Cover of Night

by Laura Griffin

  They ducked under another low branch and stopped.

  Karly tried to catch her breath as she glanced around. They stood beside a flat rock wall, the other three sides hemmed in by trees. She looked up to see the small hole in the leafy canopy, accounting for the patch of moonlight where they stood.

  “You’re injured.”

  She turned to look at the man staring down at her. His voice was quiet but firm.

  “No, I—”

  He took her head in his hands, and Karly flinched back, hitting the rock behind her.

  “It’s just a bump,” she said.

  His hands dropped away, and he stared down at her.

  Karly’s heart was still pounding. She felt weak and woozy, but she forced herself to talk.

  “You’re with the military?”

  “United States Navy SEALs.”

  A breath of relief whooshed from her lungs, and her legs almost collapsed.

  “Oh, thank God.” She gripped his vest, which was packed with all sorts of weapons and equipment. She wanted to throw her arms around him. She wanted to hug him, to kiss him. Which was wildly inappropriate.

  But what was an appropriate response when someone magically appeared out of nowhere to rescue her?

  United States Navy SEALs.

  The words penetrated her brain as he stared down at her in the dimness, his expression unreadable. He wasn’t that much taller than she was, maybe five-ten. But he was bigger. Wider. He exuded power just standing there. And then there were his eyes. They were alert and determined, not even a trace of the abject fear that had been smothering her for hours.

  He dug something out of his pocket. “How’d you get the bump?” He switched on a small flashlight and shone it in her eyes. “Look at my finger. Now follow it.”

  She did as he asked. “I—” She cleared her throat. How had she gotten the bump? Everything was a blur since she’d jumped off the dive boat. “I slipped somewhere. I must have hit my head.”

  He put the flashlight away and pulled the glove off his hand. Then he held her wrist in his fingers, and it took her a moment to realize he was checking her pulse.

  She tugged her hand away. “I’m fine. Really. But the others—”

  “We’ll take care of the others.”

  She laughed. She couldn’t help it—the statement was preposterous. Not to mention the calm way he delivered it.

  He seemed unfazed by her reaction as he dug into his vest again. She heard the tear of paper and smelled antiseptic. He took her head in his hands and dabbed the cut at her temple, and she tried not to wince at the sting.

  “So . . . you’re really a SEAL?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lieutenant Junior Grade Ethan Dunn. Anything else that needs cleaning?”

  “I’m good.”

  “You sure? You can’t mess around out here. Even the smallest cut’s liable to get infected.”

  “I’m fine. How many of you are there?”

  He tucked the alcohol wipe away and pulled his glove back on. “Four.”

  “Four?”

  “That’s my team. Search and recon.”

  “Recon, like . . . reconnaissance?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Hold on to me.” He dropped into a crouch and lifted one of her feet as she grabbed his shoulder to steady herself. “What happened here?” he asked, removing a bloody sock.

  “I don’t know. Rocks, I guess. They were sharp when I came in.”

  “Came in?”

  “From the water. I was on a dive boat near the pier when the attack started.”

  He stared up at her for a long moment. Then he shook his head as he ripped open another alcohol pad and wiped the soles of her feet. They didn’t even sting anymore, which probably showed how numb they were. He started digging around in his vest again and came up with a roll of something. She thought it might be duct tape, but it made no noise as he unrolled it and started wrapping. A bandage? He wrapped each foot, secured the bandages in place, and then stood up.

  “What—”

  “We can’t have you walking around leaving a blood trail. Here,” he said, shifting her body so that she was concealed in the shadows.

  Karly stared up at him. Four men, he’d said. Four. There had to be at least twenty civilians to rescue, and the attackers outnumbered the SEALs probably three to one. The relief Karly had felt mere moments ago evaporated.

  “You’re going to need reinforcements,” she told him.

  “Yes, ma’am, we know. The rescue platoon comes later.”

  Her heart lurched. “When later?”

  “In about . . .” He checked his watch, and she noticed even his muscular forearms were covered in camo paint. “Four hours. That’s oh-three-hundred.”

  “What?”

  “Three A.M.”

  “No, I know. I mean, why on earth wait? People are dead. Natalie Mancuso’s being abused as we speak—”

  “You know where she is?”

  “She’s in her cabin. I heard her crying just a few minutes ago. I can’t imagine what they must be doing to her—”

  “Shh.” He held his finger to her lips, commanding silence.

  Karly stared up at him and held her breath. His face had gone hard. His entire body. Every muscle seemed tense and alert as they stood in the shadows, listening for whatever had caught his attention.

  Karly’s chest tightened with dread. What now? Had someone heard their low talking? Ethan Dunn was armed, yes, but he was also outnumbered, and Karly wouldn’t feel completely safe until and unless they somehow made it out of this hellhole. She pictured Brad and Brianna sprawled dead on the beach, and bile rose in her throat again. Her grip tightened on Ethan’s vest. She hadn’t realized she’d been clutching it. She held on to him, waiting, squeezing her eyes shut and praying they weren’t about to be ambushed.

  Ethan relaxed suddenly, and a man stepped through the trees. He was tall and broad-shouldered and dressed the same as Ethan, right down to the army-green vest bulging with equipment.

  “Well, well. Who’s this?” The man’s low voice surrounded them as he stepped into their tight space.

  “Karly Bonham, the reporter,” Ethan said.

  She turned to look at him. “How did you—”

  “We got your SOS call.”

  “Ms. Bonham, I’m Jake Heath. It’s a pleasure to see you alive and in one piece.”

  He stuck out a hand, and Karly shook it, still dumbstruck that Ethan knew her name and had somehow gotten her phone call.

  “We sure appreciate the heads-up,” Jake said. “You helped us get a jump on the tangos. We’ve been planning this op for hours now, ever since word of your call made it up the chain.”

  She looked from Jake to Ethan and back to Jake again. “So . . . are you part of the rescue platoon?”

  “Search and recon. Rescue’s coming at oh-three-hundred.”

  “We can’t wait that long. They need to come now.”

  “This mission hinges on good intel,” Ethan said. “Minimizes the risk for everyone, particularly the hostages.”

  “We need to know how many tangos—or terrorists—and where they are,” Jake said. “We need to know how they’re armed, where they’re stationed. We need to know where they patrol, nap, and take a leak. We need every detail we can get before we launch our assault.”

  Karly’s head was spinning. She’d gone from being alone and defenseless to having two trained warriors at her side. And yet at this moment, she felt more freaked-out than ever.

  Jake stepped away and started talking quietly into a handheld radio.

  Karly turned to look at Ethan, who was watching her in the dimness with those piercing blue eyes. The heat she saw there gave her a sudden flush of sexual awareness. Which was insane, gi
ven the circumstances. What the hell was wrong with her?

  “Ethan.” She squeezed his gloved hand. “Please listen to me. You guys can’t wait until oh-three-hundred. You need to call in that platoon, and you need to go now.”

  Ethan’s gaze held hers, and she wondered what he was thinking. She had a feeling she knew. She was terrified and bleeding and had seaweed tangled in her hair. She must look like a lunatic standing here in the jungle in her swimsuit and cutoffs with her feet wrapped in bandages. She didn’t have training or intel, but what she did have was intuition, and she’d learned to listen to it over the years. And at this moment, her intuition was telling her their timing was all wrong. They couldn’t wait four more hours. Or even four more minutes.

  “That was Bravo,” Jake said, joining their conversation again.

  “What’s the sitrep?”

  “They’ve got a hide scoped out. It’s an outcropping of rock near the top of the hill. There’s a small cave there. She should be safe until we’re ready to move.”

  “I can get her there, then meet up with Owen and Ortiz.”

  Jake nodded. “I’ll scope out this sector, see what’s what, and then we’ll go from there.”

  “Wait. Wait,” Karly said. “They’ve scoped out a hide? As in, to hide me?”

  Ethan nodded. “I’ll take you up and get you squared away. You’ll be safe there until we’re ready to exfil.”

  “No.”

  His eyebrows tipped up. “Come again?”

  “I’m not going.”

  * * *

  Ethan stared down at her.

  Of all the problems he’d expected on this op, getting the hostages to cooperate hadn’t been one of them.

  “Ms. Bonham—”

  “It’s Karly.” She tossed her head.

  Ethan’s jaw tightened. “All right. Karly. Listen closely. What we need right now is your full and total cooperation.”

  “I’m not going.”

  Ethan darted a look at Jake, who lifted an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Ethan countered, “you are. We need you out of the way so we can do our job. You can either go willingly, or we can take you. But either way—”

  “It’s all about intel. Isn’t that what you said?” She crossed her arms, and he forced himself to ignore the swell of her breasts in that bikini. “You said this whole op hinges on good intel. Well, I have some and you don’t.”

  Ethan rested his hands on his hips.

  “Seriously, where are you getting your information about this place?”

  “Surveillance drone,” he told her. “And the resort website.”

  “A bird’s-eye view, then. That’s all you have?”

  Ethan didn’t respond, but he looked at Jake.

  “And you guys have been here, what, an hour?” She glanced at Jake, then back to Ethan. “I’ve been here for five days. I know my way around. I’ve been inside the buildings.”

  “Which buildings?” Jake asked.

  “All of them.” Her arms dropped. “Well, not all. But most of them. I’ve been in the ambassador’s cabin, which is where he and Natalie are being held right now. Why waste time taking me up the hill to some cave when I could stay right here and help you?”

  Ethan gazed down at her. Not much surprised him, but Karly Bonham had managed to. For starters, she looked nothing like her passport photo, which showed a fashionably dressed woman with sleek blond hair. Right now, her tangled ponytail was caked with blood and dirt. Mud smudges covered her neck and arms. She brushed her hair from her eyes, drawing his attention to the golf-ball-size bump on her head, which she’d dismissed as nothing.

  She was defiant. Determined. Strategic. Not at all what he’d expected from a twenty-eight-year-old magazine reporter.

  But even more surprising were all the things she wasn’t. She wasn’t cowering in fear, even though she had to be terrified. And she wasn’t crying.

  That, more than anything, made Ethan like her, because if there was anything that made him antsy, it was a woman’s tears. And he was relieved as hell not to be dealing with any in the middle of an op.

  She moved closer, as if she knew her nearness was getting to him, and he stared down at those big brown eyes. Bedroom eyes. That’s what they were. And Ethan suddenly imagined her on her knees on a bed, gazing up at him with a pleading look, a look that made him want to give her any damn thing she wanted.

  “Ethan, I know these people.” She took his hand, and he felt a shot of lust. “Some of them are my friends. You can’t expect me to run off and hide in a cave when I could be doing something to help.”

  Ethan pulled his hand loose. He didn’t need her help. He needed her pretty little ass away from here, as far away as possible. He knew exactly what those terrorist scumbags were capable of, and he didn’t want them anywhere near Karly.

  “She has a point.”

  He shot a look at Jake. “She’s injured.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “She says she’s fine.”

  Ethan glared at his teammate, who was watching calmly with his arms folded over his chest. Jake picked up on everything, and he’d no doubt picked up on this weird hold Karly seemed to have over him. Ethan didn’t understand it, but he couldn’t deny it was there. And he also couldn’t deny it was messing with his judgment.

  Ethan and his team were here to gather intel. Karly had some. If they didn’t use it, they might be putting innocent lives at risk.

  She eased closer. He eased back.

  “Fine.” Ethan reached into his vest.

  He took out the laminated drawing of the compound and unfolded it, even though every protective instinct in his body told him he was making a mistake.

  He looked at Karly. “Tell us what you know.”

  * * *

  The waiting was unbearable.

  Karly leaned back against the rock with her knees tucked against her chest as she stared into the darkness. Her eyes had adjusted, and she could make out a few dim shapes—mostly trees and vines—and everything took on an ominous quality the more she stared. Each little noise made her pulse lurch, and there were a lot of noises in this hidden patch of jungle. Her nerves were going haywire, and she kept having the strangest feeling she was trapped in a closet and the walls were closing in on her.

  She rubbed her sweaty palms over her knees. Where was he? Twenty minutes, he’d told her. Thirty, tops.

  She’d won the argument. Ethan hadn’t whisked her away and stashed her in some cave while he and his SEAL friends roamed around spying on the tangos, as they called them. Instead, he’d handed her a schematic drawing and a Sharpie and then watched as she’d added details wherever she could. She’d flipped the drawing over and sketched the floor plans of key buildings while Ethan and Jake pumped her for information. They wanted to know about entry points, hallways, windows. Even building materials seemed to interest them. And when her knowledge of the buildings was exhausted, they’d asked questions about the island itself. Her tidbit about the secondary dock behind the resort’s kitchen seemed to grab their attention. She’d seen workers unloading crates of food and wine from a boat there earlier in the week. Ethan had wanted to know everything about the dock, and Karly had felt proud to have something potentially important to offer them that they didn’t already know.

  But then what had they done? Exactly what they’d planned originally, which was to whisk her away to some hiding place while they rushed off to carry out their mission.

  Twenty minutes. Thirty, tops, he’d said. Karly didn’t have a watch, and her phone still wasn’t working, but she knew it had been much, much longer.

  She glanced up through the palm leaves as the full moon peeked out from behind the clouds. Some sort of front was moving in. The moonlight was getting sporadic. Was that why they were waiting? She didn’t know all the factors that played into a decision lik
e that, but it seemed wrong to her.

  She closed her eyes and thought about Ethan Dunn. She pictured his face covered in camouflage paint. There was something fierce about him. Something primitive. Something completely outside her realm of experience.

  He was strong. Trained. Lethal. The brutality of his mission gleamed in his eyes, and yet he seemed completely comfortable. He was here to kill people. And to save people. And his utter confidence that he would do both before this night ended took her breath away.

  Karly, on the other hand, was here to get a story and further her career. She’d even hoped to get some R and R out of the deal. It all seemed so selfish now.

  Try as she might, Karly couldn’t get her head around the idea that Ethan was putting his life on the line for a bunch of people he didn’t even know, people he likely would never see after this was over. Assuming they got out of here alive.

  Karly leaned her forehead on her knees and flinched at the pain. She touched her fingers to her cut. It had stopped bleeding, at least, but the bump had grown bigger. And the weird part was, she didn’t remember when she’d gotten it. Either on the boat when she’d ducked for cover or maybe on the rocks when she’d slipped and fallen. But she didn’t know for sure, because her memories were all a blur.

  A slight shift in the air made her jerk her head up.

  “Relax, it’s me.”

  THREE

  * * *

  Relief swamped her. Tears flooded her eyes, and she blinked them back as Ethan knelt in front of her. She wanted to throw her arms around him, but she gripped her knees instead. No fear, no tears.

  “You okay?” He rested his hand on her shoulder.

  “Yes. Where’s Jake?”

  “Still working.”

  His hand on her shoulder made her ridiculously grateful, because it meant he was really here. In the flesh. He hadn’t been hurt or killed. The bleak possibility had been lurking in her mind this whole time.

  “I passed along your intel to Owen and Ortiz,” he told her. “They’re stationed up top with a sat phone, relaying everything we’ve got to the assault team.”