by Rachel Grant
Pax didn’t bother to wait for the order to send in the drones. They’d gotten the buy-off from the JAG. Target approved if they had confirmation Desta was there and had advanced or chemical weaponry. It didn’t get much more advanced than an EMP, and the man had intended to use it to steal a Blackhawk and take out a team of SEALs.
The order would be given. It was what Morgan herself told them to do, but he’d be dammed before he did nothing while Hellfire missiles intended for Etefu Desta took her out.
He went straight to the room where his team kept their mission-ready gear and grabbed a loaded pack and weapons. Outside the building, he found the SUV Cal had checked out to round up the trainees and dumped the gear in the back.
He needed orders to get off base, but if his XO got wind of his plans, he’d be detained. The clock was ticking. Even now, they could be arming the drones. He pulled out his cell phone and called Ripley, who was still inside the command center. “Send Morgan’s dad out front. Now.” He hung up before Ripley could respond.
Thirty seconds later, General Adler stepped outside. Pax didn’t bother with preliminaries. “I’m going after Morgan. I need signed orders to leave the base.”
“There could be landmines. You don’t know what you’re facing.”
“I’m willing to accept that risk.”
“I’m not your CO. I can get you off base, but you’ll still be considered AWOL.”
“Morgan is all that matters.”
“I won’t be able to protect you, son. I have no power here. Especially not in this.”
“I don’t give a damn. We have less than an hour before the drone strike. Get me off base, and I will bring back your daughter.”
His future father-in-law gave a sharp nod.
Less than ten minutes after Morgan’s frantic transmission, Pax was ready to roll. He’d take the smuggler roads and radio the trainees as he neared. They’d been ordered not to engage, but they were still in position. He’d have allies on the ground.
He’d find Morgan, and if he couldn’t find her, he could stay and accept the bombing as his due.
The thought brought him up short.
Shit no.
He wasn’t suicidal. He’d sacrifice himself to save Morgan without hesitation, but not unnecessarily so. He wouldn’t play Romeo in this drama any more than she would play Juliet.
As far as he was concerned, Shakespeare was an ass for not giving those two a happy ending.
He would save Morgan and seize their happy ending. They’d rendezvous in Rome, and he’d start the next phase of his life, which, since he was going AWOL, wouldn’t include an active duty Army career.
So be it. He’d have Morgan and find other ways to serve his country.
He put the SUV in reverse, right as the passenger door was wrenched open and Bastian the bastard tossed a heavy pack on the floor and jumped inside.
No way in hell would Bastian stop him. “Get out.”
A rear door opened and Cal shoved his pack through the opening, then climbed in. Both doors slammed closed. “Where we headed?” Cal asked.
Pax was taken aback by the question. Finally, he said, “Djibouti City. I’m paying Lemaire a late-night visit. You’re staying here. You don’t have orders. So get out.”
“Oh, but we do.” Bastian set a sheaf of papers on the dash. “I just need to fill in the destination. It didn’t seem like writing ‘Somalia’ would be a good idea.”
“Where the fuck did you get orders?”
“That’s for me to worry about,” Bastian said. “So what’s the plan? Meet up with our boys on the panya route?”
“I’m going to see Lemaire.”
“Bullshit,” Cal said. “You’re going after Morgan, and we’re going to help you. You can’t go in alone.”
“I’m going fucking AWOL to save a woman. The Army is going to fry my ass. I won’t let them fry yours too.”
“You already tried to fry my ass, Sergeant Blanchard,” Bastian said. “Besides, it’s not your call to make—this time.”
“Fuck you, Chief Ford. I don’t want your help.”
“Tough. You’re getting it. Also, I’ve decided to forgive you for Yemen.”
“I don’t need your fucking forgiveness.”
“Tough. You’re getting it,” Bastian repeated. “Now, you’re wasting time. Let’s roll.”
Pax had no choice but to accept both Bastian’s and Cal’s help. Every minute he delayed was risky for Morgan, plus, it was never wise to go into an op without backup. They were guerilla fighters who knew how to work together. Etefu Desta didn’t stand a chance.
This time of night, they cleared the gate in no time, and the open road stretched before them. They would be over the border in seven minutes. Another twelve minutes from there to Desta’s. Nineteen minutes total. Operation Artemis Liberation plan Bravo was a go.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Morgan glimpsed the silhouette of a man by the back exit. She ducked into the pantry. She’d been lucky up to this point; the house had been empty of militants. They must all have been outside, ready for the assault on the disabled Blackhawks. She thought she’d recognized Desta’s Chinese associate, but couldn’t be certain in the dim light.
Her heart pounded. She needed to confirm they’d heard her and called off the mission. Otherwise, she’d have to search the grounds for the men and attack their flank in a feeble attempt to help the SEALs should their copter crash. If they’d heard, she could get the hell out and run.
She should get the hell out and run. Because drones were coming.
She tried to control the harsh sound of her breathing, hoping the noise wouldn’t give her away when the back door opened and voices filled the kitchen. One or two men she could take, but if all thirty of Desta’s men flooded the house, it was all over.
“I heard gunshots.” She recognized the heavy Chinese accent. “Before the Blackhawks turned.” Relief surged through her. The Blackhawks had turned. He continued, “Your prisoner could have shot her guard and used his radio to send back the helicopters.”
A man—Desta?—said something in Arabic. A third man replied, also in Arabic, then footsteps retreated down the hall. The man then spoke in English, confirming the speaker had been Desta. “He will find Dr. Adler and kill her.”
“You waste time when you should be securing the EMP before the drones come. China won’t give you a third one. I must go.” The door opened, and footsteps retreated.
Curses accompanied the sound of breaking glass. Morgan guessed Desta was taking out his anger on a window. A moment later, he spoke in Arabic into his radio. His voice retreated down the hall, likely heading toward his office as he issued orders to his army.
Morgan clutched both AK-47s tight. She was armed and ready, but fear raced through her. When the bodies in her cell were discovered, they’d no longer underestimate her. They would shoot to kill on sight.
Escaping through the back door was out. That was where Desta had come from and could be where the rest of his army remained. She closed her eyes and considered Esme’s map. There was another exit on the ground floor, at the end of a hallway. Esme had drawn several small rooms along that hall. Morgan hadn’t deciphered the symbol she’d used for those rooms. Could they be the servants’ quarters? Was Esme’s room down that hall?
Was Esme sleeping as the US military armed drones? Morgan had called for the drones herself, knowing Desta’s unwilling servants would be victims along with his private army.
Slowly, Morgan eased open the pantry door with the barrel of a Kalash. She peered out, ready to pull the trigger at the first sign of movement. The kitchen was empty.
She walked softly down the hall, for once glad for bare feet on the wood floor. Her boots had been taken during the original strip search, and her feet had been bare for the last six days. Now that meant silent steps on an old floor with a tendency to squeak.
She found the hallway Esme had drawn and opened the first door. A glance inside made her heart drop. S
ix girls huddled together inside. None could be older than thirteen. Girls for the auction block.
This was how Desta funded his army.
She had to get them out.
The girls stared at her with wide-eyed fear. They’d probably woken from the gunshots earlier and now were visited by a bloody woman sporting two AKs. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m here to help.” She gestured for them to come to the door, knowing they probably spoke no English. “We need to run. Leave.”
They stared at her blankly, not moving, and her gaze landed on the chains and ankle cuffs. All six were chained to a single large bolt in the center of the floor. No wonder Esme hadn’t been allowed to keep the key once Morgan was shackled again. Was Esme too locked up at night? Was every room along this hall filled with sex and servant slaves?
Six rooms, six slaves per room?
She patted the pocket on the gear belt where she’d initially found the key. She swallowed hard when she found the pocket empty. She’d have to go back to her cell and get it.
She stepped back into the hallway, guns ready. She’d kill anyone who stood in the way of her retrieving that key.
She opened the door across the hall. Four girls huddled in the center. A glance at the end of the hall revealed the exterior door Esme had indicated. Once she had the key, that exit would be their escape route.
She turned. A dark shape filled the hallway entrance. She dove for the open bedroom as the man fired a shot.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
She wasn’t trained for this. She could shoot, sure. And she could fight. But she’d never practiced for a firefight. Never fired a Kalash from each hand. Never considered gunning down militants while protecting at least ten young girls.
The girls spoke rapidly in alarmed voices. Speaking Somali or Arabic, Morgan wasn’t sure. She gestured for them to be quiet so she could listen for the guard.
The scrape of a boot on the floor. If she leaned out and fired, would he shoot her first? How well trained was he? Dare she hope he was hopped up on khat and unreliable?
She released one Kalash to grip the other with two hands, positioning the rifle. Her wrist brushed against a hard metal item on the gear belt as she shifted position.
I have a grenade.
No time to think. No time to plan. She plucked the explosive from the belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it down the hallway.
She scrambled on her knees deeper into the room, praying the man wouldn’t have time to throw the grenade back. She heard a curse followed by a deafening bang.
Anyone still in the house would know she was in the slave wing. Even those in the yard had to have heard the explosion. She darted back into the hall, steeling her stomach against the carnage and searched the man for a key. Fortunately, his utility belt was intact. Her breath whooshed out of her when she laid fingers on the small piece of metal.
Key in hand, she returned to the room of terrified girls. In seconds, she had the girls unlocked. Back in the hall, each doorway had filled with women and girls peeking out, at the limit of their chains. Morgan spotted Esme and tossed her the key. “Unlock yourself and everyone else. Run for the exit! I’ll cover the hall!” She didn’t wait to see if the woman understood. She turned and positioned herself in a convex depression in the wall created by the grenade, her bare feet slipping in the blood as she settled in, and pointed a Kalash toward the main house.
A moment later, a man appeared. She fired. He dropped, blocking the opening. Good. He served as a warning to anyone who would attempt to enter the hall. Alone, she wouldn’t last long if they came at her with a direct assault, but she needed only a few minutes for Esme to unlock everyone and empty the corridor.
Behind her, she heard girls and women entering the hall and running for the door at the end, but she didn’t dare look, didn’t dare take her focus off the entrance to the hall. If someone attacked from the exterior door, they were screwed.
“We run now,” Esme said from behind her.
“Everyone is out?” she asked.
“Oui. We run.”
Morgan backed up slowly. She was tempted to give Esme a Kalash but didn’t know if the woman knew how to use it, and didn’t want to give up the spare if she didn’t. She saw the dead soldier’s Kalash out of the corner of her eye and nodded toward it. “Gun,” she said. “For you.”
Esme plucked it from the dead man’s remains. Morgan dared a glance to the side and lifted hers, showing Esme how she held it. “Like this.”
As she backed down the hallway, she slid the selector on her gun to the middle position. “Automatic,” she said to Esme. She put it in the lower position. “Semiautomatic.” She kept hers in semi, to prevent unloading the magazine too quickly.
They reached the open exterior door. Esme went first, then Morgan turned and left the house.
How much time had passed? How far away were the drones?
The women and girls—nearly two dozen by Morgan’s quick assessment—had regrouped at the low stone wall that ringed the property.
Like Morgan, all the women were barefoot. They’d have to run through the thorny acacias, which grew just beyond the wall, or search for a vehicle. Did Desta even have enough vehicles to transport everyone? Were the vehicles guarded, or was Desta’s army fleeing?
“Where are the vehicles? The vans?” she asked.
Esme frowned, then said, “Truck?”
“Yes. Truck. Where?”
Esme pointed toward the back of the house. “Trucks there.”
Jump the fence or go for a vehicle?
The thorns would be a problem. A huge problem. But what she faced at the back of the house was a great unknown.
Acacia thorns had ruined her best hiking boots in the first weeks she’d been in Djibouti. The long spines could puncture a tire and pierce a bare foot easily, and they’d all be running through thorny trees and shrubs in the dark. It was an effective security system, keeping prisoners barefoot in a house surrounded by acacia.
She turned to Esme. “Stay here. Guard the girls. I’ll get us a truck.”
They radioed the trainees stationed on the panya route when they crossed the border. The men told of chaos within the compound, if the radio communications between Desta’s men were to be believed. Dead guards, grenades in the house, escaping slaves.
Pax felt fierce pride even as fear pulsed through him. His Morgan was a badass one-woman army.
And she’s in a shitload of trouble.
“We need to radio SOCOM,” Bastian said. “Let them know we’re here. They’ll have intel we can use.”
“Okay by me, but it will end our military careers.” Pax said. “Can you both live with that?”
“It sounds like there are at least a dozen girls who’ll be killed if we don’t get them out. That’s the call I can’t live with,” Cal said.
“Agreed,” Bastian said.
Cal set his radio to the frequency Desta’s men were using. Bastian translated the mixture of Somali and Arabic communications, making Pax damn glad the bastard had come along.
“Desta is leaving everyone behind and fleeing,” Cal said.
“He’ll come out this way,” Bastian said. “Make a run for Ethiopia through the rat routes.”
They were close enough to hear shots fired at the compound, and Pax clamped down on his emotions. The shots were either fired by or at Morgan.
Odds were, they were fighting with Kalashnikovs. That day at the shooting range, Morgan had fieldstripped a Kalash in under thirty seconds to prove to him she knew the weapon. “It’s not my favorite,” she’d said, “but I understand it.”
It had made him smile at the time. She understood AKs, like they were moles in chemistry, a concept to be mastered. Hell yeah, she’d mastered the assault rifle, and right now, Pax was grateful for her father’s pushing her to be a soldier all those years.
Bastian, an officer and the highest rank among them, radioed SOCOM. Their XO rolled with the news. From his tone, Pax figured Captain Oswald had known al
l along. He’d probably spent the last thirty minutes assiduously avoiding looking at the empty seats around the table. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be hell to pay when they returned to base.
Pax tucked the SUV into a thicket of acacia trees as the official word came down: secure Desta and the EMP, and the strike could be called off. They had twenty minutes. If they failed, they’d have two minutes to clear the perimeter. Desta could not be allowed to retain an EMP.
The mission was no longer to save Morgan. His orders were to capture the warlord.
Morgan pressed her back to the wall in the shadows of the eaves and caught her breath. She’d had to shoot one guard to get this far, expending three precious bullets. She’d sliced her foot on something—likely a sharp rock—as she’d crossed the yard. Adrenaline masked the pain in both her foot and her arm. Her brain barely registered the wounds were even there.
One more corner to round, and she’d know what she was facing at the rear of the house. There could be an army of men, or no one. Even though the first Kalash still had a few bullets left, she switched out the magazine for a full one. Better to reload now than to regret it later.
She wished she’d checked the dead guy in the hall for more grenades. They were handy little devils, and she only had one left.
An engine noise sounded. Time to move. She pushed off the wall and rounded the corner. A cargo van backed out of a barnlike structure that must serve as the garage. The van backed up in an arc. At that trajectory, the headlights would be upon her in a second. She dropped back into the dark eaves, tucking behind a thorny shrub.
The van would be perfect for hauling the girls out of here. She needed that van.
How to stop them without disabling it?
Shoot the driver. In a moving vehicle.
God, how she hated today. She’d thought yesterday was bad, but everything that had happened after midnight really, really sucked.
