto their feet. One of the men jabbed a knife through the bindings around Jonathan’s ankles allowing him to kick free of the tape.
With AK-47’s poking them in their backs, Beth and Jonathan were marched across a compound and pushed into a hut made of sheets of tin kluged together with wire and screws. The door was closed, throwing them into pitch darkness.
Immediately, Beth moved around the tiny space, searching for a rough surface, which wasn’t hard to find. “Jonathan, find a rough surface and rub the tape against the metal. We have to break through the tape and find our way out of here.”
She was working on getting the tape free when their captors returned, grabbed Jonathan and hauled him out of the hut.
“No!” Beth cried and tried to stop them.
One of the men slammed the butt of his rifle into her gut, knocking her down. The door shut behind him, and Beth was alone.
With the wind knocked out of her, she sat for a moment fighting back the tears. What were they going to do to Jonathan? She didn’t want to marry him, but she didn’t wish him dead.
Once she could breathe normally again, she went to work, rubbing the tape against a jagged piece of metal. Before long, she broke through several layers of the tape until the last piece snapped, and she pulled her wrists apart. Removing the duct tape took a layer of skin with it, but her hands were free.
Beth felt her way around the tin hut,
returning to the door that was nothing more than a sheet of tin secured by wire hinges. She could see through the cracks to where a guard stood outside. If he would walk away, she might ease through the opening and sneak way without him knowing. She needed a distraction.
Dropping to her knees, she felt along the dirt floor, hoping to find a rock, stick or something she could shove through the crack in the door to make a noise.
She didn’t have to. Shouts sounded, and men ran past the hut.
Her guard called out to the men running past, and then he took off after them.
Beth pushed against the door only to discover it had been secured by a wire tied to a nail on the other side. She pushed harder, stretching the wire as far as she could, creating a gap barely wide enough for a child to get through. But she bent, contorted and squeezed through the gap, ripping her shirt and her skin before she fell out on the ground. She rolled to her feet and ducked behind the tin hut.
She could have run and saved herself, but she couldn’t leave without Jonathan.
Moving between huts, tents and barrels, she worked her way through the compound.
Men ran, throwing equipment and supplies into the backs of trucks, shouting to each other as they went. No one seemed to see Beth as she slipped through broken pallets, cardboard boxes, crates and junk littering the ground.
Ahead, what appeared to be an old army tent stood in the middle of the compound. Several guards carrying AK-47s surrounded it, guarding what was inside. If they’d taken Jonathan anywhere, it had to be inside that tent. The other structures were in the process of being torn down and loaded into the backs of the trucks.
Beth circled wide of the main tent, looking for a side that wasn’t as heavily guarded. The rear of the tent had only one man guarding it, but there wasn’t a door flap there.
If she could get close enough, she might distract the guard and slip beneath the bottom edge of the tent to see what was inside. She prayed for another distraction that would coax the guard into running away.
As if in answer to her silent prayer, one of the guards in front of the tent circled to the back and sent that guard off on an errand. A moment later, the guard that had taken his place ran back to the front. Though he might only be gone for a moment, Beth had to take a chance to look inside the tent for Jonathan. Unless they had loaded him into one of the trucks, there was nowhere else he would be.
Hunkering low, she ran toward the tent, dropped to the ground and rolled up against the bottom edge. Once there, she hoped she could slide beneath the bottom edge. The gap wasn’t wide enough for her to get her body beneath, but she could see inside.
A light shone down on a cot where a man lay, his trouser cut away from his leg.
Jonathan leaned over the cot, tending the man’s wound.
Beth couldn’t get to him, but at least she knew he was okay and where he was. She’d have to find a way to get him out of the tent and away from the terrorists. But first, she had to find a place to hide until she came up with a plan.
Chapter 12
The two Delta teams surrounded the compound tucked into the hills. By coming in over the top of a ridge, they were able to study the layout and locate the guards on the perimeter before moving in.
Bull, Lance and Blade took out the guards perched in the hills. Then the rest of the team moved in.
The compound was in a state of uproar as the terrorists hurried to break camp, load trucks and people to bug out. One tent remained standing in the middle of the camp. Everything else had been torn down and loaded.
“I’m going for the back of the tent,” Dawg said.
“I’ve got your six,” Rucker responded.
“We’ve got the guards on the front,” Blade said into Dawg’s headset.
“Charlie Team will work the rest. Go get the doc and nurse,” Charlie team leader said.
As one, the teams moved in. With so much confusion, they were able to take out a number of the Boko Haram terrorists using knifes and stealth.
As Dawg and Rucker moved closer to the back of the big tent, a guard carrying an AK-47 left his position to go to the front where Blade, Bull and Lance were taking care of the guards there. Rucker went after the guy heading for the front while Dawg moved toward the back of the tent, hoping to find a doorway inside. Before he got there, a shadow moved from behind a barrel, and a figure stole up to the tent, dropped to the ground and looked beneath the edge.
His pulse picked up. The figure wasn’t one of the Boko Haram, and it had a shape unlike any man in the compound. The most telling feature was the long hair hanging down from a ponytail.
Beth.
His first instinct was to rush forward, pull her into his arms and hold her tightly. But he couldn’t risk exposing himself and her to the terrorists rushing around the compound. Instead, he eased up to where she lay on the ground, grabbed her from behind and clamped his hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out. She fought him, struggling to shake him off her back.
“Shh,” he whispered. “It’s me. Dawg.”
Immediately, she stilled.
He removed his hand from her mouth, rolled off her and onto his feet. Still hunkered low, he pointed to the edge of the compound, indicating she should escape with him.
Beth shook her head and pointed to the tent. “Jonathan,” she whispered so softly he barely heard what she said.
Shots were fired, and all hell broke loose.
“Got two of the guards,” Rucker said. “Two ducked back into the tent. Sounds like Team Charlie has made contact.”
“We have and could use some help.”
Dawg pulled his knife from the scabbard on his hip. “Make some noise so I can get into this tent,” he said into his mic.
He handed his nine millimeter pistol to Beth. “Can you?”
She nodded, flipped the safety off and held the gun in both hands.
A moment later, a loud explosion rocked the ground. At that moment, Dawg poked his knife through the canvas and ripped an opening large enough to allow him to enter. He dove inside and rolled to his feet. The guards that had entered the tent turned, weapons swinging toward him.
Dawg shot the first guy, took out the second and was turning to look for more when another shot rang out. A guard standing on the other side of a cot in the middle of the room swayed and fell to the ground.
Dawg turned to find Beth beside him, his gun held tightly in her hands.
“Drop your weapons, or I shoot the doctor,” a gravelly voice said from the cot.
The man lying there held a gun pointed at Colonel Parker’s chest. His hand shook.
Colonel Parker swung his hand upward, knocking the gun from the wounded man’s hand. It flew across the room and landed near Dawg’s feet. “Count yourself lucky. I’d have let them shoot you, but I think you might provide valuable intel.”
The sounds of gunfire continued, and truck engines revved as some of the terrorists made a run for it. Before long, the Deltas reported that they’d secured the site, and all the bad guys had been neutralized.
Black Hawk helicopters landed nearby. The wounded were loaded first, along with Colonel Parker, Beth and the Boko Haram leader, Kahbir.
Dawg didn’t want to let Beth out of his sight, but he couldn’t leave until all the Deltas could be transported out.
With their former base of operations nothing but ashes, they were flown to an airfield and out to Rota, Spain.
Dawg didn’t see Beth again. The team was headed back to the States. He hoped he’d see her soon. Until then, he’d have to wonder if she’d still want to go out with him, or if she’d patched things up with her former fiancé.
Epilogue
Beth scoured through her closet, searching for something sexy, feminine and perfect for the night ahead.
“Girl, you have to wear something,” Nora said. “Why not the red dress? It’s as sexy as they come and makes a statement.”
“What statement?”
“I want you to take this off me an
d make love to me all night long…?” Nora grinned. “That’s what you want, right?”
“Yes. But shouldn’t I be just a little more subtle?” She pulled the red dress out of the closet and stepped into it. The fabric slid up over hips, and she slipped her arms through the spaghetti straps. “I haven’t seen him in two weeks. Do you think he will have changed his mind about me?”
“Not a chance. A woman who shoots first and asks questions later is every man’s wet dream.” Nora hugged Beth. “I’m so glad you made it back home alive. I can’t imagine the terror of being captured by the Boko Haram.”
“I’m glad to be here, too.” She hugged Nora back, and then spun away. “He’ll be here any minute, and I’m not ready.”
Nora dug in Beth’s closet and came up with strappy silver stilettos. “Wear these. And turn around so I can zip you.”
Beth turned, Nora zipped and the doorbell rang.
Her heart in her throat, Beth turned to Nora. “What do I do? What do I say?”
“Sweetie, you be yourself. That’s what he loves about you.” Nora nodded toward the door. “Go.”
Beth drew in a shaky breath and walked to the door, threw it open and stood there in her bare feet and the sexy red dress.
On the other side, stood the man who’d been on her mind since she’d talked about dogs at the Salty Dog Saloon all those weeks ago. He wore a black suit with a red tie that matched her dress, and he was so handsome Beth wanted to cry.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she replied.
He reached out his hand. “You look like a million bucks.”
She placed her hand in his. “You clean up pretty good yourself.”
Dawg looked past her to Nora and nodded. “Thanks, Nora. I was hoping you’d get her into the red dress again.”
Beth frowned. “You two making plans without me?”
