Footsteps sounded on her left just as she rose to her feet. Two men turned the corner of the passage. They stopped, shock registering on their faces at the sight of a tall, blonde woman in the midst of the battlefield. That brief hesitation cost them their lives.
By the time they started to raise their assault rifles, Rachel had cut them down with the AK-47. She strode inside the communications room and stopped a few steps past the doorway.
The chamber was fifteen by twelve feet. A bank of tables crowded the bulkhead to the left. Sitting atop them were the merchant ship's radio and satellite communication hardware, its lifeline to the outside world. Two men lay groaning on the floor ahead of her.
The hairs rose on the back of Rachel's neck.
Satellite infra-red images over the last twenty-four hours had shown three guards permanently stationed inside the ship's communications room and a fourth posted outside.
Instinct had her dropping to the ground. There was movement out of the corner of her eye. The AK-47 slipped from around her neck and clattered across the floor as she hit the deck. She rolled onto her back and saw a blade swoop across the space where she had been a second ago. She narrowed her eyes.
One thing satellite images didn't tell you was the size of your opponents.
At six foot three and over two hundred and fifty pounds, the third guard was a virtual colossus. Though the flash grenade had incapacitated his companions, it seemed to have had little effect on him.
He charged toward her.
Shit, too close!
Rachel flipped onto her feet, swooped at the waist, and brought her right leg up in a roundhouse kick. Her boot made contact with the man's left ribcage. An 'Oof!' left his lips. He slowed a fraction.
She whipped her Kbar knife out in time to block his blade. Her earpiece buzzed to life.
'Alpha Two, this is Alpha One. What’s your status, over?'
Busy trying not to get myself killed!
Rachel jumped back to avoid the knife heading toward her heart. Rage darkened her opponent's face as she continued to evade him, her movements nimble in their deadly dance. He roared and attacked with savage, wild swings of his blade.
She smiled. That's right, big guy, get angry all you want.
'Alpha Two, this is Alpha One. I repeat, what's your status?'
Had she not been trying to dodge her opponent's attempt to disembowel her, Rachel would have sighed at the undercurrent of tension in her team leader's voice. She glanced to the right. The fight had brought her next to the communications equipment.
Time to finish this.
She stepped up against the closest table just as the large man barreled toward her, jumped in the air, and drove her left knee into his chest. He grunted and toppled backward. She went down with him, her thighs straddling his upper body. They landed hard on the deck.
He brought his arms up, his knife arcing toward her face while his other hand reached for her throat. She blocked his blade and gritted her teeth as his fingers closed around her windpipe. Instinct would have had her trying to free herself from his grip. She ignored it, switched her Kbar to her free hand, leaned into his hold, and slashed her knife across his neck in a clean movement.
The man's eyes widened as arterial blood started pouring from the gash in his flesh. He dropped his blade and clutched helplessly at the scarlet flow with both hands, a gurgle escaping his lips.
He would be dead in minutes.
Rachel heard movement behind her. The two stunned men on the floor were crawling to their feet. They blinked and shook their heads dazedly, assault rifles swinging wildly in their grips. Rachel rolled off the dying man, dropped on her back, and brought her Sig around and up a second before they depressed their triggers. By the time their bullets peppered the air several feet above her head, her shots had found their flesh with deadly accuracy. They went down hard.
Her earpiece buzzed again. 'Alpha Four, this is Alpha One. Move to Alpha Two's last known location and prepare to—'
'Alpha One, this is Alpha Two. Comms room secured, over,' Rachel snapped into the wireless transmitter pinned to her tactical gear.
There was a brief silence.
'Roger that, Alpha Two. Stand by for further instructions, out.'
The voice was brisk. Rachel suspected she was the only one who heard the trace of relief modulating Alpha One's tone.
Definitely going to have to have words with him.
Chapter Two
Rachel gathered the dead men's weapons and kept them close at hand while she flicked switches and entered commands into the communications systems, re-establishing vital network connections that had been deactivated by the guards. Screens lit up across the board, indicating the vessel was back online.
Thirty-eight hours had passed since the US merchant marine cargo ship Nostradamus was intercepted by pirates two hundred nautical miles from the Horn of Africa, in the Gulf of Aden. With over $50 million worth of prime, heavy, electrical machinery bound for the Philippines and twenty-five crew members on board, the vessel was attacked mere hours after it entered the Arabian Sea.
The ransom demand came just as Rachel's team completed a covert mission in Yemen, where they had captured the leader of a terrorist cell with affiliations to the Taliban.
Formed as part of the U.S. Department of Justice's goal to combat international drug trafficking, the Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams, or FAST, were the DEA's answer to the military's special ops forces. Officially, FAST teams were tasked with training foreign narcotic law enforcement units, carrying out counter-narcotics missions, and gathering evidence and intelligence to support U.S. and allied drug investigations. Unofficially, FAST were elite tactical units capable of counterterrorism and direct-action missions on foreign soil, similar to their military counterparts.
Two months shy of her thirty-first birthday, Rachel became one of only a handful of female DEA agents to have successfully completed the arduous selection and training program devised by U.S. Special Operations Command for FAST recruits. The operation in Yemen was her twelfth covert assignment since she joined the team in Afghanistan eight months ago.
Although the mission to rescue the hostages aboard the Nostradamus normally fell under the remit of Navy SEALs and Marine Special Ops, Rachel's team was called in on the action as the geographically closest tactical unit to the Gulf of Aden. Everyone knew siege situations were at their most critical twenty-four to forty-eight hours following first contact. Beyond that, hostage takers got twitchy and hostages got desperate, leading to a perfect storm that often ended in tragedy. When the DEA got wind that there were possible links between the pirates holding the Nostradamus hostage and a powerful and ultra-secretive drug cartel in East Africa that had so far eluded the U.S. and its allies' efforts at infiltration and intelligence gathering, it gave the FAST team an even stronger justification to be the unit to attempt the rescue.
Rachel suppressed a grimace. Would have been nice if it wasn't mission number thirteen though.
Although she tried hard not to fall prey to baseless superstitions, an Irish upbringing and a grandmother who was more catholic than the Pope made this a tricky goal to achieve. Still, the number thirteen was unpopular even with members of the military special ops forces.
The staccato of gunfire started to die down in the distance. Moments later, the words she had been waiting to hear came over the channel.
'Alpha Team, this is Alpha One. We have control of the ship. Helos are on the way. Stand by for further instructions, over.'
'Alpha One, this is Alpha Two. Standing by, out,' said Rachel.
A sigh escaped her lips. She allowed herself to relax slightly, the guns still close at hand.
Though they had been weary after the mission in Yemen, the chance to save lives and gather intelligence on the elusive drug cartel they suspected had been behind many attempted military coups and terrorist attacks across the northern African continent had galvanized the FAST team into action. This was the kind
of stuff they lived and breathed for.
It took them less than eighteen hours to assess, plan, and execute the rescue mission in the Gulf of Aden, with the support of a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship and a destroyer.
Fifteen minutes later, two UH-1N Huey helicopters touched down on the main deck of the Nostradamus. The Marine Special Ops team aboard soon assumed control of the ship from the FAST team.
Rachel handed the communications room over to the two soldiers who came to relieve her.
'You guys did good,' said one of the men. He glanced at the bodies on the floor. 'I hear there are no casualties among your team or the hostages.'
She headed for the door, a small smile on her lips. 'Our team leader runs a tight ship.'
'I hear he's got a good XO.'
The soldier's gaze skimmed her figure, admiration evident in his eyes. His companion elbowed him in the ribs.
Rachel's smile turned into a full-blown grin that caused the Marine's breath to catch in his throat.
'That he has,' she said with a humble nod.
And this XO wants to see her commanding officer right now.
She found Benjamin Westfield, aka Alpha One, on the bridge of the ship, where he stood in conversation with the Marine Special Ops team leader. Lights blazed through the windows of the superstructure dominating the cargo ship's upper deck. In the darkness beyond, she made out the assault ship and the destroyer on a fast approach, the waters of the Gulf parting in white, phosphorescent waves beneath their bows.
Thirty feet below the bridge of the Nostradamus, the hostages were being led to the safety of the Huey helicopters. The pirates who had survived the attack knelt in a huddle inside a ring of armed FAST agents and Marines on the starboard side of the main deck.
The ringleader of the pirates lay dead on the bridge. Next to him was another man. This one was very much alive and bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was being attended to by Tom "Hannibal" Cook, aka Alpha Five, the FAST team's medic.
'Yeah, yeah, it sucks to be shot,' muttered Hannibal as the injured man groaned beneath his ministering hands. 'Shouldn't have seized this ship then, should you? Asshole.' He looked up when he spotted Rachel. 'Hey. We thought you were toast when you didn't respond earlier.' He glanced to the left and grinned. 'Ben was having kittens.'
Ben concluded his conversation and frowned at Hannibal.
'I was not having kittens,' he said in a hard voice. His gaze found her face. His eyes softened almost imperceptibly.
Rachel clamped down on the hot emotions flooding her chest as she walked up to him, aware of the Marine team leader's curious glance from the other side of the bridge.
Ben's were the most expressive eyes she had ever seen. Normally the color of the sky, they invariably changed with his emotions. They could be as cold and as bright as diamonds when he got angry or turn the color of sapphires when he was happy. But the color she had come to love the most, the one that made her heart melt and her body tremble, was the cobalt-blue of his irises when they made love.
'Sweetheart, you and I need to have a talk when this is over,' she said quietly, her face impassive.
Guilt flashed across Ben's face. She was the only one close enough to see it.
'I was just worried about my XO.' He paused and dropped his voice to a whisper. 'My very sexy XO.'
Rachel shivered when he surreptitiously touched her hand, his fingers leaving a hot trail on her skin. Sensual images of the last time they had slept together danced across her inner vision.
Not that we did much sleeping, she thought, feeling the flames of desire burn through her core once more.
They first met eight months ago, on the day she landed in Afghanistan to take on the role of XO in the DEA's most active FAST team, the previous agent in that role having moved back to the agency's U.S. headquarters. The attraction between them had been instantaneous and as scalding as the heat of the battles they went on to face together. After fighting their feelings for nearly half a year, they finally succumbed to the undeniable pull that existed between them.
More than the great sex, and the sex was THE best she'd ever had, that either of them had ever had, Rachel soon realized she had found her soulmate in Ben. They were compatible in almost every way, not just physically, but intellectually and emotionally, with the same life aspirations and ambitions. It was worth the years of shitty, short, unsatisfying relationships she had endured in the little personal time she had had while she worked her way up the career ladder to be at the top of her field in the DEA.
Ben was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. And she was the woman he wanted to grow old with.
She hid a smile when she thought of the engagement ring in the top drawer of her bedside table in her quarters back at their base in Afghanistan. Ben had proposed at the end of a grueling training day exactly one week ago, while they were both still dusty and sweaty from a ten-mile run in the desert. There had been tears of joy, followed by hours of heated lovemaking that almost broke the bed in his room.
Still, a tinge of sorrow had tainted their happy day. Rachel had applied for a transfer to Quantico, where the other FAST teams were stationed at the Marine Corps Base. Their rapidly burgeoning relationship meant they couldn't work together much longer; to continue to do so would violate the DEA and special ops’ rules and compromise the safety of their team on the field. It also meant that, bar a few stolen weeks here and there, they would live apart for a good few years until Ben rotated back into one of the U.S. FAST teams or progressed into a more senior role in the DEA, something his father desperately wanted.
'Nearly patched up,' Hannibal muttered from the other side of the bridge. 'What the—hey, you shouldn't be moving around so much!'
Rachel looked past Ben.
The injured pirate had rolled onto his front and was crawling across the deck toward the bulkhead where the dead ringleader lay. An incomprehensible mumble escaped his lips. His movements grew frantic, fear evident on his face. Hannibal grabbed his shoulder and frowned at the man's garbled speech.
Rachel froze. Ben tensed. They both recognized one of the Somalian words the man had spoken.
Hannibal paled as he looked in the direction the man was pointing. From his position beside the pirate, the DEA agent could see under the table next to the bulkhead.
He turned and shouted, 'BOMB!'
The last thing Rachel saw was Ben moving in front of her.
The last thing she heard was the explosion.
The last thing she felt was scorching pain as her body drifted helplessly through the air, skin crisping and flesh succumbing to flames and pressure waves from the blast.
Then darkness engulfed her, scattering her hopes and dreams to the winds.
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