by Elle James
That simple touch shot electric current throughout her body, leaving her shaking inside with the force of her desire to take him in her arms and kiss him deeply. She gulped hard to dislodge the lump in her throat and whispered, “Goodbye.”
He shook his head. “Not goodbye…” Rucker stared into her eyes. “Until we see each other again.” Then he lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to the backs of her knuckles.
She froze, her heart stopping for a second, her breath catching in her throat.
Then he turned her hand over and pressed another kiss into her palm. “Save that one for later, to remember me by.” He curled her fingers around her palm, released her hand and left.
He left, but he took an integral part of her with him.
Chapter 7
“I could use a beer about now,” Dash said into Rucker’s ear.
“Me, too,” Rucker echoed. They’d been in position outside the village their intel had identified as Akund’s latest hideout. They’d staked out the little town shortly before sunrise and had been in place for the past five hours. No one had entered or left the village in that time. Not one vehicle, donkey or person on foot.
Rucker was positioned on a rocky knoll close to the road with Dash, Mac, Blade, Lance and Tank spread out further in a semicircle curving toward the village.
Dawg held a sniper position on higher ground, overlooking the road and the entry into the village. Bull was even higher up, observing the village from a bird’s eye view.
As men of action, they had to be just as frustrated with waiting and observing as Rucker.
“The little bar outside the main gate at Ft. Hood has the best selection of beer,” Dawg offered. “I like when we get them ice cold after a hot day in the field.”
“I want a hamburger,” Tank said. “With all the fixin’s.”
“And an order of fries covered with chili and cheese,” Tank said.
“You’d ruin good fries with cheese?” Blade’s voice came over the radio headset.
“Lance, isn’t your enlistment up in a couple of months?” Dash asked.
“Yeah,” Lance answered. “So?”
“Are you going to re-up?” Dash asked.
Rucker wanted to know the answer to that question as well. His enlistment would come to an end in five more months. Until now, he hadn’t considered getting out. He was proud to be a part of Delta Force. The team was his family. The job was important, and he was good at what he did.
But being on the team meant sacrificing a personal life. Those who dared to have a family and be a member of Delta Force sacrificed family time when they were called up to perform a mission.
They missed out on a lot of the milestones of their kids’ lives, from their first steps to their high school graduations. Not to mention the missed birthdays for the kids and their wives. Many ended up divorced, rarely seeing their kids. Why any of the members of the Delta Force would get married was a mystery to Rucker.
Until now.
Until Nora.
Not that Rucker knew her well enough to think they should get married and raise a litter of kids, but if they could spend more time together, it might lead to something.
Nora would make beautiful children. Not only would they be beautiful, they’d be loved. Nora loved children, and she cared enough to look out for their happiness. Plus, she understood the military. If you were called to deploy, you went.
Too many of the guys married women who’d never been around military men. Hell, many of them had never been outside their home state, much less halfway across the country. They didn’t understand the level of commitment it took to be with a man who could be gone three months to a year at a time.
“Hadn’t really thought about it,” Lance said. “But now that you mention it, maybe it’s time to look into buying that ranch I said I always wanted. Even if I don’t get out, it wouldn’t hurt to find my retirement home and get it paid off before I leave the military.”
“A ranch?” Dash laughed. “Since when are you a rancher?”
“I’ve done my share of ranching,” Lance said. “I spent summers working for my uncle who owns six hundred acres in east Texas. He has a hundred head of cattle, horses, goats and pigs. I know a little about what it takes to keep them fed and healthy.”
“What about you, Rucker?” Dawg said. “Aren’t you coming up on your re-enlistment before the end of the year?”
“Yeah,” Rucker said.
“And?” Dawg persisted.
“I’m still thinking about it,” Rucker said.
“You’re not seriously considering leaving the team, are you?” Dash asked.
“I hadn’t,” Rucker said.
“Until now?” Dash knew him too well.
“Thinking about the pretty lieutenant who’s teaching you how to deliver babies?” Blade asked.
“No. But I am thinking about my future. There will come a day when we’re too old to perform this kind of work.”
“Dude, that’s when you retire,” Bull said. “You’re not that old or decrepit.”
“No, but if I wait until I retire to do the other things I want, it’ll be too late.”
“Like what?” Blade asked.
“Like find a woman, get married and have a handful of kids.”
“Marriage is overrated,” Tank said. “Over half end in divorce.”
“Hey, you poking at me?” Blade demanded.
“No,” Tank said. “Just stating facts.”
“Good thing. I’d hate to have to rearrange your face,” Blade said.
“You and whose army?” Tank retorted.
“This is all about the lieutenant, isn’t it?” Dash asked.
“No,” Rucker lied. “It could be about any female I might want to settle down with. Why bother if I’m never around to maintain a decent relationship?”
“Exactly,” Blade interjected. “My marriage didn’t even last through the first deployment.”
“Your wife wasn’t cut out to be married to a man in uniform,” Bull said. “She’d never been away from her family. Hell, her mother came to live with you the first year you two were married. That relationship was doomed from the start. How did you two meet in the first place?”
“She was my high school sweetheart,” Blade said. “She told me she wanted to see the world.”
Tank snorted. “The world isn’t Ft. Hood, Texas.”
“The part she didn’t tell you was that she wanted to see the world in short trips and return to her hometown every time,” Rucker said. “She wasn’t used to being away from the only home she’d ever known.”
“True,” Blade said. “I’m just glad we never had kids.”
“So, Ruck, what would you do if you quit the team?” Bull asked.
“I’d finish my business degree, start up a security agency and hire all of you slugs to provide security for my clients.”
“Sign me up for when I retire,” Blade said. “I’ll need something to keep me busy, and I figure I’ll have another twenty to thirty good years left in me even after I get out.”
“Same with me,” Tank said. “Will we get to carry guns?”
Rucker shrugged. “I’d think so.”
“Think that will win over your nurse?” Blade asked.
Would his nurse still be single? Hell. Would she be interested? Rucker wasn’t even sure she was interested now. Although she hadn’t pushed him away when he’d kissed her, she hadn’t responded. But then again, he’d surprised her.
“Vehicles approaching the village,” Dash said.
The chatter ceased.
A single truck approached.
Rucker brought a pair of binoculars up to his eyes and studied the occupants. “One driver, no passengers. The truck appears to be carrying small boxes. Possibly containing supplies for a store.”
“Or ammunition and explosives,” Bull offered.
More vehicles came and went from the village, each appearing to be driven by civilians coming and going. N
o truckloads of militants or dark SUVs carrying Taliban leaders.
The day went by so slowly, Rucker ground several layers of enamel off his teeth wondering what was happening with Nora.
Had she made it to the orphanage safely?
In the afternoon, three trucks approached the village. Two lead the procession in front of a dark SUV. One followed. The heavily tinted windows of the SUV made it difficult for Rucker to see inside to know who had just arrived. “No one in that village can afford an SUV like that,” he said into his mic. “Bull, what have you got?”
Bull had a better position from another hilltop to see down into the village. “They just pulled to a stop in front of the largest house. There are men in black turbans climbing out of the driver’s seat and the front passenger seat.”
Rucker strained to see what he couldn’t. The walls of the village blocked his view from his vantage point.
“Two men just got out of the back. One on each side. They’re waiting… Another man is getting out.” Bull paused for so long Rucker thought he might have gone to sleep.
“It looks like our guy, Abdul Akund.”
Rucker let go of the breath he’d held for the length of Bull’s report. They could get in, take him and get out in under an hour, if all went well.
“He’s going into the building,” Bull said. “We could have some issues.”
“What issues?”
“There appears to be a celebration taking place nearby. A wedding, maybe. Seems every civilian in town is attending.”
“Great,” Dash said. “Civilians.”
Rucker’s hands tightened into fists. “We wait until the wedding crowd disperses.” Night was best for fewer civilian casualties anyway. Afghans went to sleep when the sun went down. Few people wandered around to get in the way,
“As long as our guy doesn’t bug out before then,” Bull said.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Rucker said. “If he moves, we close in on his exit route and take him out there.”
They waited, Bull watching and keeping them informed of the progress of the wedding party and the building into which Akund had disappeared.
As the sun sank below the horizon, Rucker prepared for action.
“Looks like the crowd is dispersing,” Bull reported. “The bride and groom went into a building.”
“We need to be ready to move as soon as the streets clear,” Rucker said.
“Wait,” Bull said, his voice tense. “Some men came out of the house and got into the SUV. I counted five. I couldn’t tell if one of them was our man. There isn’t enough light down there to tell. There are others climbing into two of the trucks that accompanied the SUV into the village.”
“He arrived in that vehicle,” Dash said. “He’s probably leaving in it.”
“Agreed. We’ll converge on the road and set up our welcoming committee,” Rucker said. “Bull, stay put unless we need assistance. Let us know if the village people mobilize to help Akund’s caravan.”
“Roger. Will comply.”
“Dawg, you got our six?”
“Got a clear view of the road and our guys,” Dawg said. “Gotcha covered.”
“Bring it in. Let’s do this.” Rucker moved into position closer to the road with a detonator in hand. Early that morning, before sunup, they’d rigged the road in several places with explosives enough to disable vehicles passing over without necessarily killing those inside.
Rucker waited for the lead vehicles loaded with armed men to roll past the first set of explosives. Once the SUV reached them, he hit the detonator. Explosions rocked the ground around them.
The trucks full of armed men jerked to a halt, the tires destroyed. The men in the cabs and those in the back leaped to the ground and started firing into the dusk.
The team took them out with minimal effort and closed in on the damaged SUV.
Up until that point, no one had exited the vehicle.
Rucker called out, using what little Pashto he’d learned, telling the occupants of the vehicles to get out.
When nothing happened, Rucker aimed his weapon at the SUV’s front engine compartment and let loose several rounds, piercing the metal.
The front doors of the SUV burst open. Two men bailed out, hit the ground and rolled over, firing rifles.
Thankfully, there was still enough residual light in the sky that Rucker and his team could see the men to take them out.
Then the back door of the SUV flew open and an older man stepped out, raising his hand into the air.
“Do not shoot!” he cried in heavily accented English. “Do not shoot!”
“Everyone out of the vehicle,” Rucker shouted.
The man with his hands in the air said something to the people inside the vehicle.
Slowly, the occupants climbed out. One other man and a woman, dressed in what appeared to be the traditional Afghan wedding garment, an ornate green dress, signifying purity.
Rucker addressed the older man. “Abdul Akund, where is he?”
“We do not know. He insisted we take his vehicle and escort. He took ours.”
Rucker cursed. “Bull. Was there another vehicle leaving the village in a different direction?”
“There is now. Leaving to the west out of a small side street, taking a dirt path along the base of the hills.”
“The road leads into the hills,” the older man said. “Once in the hills, he will be difficult to find.”
“Dash, get our transport here ASAP.”
They had been dropped via Black Hawk helicopters a couple miles away from the village and had walked the rest of the way early that morning.
The Black Hawks had returned to base but were on standby. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be there soon enough to catch up to Akund. Akund’s SUV and the escort vehicle that accompanied the bride and groom were disabled and of no use to them to catch up to Akund in the hills.
Rucker cursed. Once again, the Taliban leader had outsmarted them.
“Why was Akund here?” Rucker demanded.
The old man blinked. “For the wedding. He is the uncle of the bride. He came to give the bride his blessing for the wedding.”
The Deltas released the bride, groom and the groom’s father to return to the village and seek alternate transportation to their new home in another village.
Within twenty minutes, the Army Black Hawks arrived. The Delta Force team loaded into them and took off.
On the ride back, Rucker played the mission back in his mind like an instant replay of a football game. As he did, his fists clenched.
He hated when a mission failed by their own actions or because the intelligence information was incomplete. What he hated worse was when the enemy knew they were coming and set a trap that hurt his teammates. Whatever it took, Akund had to die.
Chapter 8
The chopper landed at the base just short of midnight.
As soon as the men disembarked and the CO debriefed them in the operations room, Rucker hurried to the medical facility.
Every minute of the longest day of his life, his thoughts had been with Nora, wondering if she’d made it to the orphanage and back all right.
As he neared the medical facility, a crowd was gathered around comprised of the medical staff, several dozen soldiers armed to the teeth and the base commander.
Rucker’s gut knotted. He found Nora’s roommate and Captain Williams, the head nurse, standing close together, holding hands.
He headed straight for them.
When they saw him, both women had the same expressions. Their eyes rounded, and they rushed toward him, both talking at once.
“Sergeant Sloan, thank God you’re back,” the captain said.
“Rucker, Nora…” Beth said and swallowed a sob. “She’s gone.”
“What?” Rucker stared from one woman to the other.
The captain’s face looked ten years older, with lines etched deeply into her forehead and her eyes red-rimmed as if she’d been crying. She drew in a deep,
shaky breath. “They took her.”
Rucker gripped the woman’s shoulders. “Who took Nora?”
“Men dressed in black outfits and turbans. They had guns. They took Nora and the orphans. We didn’t know it was happening. We were too late to stop them.” The captain brushed tears from her cheeks.
Beth grabbed Rucker’s arm. “You have to get her back. There’s no telling what they’ll do to her.”
“I don’t know what you can do, but if you can do anything, please…do it soon,” Captain Williams said.
“Start by telling me just what happened,” Rucker said, drawing deep breaths to calm his racing heart.
The captain took a steadying breath. “We were wrapping things up at the orphanage. We were all in the vehicles to go back to the base when Nora remembered she’d left her stethoscope in the room we’d been using inside.” Her voice caught on a sob. “When she didn’t come right back, the soldiers went looking for her.” She shook her head.
“What happened?” Rucker said, wanting to shake the words out of the nurse’s mouth.
“They searched the orphanage. It was empty. No one was there. When they went out the back door, they spotted a truck. A man was loading someone into the back. That someone was wearing a desert camouflage uniform. Sweet Jesus, it was Lieutenant Michaels.” Captain Williams sucked in a breath and continued. “The soldiers couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting the lieutenant. We tried to follow them, but they drove into the village and lost us in all the twists and turns.”
“She’s gone,” Beth said. “And she was supposed to go home in a couple of days. I knew she shouldn’t have gone to that orphanage.”
“We went back to the orphanage. The staff had reappeared and were talking to the Afghan police force. We discovered that the men in the truck had taken the orphans. All of them.”
“And Nora,” Beth looked up at Rucker. “Why would they have taken a bunch of little girls?”
Rucker’s lips thinned into a tight line. “Girls sell for a lot more than boys in sex trafficking rings.”
Captain Williams clamped a hand over her mouth. “Those poor babies. Poor Nora.”
“We’ll get them back,” Rucker promised. “Right now, I need to talk to my people.” He left the crowd at the medical facility and ran back to his CO’s operations room. He was still there, only he was talking to the base commander.
