After pumping a metal stick in and out a few times, he pushes another button and turns a key located just below the steering wheel. How old is this plane?
“Clear,” he says under his breath.
There’s a roar and the propeller just in front of me begins to turn, and turns faster as Tate continues to work the instruments. “Hang tight. We need to get out of here fast. I’m taking us out hard and up hard. Well, hard for a plane this size.”
“Just do it already,” Janine shouts from the back and the metal of the gun scrapes against my skull.
Tate ignores her and continues pushing, pulling and flipping things. “Hang on,” he finally says, and the roar of the plane gets louder.
He pulls back on the steering wheel, causing the one in front of me to pull back too. It startles me, and I automatically reach for it, but Tate yells for me to stop.
Fast, I realize is a relative term. I’m used to Daddy’s jet, or hell, commercial airlines that roar down the runway and force you back into the seat when you lift off the ground.
We putter.
Seriously putter.
I think my father’s golf cart goes faster than this.
My nerves are stretched thin by the time we’re out of the barn and rolling down the shortest, most narrow runway I’ve ever seen. I look around, certain that Tate must have been mistaken. There has to be a larger, longer one somewhere.
From the corner of my eye, I see a man running toward us, a wickedly long gun in his hands.
“Tate…”
Another appears from behind a big section of foliage. He drops to a knee and puts a gun to his shoulder. I see the burst of fire from the tip as he shoots at us.
“Tate!”
“I know. They’re on this side too. Heads down.” He pulls the steering wheel back as far as it will go. His big hand goes to the back of my head, pushing my face down until it’s touching my knees and orders, “Stay there.”
Behind me, Janine screams as metal strikes metal and I cover my ears with my hands.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
Such a soft sound, in complete opposition of the damage it could be doing.
I lose count of the number of times we’re hit, thinking it’s better not to know. The engine noise increases, mixing with Tate’s curses and Janine’s cries.
I wait.
Wait for the explosion or to be pushed back into my seat, indicating lift off. I pray a silent prayer for the latter.
Finally, we’re in the air and the pings lessen, but they’re replaced by alarms screaming all around. I lift my head and see lights flashing on the dashboard, but we’re still going nearly straight up in the air.
Tate mutters a string of curses as he fights a wheel that now wants to jerk in his hand. He flips switches to turn off the shrieking alerts. The steering wheel in front of me rattles uncontrollably.
“What happened?” Janine yells from behind us. “Were we hit?”
Tate curses again. “Yes. We’re losing fuel.”
Shaking from cold and adrenaline, I sit up and look out the window, down to what lay below us. It’s beautiful, like acres of dark green broccoli from this distance. And it’s everywhere, in all directions.
Tate curses again and the plane dips so suddenly, my stomach heaves with the drop. Janine screams as we turn on our side and my head smashes against the side window, so violently my ears begin to ring.
I try to push myself up, but I don’t have the strength and my face continues to be pressed against the glass. I’m forced to look down at earth. Down into the green that’s growing closer and closer.
And I know.
I know it with a calm certainty.
The Amazon rainforest will be my grave.
Jungle Fever (Book 3)
Chapter One – Tate
Select a problem. Work the problem. Then move on to the next.
That’s been my motto for most of my life, but right now, I have too many of them to choose from. And all of them currently suck ass.
In addition to the numerous alarms flashing on the dashboard, I have a screaming woman behind me. Worse, the screaming woman is in possession of a soft triggered machine gun and is whipping it around in her panic, seeming to have forgotten the damn thing is in her hand.
Beside me, Camille is frozen, walking the line close to shock. I try to talk to her, but she doesn’t hear me and I have zero time to check on her further.
I don’t have time because we’re going down. In my estimation, we have less than eight minutes of fuel. The already half-empty tank is leaking about a gallon per minute, thanks to the men who tried to kill us, and instead shot big holes in the metal. I’ll have another minute or so of glide time, before the bitch called gravity points and laughs at my attempt to keep us in the air.
I’ll lump together my next set of problems and call them Mother Nature.
Mother Nature, problem number one: wind. We’re heading into a damn strong headwind that’s turned us into a flying Volkswagen. While my gauges think we’re speeding along at a jiffy ninety-seven miles per hour, the wind puts us closer to seventy. I drive faster than that on the backroads heading to my house.
Mother Nature, problem number two: earth. The direction of our take-off has us heading further into the rainforest basin, not the place I want to land — aka crash. The big momma, in her infinite wisdom, thought it would be hilariously funny to take a couple million miles of land and stuff it full of everything that longs to kill you. I don’t want to end up in the middle of it.
Fire and water are two additional Mother Nature problems. Crash means boom. Boom means fire. And considering we’ll most likely be hanging fifty feet in a tree when we go down, our escape routes will be limited. At least, the ones that don’t result in shattered legs.
Water is at the bottom of the list, but will quickly move to the top, if we actually live long enough to care about such things. Right now, I put our chance of survival at fifty-fifty, and that’s only because I’m an eternal optimist. Matches my charming personality.
Flying straight is bad, because of wind and earth. Turning around gives us tailwind, which is good, but only means we fly faster into the men who want us dead. Not so good.
The control wheel shudders in my hands and we dip into a stomach-churning drop. Janine screams and slams into the roof. That’s funny. Buckle up, bitch. The rat-a-tat of bullets that fly from the gun isn’t so funny. Neither are the holes they punch through the cargo door, but it’s better than Camille’s head. Or mine.
Focus.
One problem at a time. For the moment, I choose direction.
South is bad. North is bad. So east or west it is. It keeps us from going deeper into the Amazon and the untold dangers lurking there. East is Venezuela, not a good place to visit right now. Peru is west, a better choice. Even as I think it, the controls shudder in my hand and nearly makes the choice for me. West. Sharp and fast.
Janine screams again and crashes into the cargo door as the plane turns on its side. Poor Camille is pressed against the glass and I reach for her, trying to take the pressure off. But the wheel shudders and we dip again.
Heading west now, I fight the plane’s steering and get us back to level. Six gallons of fuel left. Speed increases to eighty-five miles an hour. In a mile, I’ll turn us north, try to get as close to civilization as possible. Looking down into the sea of green below us, I search for some opening, small or large, to bring this baby down.
“Do something!”
Bam. The butt of the Uzi slams into the back of my head, as one of my other problems continues to scream. Who the hell hits the man trying to save your ass?
Another, “Do something!” is followed by a second hit to my head and I remember I’m not dealing with reasonable.
She has to go.
Grabbing Camille’s arm, I shake her hard enough that she looks over at me. “I need you to hold onto this wheel,” I yell at her and watch her eyes grow wide. “Nothing else. Just keep it steady.” I give h
er another shake, and her eyes seem to focus better. “You can do this,” I tell her more gently. Her pupils seem to consume her whole face.
Slowly, her hands take the wheel and I remove mine, giving her the chance to get used to the unsteady jerks. Color comes back into her face and she grips the wheel tighter with her right hand. The left… I curse the bloody bandage. The left is doing its best to hold on.
Fueled by anger, I unbuckle and turn. Ready to eliminate my next, most pressing problem.
Chapter Two – Link Duffy
The skin on my face burns and my ears are ringing as I work to remember how to breathe. The night sky is ablaze with orange, the flames licking at my toes. I attempt to move back, and am pulled away by men on both sides.
“How many did we lose?” I ask Ghost six on my right, once we’re clear of the hot flames.
There’s a pause, then, “Three, sir. Ghosts one, three and seven are probably gone. Five was coming out the back.”
I reach up and yank on the front of Ghost six’s vest, pulling him down closer to me. “Names. What were their names?”
The man swallows and his lips press into a thin line, but he looks me in the eye. “Reed Richards, Allen Fox, and Scott Blevins, sir.”
I sear their names into my brain, then push myself to my feet. “Let’s not let them die in vain. There’re some people who need to pay.”
Although we’re no longer in the military, both men give me a salute. Some habits die hard, and respect is one of them. I salute them back. Right now, we’re in a war. And it’s personal. Not just because of Camille. Not just because of Tate. We lost three good men tonight. Men willing to risk their lives to save another. And they did. Dammit, they did. On my watch.
“Any idea what was rigged to blow?” I ask, searching the area for Ghost five. He’s on the ground, two ghosts hovering over him. He seems relatively okay, but I head in his direction.
“No, sir,” Ghost four is saying. “Last communication was that they’d found something. No intel on what.”
I nod. “That’s the last I heard too.”
I need to contact Deakins and see if headquarters picked up anything on one of the men’s helmet cams. Kneeling beside ghost five, I assess his injuries quickly. Non-life threatening. I step away and speak into the helmet radio.
“What happened, sir?” Deakins’ voice crackles in my ear. “We have three cams offline.”
“Explosion. Something rigged to blow. I need to know what that something was and I need a medevac ASAP. I’ll give coordinates as soon as we get to the next clearing. Too much canopy in current location.” The thick layer of trees above us blocked the sun, leaving us standing in almost twilight.
“Are you alright, sir?” Deakins asks.
I grind out, “Fine,” between gritted teeth. “Lost Richards, Fox, and Blevins. We’ll need a team to go through the house once the fire is extinguished.”
“Yes, sir.” Deakins’ voice is low. He feels the loss too. “Sir, any indication of Miss Duffy or…”
“No, the house was empty, as far as we had time to explore. The men were searching for hidden compartments, hiding places, when the explosion occurred.”
I begin to walk the perimeter.
“No vehicles on site.” I bend down and search the grass that’s laid over, then stand to follow a path. “Recent vehicle activity. Unknown number of them.” I find tracks for several trucks and a number of off-road vehicles. One track belongs to a motorcycle. I direct my helmet cam down. “Think I found Tate’s street bike.”
“Be careful, sir,” he says, as I follow the trail and know he’s following my movements. “There, to your right.”
I stop and search for what he’s seeing through my camera. A trip wire. I find another to the left, but nothing in front. “They must have moved quickly. They didn’t re-establish all connections.”
Moving cautiously forward, I track the mass of tire treads for nearly a quarter mile. Then they split off, each moving in a different direction. Damn. “Lost them, Deak.”
“I see that, sir. Please stand where you are and give me a three-sixty panorama on my go.” I stop and wait. “Go.” I turn slowly in a circle, knowing Deak is covering bases. I also know this action won’t help. The jungle is too damn big.
“Any new videos, Deak? Any word from the kidnappers?”
“No, sir.”
“Wondered about that. All electronics seemed to have been left at the house, so they must have suspected tracking devices. Hopefully, that means no more torture.”
There’s a pause. “I hope that too, sir.”
Forcing the mental picture of Camille’s screaming face away, I change the subject. “Any word on my dad?”
“No, sir.”
I pick up my pace, my jog turning into a run. Sweat drips down my forehead, burning the singed skin of my face. Too many problems. Too many people to worry about. “And my family?”
“Safe, sir. We’ll move them again in the morning.”
I freeze and can’t speak for a moment.
“Thank you, Deak,” I finally say.
“You’re welcome, sir. We’ll be watching your movements and rendezvous at first opportunity.”
The house is back in sight now, the flames still licking the trees above. “The first clearing is about a square acre.”
“We’ll get you and the team, sir.”
I swallow and keep running. “I know you will.” But I’m not worried about me.
“We’ll find your sister too, sir,” he says, as if reading my mind. “And Tate. And we’ll find your father and keep your family safe.”
I keep running. From the things that haunt me, and toward what, I just don’t know.
I don’t have a good feeling about this. Any of this.
Chapter Three – Tate
Once, when I was in the Berets, my ten-man team was surrounded by over a hundred enemy and we had nothing but a few rocks to hide behind.
Once, I had to bail from a helicopter and tread water in the cold Atlantic Ocean for three hours, watching fins circle closer and closer.
Once, I met a black bear while jogging near my home in Utah. A momma black bear, who seemed to believe I was the anti-Christ, come to steal away the two cubs by her side.
I’ve done just about every scary thing imaginable. Jumping out of planes. Diving into unknown waters. Facing men who wanted nothing more than to see me dead. I’ve stared down the barrel of a shotgun, after losing my virginity to Melanie Cline. Her daddy wasn’t very pleased. At all.
Hell, I’ve shaken my ass in front of screaming women sticking dollar bills in my g-string and trying to use my dick as a handle. I even survived the gigantic lady who climbed onto the stage, surprising me from behind. She damn near smothered me when she sat her enormous ass on my face. It took three bouncers to get her off of me.
And now …
Now, I’m on a collision course with the jungle, while face to face with a desperate woman waving an Uzi in my face. This wins. This wins by a mile. Because women are crazy and completely unpredictable when placed under tremendous amounts of stress.
“Give me the gun so I can land this plane,” I yell, watching Janine’s face closely, especially her eyes. This is a small aircraft, but she’s still too many steps away from me to grab it and not take a shitload of bullets to the chest during the process.
Uzi’s have a soft trigger and the model she’s holding shoots fourteen rounds per second. That’s, at least, twenty-eight bullets between where I am and where I can grab her. I’ve survived sixteen with armor. I’m wearing a t-shirt. There will be no surviving this.
“What are you doing?” she screams, the gun shaking in her hand. “Get back there and fly the plane!”
I keep my voice low, but loud enough to hear above the noise all around us. “Not until you give me that gun. Do you understand?”
She shakes her head violently from side to side. The gun waves back and forth with the movement. “You’ll kill me, I know it.” S
he begins to cry, hard sobs wracking through her.
I wait, cursing the seconds rushing past nearly as fast as the gasoline rushing from the tank. “I won’t.”
“You’re a liar! All men are liars!”
“Baby, that’s my line.”
I wait and she closes her eyes, but only for a second. It’s enough. In two steps, I’m knocking the gun to the side and bringing my other hand down hard on her wrist, pulling the Uzi from her numbed grasp. When her eyes open again, it’s her turn to stare down the barrel. And what does she do?
The stupid bitch rushes me.
Nails claw and teeth bite and I’m forced to kick her off, my boot squishing her large breasts with the push. I lay the gun in the pilot seat, knowing if I don’t, I’ll be too tempted to use it. Plus, in this close proximity, I’m better with my hands.
Adrenaline makes her strong and she’s off the floor in an instant. I grab an arm and turn her, shoving her face first against the door. I hover a hand above the emergency door release, making sure she sees it.
“Do you know why it’s always women and children first?” I ask, but don’t give her time to answer. With the heel of my hand, I pop the release and she screams as the door falls away in front of her. “So the men can have a minute of fucking silence to think.”
I push.
She teeters on the edge, her hands grasping for something solid, her screams lost in the roar of the wind as the plane shutters with the cabin pressure change. I hear Camille cry out in surprise. But she’s holding us steady. I knew she could do it. Okay, maybe popping the door wasn’t my smartest move ever, but damn it feels good to put this little girl in her place.
Just before Janine is sucked out of the door, I grab her hair and pull her back in. Then take her shoulders and force her down into a seat. I look around. Oh my God. Duct tape. The greatest invention known to man. I reach for the roll, and the hellcat jumps from the seat and dives for the three Uzi’s I’d tossed into the back.
Badass: Jungle Fever (Complete): A Billionaire Military Romance Page 17
