Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Mason (Kindle Worlds Novella) (The 13)

by Anne L. Parks

  She lifted the mic from in front of her mouth, and turned to him. “Where?”

  “Outside of Turbo.”

  A mix of emotion swamped her. One the one hand, imagining the young woman’s severed body in the middle of godforsaken land in Colombia made her sick to her stomach. But they all knew the girl had been killed—had a front row seat to her execution—and the idea that she would be coming home to be laid to rest on American soil, where family and friends could mourn her properly, provided a modicum of peace.

  “Riley, we found something.” Jake said into the headset. Riley stared at the screen. Jake’s camera attempted to focus on the object he held in his hand. “We found it on top of the laptop keyboard.”

  A thumb drive in the shape of Iron Man rested in his palm.

  “Bring the laptop and the thumb drive back with you,” she instructed. “And get the hell out of there as soon as possible.”

  “Copy, completing a final sweep,” Jake said.

  Riley covered her mic. “How far out is the helo?” she asked Flaherty.

  “Four minutes,” Flaherty answered.

  “Four minutes, Jake.”

  “Roger, out here.”

  “Tony, let me know when they are in the air,” she said to Abbott, then walked toward the door with Lance. She didn’t need to tell him they had to update the Colonel. He knew. In fact, he knew her moves almost before she did. It was disconcerting, at times, being so in sync with someone else. But lately, as she came to rely on him more and more for support, she found it gave her a sense of calm. A sense that she wasn’t alone. The feeling that she wasn’t weak if she leaned on him every once in a while. And the overwhelming sense of pride that he leaned on her when he needed her.

  Holt was in his office and waved them in. Lance closed the door as Riley brought the Colonel up to speed on the latest events.

  “The team in Texas will be back tonight,” Riley said. “As soon as they get here, we can go through the laptop and thumb drive, and see if there is any information on them.”

  “Do you think you will find anything?” Holt asked, one brow quirked up.

  “On the laptop—no,” Riley said. “But I believe the thumb drive was intentionally left for us to find.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, if I disconnect a thumb drive from the computer, I either put it away, or toss it on the desk. This was on top of the keyboard. I’ll concede it may just be how Mrs. Baylor handles her thumb drives, but it just doesn’t feel right.”

  “No harm in taking a look,” Lance said.

  “If it’s nothing, it’s a serious invasion of Mrs. Baylor’s privacy,” Holt said.

  “But if it’s not, it might be the only way to save her life,” Lance rebutted.

  “And Jess,” Riley added.

  “See what’s on it,” Holt said. “Keep Mason up to speed, but otherwise, this stays with us until we can get a plan together.”

  Chapter 13

  Two days had passed since Laura’s death. Jess had spent the entire day going though bouts of sobbing and baking. Being in the kitchen always calmed Jess. And Mason didn’t seem to mind all the food that was around. They had packed up most of the baked goods in plastic containers to bring with them to Mason’s “office.” As they came through the double security door entrance, Mason handed off the goodies to one of the men sitting close by, and directed her straight down a hallway. She glanced toward the ward room. A shiver shook her body at the memory of watching her friend on the large screen lose her life.

  Mason had told her last night that they needed to come in today, and she had been thankful for the warning. At least she had time to prepare herself to come back to the place.

  Mason…

  She could not have asked for a more calming, caring person to help her grieve the past two days. He had one of the guys drive his truck back to the apartment so Mason could hold her on his lap in the back seat. And he held her long into the evening—rocking her, holding her, letting her sob until she had no more tears.

  At one point, she got up and went to take a shower. But not even the hot water could wash away what she had seen. The reality that both of her friends had died because of her. And there seemed to be little hope the people hunting her wouldn’t find her eventually.

  And when they did, they would do far worse than what they had done to Caribbean and Laura.

  By the time Mason came in to check on her, she was in a heap on the shower floor, staring at the water swirl around her and flow down the drain. She felt nothing.

  “Jesus, Jess,” Mason said, and turned the water off. He wrapped her in a towel and carried her into his bedroom. After he dried her off, he slipped a sweatshirt over her head and a pair of shorts, and slipped her under the comforter on his bed.

  “Get some sleep, sweetheart,” he murmured, and kissed the top of her head.

  She grabbed his hand before he could pull away. “Will you stay with me?”

  He didn’t respond, just lay next to her, chest to back, and wrapped his arm across her waist. When the nightmares came—and they came in living color—he was there to keep her safe.

  Placing his ID card against a flat black square on the wall, a heavy metal door slowly swung open. Down a short hallway was a dark room with various sized screens. She could hear the low murmur of voices, but no one was visible. To the right was a glassed in office. Riley sat at a desk talking to Lance and Colonel Holt. She glanced at them, and pointed to the next room.

  Mason nodded, took Jess’s elbow, and they entered a room with a large conference table. Two other men sat at one end. They looked up as they entered, and nodded to them.

  Mason pulled out a chair for Jess, and then sat in the chair beside her. He was so massive…it should’ve scared her, but instead, it comforted her. Provided a bit of strength, which she desperately needed.

  Riley, Lance and Colonel Holt came in and took seats across from her.

  “We know you’ve been through a lot, but Mason insisted we keep you informed of developments, as much as we can,” Riley said.

  Jess glanced at Mason and smiled. For the first time since the shooting, she felt as if she truly had an ally.

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

  “Early this morning, a bomb threat was called into the Milton Weston Design building.”

  Jess gasped. Her office? She thought of all the people she had worked with since she moved to Providence and had started working for the architectural design firm. Many had families. Small children. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “The building was evacuated, and an explosive device was found. The bomb squad was called in to diffuse it, and no one was hurt.”

  “Are we sure it was related to Jess?” Mason asked.

  Lance leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. “No one has taken responsibility yet, but the timing leaves us no choice but to assume it is.”

  Anger scorched through Jess’s veins. How dare these assholes go to this extreme. They were killing people, threatening lives—and over what? A man who had been killed in an act of self-defense? A man—if he could be called that—whose pride had been so wounded by a woman rejecting his advances that he was willing to rape and shoot her?

  Daniel Forrester was a predator and a bully. And Jess could see where he had learned his narcissistic view of women. His father was terrorizing her.

  But Jess would be damned if she would stand by and let him hurt anymore of her friends.

  A man knocked on the door, handed some papers to Riley, and whispered in her ear. Riley glanced at the papers, the frown lines around her mouth and eyes deepened. She passed the papers to Holt.

  When Holt read them, he handed them to Lance, and glanced at Jess. “We have confirmation that the families of Caribbean Meda and Laura Townsend have been placed in protective custody at an undisclosed location.”

  Jess exhaled and let relief flood her body. From the look on Riley’s face, she had assumed it would be bad news.
Jess glanced at Riley, then Holt. Neither one was smiling. Or relieved.

  “But?” she asked and waited for the piano to fall.

  “We were having difficulty locating your mother. We sent a team down to ascertain her whereabouts and get her to safety. It appears we were too late to prevent her from being taken.” Holt leaned across and grasped her hand. “However, we do have confirmation that she is still alive.”

  Jess looked at the picture of her mother, her cheek swollen and red, holding a newspaper with the current date.

  “What do they want?” she asked.

  Gazes darted around the room.

  “Me.” She said, and resolved herself to the inevitable. There was only one way to free her mother, and keep everyone associated with her safe. “Then let’s give them what they want.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Riley said. “We’re monitoring all channels trying to get the location where they are keeping your mother. I think the fact that the instant murders of your friends did not compel you to turn yourself over is forcing them to rethink their strategy. They want to deal.”

  “Then let’s deal,” Jess said.

  Mason shook his head, and let out a chuckle. Riley and Lance stared at her.

  “Is it feasible to use me to draw them out?”

  Riley shrugged, but it was clear she was considering the plan.

  Mason slammed his hand on the table. “No. You are not using yourself as bait.”

  The loud slap against the wood shook Jess. “Why not?”

  “Haven’t you been paying attention to what they are doing?”

  “To my family and friends? Yes! But what’s the alternative, Mason? Wait for them to actually blow up a building? Watch another live-streaming of my mother being beheaded? Do you really think I want all those deaths on my conscience?”

  The muscles in his neck were taut and his jaw clenched. “There’s another way, we just have to find it.”

  “No, there’s not. The other way would’ve been for me to have gone with Forrester that night.”

  He swung his gaze to her, his eyes filled with anger and disbelief. “And let him rape you? Murder you? How would that have been better?”

  A lump formed in her throat. “It would’ve just been me. No one else would’ve suffered.”

  “You don’t know that. How many women would’ve suffered the same fate as you? How many already have? A man like Forrester is a animal—he wouldn’t have stopped until he was forced.”

  Jess clamped her mouth shut, and wrapped her arms around her middle. She hated that Mason was making sense. Not that it mattered. She was doing this. Needed to do this. The time for sitting around and waiting for these assholes to show themselves was over. Time to pull them from the cave where they dwelled and in and out into the light where this team of special operations experts could deal with them.

  “Okay,” Colonel Holt said, “Let’s table the discussion for now and see what other information we can uncover in the meantime.”

  * * *

  Riley entered her office and caught a glimpse of Mason and Jess passing by on their way out. Neither looked pleased with the other, or what had transpired in the meeting. Riley had to give it to Jess—she was stepping up and trying to help herself and her mother as much as she could. It was either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid.

  “That’s got the makings of either a very quiet ride back to Mason’s place, or a very loud one,” Lance said, and dropped into the chair opposite her.

  “Silent treatment all the way,” Riley said. “It’s our secret weapon. Guys can’t handle it when we clam up.”

  “True statement.”

  Holt knocked on the doorframe, stepped inside the office, and closed the door behind him. “Riley, you and Lance come up with a plan that will put Ms. Baylor in the least amount of danger.”

  “The demands they made in the note on the thumb drive left at Mrs. Baylor’s house are pretty straight forward. They want Jess in a very public arena. We should be able to set up a net around them. Contain the threat to Jess and the public,” Lance said.

  “I don’t want the RRA to get hands on Jess, but we need to get them out of their hiding places—and she is our best option.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And keep this between us.” He waited for Riley and Lance to acknowledge him before he opened the door and exited the skiff.

  Riley exhaled and slumped into her seat. “Mason will lose his shit if he finds out about this.”

  “Yeah, I think he is a lot closer to Jess than he wants to admit.”

  “I feel bad for Jess—she really has no one that she is close to. This is possibly the worst thing that has happened to her. Instead of being able to lean on her friends or her mother for support, she has to deal with a bunch of strangers. Talk about being on the outside of your own life.”

  Lance nodded. “So, how do you suggest we rectify this?”

  “She needs to trust us with her life, if any plan to use her as bait is going to work. For her to trust us, she has to get to know us—outside this office, and not in a professional capacity.”

  “And we do that, how?”

  Riley smiled. “I think it’s time to introduce Jess to the Sand Trap.”

  Chapter 14

  Jess heard voices out in the living room, but couldn’t bring herself to get up to see who was there. She was still pissed at Mason, but couldn’t put her finger on exactly why. So, she had been silent the entire way back to the apartment, and as soon as he opened the door and let her in, she stomped to her room and slammed the door.

  She thought he might try to talk to her, but he had kept to himself. She wanted to yell and scream at him, and tell him how unfair it was of him to tell her she couldn’t do something to prevent anymore deaths.

  The problem was deeper than that, and she knew it. The pain of losing her friends, seeing her mother beaten and knowing she would probably die before they could find her, the idea that the only way out of all this was her death made her want to lash out at the world. At Mason. Because he was all she had. He was the closest person to her in the world. And she had known him barely a week.

  Of course, in that time, she had come to know him better than she had known many of the men she had dated for months. He was strong, protective, loyal, and caring. When she had demanded that she be kept abreast of what was happening, he had backed her up and made sure she knew information when he did. And he had helped her through some of the worst times in her life. The fact that they had been a few days apart made her stomach twist in a knot.

  So much had happened in a week.

  There was a knock at her door.

  “Come in,” she said, expecting to see Mason.

  Riley stepped in and closed the door behind her.

  “Did Mason call you to come talk me down?” Jess chuckled, a little disappointed that Mason had sent someone else to talk to her.

  “No, Lance and I came by to invite you both out tonight. We figured after the meeting today, you might be in need of a distraction—and by that, I mean, a large alcoholic beverage or two.”

  “That sounds great, except I don’t really have anything to wear out.”

  Riley tossed a bag on the bed. “Gotcha covered. Nothing flashy, but also not yoga pants and a t-shirt.” She stood and walked to the door.

  Jess grabbed the bag, followed Riley out of the room, and headed into the bathroom. Quickly pulling on jeans and a white, off-the-shoulder sweater, she brushed her hair and fixed her makeup.

  She entered the living room and halted at the sight of Mason standing by the kitchen with his back to her. He had on black jeans and a light gray sweater. The man was mouthwatering.

  Quickly glancing around the space, she realized they were alone. “Where did Riley go?”

  “They said they’d meet us at the bar.” Mason’s gaze slowly slid up and down her body, an appreciative smile on his face. “You ready to go?”

  She nodded. “I—uh—don’t have an ID.�
�

  Mason pulled open the front door, and let her pass. “No worries, we know the owner.”

  The Sand Trap was one of the oldest bars in the area, which was saying something. There was also no doubt that they catered to the military customers. Every inch of the bar was covered in various patches from different special operations units, flight squadrons from every branch, and a few law enforcement.

  A loud cheer went up at the back of the bar. Mason grabbed Jess’s hand and pulled her through the crowd. She recognized Lance and Riley, and the other four men she had met at Mason’s office—Jake, Mick, Noah, and a young guy, Flaherty. Mick had his arm around the back of a woman’s chair.

  “Okay, let’s see who you don’t know yet,” Mason said, and started pointing at some of the other men around the long table. “That’s Ben and Lucas. And over at the pool table is Dex, Sean, Gabe, and Colt. Gents, this is Jess.”

  “Hey, Jess,” Ben said, while Lucas tipped his beer glass towards her before downing half of it.

  Mason pulled a chair out next to Riley, who was sitting at the end of the table, and rounded the table to sit across from Jess. He grabbed a couple of empty glasses and a pitcher of beer. “Do you want a beer? Or I can get you something else from the bar.”

  “Beer’s fine,” she answered. The ride from the apartment had been silent, but not uncomfortable. More like neither one felt the need to fill the space with needless chit-chat. For some reason, that endured Mason to Jess even more.

  The men talked around her, and she tried to pay attention to what they were saying. But there was so much activity in the bar, so many bodies moving around, and she found herself checking over her shoulder every thirty seconds to see who was coming towards her. She glanced across the table and caught Mason staring at her.

  Well, if he didn’t think you were a freak before, he definitely has confirmation now.

  Instead, one of his eyebrows quirked up, and he tipped his head toward an open seat next to him. Warmth radiated through her chest. She grabbed her glass and plopped into the seat next to him.

  He leaned close to her. “Figured you might be more comfortable being able to see things.”