Zakir chuckled. Rich, corporate American men were now flying overseas to their newly built apartments in Asian or European countries or haciendas in South America where the women they’d bought were kept. Town houses were popular with the rich in Africa. Apartments were preferred in Asia. Every country in the world had sex trafficking, and rich men the world over, the true connoisseurs of the very best sex slaves, were always interested in purchasing from Rasari. He had a breeding stable where female sex slaves were bred to specific male slaves to give a buyer a particular child or young teen. Buyers the world over had explicit demands regarding gender, personality, skin, eye, and hair color. And they would spend millions for just the right sex slave.
The sex slave trade was growing so fast that Zakir often couldn’t fulfill the demand for his customers. He’d enlisted General Bajar from the Pakistsan Army to start infiltrating the border villages in Afghanistan, kidnapping women, girls, and boys. Little had he suspected that one day, his enemies, the Culvers, would be caught up in his net. His mind turned swiftly to all the things he would do with Alexa Culver. First, he had to be careful that no one ever discovered her presence at his villa. The U.S. would send black ops to storm the place to rescue her. No, he had to be careful and thoroughly think through his strategy. Above all, he had to protect his wife and his two daughters.
Rubbing his neatly trimmed black beard, he sat, rocking and thinking. More than anything, he wanted the Culver family to suffer as he had suffered. He wanted videos of their daughter being sodomized by his male stud slave. He wanted her cries of pain recorded. And then? He’d get the video sent secretly to Robert Culver’s computer. He wanted to see the man’s face when he saw his daughter suffering. If only he could be there to see it!
Elation swept through Zakir as he conceived of other videos of Alexa being raped and tortured. Yes, he was going to make their family wish they were in hell. They would weep and feel helpless and lost, just as he’d felt when word came that his two sons had been murdered in Afghanistan.
The Culver family would feel the agony of watching their beloved daughter being tortured right before their very eyes. Off camera, of course, she would be his personal sex slave. He’d tie her wrists to a bed, her legs held open by two of his servants, and he’d fuck her until she screamed. He’d destroy her soul. He’d make her a shadow of her former self. He would take everything away from her, because her family had taken everything away from him. She would pay every day, and he had no intention of ever killing her.
No, this was one time when he very much wanted to keep a slave alive for future sessions in his sex room. He would glory in what he would do to her every week. And she would learn to fear the rising of the sun every morning, wondering what would happen to her that day. Rubbing his long, soft hands together, he smiled darkly. All his prayers had been answered.
*
Gage Hunter tried to swallow his impatience. The SEALs had split up; he had moved with three of them to the other side of the ridge. They’d gone through the night fighting ankle to knee-deep snow. He was cold, his fingers numb, even with the protective gloves on his hands. The stars blinked above them in the night sky. It was 0400 by the time they’d gone down four thousand feet lower and onto another trail using their GPS.
Wyatt Lockwood had called the SEAL team leader, McQuade, alerting them to a little-used tunnel that was another entrance and exit for the cave complex. He’d gone over all the original drawings made by the SEAL contingent that had discovered it ten years earlier. No one knew it was there until he’d called and alerted them to the little-known tunnel.
At this altitude, the snow was negligible, and they trotted with their infrared goggles on, hurrying toward the entrance. The LPO—lead petty officer—Chase Drummond was in the lead, his M4 ready for action should they run into Taliban. It was doubtful that they would in Gage’s mind, because usually Taliban hunkered down at night to eat and then sleep. They had no night-vision goggles with which to move, as U.S. and UN forces did. Still, they had to assume they could run into a group of them, especially near this cave entrance. Their breaths shot out in white vapor as they increased the tempo of their jogging down the trail.
His heart was focused on Alexa. He ached to take her into his arms and protect her. It had been the most helpless feeling in the world to sit and wait for something to happen at the main cave entrance. When Lockwood had called Chief McQuade by sat phone, Gage had silently cheered in triumph.
Yes! There was another entrance! And maybe . . . just maybe . . . they could get inside, find those women . . . find Alexa . . . and rescue them.
They slowly, silently approached the GPS coordinates where Lockwood had told them the entrance was located. They were at four thousand feet now, on a slope peppered with bushes bearing snow. The ground was muddy, part snow, part slippery clay, as they stealthily crouched and moved in a diamond pattern toward it. His heart was pounding in his chest, adrenaline leaking into his bloodstream. He saw a little-used road that curved around the entrance hidden by brush. Someone had used this opening before. As they got closer, Gage looked down at the tire tracks imprinted deeply into a muddy area.
“Hey,” he called quietly on his mic, “there’s wide tire treads visible here. They look to be fairly fresh, maybe two weeks at the most.”
Drummond halted his men. He gave orders for them to crouch and rest while he made his way back to Gage, who was studying the tracks. As a sniper, tracking was one of Gage’s other skills. He knelt down in the frozen mud, pointing to the tread as the LPO leaned over his shoulder, studying them.
“What do you make of them?” Drummond asked.
“These are Pakistani tire treads,” he muttered, scowling. “It’s an Army truck. It’s a double-axle type and it has double tires on the rear of it.”
“How big?”
Shrugging, Gage said, “I don’t know.” He took a photo of the double tire tread and said, “You need to get this on your laptop and send it to Artemis Security. They’ll have the software to find out more about this kind of truck tread and most likely be able to identify it.”
Drummond grunted and took the card from the camera that Gage handed him. “All right,” he told his team, “stand down and take a break while I get this photo sent by sat phone.”
Gage stood, carefully watching the area. The wind was biting but warmer compared to where they’d been earlier. He couldn’t stop thinking about Alexa and his failure to protect her. Now she was somewhere in that godforsaken cave system. He couldn’t think about what they might be doing to her and to the other women. He just couldn’t go there.
Hearing Drummond talk quietly to McQuade, he kept alert, his gaze never still as he watched the surrounding area. McQuade, team leader, was on the other side of the ridge with the rest of the team, near the main entrance to the caves. Drummond was in command of their small contingent on this side of the mountain.
“It’s been sent,” Drummond muttered. “Now we wait. McQuade wants confirmation on the vehicle before we do anything else. Hydrate and eat, men.”
Urgency filled Gage. He swore he was in psychic touch with Alexa. It had been like this since the beginning. He could feel her, feel her moods, and now, he was feeling terror and despair deep in his gut. Wiping his mouth, he turned, slowly looking up toward the ridge. Everything looked so damned beautiful and unspoiled, yet Gage knew it was a false beauty. Inside that cave system were eight women going through unimaginable hell.
Five minutes later, Drummond found out whom the tire tracks belonged to. He spoke into his mic. “Pakistani-owned Unimog U5000 truck, capable of carrying fifteen armed troops in the back.”
Gage scowled as he moved farther down the slope. He could see where the truck had been driven on the valley floor. A cold chill came over him. He narrowed his eyes, looking in the general direction of where the road snaked along the valley below. What was he seeing? Or was he imagining it?
“Drum,” he called softly, “switch to drone feed, now! I think I
see something . . . can’t make it out, on the valley floor to the east of where we are. It’s on the same road we just discovered.”
Gage heard Drummond grumble under his breath. He sat between two bushes, the Toughbook laptop open on his thighs, awkwardly trying to type on it to bring up the drone that was loitering above the area.
“Shit!”
Gage turned toward him. “What?”
“Sonofabitch,” Drummond swore, his voice turning excited, “it’s the same type of truck we just ID’d. And it’s coming our way.”
His heart raced. Gage asked, “Could that truck be coming here? To this entrance to pick up the women? Take them back across the border?”
“Yes,” McQuade growled, anger in his tone. “You’re right. If that truck comes your way, there are four of you. There’s no way I can get the rest of us up and over that ridge to reach you in time to help you. We have no idea how many tangos are inside that cave system, and we don’t know how many tangos are in that truck.”
“Can we get the drone to ID the truck?” Drummond demanded.
“Roger that. I’ll know in a minute,” McQuade said.
Gage’s heart pounded, and he felt a sense of urgency. “I’ve sometimes seen Pakistani trucks come over the border,” he informed them. “But it was prearranged, and we were alerted to their coming across. They were legitimate crossings. Is this one of those trucks? Does someone at Bagram, somewhere on the food chain, know about this truck crossing into Afghan territory?”
McQuade grunted on the mic. “I’m finding out right now. Hold . . .”
Gage knew the chief would be calling into Bagram SEAL HQ. They would know. His hand moved restively on his M4, the butt of it sitting against his hip as they waited for word. “And what about Artemis Security? Shouldn’t they be informed?”
“Getting to it,” McQuade growled, sounding harried.
In another ten minutes, the picture emerged. Gage listened intently to the four-way conversation between the LPO, McQuade, Wyatt Lockwood from Artemis Security, and Commander Ian Camden, head of the SEAL unit at Bagram. The upshot of it was that the truck now trundling their way would arrive in less than an hour. It was from Pakistan. It had been authorized into Afghanistan by an ISI Pakistan Army general named Tahir Bajar.
“Where’s the paperwork on that request?” McQuade growled. “Where’s it been authorized to go?”
Wyatt said, “We’re tapped into SEAL intel out of Tampa, Florida. It says on the authorization that the truck is going to a village near you to lend medical aid. The truck’s contents are listed as medical items.”
“Yeah,” McQuade snarled, “probably all lies. My bet is this General Bajar is part of the sex-trafficking ring, and he’s using his high rank to get this truck over the border to pick up kidnapped women and children and take them back across the Pakistan border.”
“If that truck veers off course,” Lockwood said, “then your guess is probably right, Chief.”
Commander Camden came on. “We need to verify this before we do anything.”
Gage knew they could blow that truck out of existence if it didn’t follow the authorization orders to go to the village lying somewhere below them in the same valley.
“Roger that,” McQuade agreed. “But if that truck makes a left turn at that fork in the road coming up, that’s the one that goes right by that third cave entrance where I have my men. And that’s a fucking game-changer. We need to scramble and decide what to do if he makes that turn.”
Gage compressed his lips, the urgency was eating him up. His gut burned with fear and possibilities. There were only nine of them, against how many tangos in that truck and inside the caves? There were eight women hostages in the mix. If the truck came their way, then it would be confirmed that it was coming to pick up the women captives.
And then what? Right now, Gage knew there were just four of them near the entrance. What was Commander Camden going to do? Would he have the truck bombed out of existence before it reached here or not? If the truck arrived, then they had tangos and the women coming out of that entrance to be herded into the truck.
It was tactically messy any way his mind leaped over the myriad possibilities. Gage wiped his mouth, unable to stand still any longer. He quietly walked around the brush, keeping his gaze fixed on the valley below. In another ten minutes, they’d know whether that Pakistani truck coming their way was legitimate or not.
And somehow, some way, the SEALs on station here at the complex had to come up with a game plan that would protect all those women from any crossfire!
CHAPTER 12
Gage waited until the Unimog U5000 did indeed turn left at the fork and head toward the cavern entrance. They had an hour before the truck arrived. He moved to Drummond, crouching down next to him.
“I have an idea. You have those speaker nodes that pick up voice and sounds on you?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Gage said, “I want to enter that cave and set them down along it, so if the women are being pushed out in this direction, we’ll know ahead of time. We can also hear others talking. I know Urdu. So do you. We’ll be able to hear what’s going on and be better able to prepare for when they come out.” He looked over at the hard profile of the LPO. “What do you think?”
Rubbing his beard, Drummond cursed softly. “I was thinking the same thing. I was just trying to decide who to send in.”
“Send me,” Gage said, his voice firm, his eyes on Drummond’s. “This is mine to do.”
“I heard some scuttlebutt back at the base,” Drummond said, “that you were sweet on Captain Alexa Culver. Is that true?”
Gage swallowed; he wasn’t going to deny it. “I am.”
“Okay,” Drummond muttered, “let’s get all fifteen of those speaker nodes set up if you can. We can use all the help and pre-warning we can get. And I want you wired up with a radio that has fresh batteries in there. We’ll have the ability to talk or click back and forth once you get into that cave. Give us the layout and anything else you find.”
“Got it,” Gage said. Relief shot through him. He wanted—no, needed—to do something! He had instinctively known that Unimog would turn and come their way. He also knew Alexa and those other women were in deep trouble—he just didn’t know how bad it was. His heart clenched in his chest as he freed his emotions for just a moment, allowing his love for Alexa to surface. He’d been fighting the feeling ever since he met her. No one fell in love at first sight. It was impossible. But he couldn’t ignore the feelings in his heart for Alexa, even though he knew it was far too early to say anything to her. They had to have time. And he wasn’t sure they’d ever get it.
Gage knew she would be changed by this experience in the caves, but he didn’t know how. He knew slave traders all too well, and he sensed that something terrible and deeply traumatic had already happened to her and the other women. He knew he would love Alexa no matter what had happened. He’d be there for her, damn it, one way or another. He’d help her get back on her feet because he was in for the long haul—if she’d allow it.
In a matter of minutes, the nodes were gathered and Drummond showed him how they worked. They were ingenious, tiny, the outer shell made of waterproof gray plastic. There was a lithium battery inside each one, and the nodes could send a silent signal to Drummond’s laptop that had software that could interpret the sounds. Then the voices and exchanges would be in every man’s earpiece, and everyone would know simultaneously what was going on.
That gave them a major edge. Surprise was the only advantage they had on this mission. It was three SEALs and a Marine against an unknown force. And their job was to keep the women from getting caught in the crossfire. Gage wasn’t sure it could be done, but damn it, they’d try their best.
Within another five minutes, Gage had shucked his rucksack and attached his helmet and infrared goggles, ready to use. He kept the Ka-Bar strapped in a sheath to his left calf. His .45 pistol was at his side, a round in the chamber, the strap acros
s it, removed so he could pull and shoot. The M4 was ready, snapped into his chest harness.
Gage took some water from his canteen and soaked a rifle cloth with it, then quickly wiped off the greasepaint that would give him away. Where he was going, it was dark. He climbed out of the white snow gear, wearing only his olive green T-shirt and desert-colored Marine cammo pants. He tucked his dog tags inside his T-shirt. The temperature was below freezing, and his skin instantly goose bumped as he filled his large pockets with the nodes.
After a last radio check, Drummond slapped him on the back. “Don’t play hero in there,” he told Gage.
Gage hesitated. “I’m a sniper. I know how to stalk. If I see or hear something, I may detour, but I’ll be in radio contact with you if I do. Right now, you know we need eyes and ears in there.” He suddenly grinned, his teeth white against the blackness of the night. “Besides,” Gage said, his voice wry, “there’s no one better to do it than a Marine . . .” He slipped off toward the opening before Drummond could respond.
Moving silently through the brush at the entrance, Gage drew down his infrared goggles, flipped them on, and quickly dipped inside the cave complex. He crouched next to a wall, waiting and listening. He heard muted voices and cocked his head, listening keenly. Taking a node, he placed it on the ground next to the wall. No one would ever see it because it blended into the darkness perfectly.
Broken Dreams (Delos Series Book 4) Page 16