Beneath the Surface

by Amy McKinley

  The air was thick with humidity, sweltering. Behind the plane, she’d glimpsed specks of blue from the ocean they’d almost landed in. Thick plants reached for their legs and slapped them in the face as they trudged forward over the rough ground. With each step she took, her heels sank into the damp ground. Mosquitoes and a variety of winged insects swarmed as they made slow progress through the unforgiving jungle.

  Henry slowed and moved behind her, his heavy breath falling over the back of her head. Shit, this isn’t good. He had a heart condition, and the combination of the sweltering heat and their grueling trek didn’t bode well.

  “We need water.” She spat at soldier two, glaring into the back of his head, willing him to defy her.

  “No.”

  “If you don’t give us water, you’ll have nothing to negotiate with the US government for our release.” The government would not bargain for their safe return with money. It would have to be a hostage exchange. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Soldier two whipped around, a murderous sneer painted across his gaunt face. They were mere inches apart, but she met his gaze unflinchingly. He blinked. His eyes widened in momentary surprise.

  She’d let him see how dead she was inside. There was nothing he could do to her that hadn’t been done before. Nothing. Her past had taught her well. She whispered across the small space between them, “You know I’m right. While I may survive, do you think my companion will?” With a flick of his gaze, he took in the alarming complexion she guessed Henry sported.

  The sneer on soldier two’s face morphed into a menacing frown as he addressed soldier one. The others were long gone, and she wondered if they’d decided to off their guard, not wanting to bother with the extra body. A canteen was thrust into her hands, and she took a hearty gulp before it was pulled away. Henry was next, and she noticed the time he had the water was marginally longer. For that, she was grateful.

  Clouds thickened overhead and cut the glare of the sun that tried to bake them between the leafy branches. Any coverage was welcome. Insect repellent would have been too. She twitched her nose, trying to dislodge a hitchhiker.

  Something had to change. She yanked her foot up to the sound of mud suctioning her heel. It wasn’t going to get any easier. They resumed trudging through the dense landscape, and with each step, her feet sank and her ankles screamed from the strain.

  Guard two stepped over a rather thick branch. Maybe… She edged closer. She didn’t have a choice. She lifted her foot, wedged the heel of her right shoe on it and pushed down with all her weight. The resounding crack of the heel separating from her shoe sent a jolt of relief through her. Before the guard could shove her forward, she did the same to the other shoe. It wasn’t ideal, but far better to walk without each step feeling as if she were wading through quicksand.

  With no map, she wasn’t sure how much farther they had to go. Behind her, Henry stumbled, his full weight leaning onto her back. She took it and paused so he could push off her and regain his balance.

  “I’m sorry, dear.” His usually warm voice held tension. “I should never have had you come with me.”

  Shaking her head, she denied his words. “There was no way you could have known this would happen. We’ll get through this.” Sweat ran like a river down her back and between her breasts. At least she’d put her hair up in a high bun. She would be cursing it if she hadn’t.

  The swoosh of soldier two’s machete calmed her, and she fantasized about taking it from him and using it against their captors. Sadly, she couldn’t. Henry didn’t know what she was capable of, and she had her orders. For the time being, she would have to endure captivity.

  Hot air sawed in and out as she puffed along the widened trail. They’d been trekking along arduously for an hour when she heard voices through the vegetation. Through the bushes and tree trunks, she spotted a clearing. They’d arrived. Whatever the guards planned would be in full effect soon.

  As they stepped into the moderate clearing, Hannah cataloged where every man stood, what could be used as a weapon, and who appeared to be the largest threat. There were quite a few men whose lust shone through their pseudo-reserved expressions. From them, she expected trouble rather than blind following. The interactions so far, not to mention the pilot’s prediction of what would come, told her this group of insurgents had a specific agenda. She hoped she was right that their torture and death didn’t seem to be part of that. The stoic reactions of the majority of the soldiers telegraphed that they weren’t to do anything to jeopardize their leader’s plan.

  But men weren’t always easily controlled.

  Nor were women.

  With a wary eye, she let soldier two take her elbow and roughly haul her to a large tree. His hand clamped onto her shoulder, and he applied pressure. She sank down to the ground, her back flush to the trunk’s base. Henry harrumphed next to her, his descent not as graceful. With their hands zip-tied in front, their captors slipped rope under their upper arms then looped the rope around the tree, securing them next to each other on the ground. Their hands were still tied in front of them. A distance away, Hannah noticed their lone guard cinched in a similar manner. He hadn’t fared as well. Blood seeped from a cut along his hairline and the bullet wound on his shoulder. He’d likely put up a fight.

  Their escorts, whom she’d begun to think of as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, left them alone and made their way over to a gruff-looking man who appeared to be in charge. The images of the men she’d marked for death were firmly implanted in her mind.

  Sweltering heat radiated from the damp ground. With no hint of a breeze, their body heat rose even higher with their bound arms touching one another, and the stagnant air did nothing to keep the bugs away.

  With nothing to do, Hannah kept a close eye on the men who buzzed around them in quiet conversation. A few cast smirks and leers their way, but for the most part, they were left alone.

  “Don’t worry, dear.” Henry’s hushed voice carried to Hannah’s ears only. “The Pentagon is bound to have heard about what happened to us and will send a rescue shortly.”

  Another mosquito’s stinging bite had her clenching her teeth as it dined on her blood. They were both covered in them because the guards had so far been unwilling to attend to any of their hostages’ needs aside from water. She noticed flies buzzing around Steve’s wounds. He was probably already a host to botfly larva, with infection likely setting in.

  Henry’s comment about the Pentagon pushed to the forefront of her mind, and she turned to give him a partial grin. “I’m sure you’re right. I’ve no doubt someone has been briefed, and help is on the way.” The pilot’s words whirled through her mind, and she bit down on her lip as she worried over who from the Gray Ghost team would be sent. Part of her hoped it wouldn’t be Jack.

  Chapter 4

  Jack

  Jack leaned on the table across from Rich Stevens, the Gray Ghost team’s CIA contact. The file he’d brought was open, and satellite pictures were splayed across the table. Liam and Liv had arrived a few seconds before and were seated as well. More of their team was on the way to the Maine headquarters, but Rich didn’t have a lot of time. They would have the meeting, and then Jack would fill the rest of the guys in on what needed to be done.

  “These were taken yesterday when the plane went down.” Rich rubbed a hand across his brow as he leaned back in his seat. “We have a mole on the inside, boys.”

  “How do we know that?” Liam pulled his arm from Liv’s shoulders and dragged one of the pictures in front of them.

  Rich pulled out a map and tapped it. Colombia. His pencil stabbed higher. Liv sucked in her breath, and Liam grimaced at her reaction. She knew more than she would have liked after her deceased husband’s family set their sights on her.

  Once it looked as though Liv had her emotions on lockdown, Jack glanced at the picture again. Rich pointed near the Panama border. Fuck. The Darien Gap was the most dangerous place in the western hemisphere. Jack crossed his arms over
his chest, his focus again drawn to the shot of the plane as he tried to will it to spill the secrets of who had lived.

  “We know there is a mole because no one, aside from Chris and Henry, knew a top-secret prototype would be on board the private plane. They were due to arrive in Havana, Cuba. The plane was never supposed to cross over the Darien Gap. They’d gone way off course.” He pointed to one of the pictures. “If you look closely here, the door to the plane is opened.” Rich tapped a location on the map. Tossing down another aerial image of the plane and surrounding jungle, his finger slid to the camouflaged men marching toward the plane. “The guerrilla insurgent camp is over here.”

  None of it made sense to Jack.

  “Did they escape?” Liam waved at the open door—an occurrence that seemed to have happened prior to the insurgent’s arrival.

  “No. We don’t believe so. At least not the one we are mainly concerned about,” Rich responded. “There’s no proof of the guards’ or either pilots’ survival. My guess is they’re either dead or they escaped.”

  “How did this happen?” Jack looked up from the picture. “There had to be people who monitored the flight plan.”

  “Right. That’s normal protocol, hence the security breach in the organization. They flew under the radar—semi-invisible to our detection.”

  “That should’ve been caught,” Jack interjected, “when they went off grid.”

  “The problem wasn’t brought to our attention until the plane was already on the ground and the crash site cold. We aren’t positive how many minutes passed before our satellite had access to this specific location. It could’ve been an hour or a matter of minutes, given the path the satellite was on until the images were captured.”

  “Who was on the plane?” Liv’s voice settled between all of them.

  Rich’s expression lost its intensity when he gazed at Liv. It was well-known he had a soft spot for her. After her ordeal with her first husband, Alex, a celebrated NYPD detective who had been found to be the son of a notorious drug cartel in Colombia, they’d circled the wagons when it came to her. And that was not to mention the massive intel she’d delivered from her former father-in-law’s operation.

  “The US Secretary of Defense, Henry Williker, his executive secretary, two guards, and two pilots. We were only able to catch glimpses of those you see in the next pictures—Henry, his secretary, Hannah Miller, and one of the guards. The rest are assumed dead.”

  Jack’s body tensed as sickening dread punched him in the gut. Fuck no. He curled his fingers into a tight fist and squeezed until his knuckles were white. Memories of Hannah slammed into his brain, with her soft, silky skin, the sensuous curve of her full lower lip, and the mystery and mischievousness flashing through her light-blue eyes as she teased him. He remembered late-night conversations, drinks at the bar, and the way she fit against his body.

  They’ll pay for taking her.

  Forcing his hands to relax enough to grab several of the pictures, he studied every detail, committing any and all clues to memory. Black smudges painted over one of the engines, indicating that the most likely cause of the crash was a blown engine. He assumed it was tampered with. From the timestamps on the pictures, it appeared there were close to twenty minutes unaccounted for. Before he could voice the find, his gaze snagged on the retreating forms of Hannah and Henry being led away from the plane. Fear and anger swirled in a dangerous mix in his gut.

  Liv shuddered and threaded her fingers with Liam’s before she spoke. “Jack, didn’t you date Henry’s secretary?”

  “Hannah.” Jack nodded, refusing to go into personal details. He stared at Rich, boring a hole into the man’s head. “What’s the reason for the unaccounted time between images?” He tapped the two photos in question.

  A fierce frown pulled Rich’s lips down, his bushy mustache dipping with the movement. “The camera malfunctioned.”

  Jack leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t believe that.”

  “No.” Rich shook his head. “We’ll find out the reason soon. There are people working on it, looking for signature traces.”

  “Is there a demand for a hostage exchange yet?” Liam raised the question that should have been addressed earlier. The information could give them insight into their timeframe or data they could manipulate to benefit their rescue.

  “Not yet, but we’re anticipating it.”

  Jack grunted. They needed to act. Time would run out. “What’s the plan?”

  “We’re in a very bad position here.” Fury colored Rich’s features an angry red, and he slammed his fist on the table. “It’s imperative that Henry is retrieved along with his briefcase and its contents. He knows too damn much, and he had a prototype for a top-secret weapon with him. I’m sure you understand how important it is to maintain possession of that?”

  Jack and Liam nodded in agreement.

  “There can be no room for error and no delays to search for other hostages. He is a top priority. Once you have possession of him, you pull out.”

  Chapter 5

  Jack

  The private jet ate up the distance from Maine to Texas. Jack and the guys still had an hour before they landed and boarded the helicopter that would take them to a mile outside the insurgents’ camp where Hannah was being held captive.

  The reality of the danger Hannah faced reinforced his strong feelings for her and stirred memories of the time they’d had together. He’d thought she was the one. After all, she had been the first woman he’d opened himself to since he lost his first love.

  Hannah was special. She saw a part of him that others rarely did.

  Closing his eyes, he remembered the moments before he was to meet her not far from her office. The city she worked in was across the river from Washington, DC, where there were a wide variety of places to eat, and he’d picked one with a relaxed atmosphere so they didn’t feel rushed. As he’d walked the few blocks to the restaurant, he let the city’s pulse, which included the dark underbelly of poverty and crime, burrow into him.

  The air had been warm, reminding him of where and how he’d grown up. DC wasn’t California, but it too had an alarming abundance of homeless kids. The destitute teens’ situation was from neglect, abuse, poverty, and little to no opportunity. Some struggled with addiction or starvation, or they used sex to barter for food or shelter. They were invisible, affected by an epidemic many didn’t want to see, let alone try to fix. Lack of trust and desperation clung to the displaced teens. Jack recognized the critical problem because he had once been one of them.

  His stomach had cramped with hunger and anxiety at the thought of those days. It was something that would never go away completely. Those first few weeks on his own had turned into endless months. His parents had died after being at the wrong place at the wrong time—they’d stopped at a convenience store, and a coked-up robber had shot everyone within—and he’d had no other living relatives. He went to foster care, but he had no choice but to run off. He’d had a good life, good parents, and the alcoholic foster father and drugged-out foster mother were nothing like what he was used to. So he’d left. For a while, he snuck into his old foster home when he knew they were asleep, through the unlocked window to his former room, to eat and to sleep in a warm bed. Once he was caught, though, there was no going back, and he was on his own when it came to food and shelter.

  Shelter was hard to come by—the streets weren’t the best place for a kid, and he found that dumpsters worked well. Most often, hiding beneath the metal lid had been the safest place. Dumpsters were disgusting, and sometimes there were rats, but they were better than facing a run-in with a gang or predator. Even though the bins reeked horribly of garbage, he often found food there, and it was mostly edible.

  His stomach rumbled, bringing him back to his current surroundings, and he picked up his pace.

  The sidewalks had been crowded with busy professionals on their way to grab a bite to eat or attend meetings. Through the
throng of bodies, a skinny boy around fourteen years old caught his attention as he wove through the masses, jostling several people along his path. He was unkempt and in tattered clothes, so the adults turned a blind eye to his presence until one man lurched forward and latched onto the teen’s arm. Rage infused the man’s face, which turned bright red as he jerked the teen close. Pain flashed across the kid’s features. Jack lengthened his stride, keeping the twosome locked in his sight.

  The man had the kid pressed up against the side of a building, his face inches from the defiant-but-terrified teen. “What did you take, you worthless thief?”

  With an arm pressed against the kid’s chest to hold him in place, the man patted down his own pockets. His hand shifted and curled around the kid’s skinny shoulder. With a shove, he slammed the kid against the brick, and his head smacked into it hard.

  Dammit. Jack had skirted around the last person in between them just as the man violently shook the teen. Jack put his hand on the man’s arm. “What’s the problem?” He kept his voice steady and calm.

  The man straightened, coming close to Jack’s six foot two inches as he growled at him over his shoulder. “The kid stole my wallet. You a cop?”

  Jack held up his hands, palms out. “No, but I can help.”

  “Unless you’re a cop, there isn’t anything you can do.” The man faced the wide-eyed teen again. “Give me my wallet, or you’ll regret it, punk.”

  With a hand that trembled, the teen reached into his pocket and pulled a wallet out, only to have the man rip it from him.

  Jack had eased closer and slipped his hand around the kid’s bicep. “I’ve got him,” he assured the hostile man as he gently extracted the kid. The man grunted as he checked the contents of this wallet.

  “Everything there?” Jack pulled the teen closer against his side, confident he wouldn’t get stabbed—the kid could have stabbed the man if he’d had a knife or the inclination to use a weapon. Instead, the kid seemed terrified—possibly not long on the streets. If he had been, he would’ve perfected his skills.