by Cat Johnson
If anything happened to her while the military was getting her out, it would blow up all over the media. On the other hand, if she died in captivity before the US attempted a rescue it would be just as much of a public relations nightmare for the current administration.
“The same four teams that trained together getting called in at once—there’s no way that’s a coincidence.” Grant shot Mike a sideways glance.
“Nope. And I’d be willing to bet whatever we’re doing will entail our jumping out of a C-130.”
Grant didn’t have time to agree with Mike’s guess as their commander walked into the room.
He was followed by a man and a woman who could only be FBI. Grant had been in long enough to be able to spot the suits who worked for the bureau and these two had that look to them.
Next to him, Mike mumbled, “Feds.”
“Yup,” Grant agreed just as quietly.
An American hostage taken on foreign soil meant the FBI would be involved, and that fact supported Mike’s guess about this op.
Africa, here I come.
As that thought hit him, Grant realized this trip couldn’t have come at a better time. A hot mission like this one was exactly what he needed to focus on and get his mind off his marriage—or more accurately the looming shadow of an impending divorce.
Chapter 4
Noise, unfamiliar, distinguishable from the usual sounds, caught Jen's attention and had her wondering what it could be. It did not, however, make her wonder enough to lift her head to try and look.
It was too dark to see what was making that strange scratching anyway.
Besides, her captors would protect her from being mauled by wild animals. Even though negotiations hadn’t been going their way, the potential of a big payday meant she was too valuable for them to let die.
They’d starve her, let her wallow with fever, dehydrate her until she was near death, but no, they wouldn’t let her die because that would cost them their ransom.
That the kidnappers still had hope of a payout after all this time was pretty amazing since she’d given up on the idea long ago.
A twig snapped. That noise joined the rustling she still couldn’t pin down the source of.
It had to be an animal. The bugs here were big, but not big enough to make that much noise.
None of it mattered anyway. On her sleeping mat, under the one filthy blanket she was allowed, and ringed by nine guards to make sure she didn’t escape in the night—as if she had anywhere to go or the strength to walk there—no animal or bug would be able to get to her easily.
Her thoughts on the mysterious noise would have ended there if one of the men guarding her hadn’t reacted to it so strongly.
The guard closest to where she and Adam were sat up and grabbed his gun.
She heard others moving and one shout.
Jen opened her mouth to whisper to Adam to ask if he had heard the sound too when the world exploded around her.
Her question was replaced by her own screams as rapid gunfire seemed to come from all sides with her trapped in the middle.
She pulled the blanket up and shielded her head with her arms.
This was it. She’d wished for death and here it was.
Surprisingly death would not come at the hands of her kidnappers, or from the elements she’d been ravaged by, or the infection she’d fallen victim to.
This was worse.
Now she’d be taken by whatever opposing group was attacking their camp. Some warring faction who would kill her captors, take her and then pass her around to be used by the fighters. A war prize.
If she were lucky she’d die in the firefight before being taken, but she couldn’t count on that. So far, her luck had been severely lacking.
As she prayed for God to put an end to her misery, the gunfire stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
As loud and horrifying as the firefight had been, the silence was worse. It allowed her to hear the footsteps pounding toward her.
Still cradling her head she struggled to not breathe, to not make a sound.
It was dark. Maybe they wouldn’t see her. Or they could think she was one of the dead.
Strong hands gripped her through the blanket, searching until they finally located her arm. They pulled her upright as she screamed, struggling and fighting for her life.
Maybe she wasn’t ready to die just yet. Her mind might have given up on her, but her fight or flight instinct was still strong.
“Jennifer! Jennifer Anderson.” Whoever had her knew her name. He said it as he continued to hold her in an unbreakable grip.
She stopped struggling. As the panic resided enough for her brain to process things, she realized the deep male voice had sounded distinctly American.
Why were there other Americans here?
Not to get her, surely. She was a nobody. A teacher. A volunteer who didn’t even get paid. Not some politician or world leader.
Her fuzzy reasoning couldn’t comprehend any of it. “You’re American?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re with the United States military. We’re here to bring you home.”
The military was here for her, an aid worker of no value to anyone but her own family? She shook her head, afraid to believe it. In spite of her dehydration, the tears spilled out.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
When she didn’t answer, he grabbed her around the waist and tossed her over his shoulder like she was a sack of potatoes.
He ran with her, fast and surefooted, as if he wasn’t bearing any burden leading her to change her own analogy. He carried her on his shoulder like she was a weightless bag of feathers and he didn’t stop until they were a good distance from the camp.
Setting her down on the ground he said, “We’re safe here to wait for the helos. Are you hurt?”
Helos? Safe? The second word baffled her as much as the first. She couldn’t form words and wouldn’t know what to say if she had been able to.
“Jen.” He grabbed her chin in his hand and made her look at him. What she saw was what had to be a man, though he looked more like a robot from the contraption covering his face and head. It only confused her more.
“Are you hurt?”
Everything hurt.
The infection that racked her body. Her tongue where she bit it while he’d carried her. Her throat, so dry from lack of water. The bug bites she scratched until they’d bled. Her stomach from a hunger she’d known for a month.
That’s not what he meant, she was sure. She’d live from all that.
If he got her out of here, she’d actually get to live.
It was a miracle. In the midst of so much gunfire on a night so dark she couldn’t even see the light of the moon, she’d gotten out alive.
“Adam?” Panic gripped her. Did he make it? Had he been hit?
She’d stayed down on the blanket, paralyzed by fear, but what if Adam had stood up? He'd be shot for sure.
“He’s here. It’s okay. He’s right over there. He’s fine.”
Adam had been her only touchstone to the real world during the time they’d been in captivity. To be separated from him now had her crazed.
“I can’t see him. It’s too dark.”
“I can.” Still squatting in front of her, the man called, “Hey, Thom. Bring the other one over so she can see he’s okay.”
“You got it, commander.”
Adam was beside her in a few seconds. She hugged him in spite of the month’s worth of dirt and stench she knew clung to her. To them both.
“It’s okay, Jen. We’re okay.”
Crying still, she nodded and repeated, “We’re okay.”
Her savior, her rescuer, stood. Was he leaving them? They weren’t safe yet. They wouldn’t truly be safe until they were off this continent.
There were more men, besides the ones in the camp. Everyone seemed to be in on the kidnapping. The driver of the car she'd been in. The guide they'd hired. The people in the village who'd watched the a
bduction.
Any one of the locals could call in reinforcements to retake the American who’d escaped. All for the promise that they’d be rewarded with a few US dollars from the non-existent ransom.
She had to tell him that. But first, she had to stop him from going.
Jen grabbed for his leg, holding on like a toddler. “Don’t leave.”
He dropped back down to squat level with her where she sat on the ground. He reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “I won’t leave you until you’re safe. I promise.”
Her hero issued what sounded like orders to some of the other shadows surrounding her, though she was having trouble comprehending anything, never mind military speak.
All she knew was she and Adam both would be safe as long as this man stayed beside them.
Chapter 5
Since Jen wouldn’t let him leave her side, Grant was forced to handle business while squatting on the ground next to her.
“Rocky?” Grant tried to keep his voice low.
He had no doubt every kidnapper in the camp was dead, but until the exfiltration he’d rather keep their location unknown.
The sound of the kidnappers’ assault rifles, before they’d had been silenced by the attack team’s suppressed weapons, had likely reached a few ears nearby.
Grant had no way to determine if that posed a threat or not. Better to err on the side of caution while they were sitting ducks waiting for their ride.
“Yeo,” Rocky answered.
“Did Mack call in the SitRep?”
“Yup. The Eagle knows we have secured both packages,” Rocky answered.
“Good.”
The word of the rescue would travel from the office of the President to Jen and Adam’s families. Now all Grant and the twenty-three others on the assault team needed to do was keep them safe until the helicopters arrived for the exfil.
He turned to Jen, “You doing okay?”
“I—I’d love some water.”
Of course she was thirsty. Adequate clean water had to be hard to come by for a large group hiding out miles from the nearest city. It wasn’t likely the kidnappers were all that generous with their hostages with what provisions they did have.
Grant slipped off his pack, reached inside and pulled out his bottle of water. He cracked open the lid and handed the bottle to Jen, realizing that Adam would be just as dehydrated.
For a quick in and out op like this one, Grant only carried one bottle. He glanced around, his four-tube night vision goggles aided by the laser beacons on each of his men, helped him in identifying the man from his team closest to him. “Hey, Dawson.”
“Yes, commander.”
“You still got a bottle of water in your pack?”
“Yes, sir.” Without question the young SEAL, the newest man on Grant’s team, handed over his bottle of water.
Grant passed it to Adam. “There will be more water and something to eat too on the helos. Just granola bars probably but we can get you a real meal when we reach the camp.”
The Dutch man reached for the water. “Thank you. After what we’ve been given, bottled water and granola bars sound like a feast to me.”
The speedy death the rescue team had served up to the kidnappers seemed too fast and clean a payback considering how badly they’d treated the hostages.
Grant had to think a more fitting retribution would have been something more along the lines of stranding the kidnappers with no shelter, not enough food and even less water for a few months. Which was exactly what they'd done to Jen and Adam.
But it was too late for that. Grant’s knowing the last thing the bastards heard was his bullet coming at them from close range in the dark would have to be good enough.
Jen gulped from her bottle so loudly, Grant reached out and touched the hand holding the bottle. “You might want to take it slow on that. After two months without sufficient water or food, you don’t want to shock your stomach or you’ll just toss it all back up.”
“Two months?” A sob followed her repeating what was apparently news to her.
“Sixty-two days to be exact, since we got y’all out before midnight.” Brody handed over his bottle of water and added, “Listen to the commander here and drink that one slow. Won’t do you no good if it comes right back up.”
Even in the dark Grant could see Jen wasn’t looking good. Full body shaking was usually a bad sign.
“We got a blanket with us?” Grant asked the group in general.
Nothing but head shaking and a few verbal negative responses followed. He needed to warm her up before she went into shock. The team had enough obstacles between now and safety without letting their rescued hostage go into shock.
She’d had a blanket on her in the camp. He’d had to wrestle it from Jen’s surprisingly strong grip as she fought him. That was before she’d realized he was there to rescue her rather than hurt her.
Even in her weakened condition, she’d fought like a wildcat. That determination was probably what had kept her alive long enough for them to come rescue her.
Grant was trained in how to survive. But from all he’d read about Jen’s past, she hadn’t had any such preparation, yet she’d survived horrors others wouldn’t have been able to.
That was pretty remarkable. He couldn't help but respect her strength.
Grant reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to go run and grab your blanket from the camp.”
“No!”
There were twenty-three other highly qualified, well trained men there to protect both of the rescued hostages but Grant knew Jen’s fear of his leaving her, rational or not, felt real to her.
“It’s okay. I’ll be right back.”
As much as he hated to leave her because of how frightened she was, he stood and took off at a run before she could argue.
The best he could do was get back as quickly as possible.
That’s exactly what Grant did, bearing two blankets, one for each of them. Filthy, damp, but at least it was something to keep the heat in until the helos arrived. The birds would be equipped with better first aid gear.
“You went back for my blanket?” Her question sounded filled with confusion as she let him wrap the blanket around her shoulders.
“Yup. You’re shaking. You needed it.”
“But you could have been shot. Killed.” The tone of her observation portrayed all of her continued bewilderment.
It wasn’t likely Grant would have been shot by the guards in her camp since they were all dead, but she was correct in one respect. His trip back to camp for the blankets, necessary or not, hadn’t been completely without risk.
They didn’t know if the noise of the rescue team’s attack had alerted reinforcements, which was why the minute those helos arrived they were getting on them and high-tailing it out of there.
For a few seconds all she did was stare at him while clutching the blanket close to her.
Finally, she said, “Thank you.”
The two words were filled with awe and gratitude.
The twenty-four man assault team had parachuted into possibly hostile conditions, snuck into an enemy encampment and taken out an equal number of heavily-armed opponents to a man, all without taking casualties. Yet in her mind, his trotting in to grab her blanket was the most amazing thing he’d done that night.
All a matter of perspective, he guessed.
A smile tipped up the corner of his mouth. “You’re welcome.”
A noise, faint but definite, erased Grant’s smile and put him on high alert.
It wasn’t the familiar hum of the helicopters coming to lift them out of there. It was something else he couldn’t identify.
He didn’t wait to find out what had made the sound he’d heard. He dropped on top of Jennifer while issuing an order to his team members. “Heads up! Protect the assets!”
“What’s happening?” Her tone high, panic tinged her question.
The team moved fast and sure, dropping low and form
ing a circle around the two rescued hostages, weapons facing out and each man on alert for an unseen attacker.
While Grant shielded Jennifer with his body, one of Mike’s team dropped onto Adam.
They should have carried extra vests with them but they’d been focused on moving in and out as quickly as possible and that meant traveling fast and light.
In her current condition, he wasn’t sure if she could have born the extra weight of the vest and ballistic plates. The weight certainly would have slowed her down, and as a consequence, the entire team.
The plan hadn’t been for them to hang out next to the camp in the dark anyway. Where were those damn birds? They should have been there by now.
As he listened for the sound of an impending attack, or the more welcome sound of their exfil transportation, he felt her breathing beneath him and realized how closely they were pressed together. How intimate their position was.
He hadn’t even been this close with his wife in months, since things in that department were good and messed up, as evidenced by those divorce papers he shouldn't be thinking about now.
Jennifer didn’t complain about the close quarters. She simply struggled for breath beneath his bulk as he prayed for the transport to come sooner rather than later.
Brody ran to his side, fast and low, and dropped to the ground.
“Anything?” Grant asked keeping his voice low.
“Nothing,” Brody answered. "I patrolled a complete circle."
“I definitely heard something,” Grant said.
“Dawson says he heard it too.”
“We stay on alert, eyes and ears peeled, and keep shielding the hostages until the exfil.”
“You got it.” Brody moved to take position and Grant felt as if he was alone with Jen again, even though they lay in the midst of the men of four units.
What the hell was wrong with him? He was in full body armor with four-tube NVGs covering most of his face, yet this—him and her pressed together like this—felt intimate.
Shit. Maybe he needed to take leave until he got things settled one way or another with Bethany. He obviously wasn’t thinking straight now by making a big deal out of his covering her so she didn’t die before he delivered her safely to the camp in Djibouti.
