by Desiree Holt
He laughed. “Only my own. No, my dear. It’s a new world today, and it requires new business plans. There are groups all over the world eager for weapons, for whatever their cause is. Others are just as eager for drugs. I trade one for the other and make money from both parties.”
She forced herself to control the feeling of revulsion that swept over her. “I see.”
“Do you?” He ran his hands up and down her arms. “What is it you see? A criminal or a businessman? A lover or…a man you hate?”
She whirled to face him, slipping away from his touch. “What if I said I’d stay here with you? You and Jamie? We could be a family again.”
His eyes glittered with hatred. “I think not. I know exactly how you feel about me. Not unlike my feelings for you. And I will never, ever let you near Jamie again. I’ve waited too long to get him back. He’s mine and I’m keeping him. Now.” He dropped his hands to her breast, pinching the nipples so painfully she cried out. “Let’s talk about who’s in this with you. I’ll find out eventually. You know that. You can save yourself a great deal of pain by telling me now.”
Lisa closed her eyes and prayed for the courage to get through this.
****
As attuned as his ears were, listening for sounds, Ethan still never heard them approach. The whap! whap! whap! of the helicopter blades had sliced the night air ten minutes earlier, the machine hovering for brief seconds before taking off. He hoped not long enough to pique anyone’s interest, but you never knew. Since then, his eyes and ears had been waiting for the sight and sound of his friends.
And then they were there, emerging silently from the jungle foliage, three figures all in black, hoods ready to pull over their heads.
Nick was in the lead. He and Ethan shook hands wordlessly, then the others moved forward.
“We’ll have to find your previous position,” Nick reminded him, “and take a fix from there. We brought two Thermal Vision MilCam Recons. These babies are tops for hand-held long-range reconnaissance. I didn’t know how close your observation post was to the compound, and I wanted to be prepared.”
Angel Rodriguez, a longtime Guardian agent who Ethan had worked with before, opened a smaller bag and took out two items that looked like cameras locked into metal frames. “PTZ-35x140. You get great situational awareness with them without sacrificing a wide field of vision. We figured between the two types of units we could catch everything.”
“They’ll read through any surface or material,” Marsh told him. “This way we’ll get an accurate picture of how many people are in the house and where they are.”
“Weapons?” Ethan asked.
Octavio Marsh, the third agent, dropped a canvas bag in front of him. “HK MP5s. Fires semi-automatic, three-round bursts or full auto. You can set it for whatever you want. And they’re fitted with suppressors.” He pulled one from the bag, clicked a magazine in place, and showed Ethan the settings.
“A little fancier than what we used to use,” he said.
“The better to do the job with,” Marsh grinned.
“Enough chatter,” Nick told them. “Let’s pinpoint where we need to be and get going.”
Ethan wondered how he’d ever be able to thank these friends who, at a moment’s notice, had disrupted their lives to help him.
“Nick, I…”
“We know,” Nick said, as if reading his mind. “And you’d do the same for us.”
Ethan swallowed the unfamiliar lump in his throat. “One last thing. Is Hogan set to extract us? I’ve got the SUV hidden in the bushes here, but I don’t think we’ll get much chance to drive out of here.”
“Not to worry,” Angel assured him. He held up a small unit that looked like a miniature walkie-talkie. “Two clicks on this, and Hogan will be hovering right at this spot. All we have to do is get here.”
Ethan drew in a deep breath and let it out. “All right, then. Let’s do it.”
They spent the next few minutes rigging their gear and outfitting themselves. Each man had the HK MP5 slung over his shoulder and an HK 9mm tucked into the waistband of his pants. They strapped on NVGs, distributed the thermal imagers, and each man buckled to his thigh a leather sheath holding a seven-inch Tanto Recon knife, razor sharp. Finally, Nick handed Ethan a throat mic like he and the others were wearing. They checked to make sure the comm links were working and ran over their hand signals, so familiar from past journeys like this one.
Ready at last, they headed out toward Charles Mallory’s finca. Ethan could only pray they were in time.
****
Lisa blinked hard to clear the tears. Her right eye felt even more swollen, her lip throbbed, and Charles was exerting relentless pressure on her nipples. She knew he’d kill her in a minute, as soon as she told him what she knew, and that would leave Jamie alone with him. She’d have to withstand the torture long enough for Ethan to rescue them.
Hurry, Ethan.
Just as Charles opened his mouth to say something, the door to the bedroom opened again.
“Charles, Esteban said you were in here with some woman they’d found…” A man’s voice trailed off as he took in the scene.
If Lisa felt faint before, now she was positively dizzy. Standing in the doorway, looking completely at home, was her former boss, Aaron Burke. She wasn’t sure which of them was more shocked.
“Lisa?” His face paled. “My God, Charles, how the hell did she find you? And this place?”
“Aaron?” Lisa tried to process the appearance of her former mentor here in the middle of the jungle. With her supposedly dead husband. “What do you have to do with this?”
Charles snickered. “Who do you think has been helping me all these years?”
“The ransom.” Suddenly, it clicked into place. “The two of you set up the trust the way you did so it would be easy to get the money. No questions asked.”
“And there wouldn’t be any now,” Aaron pointed out to her, “if the people we hired had shot better and you ended up dead instead of just wounded.”
“Yes,” Charles added. “That was a little disappointing. You are a pesky little thing, you know. You’ve managed to survive far more than most women would. I suppose I should admire you for that.” He sighed. “Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. If only you had mourned the loss of your son and gotten on with your life.”
“Aaron.” She couldn’t drag her eyes away from her former boss. His participation in all this was just too far-fetched. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Was the introduction to Charles also a setup?”
“No, that was an unexpected bonus for your husband. At least for a couple of years. He was instantly attracted to you.”
“For a while,” Charles said, “I thought, with your fine legal mind, I wouldn’t need Aaron anymore. That we could be a team.”
“A team?” She gaped at him.
“Unfortunately, my dear, you turned out to be an uptight prude who began to bore and irritate me.”
Lisa was sure she’d fallen down a rabbit hole and ended up in Wonderland. None of this made any sense to her. But then again, when she thought about it, it made all the sense in the world. The senior partner in one of the most prestigious law firms in the South, practicing international law, would have every contact Charles needed. And was no doubt well paid for his troubles.
“You know she’s not alone,” Aaron said. “Someone’s helping her. And not that techno geek brother of hers. He couldn’t find his way to the bathroom.”
A lot you know. But at least they didn’t know about Josh’s connection to Ethan.
Hurry, Ethan. Come now.
“I was just on the verge of finding out when you barged in,” Charles answered. “Go on back downstairs and make sure I’m not disturbed.”
“But…”
“Just get the hell out of here and let me take care of business, Aaron. Now.”
“Don’t fuck this up, Charles. We’ve worked too hard and too long to get where we are to let someone bring us down now.”
Charles backhanded her, and she thought she felt her brains rattle. But it was worth it to see the look on Aaron Burke’s face. Apparently, he was all right with everything as long as he didn’t have to face what they were really doing.
“How does she know that?” Aaron asked, his tone sharp.
“It doesn’t matter. She won’t be telling anyone. Now get out of here and let me finish what I started.”
Aaron backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Charles stared down at Lisa with eyes colder than anything she’d ever seen. “And now, my dear, it’s time to get down to business. Surely, you don’t think you can come in here, with whoever you brought, and ruin everything I’ve worked so hard to build up again?” He grabbed the neckline of her T-shirt and ripped it down the front. Her bra followed.
“Last chance, Lisa. I really don’t want to do this.”
“Yes, you do.” She bit off the words. “You always liked hurting me. You just hid it well the first couple of years. Go ahead, Charles. I have nothing to tell you so you might as well kill me and get it over with.”
“Oh, no. That would be too easy. But let’s soften you up a little more.”
She never saw the blow coming until it landed along the side of her head.
“Had enough yet? No? All right, then.” His hands gripped her bare breasts and squeezed as hard as he could. She gritted her teeth against the pain and felt momentary relief when he removed his hands. But then he clenched one hand into a fist and she had no time to evade it before he punched the side of her head with great force.
Lisa closed her eyes and fainted.
Chapter Eighteen
“We’re here,” Ethan whispered into his mic. He stopped and reached out his hand, pointing. “This is the tree where we did our spotting.”
They’d crept silently through the jungle, each man a stealth machine as they’d been trained to be years before. Killing machines who moved undetected at will. Tonight, they would definitely need all the skills they’d acquired.
“All right.” Nick said. “You already know the setup. Let Marsh and Angel get up there and take a look. Then we’ll pull out the thermal imagers.”
Ethan and Nick stood with their guns held ready while the other two men silently climbed the tree. In less than two minutes, they were down.
“He’s got a sweet setup,” Angel said, “but nothing we can’t handle.” He pulled a tiny object from his pocket that looked like a toy remote.
“What’s that?” Ethan asked.
“This, my good man, will tell us where the sensors are so we can avoid them while getting closer.”
“All right. We need to go over things one more time. The closer we get, the less we should chance talking. Even over a closed comm circuit.”
In silent whispers, they reviewed the plan with all its alternatives. Then, with Angel in the lead, they began to move slowly forward. Each time Angel’s little unit found a sensor, it glowed green, and the men maneuvered left or right to avoid it. Aware of the cameras Ethan had spotted, they moved in a crouch to escape detection by them.
The going was slow as they zigzagged to evade the traps Mallory had laid out to protect his compound. Each sound of the night, each stirring of leaf or animal was magnified as they proceeded in their stealthy approach. They were halfway to the wall when Angel held up his hand to stop. He clicked his mic twice. Enemy approaching.
And not too silently, Ethan thought, as footsteps crashed through the dense foliage. The men separated, each taking cover, as they waited for the steps to get closer. In a moment, they heard cursing in fluent Spanish.
“There’s no one here. Esteban and I looked pretty good. We just—”
His speech was cut off abruptly by Angel’s arm around his neck. He scarcely felt the razor-sharp Tanto Recon knife as it severed his carotid artery with one quick slice.
“Ramon?” One of the men raised his voice. “What happened? Where did you—”
Marsh wasted no time taking care of him just as Angel had done with Ramon. They lifted the bodies and carried them into the underbrush, relieving them of their rifles.
“Hey! Mi hombres! Where the hell are you?” The third man sounded a little frantic.
Ethan materialized in front of him. “Waiting for you to join them, pendejo.” Asshole.
He placed the dead guard with the other two, wiped his knife on his pant leg, and sheathed the weapon.
Nick touched his arm and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. More coming?
Ethan shrugged, then shook his head. Don’t know but don’t think so, he mouthed. These guys were expected to do their job.
Angel clicked his mic once. Let’s go.
They had reached the perimeter wall and could see the two guards on the doorway. They pulled out the thermal imagers and began looking for heat signatures.
Nick nudged Ethan. “Ten live bodies in the house.”
“Where’s Jamie?” Ethan was just as silent.
Nick turned to Angel who pointed to an upstairs window. A small figure too tiny to be an adult was crouched in a window seat, bent over as if crying.
Anger rose up in Ethan.
Using their prearranged hand signals, they identified who would take out each person. Ethan would look for Lisa.
As they were preparing to breach the wall, a scream of such human agony split the night that Ethan’s blood turned ice cold.
****
Lisa had come back to consciousness to find herself stretched out on the bed, naked from the waist up, her hands tied above her to the headboard. Charles was staring down at her. She looked at his eyes, and a fear greater than she’d ever known crept through her.
Drugs! He was using his own merchandise. Again. Or maybe still. Cocaine. She always knew when he started using before. The signs were the same. The cruelty increased. The erratic behavior. The light of insanity in his eyes. That’s when she’d begun to dread sex.
“I see the expression on your face, Lisa. Do you think I’m going to play one of our kinky games with you?” His laugh sounded like ice breaking. “Perhaps if you’d been into that, our sex life might not have been so pathetically boring. I might not have tired of you so easily.”
“Then what are you going to do?” She knew the answers, but asking the questions might buy her a little more time. She tried to keep the fear out of her voice. Her terror had always incited Charles to further cruelty.
“I need answers. As I said, I can’t afford any loose ends that could destroy everything it’s taken me four years to rebuild. And I don’t have that much time to waste. I need information now. Who’s with you? Who else knows about me? About this place?”
She clamped her jaw shut, a signal to Charles that she’d say nothing.
He held up a thin, sharp knife. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t give you plenty of opportunity to avoid this.” He pinched one nipple between thumb and forefinger and very lightly drew the edge of the blade across it.
Lisa opened her mouth and a scream louder than a siren ripped from her throat.
****
“Jesus Christ,” Nick breathed. “What the hell was that?”
“That was Lisa.” Ethan leaped to the top of the perimeter wall. “I’m going in.”
He lifted his rifle to sight along the barrel, but before he could pull the trigger, he heard two quick puffs next to him. The two guards fell where they stood, and Angel was over the wall beside him. He didn’t hear Nick and Marsh, but then they were there, all four of them running in a crouching position toward the house, Ethan well out in front.
Nick caught up with him and pulled on his arm. “Be careful. Use your brain.”
Ethan pulled away and kept moving forward.
No one had heard the silenced shots so no one had come to check on the guards. When they reached the heavy carved doors, Ethan and Nick hit them together. Another guard was standing i
n the hallway, talking to a tall man in slacks and polo shirt.
“Hey!” the tall man shouted. “What the hell—
His words were bitten off by the pressure of Nick’s arm on his throat.
Ethan had the guard in a hard grip, the point of his knife pricking the skin under his chin. “Where is she?”
The guard stared at him in dread, no sound coming from his throat.
Ethan moved the knife in a line, making a thin cut along the underside of the man’s jaw. “Once more, pendejo. Where is the woman?”
Before the man could say anything, a second scream echoed through the house from above.
“Go,” Nick hollered. He’d knocked out the tall man and had him immobilized with two sets of flex cuffs.
Ethan ran his knife into the guard’s throat, wiped it on his pants and took the stairs two at a time. Every door on the second floor was open except one. When he tried it, he discovered it was locked and wouldn’t budge. He yanked out his 9mm, shot the lock, and kicked open the door.
In all his life, he hoped never to see another sight like the one that greeted him. Lisa, stripped to the waist, tied to the bed, with a rivulet of blood running from one bare breast down her rib cage onto the sheets beneath her. Her face was rigid with terror. Her last scream still echoed in the air.
Standing over her, knife in hand, was Charles Mallory. He paused with one hand on her other breast, the knife poised over it. At the sound of Ethan’s entrance, he spun around to face him.
Ethan might have aged since his black ops days, but his reflexes were still sharp. Without pausing, he pointed the 9mm at Mallory and squeezed off three shots. The first one was the kill shot, dead center in his forehead, but he added the other two for insurance.
Shoving the gun in the waistband of his pants, he pulled out the Tancro and sliced through Lisa’s bonds. Her face was so white he was afraid she was going to faint and she was shaking so badly he thought her bones would break. He pulled her off the bed and cradled her in his arms.
“Shh, darlin’. It’s all right. Everything’s all right now.”
She tried to push away from him. “Jamie. We have to find Jamie.”
