Tinderbox (Flashpoint Book 1)

by Rachel Grant

  She switched the Kalash to automatic and launched herself out from behind the shrub, catching the arc of the vehicle as the headlights washed over her, firing the weapon as she dove to the side. The magazine emptied, and she landed hard on the unforgiving rocky ground. She grunted with the pain of a bad landing. Not even adrenaline could mask that she’d knocked the wind out of herself. Stupid, sloppy move. She shouldn’t have attempted something she’d never practiced.

  She tried to suck in air, unable to focus on whether she’d gotten the driver or not. The headlights were out—either she’d shot them, or they’d been shut off.

  The rev of the engine gave warning of what was coming.

  Still unable to breathe, she grabbed the second Kalash and started firing as the van barreled toward her. She rolled to get out of the way, still firing.

  Air entered her lungs in a rush as the van screeched past her and came to a halt. She scrambled to get her feet under her as she heard the passenger door open. Blinding pain shot up her leg. Her ankle gave out, and she collapsed before she was even halfway up. Shit. She’d screwed up her ankle.

  A man rounded the vehicle. She aimed the Kalash and pulled the trigger. But the magazine was empty.

  He approached, holding a small pistol, which was pointed at her forehead. Faint light from the crescent moon landed on his features, and she recognized Etefu Desta.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Pax, Cal, and Bastian left the SUV and slipped into the trees. They had to hope landmines were few and far between given that the thorny trees made the approach difficult enough without adding explosives. The Djiboutian trainees would cut off any vehicle that tried to escape via the mine-free road, while the three Special Forces operators would enter the compound on foot and fight man-to-man. Their specialty.

  Their first goal was to take Desta. If they didn’t locate him within five minutes, Cal and Bastian would evacuate the girls. Pax would go after Morgan.

  They spotted two fleeing soldiers at the perimeter of the property. Cal took out one, Pax the other. Silently, with knives, so as not to alert Desta reinforcements had arrived. Then they followed the men’s path of broken branches to the compound. They’d been given a mine-free route by the fleeing militants.

  Pax came to an abrupt halt when a machine gun sounded, a long blast that would empty a small magazine. He started to move in that direction, to hell with the slow, careful route. They didn’t have time.

  An engine revved, followed by a rapid blast from another machine gun. Pax ran full bore in the direction of the sound. He finally reached a low wall and took in the scene. The dome light of a cargo van provided just enough light to see the driver slumped over the steering wheel.

  There was no sign of Morgan or anyone else.

  He slipped over the wall. Farther down, he saw Bastian and Cal do the same.

  There was no cover between the wall and the house, but fortunately, landmines, if there were any, would all be outside the wall. Pax ran along the wall in a low crouch, heading toward Bastian.

  Movement near the house caught his eye. From the shape, it was a small woman—not Morgan, he’d know her silhouette anywhere, and this wasn’t her—with an AK. One of Desta’s slaves?

  The woman spotted Cal and raised her weapon. Pax had no choice but to blow their cover. “Hold fire! US Army!” His voice carried, ensuring Desta and his henchmen knew they were here.

  The woman startled and raised the weapon even as she pulled the trigger. The shot went wild, and she dropped the AK as if it burned.

  Bastian charged across the yard, while Pax and Cal provided cover fire. In moments, Bastian had the woman detained under the eaves. Cal crossed the open space next, with Pax laying down cover fire. When he reached Bastian’s side, Pax made his move.

  He reached Bastian, who questioned the woman in Arabic. To Pax and Cal, he said, “Desta has Morgan. He grabbed her and used her as a shield when this woman would have shot him to protect her. He dragged Morgan into the house.”

  Pax stared at the dark structure. Shit. Two floors. Multiple corridors. Who knew what sort of weaponry was inside. Desta had taken Morgan as a human shield.

  Pax is here. Morgan’s heart swelled when she heard his voice. She was useless as a dead human shield. Knowing the Green Berets were here, there was no way Desta would pull the trigger of the gun pressed to her temple.

  “Pax!” she shouted at the same time a gun fired. Her voice was hoarse, and she doubted it carried beyond the walls, let alone could be heard over the shot.

  Desta dropped the gun and dug his fingers into the wound on her arm. Her vision tunneled as pain engulfed her. She tried to scream but the only sound that emitted was a low groan.

  They’d entered the house through the rear door. Desta shifted his grip and dragged her through the kitchen to the main hall. He turned for the slave corridor. She tried to get her feet under her, but her ankle couldn’t support her weight. She grappled for the doorway, stopping him.

  He was neither fit nor a trained soldier, and struggled with her weight. She continued to fight him, even as he dragged her over the bloody, grenade-shattered remains of one of his men.

  He paused in the open doorway of one of the slave bedrooms. She tried to gouge him in the eyes, but he again dug into her arm, incapacitating her.

  He cursed and shoved her into the room. Before she could catch her breath and fight, he slapped one of the open cuffs around her swollen ankle. Unencumbered, he escaped down the corridor.

  Cal was sent to round up the women and load them in the van. With Desta unsecured and no knowledge where the EMP was, the clock was ticking for the drone strike. They needed to get the women to safety.

  Pax and Bastian would hunt Desta. They had five minutes to secure the warlord and call off the drones, or seven minutes to evacuate completely.

  Inside the house, he heard thumping—perhaps a struggle—in another wing. He nodded to Bastian and they raced through the kitchen. He skidded to a halt in the main corridor. Where had the sound come from?

  “Pax!”

  Morgan.

  He didn’t reply. Desta could be forcing her to draw him out. He waited and listened.

  “Peppermint Patty!” she shouted.

  Relief washed through him. Damn, she was smart, using the “it’s safe to come to me” code only the two of them knew.

  “Peppermint Patty!” she repeated.

  He bolted down the hall before she could say it a third time. “I’m here, babe.” Not the kind of shout he usually said during an op, but this wasn’t the usual mission. He finally laid eyes on her. Covered in blood and looking like she’d been through sheer hell, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He dropped to his knees and kissed her. A brief kiss that took only a precious second.

  She gripped his shirt. “Desta escaped down the corridor.”

  Pax turned to see Bastian in the doorway. “Go after Desta. I’ll get Morgan out. If you can’t get him within a minute, clear the property. Meet at the rendezvous point.”

  Bastian nodded and bolted down the hallway.

  Pax turned back to Morgan. “Can you walk?”

  “No. But—”

  He scooped her up and immediately saw the problem.

  “I don’t know what Esme did with the key. It may be in the hall, or she may still have it.”

  Odds were Esme—assuming she was the woman with the Kalashnikov—was long gone with Cal.

  He studied the thick chain, wondering if he could shoot through it, but Desta didn’t mess around when it came to locking up people. He’d have to fire at close range, and the ricochet from the bullets would do serious harm. And it still probably wouldn’t free her.

  He might be able to convince the Navy to call off the strike, but the only surefire way to save Morgan was to get Desta. Now.

  He kissed her again. “I love you,” he said, then he bolted for the corridor.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Pax radioed the command center as he
ran down the hall. “Call off the strike! Artemis is trapped. We can’t get her out. Repeat, abort strike. We can’t free Artemis.”

  At the open exterior door, he paused. He radioed Bastian. “Chief, do you have eyes on the prize?”

  “Negative. Garage is empty. No vehicles. No tangoes.”

  The warlord probably couldn’t afford more than a few vehicles, and once his men realized a drone strike was imminent, odds were they’d bolted in the only rides available. He’d bet Desta had been in the cargo van because he’d loaded it with his supply of khat and any small weaponry he could grab.

  Which meant Morgan had thoroughly disarmed the asshole. Without a vehicle, without an army, without a hostage, where would the warlord go?

  Pax raced for the nearest section of wall. Desta would have taken to the trees. He’d be heading for the wadi. And Desta would know the mine-free route. Worked for Pax. Hunting down men in wooded areas just so happened to be one of his specialties. He’d make damn sure the man didn’t make it to the wadi.

  He paused on the other side of the wall, tugged down night vision goggles, and slowed his breathing so he could listen. He scanned the acacias. The wide thicket had both tall trees and low shrubs, providing decent cover, but at the cost of one’s skin. Everything here had barbs, but it was easy to see the broken trail through all the barbs. Add to that the plants were brittle and noisy, and following Desta would be no problem.

  Pax wouldn’t be able to pursue in silence, but neither could Desta flee without revealing his position. The snap of branches to the east had Pax dialing in the night vision.

  There. A lone man. Right height and build.

  He raised the M4, but Desta slipped behind a thick tree trunk and disappeared. Pax set off in pursuit. He reached the acacia trunk and paused to listen again. Desta’s movements had become stealthy. There was no longer a wake of broken branches to follow. The calm, quiet night belied the battle that had raged and the ongoing frantic exodus of slaves and militants several hundred yards to the south.

  A burst of rifle fire in the distance told him the trainees were rounding up Desta’s soldiers as they fled on the rat road. But here, in this thicket, it was just Pax and the warlord.

  Desta was older, out of shape. He was alone without an army to help him. His silence, the very lack of movement, said he knew he was being hunted. He’d stopped running and had opted to hide.

  Pax was low on patience but forced himself to wait. To listen.

  Heavy breathing, several feet to the right, on the other side of the low shrubs.

  Pax made his move. Desta bolted from his hiding place. The warlord stumbled, caught his footing, and ran. But he was no match for Pax, who was on him in a flash.

  He tackled Desta, then rolled to his feet, lifting the man by the shoulders. He slammed the warlord into the unforgiving trunk of an old tree.

  Desta’s head lolled from the blow, and Pax punched him in the jaw with repeated, rapid blows. Dimly he was aware, as he landed the successive punches, that he’d missed his chance to shoot the sonofabitch, meaning the kidnapping, sex-trafficking, drug-dealing asshole would live.

  He turned the warlord onto his stomach, pressing his face into the dirt as he bound his hands. With Desta immobilized, Pax grabbed his radio. “Target acquired. Repeat, Icarus acquired. Call off the drones. I have Icarus in custody.”

  “Copy that, Sergeant,” Major Haverfeld said. “Operation Icarus abort. Target acquired. Operation Icarus abort.”

  Pax slumped down on the ground and caught his breath. He’d lay odds that they’d have called off the strike knowing Desta wasn’t inside the house and Morgan was trapped, but still, it was damn good to have the warlord in custody, ensuring Morgan’s safety once and for all.

  But he couldn’t sit here and rest on his laurels. His woman was chained in the scumbag’s house. He stripped all weapons from the unconscious warlord’s body, smiling when he found what appeared to be a key to the cuffs. He grabbed his radio. “Tell Morgan I’m coming, and I’ve got a key.”

  “Copy that, Sergeant,” Bastian said.

  He stood and gripped Desta’s ankle. He dragged the man through the trees, aiming for every rock and thorn he could find on his route back to the house.

  One of the trainees was assigned the job of driving the van full of refugees back to Camp Citron. Bastian loaded the unconscious warlord into the back of their US military SUV, and another trainee rode with him to guard Desta. The remaining two trainees loaded the back of their vehicle with the handful of militants they’d taken prisoner, leaving Cal to requisition the fleeing militants’ vehicle for driving Morgan and Pax back to the base.

  Bastian had located the nonnuclear EMP in a field below the garage. It was too big to load onto a vehicle, and too valuable to leave unguarded. SOCOM issued orders to set charges on the device and destroy it in place. The glow from the resulting fire lit the night sky as Cal drove them away from the compound.

  Pax rode in the backseat with Morgan in his arms. She had numerous injuries, including a possibly busted ankle, and he wanted to call for a medic helicopter the minute they cleared the border, but Morgan refused. She tucked her face into his neck and gripped him tightly. “I can wait the fifteen extra minutes it will take to drive to the base, and I want those minutes with you.”

  He tightened his grip on her, a dozen conflicting emotions all flooding him. Relief. Joy. Shock and horror for her sake. His breathing was shallow as he tried to take in this moment. She was real. Her ordeal was over. She’d survived six and a half days as a warlord’s prisoner, and he again held the woman of his dreams in his arms.

  He never wanted to let go.

  They hit a large pothole, and the vehicle bounced. Morgan winced at the jolt.

  “Sorry,” Cal said.

  “It’s okay,” Morgan said. “I’m fine.”

  Pax cupped her cheek. The backseat was nearly pitch dark as men equipped with night vision goggles drove all the vehicles in their short convoy. No lights until they crossed the border into Djibouti, meaning no headlights penetrated the windows; it was too dark for him to see her face.

  He was tempted to put on his own NVGs, just so he could see her. “Did they hurt you, beyond the obvious wounds?” he asked.

  “During the kidnapping, I got a little battered, but I wasn’t sexually assaulted, thank God. Desta knew about the tracker, and wanted me to trigger it once he was ready, so he gave orders to take me alive. I think the orders included not raping me, probably because he feared the tracker could be triggered in a struggle, which would’ve ruined his plans.”

  He ran his lips over her forehead. She smelled of blood and gunpowder, death and pain. She would have scars from her ordeal no matter what, and he’d be there for her through every aching moment as she came to grips with what she’d faced and what she’d done to survive, but he was thankful for her sake she hadn’t been sexually violated by the warlord or his henchmen in addition to the other atrocities she’d confronted.

  “How much trouble are you going to be in with SOCOM for coming to rescue me?”

  “What makes you think we weren’t acting on orders?”

  “If SOCOM were going to send in Green Berets, they’d send at least half the team—isn’t that how the teams are structured, so you can divide into two?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet I only counted three of you. No way was this a sanctioned mission. So what’s going to happen? Will you be brought up on charges?”

  “Considering you were rescued, Desta was taken alive, we destroyed the EMP, we didn’t waste a few very expensive Hellfires, and twenty girls destined for the auction block were liberated,” Cal said, “I think we’ll be fine.”

  “And if you’d failed?”

  “We’d have faced court-martial,” Pax said.

  Morgan tightened her grip on his shoulders and burrowed deeper into his lap. “You risked everything for me.”

  “Of course I did, babe. I love you.”

  “I lo
ve you too,” she said.

  He felt the dampness of her tears against his neck. Emotion rushed in at getting to hear her say the words. They’d come damn close to not having this moment. He’d known the emotion between them ran both ways ever since she’d told him she was his, even if he never touched her again. Now he had to wonder what the hell sort of dumb shit he was that he hadn’t dropped to his knees then and there and told her how insanely crazy he was about her. How could he have imagined even for a moment he would go through life without Morgan Adler as the center of his world?

  “I’m crazy in love with you, Morgan. I’m never letting you go again.”

  “Don’t mind me while you two are having a moment,” Cal said with humor in his voice. “I’m just driving the getaway car from the rescue in which I also risked my career…”

  Morgan laughed. “Thank you, Sergeant Callahan. I’m grateful to you and Chief Ford for everything.”

  “That’s more like it,” Cal said. “Save the sappy stuff for when you’re alone. And now that you’re in my debt, it’s time for some ground rules: no more late-night phone sex. I need sleep.”

  “He’s just upset because he hasn’t gotten laid in a long time,” Pax said in a stage whisper.

  “You should go after Savvy,” Morgan said, making Pax laugh. “She totes thinks you’re hot.”

  “Not you too,” Cal said with a groan. “Why can’t you just offer to fix me up with one of the other waitresses at Double D when we’re stateside? That’s what a real friend would do.”

  “You were a waitress at a Double D restaurant?” Pax asked. He remembered her wearing the sexy tank top, but hadn’t put it together that she’d actually worked there.

  “You must’ve missed when General Adler told the story of Morgan beating the crap out of men who assaulted her behind the restaurant on two separate occasions.”

  “My dad knew about that?”

  “He worried a lot about you working there. Of course, that was nothing compared to this week. He said he wished you were still waiting tables, nice and safe in Virginia.”