Trap, Secure: Navy SEAL Security

by Carol Ericson

  Riley jerked his thumb over his shoulder and Amy jumped to her feet and ran toward the unit. She scooped up the black bag from the ground and plunged her hand inside for the water.

  She squatted beside Riley and handed him the bottle. He twisted off the cap and splashed a few drops on Farzad’s face. Farzad blinked his eyes and moaned. Riley held the bottle to his lips.

  “His name is Farzad.”

  “You’re going to be okay, Farzad. I’ll call for an ambulance.”

  Amy cringed at the lie which brought false hope to a dying man, even though this dying man had held her at gunpoint less than fifteen minutes ago.

  Farzad puckered his lips and drew the water into his mouth. Most of it ran down his chin, and he closed his eyes again. Riley dragged him to the storage unit and propped him up against the side.

  “Tell me what you know about Jack Coburn.”

  The man squeezed his eyes and the corner of his mouth ticked up. He gasped and clutched his shoulder where fresh blood seeped from Riley’s bandage.

  Riley shook him and slapped his face. “Tell me what you know about Coburn.”

  Farzad sucked air into his mouth, and his eyes flew open. “Jack Coburn.”

  “That’s right. Jack Coburn. What do you know about him?”

  Farzad’s breath rattled in his chest, and Amy knew nothing could save him now. Riley leaned in, his ear close to Farzad’s moving lips.

  With a last rasping breath, Farzad slumped, his head falling to the side. Riley checked his pulse and swept his palm over the dead man’s eyes.

  Amy dropped her head in her hands. “I’m sorry, Riley.”

  “Sorry? The man was a brutal killer, perhaps even involved in a plot for mass murder. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

  She looked up, drawing her brows over her nose. “Not that. I meant I’m sorry you didn’t get anything out of him before he died.”

  Riley quirked an eyebrow. “Who said I didn’t?”

  “H-he whispered something to you at the end?”

  “Yep.” He pushed to his feet and pulled out his cell phone.

  Amy fell back on her hands, staring up at him while a light breeze lifted his hair from his shoulders. “Well?”

  Riley grinned. “He said Jack escaped.”

  * * *

  AMY KICKED HER LEGS onto the coffee table and wrapped her hands around her sweating can of soda. She swiveled her head back and forth between Riley and his friend Ian as they discussed the implications of Farzad’s dying words.

  The two men didn’t resemble each other in appearance. Riley’s longish blond mane contrasted with Ian’s dark, short-cropped hair. Riley’s quick grin lit up his blue eyes, while Ian’s slow smile sent a glow to his dark green eyes.

  But energy emanated from both men’s finely tuned and trained bodies. Their jobs since retiring from Prospero—Riley’s running a dive boat and Ian’s leading mountain climbing expeditions—both contained an element of adventure and danger. But the very air around them crackled with intensity as they exchanged ideas about Jack’s situation.

  Ian stretched and rubbed his knuckles across his head. “I had a feeling Farouk and his gang were involved, but the question remains. What exactly did Jack escape from?”

  “And if he escaped—” Riley snapped his fingers “—he’s not some kind of traitor.”

  “Then where is he? If your guy was telling the truth about Jack, why hasn’t he contacted anyone?”

  Riley shook his head. “I don’t know. Follow the money. It’s out of our hands now, but it will soon be in somebody else’s. We need to pick up chatter and see where we’re at.”

  Sipping her soda, Amy drew her brows together. “Where do you guys get this chatter anyway?”

  “Should we tell her?” Riley raised his brows up and down.

  Ian winked. “I don’t know. It’s top secret.”

  “After what I’ve been through? I should be an honorary member of Prospero.”

  Riley dropped on the couch next to her and squeezed her knee. “It’s no mystery. We get chatter through tapped phones, hacked email accounts, undercover agents on the ground and imprisoned terrorists looking to make deals. We use any and all sources.”

  “We’ll hear something soon about this money.” Ian rose from his chair and crushed his empty beer can. “Something will give. Information about a deal this big will slip through somewhere. And I’ll be ready.”

  “You’ll be ready? What about me? What about Buzz?”

  “Buzz, maybe, but you’ve done your part.”

  Riley threaded his fingers through Amy’s and pulled her up with him. “Unless the hunt takes us back to the ocean. Then I’m your man.”

  Amy slipped her arm around his waist. “You’re my man.”

  Ian laughed. “And with those well-chosen words, I’m off. Take a break, Riley. We’ll keep you posted.”

  “If Jack’s in any danger, any danger at all, come and get me.”

  Ian pulled Amy from Riley’s arms and kissed her on the cheek. “Keep this guy out of trouble.” Then he flashed a thumbs-up sign to Riley and left.

  Riley tipped Ian’s crushed beer can, which he’d left on the countertop, and sent it rocking back and forth. “If he calls, I have to go, Amy.”

  “I know that.” She wound her arms around his neck.

  He kissed her mouth and she melted against him.

  “And when the danger ends? When we find Jack?” He studied her face, but she had nothing to hide.

  “Even if you never go on another mission for as long as you live, you’re all I need, Riley.”

  Running his hands through her hair, he deepened the kiss. “I need you, too, Amy. But as long as one of my brothers in arms is in trouble, I’ll go through hell and back to help him.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Riley Hammond. In fact, I’m counting on it.”

  Epilogue

  He rolled to his side and jerked back, inches from a twenty-five foot drop. He worked his jaw, grit and sand grinding between his teeth. Dragging himself up to a sitting position, he leaned against the rough surface of a flat rock. His lungs demanded air as he surveyed the mountainous terrain through squinted eyes. A village, or at least a collection of ramshackle buildings, lay in a valley gorge between two peaks.

  His breathing eased and with each deep breath, all the pains in his body came roaring to life. Gasping, he gingerly probed his rib cage. A bruised or broken rib howled in protest at the intrusion.

  He wiped a hand across his face and studied the streaks of blood and dirt on his palm. He ran his tongue around his lips, wincing at the pain in one tender spot, but tasting no blood. One side of his face felt scorched, and he dabbed his fingers along his right cheekbone, following the paths of several scratches across his face.

  He wove his fingers through tangled hair, matted with a sticky substance—must be more blood. His fingertips traced around a huge knot on the back of his head. The blood had come from another cut. There was no broken skin across the solid lump.

  Stretching out one arm and then the other, he wiggled his fingers. Everything seemed to be in working—if painful—order. He hoisted to his haunches. His bones ached but they moved and supported his body.

  A bird screeched overhead and he twisted around, catching a glimpse of the ledge above him. He could climb to the precipice, or he could scramble down the mountainside to the little village.

  What kind of reception awaited him there?

  He cleared his throat and shaded his eyes against the rising sun, a yellow egg yolk spreading in the morning sky. He crawled to the edge of his own private ledge, the ledge that probably saved his life.

  Leaning forward, he spotted a rough trail meandering down the side of the mountain. If he could clamber down the boulders that tumbled toward that pathway, he could follow it into the village.

  Surely, someone would offer help—food, some simple first aid for his injuries. Surely, someone could tell him where he was.

&
nbsp; Maybe someone could even tell him who he was.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from COWBOY RESURRECTED by Elle James.

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  Chapter One

  Elena Sophia Carranza gunned the throttle to make it up the steep, rocky slope, doing her best to keep up with Hector. Thank God he’d taken the precious extra time to train her on how to ride a dirt bike in rough terrain. There was no more treacherous landscape than the border crossing between Mexico and the United States leading into the Big Bend National Park.

  “You can do this, Señorita Elena, but you must be brave,” Hector had insisted when they’d set off on their desperate escape. “Once we leave, we cannot return.”

  She’d known that from the start. Her ex-fiancé, Antonio, would not stop until he found her. And if he did catch her, there would be the devil to pay.

  Squeezing Hector’s hand, she’d whispered, “You must call me Sophia from now on. Elena no longer exists.”

  “Sí,” he’d agreed before mounting his bike and taking off.

  It was imperative Sophia commit to her goal, or she’d die. Others had risked too much to help her break out of the compound. Hector had risked his life and his future to get her this far. The least she could do was hold up her end by keeping pace with him, not going so slow as to put them both in jeopardy. They had come across the United States border without being detected thus far. Now all they had to do was find help.

  They’d splashed through the Rio Grande at a low-water crossing before dawn and headed into the canyons, zigzagging through the trails, climbing, dropping down into the shadows, heading north as far as they could before Antonio discovered their betrayal and came after them.

  No matter what, Sophia couldn’t go back. Even if she could withstand another day of physical and mental abuse, she refused to let the tiny life growing inside her suffer the same.

  Escape seemed impossible from the far-reaching Mexican Mafia la Familia Diablos. As soon as Antonio realized she’d left, he’d send a gang of his sicarios, enforcers, to find and return her to Mexico or leave it for the Americans or the vultures to clean up her body.

  As far as Sophia was concerned, she’d rather die and take her baby to heaven with her than subject another innocent life to the evil of Antonio Martinez and the drug cartel he called family.

  Anna, her only friend in la Fuerte del Diablo, the Chihuahuan compound, had compromised her safety and that of her young son to get Sophia out. Sophia couldn’t fail. Too many had risked too much.

  Deep in the canyons of the far edges of Big Bend National Park, Sophia dared to hope she could evade Antonio and his band of killers long enough to find a place to hide, a place she could live her life in peace and raise her child.

  Sophia had been born in Mexico, and her mother was an American citizen, ensuring Sophia had dual citizenship and could speak English fluently. Unfortunately, she no longer had her passport. Antonio had stripped her of identification after he’d lured her away from her family in Monterrey.

  Once she found a safe haven, she’d do whatever it took to reinstate her citizenship and ask for asylum. In exchange, she’d give the Americans any information they wanted on the whereabouts of Antonio’s cartel stronghold on the Mexican side of the border. Not that it would do them much good. The Mexican government struggled to control their own citizens. What could the Americans do across the border?

  Sophia knew that Antonio had contacts on the American side. High-powered, armed contacts that guaranteed safe passage of his people and products for distribution. Since the death of the former cartel boss, Xavier Salazar, Antonio had taken over, amassing a fortune in the illicit drug trade of cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin and marijuana. His power had grown tenfold, his arrogance exponentially, but he reported to a higher boss, a mysterious man not many of the cartel had actually seen. Rumor had it that he was an American of great influence. True or not, every time he visited, cartel members who’d betrayed la Familia were executed.

  Sophia’s only hope was to get far enough onto American soil and reach Hank Derringer. Anna said he would help her and protect her from Antonio. She’d said Señor Derringer was an honest, good man who had many connections on both sides of the border.

  Her motorcycle hit a rock, jerking the handlebar sharply to her left. Sophia’s arms ached with the constant struggle to keep the vehicle upright. She slowed, dropping farther behind Hector as they climbed yet another steep trail. They’d been traveling for hours, stopping to rest only once.

  Her stomach rumbled, the nausea she’d fought hard to hide from Antonio surfacing, telling her she needed to eat or her body would set off a round of dry heaves that would leave her empty and weak.

  When she thought she could take it no more, the beating sound of chopper rotors swept into the canyon, the roar bouncing off the vertical walls.

  Adrenaline spiked through her, giving her the strength to continue on.

  Ahead, Hector climbed a trail leading to the rim of the canyon.

  Sophia shouted, wanting him to wait, seek cover and hide from the approaching aircraft. She feared Antonio had discovered her escape and sent his enforcers to find her and bring her back. He had the firepower and access to aircraft that would enable him to extract her from the canyon. Sophia had seen the airplanes and helicopters near the compound’s landing field. Money truly could buy anything.

  Hector cleared the top of the trail, then leaped over the edge and out of Sophia’s sight. The helicopter pulled up out of the canyon headed straight for Hector.

  Sophia prayed the aircraft was the bright green and white of the American border patrol. The setting sun cast the vehicle in shadow. When it moved close enough, Sophia gasped. The helicopter was the dull black of those she’d seen at la Fuerte del Diablo. Her daring escape had been discovered.

  She skidded to a stop, hiding her bike beneath an overhang of rocks. Her entire body shaking, she killed the engine and waited, the shadows and the encroaching nightfall providing as much cover as she could hope to find until the helicopter moved on.

  As the chopper passed over her without slowing, Sophia let out the breath she’d held, then gasped as sounds of gunfire ripped through the air.

  Madre de Dios. Hector.

  Her foot on the kick start, Sophia fought the urge to race to the top of the canyon rim to help Hector. Nausea held her back, reminding her she wasn’t alone. The child inside her womb deserved a chance to live.

  Sophia waited fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe more, for the helicopter to rise again into the sky, then realized it must have landed and the crew might be searching for her. She remained hidden for all those agonizing minutes, while the sun melted into the horizon. Storm clouds built to the west, catching the dying rays and staining the sky mauve, magenta, purple and gray.

  When the helicopter finally lifted and circled back, Sophia pressed her body and the bike up against the canyon wall, sinking as far back into the darkest shadows as possible. The chopper hovered, moving slowly along the trail they’d just traveled, searching.

  For her.

  After what seemed like hours but was in fact only minutes, the aircraft moved on, traveling back the way it had come.

  The smoky darkness of dusk edged deeper into the canyon, making the trail
hard to find. Sophia eased her dirt bike out from the shadow of the overhang. Tired beyond anything she’d ever experienced, she managed to sling a stiff leg over the seat and cranked the engine with a hard kick on the starter. At first, the bike refused to start. On the fifth attempt, the engine growled to life. With a quick glance behind her, she was off, climbing the trail more slowly than she’d like in the limited light from encroaching nightfall.

  At the rim of the canyon, her heart sank into her shoes.

  The other motorcycle came into view first, lying on its side a couple hundred yards down the steep slope. Ahead on the trail lay the crumpled body of Hector, her ally, her only friend willing to help her out of a deadly situation.

  She stopped beside Hector’s inert form, dismounted and leaned over the man to check for a pulse.

  The blood soaking into the ground told the tale, and the lack of a pulse confirmed it. Hector Garza was dead.

  Sophia bent double as a sob rose up her throat. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, dropping to the dry earth, where they were immediately absorbed in the dust.

  Anna had sent Hector to guide her. Hector had been the one to encourage her along the way. He’d arranged to buy the bikes from a cousin in Juárez and had hidden them in a shed behind his brother’s house in Paraíso.

  The hopelessness of the situation threatened to overwhelm Sophia. The only thought that kept her going was that Anna and Hector would have wanted her to continue on. Sophia brushed away the tears and looked around, not sure which way to go. Instinct told her to head north. With only a compass to guide her, and the few provisions she’d loaded into her backpack, she was on her own. Alone and pregnant.

  Afraid the helicopter would return, Sophia removed the rolled blanket tied to the back of Hector’s bike and secured it to her backpack. She forced herself to climb back on the bike, the insides of her thighs and her bottom aching from the full day of riding and the strain of remaining seated on the motorcycle across the rough terrain.

  She removed the compass from her pocket and clicked the button illuminating the dial. She set her course for north and took off across the desert, the night sky full of stars guiding her. With the threat of rain fast approaching, she increased her speed, refusing to give up when she’d come this far.