“That’s for you to decide,” Bastian said. “Where did you live before you came here?”
It felt like decades ago, given how time had stretched in the months she’d been here. “I was in Madagascar for a while, and a few other places before that. When I was stateside last year between assignments, I had a sweet little spot on a friend’s couch in Seattle.”
Bastian marched ahead of her through the grass. “You mean to tell me you’re homeless? That’s hard to believe.”
So he still thought she was only in South Sudan to close an oil deal? Anger rose, but she tamped it down. This man had just saved her life and killed five men to do it. “Believe me, don’t believe me. That’s really up to you. But for the record, I gave up lying when I quit booze, drugs, and my family.”
The thicket gradually thinned until only sparse trees separated them from open grassland. Bastian held up a hand, the signal to halt, and studied the area.
“Where’s your vehicle?” she asked.
“The other side of that rise.”
The rain was gradually increasing, and a glance at the now-visible sky showed it was only going to get worse. There were no roads here, just tracks through the grasslands. A hard storm could make the drive to reach the road impossible.
“How far is the rendezvous point? Can we walk it?”
“We wouldn’t make it in time.”
“Can you change the location?”
“If we need to, but right now my team is scattered, so that would require coordinating using long-range radios—communication that can be intercepted.” He flicked his collar, where the microphone must be hidden. “We’re already beyond the range of this. For now we need to stick to the plan.”
She understood. In South Sudan, where cell towers—and electricity—were a rarity, radio communications were vital and heavily monitored. “We’d better hurry, then, before the road washes out.”
Bastian nodded. “We’re going to run low and fast across the grass to the other side of the rise,” he said. “Can you do it?”
“Yes.” Her foot throbbed and her side ached from the whipping, but she could power through. She could do anything as long as it meant she wasn’t going to be a sex slave to some deviant asshole.
He gave a hand signal, and she crouched and ran. An ankle twisted in the muck, but she kept going, pushing herself to keep up with him. They reached the SUV, and he circled it, doing a quick check to determine if it had been tampered with. He unlocked her door, and she slipped inside.
In moments, they were underway. The sky opened up and rain pummeled the windshield as he cut across the grassland, aiming for, she hoped, an actual road. The tires slipped but then gained traction, and they lurched forward in jerky starts and stops, reminding her of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.
Oh Indy, you have no idea.
She spied the road fifty yards ahead. It wouldn’t be much better, but at least it would take them to the main road that cut through the flooded grasslands and went all the way to Juba.
Bastian steered with skill that hinted at a history of mudding. Had he spent his youth in trucks with giant tires cutting up wilderness areas? Or did the Army train their Special Forces for everything, including a South Sudan rainy season exfiltration?
Once on the dirt—or rather mud—road, the SUV lurched as they hit a pothole hidden in the muck. Brie bounced, and her head hit the roof, in spite of her seat belt.
With one hand, Bastian grabbed the radio from his pack in the backseat and tried to raise his team, but received only static in reply. “Must be the rain,” he said and slid the radio back into the side pocket, keeping his eyes on the sloppy track ahead of them. “I’ll try again when we get to the main road.”
She nodded, feeling almost dazed to be in the truck, sheltered from the pounding rain. How long ago was it that she’d been lying on her cot, listening to the rain on the metal roof, and thinking about Bastian the Bastard Green Beret?
“You okay?” he asked.
She wasn’t sure how to answer. Did he mean her head? Her foot? That she’d witnessed two men having their throats slit to save her? That she’d been whipped? Or the fact that he’d just bought her in a market?
“Sorry,” he said when she didn’t answer. “That was a dumb question.”
She rubbed her head and cut him some slack. “No. It’s okay. I think I ache everywhere, but I’m okay. I think?”
She winced as she inspected her bare foot. It was coated in mud, so she couldn’t be certain, but she had a feeling the cut was deep. Plus her ankle… It wasn’t doing great. She’d probably twisted it when she ran. But she was alive. “I’m better than I would be, thanks to you and your team. Thank you.”
He flashed a cocky, flippant smile. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”
His light tone caused an ache. She was just a job to him. Not that she should be anything more. It was just—she was probably rather fragile at the moment. Her brain wasn’t really keeping up with her emotions.
She cleared her throat. “Well, thank you just the same. I hope you will pass on my thanks to your commander.”
“The mission was ordered by SOCOM, but I’m the one who insisted on searching for you after your coworkers were rescued.”
She jolted and twisted to face him, gripping his knee. “They’re okay?”
“Yes. Sorry, I should have told you that sooner.”
“Today…hasn’t exactly been normal.” She gingerly lifted her hand from his leg.
Jesus. She’d been sold to this man. She knew he’d been acting in the market, but he’d been chillingly good in the role. Her brain was scattered between impressions of him. The slave buyer. The angry man she met at Camp Citron. The soldier who’d killed five men to protect her and help rescue dozens of children.
Suck it up, buttercup. He despises you, but he saved you nonetheless, which makes him pretty damn heroic.
“Shit. I suck at this,” Bastian said. “The truth is, I wasn’t going to leave South Sudan without you, Brie. Orders or no orders. No bullshit.”
“It’s okay. I understand how you feel about me. It doesn’t matter. I’m grateful just the same. More grateful, actually.”
“No, you don’t understand. I was wrong about you. When we first met, I—”
She cut him off with a swipe of her hand. “Please. Can we not talk about that now?” She let out a pained laugh. “I’m having a rough day.”
Bastian swallowed and his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, but he gave a sharp nod.
The rain continued to fall, showing all the earmarks of a significant storm. They reached a fork in the road, and Bastian swore.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re supposed to go left.”
The left fork was flooded. Completely wiped away. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You know this area?”
“Only vaguely. I was warned to stay away—too far off the main road, things get dicey.” She lowered her voice and muttered. “That might be the mother of all understatements.”
He grabbed a map from his pack and tossed it in her lap. “Find us a route out of here.” He put the truck in gear and took the right fork.
Fortunately, the map was a printout of high-resolution satellite images. “When were these photos taken?” she asked.
“Yesterday,” he said. “Before we left Camp Citron.”
She glanced out the window at the cascade of rain. “Lucky break in the rain.”
“Very lucky. Without satellite, we’d never have pinpointed the market.”
They came upon fork after fork in the mazelike flooded grassland, and she directed him on which road to take. They were going in the wrong direction for the rendezvous point, but eventually they’d get to the main road. At least an hour—maybe two given how slow they were moving—would be added to their driving time, but it wasn’t like they had a choice. According to the locals, the main road to Juba would be the last to give way in the rainy season.
> But they hadn’t made it to the main road yet, and the four-wheel-drive SUV slipped and slid on the narrow track. Bastian handled it with ease, comfortable behind the wheel.
Brie kept her focus on the map because watching the road was too alarming. At least the flooded grasslands were relatively flat—if she had to face a drop-off on either side of the vehicle, she’d be losing her lunch. “We’re adding miles to our driving distance,” she said.
“I hope we don’t run out of fuel. We’ve only got two jerry cans.”
“Ironic that Kemet Oil has an oil rig to the north, yet actual gas stations are nonexistent here. There’s a village to the south where we can probably buy gas from one of the locals.” She knew everywhere they could find gas for a fifty-mile radius and was glad she could use that knowledge to aid in her rescue.
Several kilometers to go before they reached the main road, the gas gauge dropped below the red zone. Bastian stopped in the middle of the muddy track. “Stay inside—keep dry. This should only take a few minutes.”
He climbed out of the cab and grabbed the jerry can from the back. He’d been driving nearly two hours, and his back and shoulders were tight from the tension of trying to keep the SUV on the road. He rolled his shoulders, then hooked the funnel to the spout and poured in the gas, careful not to spill a precious drop as rain drenched his back.
He tossed the empty can in the back of the SUV and turned to circle around but paused as he passed the passenger door. There was Brie, huddled in the seat with her knees pulled to her chest, tears sliding down her cheeks.
Hours ago, he’d purchased her from a slave market. Then she’d watched as he killed two men with a knife. One of them had bled out all over her.
And he could only imagine what hell she’d been through prior to that.
Without thinking, he yanked open the door, reached in and unlatched her seat belt, then pulled her into his arms.
His team had rescued women before, and he’d never touched the victim more than necessary. But this time, he knew her. And dammit, she probably needed to be held. Even if she hated him, she needed comfort.
She pressed against him, burrowing into his chest as his arms closed around her. A low sob escaped from her throat, and he stroked her back. He wanted to tell her everything would be okay, but what happened to her wasn’t okay, and it wasn’t over until they were on the Blackhawk and headed back to Camp Citron. So he just held her as she cried. “I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry.”
She was under his protection now. He’d get her the hell out of South Sudan, and someday, this would be just a bad memory.
He pulled back and pressed his lips to her forehead. “We need to hit the road.”
She nodded. “Sorry I fell apart.”
“That was falling apart? Honey, you should see me when I lose at pool.”
She gave him a weak smile, which was the best he could hope for. He circled the truck and climbed back in the driver’s seat, and they were on their way again.
“Cal killed the man who sold you,” he said, keeping his gaze on the sorry excuse for a road ahead. “He told me over the radio right after we left the market. He retrieved the bag of money. No money exchanged for you will feed the terror and war machine.”
“Thank you. That’s good to know.”
The truck slipped, and he pumped the brakes. They’d be lucky to make it to the main road in this mess. The track was nothing more than a raised mud slick that cut through a rapidly expanding swamp.
He’d call out the universe for hating him, but he didn’t believe the cosmos was in charge of his fate. Plus it irritated the hell out of him when people assumed he believed everything was spiritual simply because he was Indian.
But then, he was frequently irritated by the assumptions people made when they learned his native heritage. Some dipshits said they expected more woo.
He didn’t do woo.
He rounded a bend in the track, and the road ahead completely disappeared.
He kept going straight. There was no other choice.
Too late, he realized the other choice was to stop and get out and walk.
All at once, the nose of the truck dove down, buried to the windshield in the muck. He’d driven off the higher track that served as a road, into the deep swamp.
Brie screamed at the sudden lurch as the vehicle sank toward her side, listing as if it might flip. Mud covered the lower half of her window. She pushed against the door as gravity pulled them deeper into the muck.
Bastian pushed open his door. Mud slithered into the cab through the opening. “Shit!”
How deep was this swamp? Could they be swallowed whole? There was nothing to use to prop the door open, and the angle of the vehicle worked against him. The door slammed shut, cutting off the flow of mud but trapping them in a sinking vehicle. He shoved it open again and wedged his ankle in the opening. It pinched like hell but didn’t close.
“Climb over me,” he said to Brie.
She did as instructed, pushing the door wider as she crawled across his chest, using him as a ladder as the truck shifted to an eighty-degree angle.
“There’s nowhere to go,” she said as she slipped through the door.
Her weight shifted them to a full ninety degrees—and they were still sinking. Mud poured in on him.
“Crawl onto the side,” he said needlessly, as she was already moving to the rear panel of the SUV.
Once she cleared the opening, the door pinched his ankle again. She lifted the door, relieving the pressure. “I’ve got it. Move your foot.”
His foot tingled with the lack of blood flow. He was trained for working through injury, and this was no different, even though the cause was weather, not enemy combatants. Right now, the rain and mud were the enemy, and he’d conquer them as surely as his team had beaten a warlord’s army.
He twisted, pulling his torso through the muddy opening, sliding onto the side of the truck next to Brie.
Freed, he rested for a moment on the rear cab door. Their combined weight on the side of the sinking vehicle gave gravity the edge, and the entire vehicle disappeared under the mud.
Shit. His pack. The second pack full of supplies for Brie. Their gear was in the backseat.
He ordered Brie to move to the rear quarter and wrenched open the passenger door he’d been sitting on, burying his arm in the mud-filled cabin as he groped for his pack. His fingers closed on a strap. His M4 rifle? It had been next to his pack. He took a deep breath and plunged his head and shoulders into the mud so he could reach deeper. He twisted the M4 strap around his wrist and kept groping until his fingers closed on a pack. He hoped it was his, because that one contained the bulk of the supplies.
Thank God.
With his free hand, he shoved on the driver’s headrest to leverage himself free, pulling out both the rifle and fifty-pound pack from the mud with his other arm. He crawled backward to again slide free from the interior.
He swiped the mud from his nose and mouth and took a deep breath as he settled back on the rear panel. His breathing was heavy after the suffocation of the thick muck.
No time to catch his breath. He slipped his arms through the pack straps and draped the rifle across his back before he wiped the mud from his eyes.
Eyes cleared, he glanced around. Were they sinking deeper? Any thought of going back in for the second pack was squelched. With the pouring rain, it was hard to see exactly where the high ground of the road was.
As it was, they could step off the vehicle into the deep muck and drown.
How far had they veered from the road?
He met Brie’s gaze. Her beautiful brown eyes were wide with fear.
One of the stereotypes he faced on a daily basis was that he was supposed to be in tune with the earth. As a Native American, he was supposed to be able to hear the whispers of the mother and find his way, or some bullshit like that.
Well, if he’d ever needed woo, it was now.
Sadly, he’d have to rely on his Sp
ecial Forces skills instead.
9
Brie wobbled as the truck shifted. She gripped Bastian’s shoulder to keep her balance. Holy crap. The swamp had swallowed the truck whole, like it was some sort of monster with an appetite for beat-up utility vehicles.
This couldn’t be happening. She’d already been abducted, chained, stripped, whipped, and sold. Truck-eating bogs was one ordeal too many.
She tightened her jaw and looked up into the downpour. Ahh, fuck. She’d have to save the angsty breakdown for later.
The angle of the truck hinted at where they’d gone off the road, and she could see a slight rise where the road must be. Four feet away. From there, they could wade to higher ground.
“We’re going to have to jump,” Bastian said, confirming her thoughts.
She took a deep breath and launched herself from the truck before she could lose her nerve. But the mud gripped her feet, and she didn’t spring up like she’d hoped. She sank deep into the muck a foot shy of her goal.
She grappled for purchase, all while sinking deeper. She tried not to panic as the mud weighed down her arms and her feet tried to find firm ground beneath her.
She was going to drown in mud.
Panic kills.
She slowed her movements, fanning out her arms as if she were swimming to propel herself forward to the firmer ground that supported the road.
There must be roots, vegetation that stabilized the roadway, or it would have succumbed to the swamp sooner.
Hands shoved at her from behind, pushing her upward, giving her the leverage to reach firmer ground. She scrambled up the soft bank and flopped onto the road, discovering it was only covered in three inches of mud. She flipped over and grabbed Bastian’s wrists. He grabbed hers, locking their grip. With her butt planted on the road, she pulled, leaning back, pulling him from the swamp.
She didn’t have the strength to lift him, but his feet must’ve found purchase, because he emerged, birthed from the bog, one slow step at a time, as she dragged him forward.
She lay flat on her back in the shallow mud by the time Bastian’s body was completely free. He lay on top of her. They were chest to chest, still gripping each other’s wrists as rain poured down on them.
Catalyst: Flashpoint #2 Page 8
