by Cindy Dees
He nodded, impressed in spite of himself. Only now was he fully grasping the scope of her training. No wonder she’d been such an emotionally strong and mentally disciplined prisoner.
“I’m just glad you women are on my side in this mission,” he said fervently.
Piper smiled. “Let’s go find ourselves an American engineer and bring him home.”
“Amen,” Zane said under his breath.
* * *
Piper shifted slightly beside Zane. Their surveillance hide was low to the ground and dusty as they peered over a slight rise toward the research facility Black would be inspecting any minute now.
The lab was a freaking fortress. Shortly after they’d arrived here in the wee hours, the team had determined that no way could they infiltrate the facility, snatch Black from his captors and make it out alive. The place bristled with electronic signals, there were cameras everywhere and alert Iranian Special Forces types were crawling all over the place.
The revised plan was to spot Black from here and follow him to wherever his captors took him next. They would have to keep him alive long enough to film him or have him type out an email. It would be during that transfer when the rescue team nabbed Black.
Problem was, they had no idea where the Iranians planned to take him after this. Which meant they were going to have to improvise on the fly. It was nobody’s idea of a good mission, but it was the only option they had to save the guy.
Tessa’s muttered voice sounded in Piper’s earbud. “I’ve got dust on the horizon. Caravan of three SUVs inbound at high speed.”
Torsten whispered, “That’s probably Black. Get me license plates and a head count of people inside the vehicles when able.”
“Working on it,” Rebel replied absently. She was flying the team’s tiny overwatch drone, while Tessa watched the live feed from the drone’s high-powered surveillance camera.
In a few minutes, Tessa called out license plate numbers and started counting heads inside the SUVs. Four men in the first one. Three in the second...and a possible facial ID on Mark Black in the back seat with one other man. Three men in the third vehicle.
Black plus nine hostiles. Not bad. They’d been expecting more like a dozen guards.
Tessa, Rebel, Torsten, Zane and herself made five. Five on nine with their training and their equipment was a piece of cake. Assuming they could isolate the group transporting Black. And assuming the Medusas could engage in a firefight without excessively endangering Black. It was entirely possible that his captors would try to hide behind him. It was what she would do.
“I can hear you thinking, you’re doing it so loudly,” Zane murmured.
“I was just thinking about how I’d use Black as a human shield if I were the tango.”
“How much training do you ladies have in close-quarters marksmanship?”
“I’m good down to about a four-inch-wide target. Tessa can shoot consistently into one-inch windows.” Meaning if Tessa had a one-inch-wide target behind a hostage, she could still hit the bad guy without nicking the hostage.
“Nice,” Zane commented. “I’ll leave that shot to you and Tessa, then.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she replied.
Silence fell between them as, in the distance, a puff of dust became visible. She gauged that it was still several minutes out.
“Tell me something,” Zane said in a low voice. “Do you enjoy doing stuff like this?”
“Love it. You?”
“This is a lot easier than being undercover. It’s straightforward. Kill or be killed.”
She smiled briefly. “We like to think in terms of kill...or kill.”
He grinned. “Fair enough.” A pause. “I like being here with you like this. I’m enjoying being part of a team.”
“It’s nice...weird but nice...having you here.” She focused on the length of his muscular body pressed against her side and took comfort in his steady breathing and contained power. It wasn’t that she needed a big, strong man to protect her. Far from it. But it was nice having a big, strong man work with her as an equal, respecting her capabilities and ready to cover her back.
“Vehicles are slowing,” Tessa reported, at the same time as at least a dozen guards swarmed out of the lab to await the arrival of the caravan.
Zane muttered, “Black’s sure getting the VIP treatment.”
“The prisoner VIP treatment,” Piper corrected.
They watched through their field binoculars as the SUVs halted in front of the lab and a Caucasian man was ushered out of the middle vehicle. Black was escorted toward the building.
Torsten said tersely, “He’s ambulatory. Appears healthy. Anticipate an able-bodied hostage.”
That was good news. Having to carry out a badly injured hostage slowed a team down. A lot.
Black disappeared into the building and Torsten started a stopwatch. The longer Black was inside, the more the CIA hoped he would be able to see and report on.
When Torsten’s stopwatch hit the thirty-minute mark, Zane let out a sigh of relief. “Black’s getting the full tour of the place. Which means he knows what the Iranians are so hot and bothered to protect that they kidnapped his wife.”
“Why wouldn’t they not let him into the lab at all and just coerce him into writing up a fake report?” Piper asked Zane.
“The report has to pass for real. He has to include enough technical details that the Global Atomic Inspection Team bigwigs believe he actually did the inspection. And for all the Iranians know, the West is watching on satellite feeds as Black arrives and goes inside the facility.”
“Or a surveillance drone,” Piper remarked dryly.
“Exactly.”
They traded warm smiles. Zane seemed as happy to be here with her as she was to have him here. Something had shifted between them since they arrived in Tehran. They’d both settled into the idea of being in a relationship with each other, and they both liked how it felt.
Who’d have guessed she would find a man of her own who was okay with what she did and who she was? She didn’t know where this would go or what the future would hold, but for once, she was hopeful. Maybe her dreams of someday settling down with a man who could accept her life choices, dreams of maybe even having a family, might come true, after all.
“Here they come,” Tessa announced.
The lab’s front doors opened and a large group of guards streamed out with Black tucked in their midst. Piper saw several of the guards glance up at the sky, and she grinned. The overwatch drone was barely a foot long, its underside was painted pale blue and it was loitering several thousand feet up, completely invisible to the naked eye.
Tessa reported that Black had again been loaded into the second SUV, this time with three escorts instead of two. Piper and Zane slid backward from their hide and raced down the sandy hill to their motorcycle. They jumped on and took off down the road.
Their job was to get in front of the convoy in case it headed back toward Tehran. If it went the other way, heading away from Tehran, they would turn around and ride in the trailing position. It was also their job to hunt for a good spot to ambush the SUVs and to call for the actual attack.
“We’re away,” Piper reported into her microphone.
“First SUVs pulling out now,” Tessa stated.
“In position to fall in behind them,” Torsten reported. He, Rebel and Tessa each had their own motorcycle. That way, they could all carry weapons, ammo and gear in bags behind them.
As it was, Piper felt like a porcupine underneath her billowing chador. This morning, she’d added a maqnaeh to her clothing. It was a hooded scarf that had a tiny protruding bill, like a baseball cap. It would keep the chador from sliding down over her eyes and obscuring her sight. She also wore loose black trousers, black socks and her black tennis shoes. There would be no bare flesh to draw
the attention of the religious police, no, sir.
Even though it was only midmorning, the day promised to be a hot one, and the sun baked her beneath the layers of dark clothing. No help for it, though. She needed the chador to cover all her weapons. Tessa and Rebel were similarly dressed.
Torsten had laughingly declared them all BBMOs last night: Badass Black Moving Objects.
Zane sped up as Torsten reported that the SUVs were driving back toward Tehran at nearly a hundred miles per hour. The wind tore past Piper, cooling her a little, at least. No way could they ambush vehicles moving that fast.
Which was, of course, the point of driving that rapidly. They would have to wait until the convoy slowed to jump it. When that SUV caravan hit the horrendous city traffic, it was going to have to drop to a crawl. That would be the best time to rescue Black.
She leaned forward and yelled into Zane’s ear, “Slow down when we approach Tehran and let them catch up with us.”
“My thoughts exactly!” he shouted back, without taking his eyes off the road.
Into her microphone, she called, “Have we notified the pilots to crank up the jet and be ready to go?”
“Affirmative,” Torsten replied.
The roar of the engine beneath her lessened as Zane throttled back, slowing the cycle to a more sedate speed as they hit the suburbs. She kept watch over her shoulder for the SUVs.
“Convoy in sight,” she reported over her radio.
“Let’s let them get as far into the city center as we can before they make a turn away from the vicinity of the airport,” Torsten ordered.
“Contact on the traffic jam,” Zane reported. All of a sudden, their motorcycle slowed to a few miles per hour as they hit the wall of cars, taxis, mopeds and people that clogged the Tehran streets.
Piper took one last glance over her shoulder and spied the three black SUVs a dozen cars back. She dared not look back again lest the front driver see her watching him and grow suspicious.
“We’re weaving through traffic to close the gap,” Tessa reported.
Piper and Zane inched forward through an intersection. The SUVs cleared the traffic light.
“Caught by the light,” Torsten grumbled. “Don’t move until we’ve caught up to you again.”
Zane reported tightly, “First SUV turned behind us. I’m going to turn now to try to meet up with the convoy at the end of the next block.”
“Convoy in sight. We’re turning, as well,” Torsten responded.
A cacophony of car horns erupted behind them, and Piper looked back as Zane cut across traffic to turn the corner. She saw three motorcycles running the red light and cutting in turn—not that they made the congestion any worse.
“They’re through the light and in pursuit of the convoy,” she reported.
“Targets acquired,” Zane stated as they shot out into the next street in front of the SUVs, but perhaps only a hundred feet ahead of them now.
“We need to take them as soon as the others are in place behind the tangos,” she called in his ear, off mike.
“Agreed,” he called back.
She clutched her chador close so it wouldn’t flap and reveal the rifle strapped across her back. Zane wove expertly between lanes of traffic, ignoring the occasional shouted epithet. She was glad he was doing the driving. Even she wouldn’t have been as bold as him.
They passed the SUVs going the opposite direction, and Zane made a quick U-turn. “Don’t look at them,” he bit out over his shoulder.
He actually drove directly past the SUVs, close enough for her to reach out and touch them. She turned her face away and counted the seconds until Zane muttered, “We’re clear.”
Into her mike, she said, “Call when in position.”
“We’re there,” Torsten replied. “Anytime now.”
“Next intersection,” Zane said. “Hang on tight, Piper. When I tell you to, jump off the bike and make your move for the tangos. I’ll cause a distraction.”
“Roger,” she replied in a clipped voice. Here it went.
“Now!” Zane called out.
She slid off the back end of the motorcycle, jumping clear of the rear fender just as Zane punched the throttle and slammed into a produce truck in the middle of the intersection. Somehow, as the bike slid under the truck’s wheels, Zane came off it, and one of the wooden slats of the truck bed miraculously gave way, spilling melons all over the intersection.
The chaos was instant and spectacular. People shouted. Horns honked. Drivers got out of their cars to shout some more and wave their arms. Where Zane was in that mess, she had no idea.
Piper turned, ducking low between cars, and ran back toward the SUVs. She approached the second one from the passenger’s side and pounded on the front door. The window started to roll down.
“Help! Help!” she screamed in her best Farsi. “My husband is dying! He needs a hospital. You have to drive him!”
“Go away,” the man inside shouted back at her.
Through the open window, she spied Tessa pounding on the driver’s window, and Rebel doing the same on the left rear-passenger door.
The doors of the front SUV opened. Tessa, hardly looking to the left, paused her tirade for just a second. Piper was at exactly the right angle to see Tessa fire a silenced handgun under her left armpit at one of the security guards emerging from the front SUV, shooting a dart coated with a high-powered chemical that caused instant shock and paralysis. The other two front guards went down, as well. Torsten and Zane had hit their targets successfully, too.
Time to cause total chaos. Piper pulled out two flashbang grenades and threw them as hard as she could in opposite directions. Other Medusas did the same, and a half-dozen explosions rocked the entire intersection.
As smoke filled the air, people screamed, abandoning their cars and running for cover. Whipping out her sound-suppressed handgun, Piper shot the front passenger in the temple—with a bullet—while Tessa took out the driver.
Piper had to expose herself to lean in the front window, and the shot was at an awkward angle, but she targeted the third guard, in the rear. She hit him in the face, and blood and gore exploded everywhere. Mark Black shouted from the back seat.
“Open your door, Mr. Black!” Piper yelled over the din. “We’re Americans here to rescue you!”
The rear door opened and she moved swiftly to intercept Black before he could emerge from the vehicle. The four security guards from the rear vehicle had yet to be neutralized, and he needed to keep off the street until Torsten reported that the other tangos were down.
“Stay inside,” she snapped at Black, who’d already started to climb out.
“Who are you?” he demanded, sounding close to losing his cool.
“I told you. Americans. Put this on.” She handed him a maqnaeh. He merely stared at it, and she took it from him and yanked it down over his head. Leaning into the SUV, she sloppily wrapped a chador around his torso.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Rescuing you. Do what I say and don’t ask any questions until I tell you we’re in the clear.”
“Rear guards are down,” Torsten reported.
She didn’t know how he’d done it and didn’t stop to ask. “Come with me,” she ordered Black. “Quickly.”
He stumbled out of the vehicle, getting twisted up in the chador. She yanked it free and pulled it down around his thighs, then grabbed his hand and took off running along with the other panicked civilians.
Torsten fell in on Black’s other side, and a woman in a chador closed in directly behind them, keeping up with the killer sprint Piper was forcing Black into. One of the other Medusas.
They turned the corner into a smaller street filled with fleeing people and made their way to one side, letting the flow of civilians pass by.
“Any sign of Zane?” Piper pan
ted into her microphone.
Rebel answered, “I’m about to...” a pause, then the sound of a pop came over her mike. “...take out the cop trying to detain him.” Another pause. “Zane’s running.”
“Turn left, Zane,” Rebel said tersely. “Then take your second right.”
“Get out of there, Rebel,” Torsten ordered.
“On my way.”
“Strip down,” Torsten ordered. Piper took off her chador and maqnaeh, switching them out for a bulky, knee-length coat. It was wool and hot as blazes, but it allowed her to wear her utility belt and hide a short-barreled urban assault weapon across her back. She probably looked deformed, but whatever. She wasn’t giving up that weapon until Black was on the jet.
They waited for a long, tense minute until Piper spied Zane’s familiar face coming around the corner. In a few seconds, Rebel came around the corner in turn, stripping off her chador to reveal a red coat and a colorful head scarf.
“Move out,” Torsten ordered.
Together, they moved back into the street, turning away from the accident, the smoke and the renewed round of chaotic screaming as civilians began to realize a bunch of men lay in the street and in their vehicles.
Quickly, they fetched Torsten, Rebel and Tessa’s motorcycles, and the six of them climbed onto the bikes and drove away from the scene.
They headed directly for the airport and didn’t stop until the tall hurricane fencing surrounding it was in sight. They swerved into a small grocery shop and headed for the restrooms in the back, the women piling into one room and the men in the other. Quickly, all three women changed into their flight attendant uniforms. When they emerged, Zane wore the suit he’d arrived in, and Torsten and Black wore identical pilot’s uniforms.
Quickly, the women dumped all their weapons into the canvas bags their uniforms had been stowed in and passed the bags to Torsten and Zane.
“I can’t go with you,” Black announced.
“Why not?” Torsten blurted. “You’ll die if you stay here.”
“The Iranians have kidnapped a woman. They thought she was my wife, and they’re torturing her. I won’t let that woman die.”
