And Heim held her through it all. The buoy that kept her head above water.
Chapter Five
Heim
Bright light woke him up and he sat straight up in bed. He didn’t sleep this late, ever. As a SEAL he’d learned long ago that he didn’t need much sleep, and his internal clock normally preferred waking up before the sun even rose. His long night with Katya had proved useful in more ways than one.
“Good mor—”
He didn’t find her lying beside him. He frowned, knowing that he hadn’t heard her get out of bed. Her gold necklace lay on the nightstand where he’d placed it after they’d come together in the night one more time. He hadn’t wanted to break the delicate item when he gripped her neck during that encounter. She must still be in the room. No sounds gave him any hints though. No running shower or toilet flushing. He doubted she’d been trained to be so quiet like him. When he touched her pillow, he found it chilled. She’d been out of bed for a while.
How the fuck had he missed that?
He gripped his gun and checked the clip before sliding out of bed. The cool air in the desert morning hadn’t had a chance to swell to record highs and goosebumps skated across his arms. Something didn’t feel right. Katya’s heels were on the floor on her side of the bed, but her dress wasn’t. He padded on bare feet to the bathroom. Nothing. Both the sink and the shower weren’t wet. When he came back in the room he checked the clock, noting the hour by habit. She was gone.
“Damn,” he said. He sank to the bed, naked and holding his gun. There had been a connection between them. So what they hadn’t come together in a conventional manner, so to speak. They were both consenting adults, and a one night stand didn’t always end at just one night. It could be more. They could’ve been more. But there was nothing. No note, a phone number, or a lipstick kiss on the mirror.
Heim had his share of leaving a room in the dead of night. No one wanted the awkward morning after conversation when both parties knew the token “I’ll call you” was code for “it’s been fun.” That had not been he and Katya. At least he thought it hadn’t.
No, things weren’t adding up. No one left important articles of clothing or jewelry behind if they didn’t intend to come back. After a glance through his wallet, he found the second penthouse key he kept there was missing. His ID card was askew in the holder. Heim never kept his military ID where it could be accessed easily, but if she had looked at his normal ID then she wanted to know more about him. Warning bells went off in his head. She went through his wallet.
Checking the inside for his cash, he found it all there. Well, taking money hadn’t been her objective. So what did she want to know? It didn’t smell right. Maybe he’d missed something. They’d shared quite a connection and awesome sex. This morning she ghosted on him. Evidence of her intent to return, however, littered the room. Then where could she be?
He grabbed the in suite phone and dialed the front desk.
“What can I help you with?”
“The guest I had in my room last night, did she have any issue with the penthouse key sometime early this morning?” Heim asked.
“There is no record of that, sir. As for your guest, I saw her leave with a gentleman last night. They seemed to know each other well.”
“Thank you.”
“You are most welcome”
That explained things. What she left behind didn’t factor as important to her, including him. Irritated, he dropped his gun on the bed and went about packing his things back up. Fine, if that was where she wanted to leave it, so be it. He wasn’t going to chase her down through Dubai like some lovesick puppy. What was he supposed to say if he did?
“Hey, you left, but I really wanted you to stay. How about we try again?”
Yeah right. Not going to happen. As he slung his go bag over his shoulder his phone rang. His heart quickened in his chest, until he saw the name on the screen. No numbers, she wouldn’t have been able to call him. Idiot.
“Heim, here.”
“You ready to go? Thought I’d give you a bit of time in case you had a sweet piece back in your room.” Viktor “Snake” Franklin’s deep voice made Heim smile. Leave it to his best friend to give him an out.
Snake, called such for his silver eyes, was half Russian and half African-American. As the pretty boy of the group with exotic eyes and features, Heim didn’t think it was for his benefit that Snake delayed leaving.
“Yeah, and I’m guessing you were alone last night, right?”
“Stay a little longer,” a woman’s voice in the background came over the phone.
“Any longer and you won’t be walking for the rest of the day, baby girl.”
Baby girl, Snake’s title for temporary entertainment. Most of the time that just made Heim shake his head, this time he winced. Heim had his shot at being temporary last night, and it he didn’t like it at all.
“I’m a sap,” Heim said. The necklace glinted at him on the nightstand, and he couldn’t leave it behind. He sighed and snatched it up, stuffing it in his pocket and heading to the elevator.
“What was that?” Snake asked.
“Nothing. What’s the ETA if we leave within the next forty-five minutes?”
“We’ll touch base stateside by twenty-one hundred hours at the latest. Don’t have the same red tape as commercial flights going this way.”
“Meet you at the rendezvous point in ten then. I need some grub before we head out.”
“Hooyah.”
Heim disconnected the call and rode the elevator down to the main lobby floor. Lavender filled the space, reminding him of Katya. Smudges on the elevator wall left visions of their kiss imprinted in his memory. By the time the damn thing opened he wanted to call Glitz in to blow the shit up. Teeth clenched he strolled through the hotel’s main floor toward the reception desk to checkout.
“Mr. Spencer.”
He turned at his name and a bellhop in traditional robes and head wrap came toward him with a card in his hand. Heim frowned, wondering what he wanted. “Yes?”
“The young lady from your room left this in the lobby last night. I am sure you will need it to check out.”
The bellhop handed an access card for the penthouse to Heim. Since she’d taken it, wouldn’t that have meant she intended to come back? So not only did she leave him to hop in bed with someone else, she’d left his card key where anyone could pick it up. Nice.
“She left to head back to the elevators but then I realized she left the card. I waited for the elevator to come back down, but it didn’t. Assumed that you had let her back in.”
No, he hadn’t. Frowning, Heim thanked the man and headed to the counter. She’d come back up the elevator and never came back to the room. But hadn’t the front desk said he saw her leave with another man? Was that before or after she’d attempted to go back upstairs? Why leave if she had tried to go back to him? Too many questions, not enough answers, and no time. He also had a flight to catch and couldn’t spend the time looking for her. Either way, she’d left with someone, and it hadn’t been him. So he checked out, and figured he’d keep the necklace of the mystery woman who rocked his world.
*****
“Damn, but aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, Heim,” Snake greeted. At six-foot-three and two hundred twenty pounds, Snake was a force to be reckoned with. His short black hair brushed into smooth waves, as he called them, marked the heritage he took after more. Most women, which irritated Snake to no end, considered him a very light-skinned African-American. For Snake, he was as much Russian as he was black, pure and simple.
“Get into any trouble last night?”
“Double trouble, in fact. Alas, I couldn’t leave pretty ladies in distress, and why pick one friend when I can have two?”
“Because your dick is going to fall off one day?”
Snake covered his groin and groaned. “Don’t even joke like that. That’s so fucked up.”
“I just tell it like I see it.”
; “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
“Careful and I’ll start calling you Cry Baby instead of Sean keeping that name.”
“You know I could kill you in your sleep, right? Real clean like.”
“I’d see you coming first.”
“Ha ha. Very funny. Get your ass on the plane and let’s go home. Your jokes are funnier over there.”
Heim laughed and did as his team member suggested. But he couldn’t help looking back out the window, wondering if he was leaving something too precious behind. Her necklace burned in his pocket. He could still taste her on his tongue, and every breath was full of her scent. For all of his skill, he hadn’t seen her leaving coming.
Chapter Six
Katya
Her heart thundered. The bruised muscle struggled with all its might to break through her chest and run away. Her ribcage heaving, she couldn’t slow down her breathing no matter how shallow it was. She forced her eyes open, feeling like she was trying to breathe through a coffee stirrer and failing. Every detail, Katya, means something when you’re stolen. Don’t think anything is trivial. It could be the difference between life and death. Her father’s lessons filtered through her brain on a rusty record, crackling and faded, but there.
The walls were dark tan with rust stains running down the rough rock interior. Or was that blood? She couldn’t be sure. The scent of wet sand and body odor hung thick in the air. Water dripping through creaking pipes echoed around her. Sweltering heat wrapped her, sucking her oxygen away and leaving her light-headed. She didn’t know how long she’d been there. When she’d been snatched from the hotel, on one floor just below the penthouse where Heim stayed, they’d knocked her out. Her throat was dry, and she hadn’t been given any water.
A heavy metal door creaked open and Katya forced her back straight to look into her enemy’s face as they entered. But her bravado left her when the flag of the first one who came through the door flared out. The monochrome flag with a black background and white circle sent chills down her spine, much more than the white-garbed men with military vests carrying assault rifles hidden behind black and white checkered head wraps and dark glasses. She knew who flew that banner, who had adopted the ancient tradition of a prophet’s seal to push their agenda. There is no God, but Allah. Mohammed is the messenger of Allah; she translated across the top of the flag. And in the seal, Mohammed is the messenger of God.
She had been taken by ISIS.
A line of men filed in, bowing their heads with one hand on the man’s shoulder in front of them and the other on the back of their own head. Videotape rolled as they walked in. There was no way to know if the terrorist knew of her fluency in Arabic, thanks to her position as a translator. However, training with her father taught her to be careful what information she provided in hostage situations. If they didn’t realize that she spoke their language, then she may find out things that would help her. A single man, slightly taller but larger than the others, stepped forward. He turned to the camera before he pushed down his mask.
“Truly all praise belongs to Allah. We praise Him, and seek His help and His forgiveness,” he said.
“Allah be praised,” the other gunmen answered.
“There is no god, but Allah. That Mohammed is his messenger. And in this, brothers of Islam take your revenge! For what we have not been told, and for what we know has happened.”
The rhetoric continued, but Katya tuned out. Known for mass executions with sheer brutality, listening to the repetitive rhetoric ISIS spewed would only frighten her. Right now she couldn’t get her fear under control to pay attention to religious based threats and promises. The agents who listened to their comrade’s speech slapped the singular line of men until they fell to their knees around her on the sand-covered ground. If she could have cowered away she would have, but her captors tied down the chair by her ankles, waist, elbows, and wrists at some point when they brought her into the room. The thin ropes were pulled excruciatingly tight. Each time she moved, the rope cut into her skin and blood seeped around it.
I can’t die here.
“This is a child of one of your great soldiers. She walks around uncovered, unprotected, flaunting her sin, and sleeping with men. She should be stoned to death in the streets like the dog she is. She is an impurity on the world.”
Katya stared at the man. Her hands shook and were clammy. Sweat dotted her brow and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. Her throat ached with the need to scream, but she would show him no weakness.
“Look how she looks to a man when she should cast her eyes away. She is willful and unclean. But we are merciful, as Allah is. We will give her back. But in return, we want our brother sent back to us. You keep him in your prison, under rules not recognized by God. And until you do, we will kill one man here every day. When there are no more, she will die, and it will be by stoning!”
The speaker grabbed a gun and turned faster than Katya could have imagined. The shot rang out in the small room, exploding in her ears. Dust and blood flew in the air and pelted her neck. That close. The man who’d died was that close. Shaking so hard the chair creaked, she turned her head. In slow motion, the man who’d been closest to her knelt on the floor, the silence around them deafening. Gunpowder filled her nose and stung her eyes. His mouth slacked open, frozen on a scream as he slumped to the ground. His head hit the ground, and a wet, slick sound churned her stomach.
“No!” she screamed. She wasn’t going to take it. Never. She pushed, tumbling over into a sea of bodies, the captives that would die with her. America didn’t negotiate with terrorists, no matter who they’d taken. She knew that. Had learned that. So she’d fight, try to get out.
Bodies moved and she slammed to the ground, cracking her head against a rock. Stars floated in her vision and agony ripped through her skull. She didn’t quit, though. She jerked against the ropes as curses and shots ricocheted over her head. Rip the ropes. Break your bones. Get free by any means necessary.
Slick blood made it easier to pull one hand out the rope. As if she’d pinched the skin on her wrist and made it ripple, layers of epidermis scrunched and then ripped away as she pulled one arm out the rope. A gun. Get a gun. Scared. So scared. Rather kill myself than let them take me. Each thought propelled her forward, but rough hands gripped her hair. Her scalp ached as one of the ISIS men used her hair to rip her from the floor and sit her up right. Then another hand grabbed her free arm. She swung and tried to get away, muscles locked from moving into position. They weren’t going to kill her. No. She pressed against the rope at her waist, cutting off her breathing, and leaned as far as she could toward the man holding her free arm. He tasted of sweat and dirt as she bit down. Then she tasted blood, metallic and sickening.
“Suka,” the man said. His tone said it was a curse, but he didn’t speak in Arabic. She would have known that. Where was he from? He hit her in the cheek with the butt of his gun. Warm liquid slid down her face, a stinging slash left behind, but she didn’t let go. Instead she bit down harder. This time when he struck her, the gun hit to the outside of her eye. A white-hot burn sliced across her face. She clenched her eyes closed, worried her eye would pop out if she didn’t hold it in.
With a cry, she let him go and he pushed her arm back down and tied it again. The raw wound rubbed against the twine, but they didn’t care.
“See how we deal with this willful woman,” the speaker threatened. They broke away from her, bending over to the ground. The camera still pointed at her as the gunmen lined up in front of her a few paces away with rocks in their hands. They hadn’t moved the captives either.
“No,” she begged.
“Destroy the body she cherishes so much.”
Knives. They were throwing knives. They must have been. Each rock sliced into her skin, leaving behind burning wounds that bled. Each pelt of stone made her gasp; made her wish she’d remained still. That she hadn’t fought. Thwack. Each rock slammed into her exposed flesh, unapologetic and
punishing.
“You have ten days to give us what we want,” the speaker said.
Ten days. She had ten days to figure out how she was going to get free. Or die trying.
Chapter Seven
Heim
“Heim, wake up. S.E.C.”
Heim shot up instantly hearing the acronym. A satellite emergency call could reach him anywhere in the world his team was. They each had a small device to contact their commander in case of emergency while in transit to locations when their international phones couldn’t be used.
“Yes, sir,” Heim answered.
“You will be redirected to base upon landing and be prepared for immediate briefing. A mission that is time sensitive has been brought to our table and your team has been requested.”
“Hooyah.”
The line disconnected immediately. His commander wouldn’t give him details while they were in motion or without the rest of his team available.
“How bad?” Snake asked.
“Time sensitive op,” Heim answered.
“Shit. I wonder if Hawk knows anything yet.”
Native American SEAL Eric “Hawk” Standing was Heim’s team intel guy. The only man better than Hawk was John “Tex” Teegan, an ex-SEAL whose left leg was amputated after an IED explosion. He should have been back stateside with the rest of the team and probably already seeing what he could find out about what happened.
“Knowing him, he’s already looking into it, and Cry Baby is planning possible locations we may have to go into.”
“Then we should get what rest we can now. Once we are home, we won’t get much,” Snake said.
*****
“The target of this operation is codenamed Butterfly,” Arnold Amerson, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, said as he stepped into the briefing room.
Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Protecting Butterfly (Kindle Worlds Novella) (SEALed Fate Book 1) Page 3