by Elle James
His gaze never left hers. “You are.” He gripped her arms and pulled her close, resting his chin on her hair.
Dash tapped his watch. “What part of we don’t have much time do you not understand?”
Blade elbowed him. “Shh, man. Can’t you see they’re having a moment?”
Rucker chuckled. “We can wait for a moment, but much longer than that, and she might miss that flight.”
“Would that be a bad thing?” Mac murmured.
She nodded. “It keeps you all at risk. I have to go.” Kylie’s heart was breaking, but she stepped back. “We need to get moving.”
“Are you up to walking really fast?” Rucker asked. “That blow to the head had to have hurt.”
She nodded, wincing. “It did. But I’ll be okay.” Avoiding Mac’s gaze, she glanced around. “Any idea how to get back to a place where we can catch a taxi?”
The man who’d hit her looked up. “Taxi?”
Kylie nodded. “Yes. Taxi.”
He waved his hand toward the gate. “Come. Taxi.”
He led, and the Deltas followed, their weapons at the ready.
Mac stayed at Kylie’s side, hovering over her, using his body as a shield.
With each step, Kylie fought back tears. In a few short hours, she’d be on her way back to the States. She didn’t know when she’d see Mac again, or if he wanted to see her. They’d been together, made love and had fallen right back into the easy way they’d been with each other so long ago. But was that enough? Or had this just been a fling on his part? A way to get her out of his system?
The Afghan led them to another walled home and through the gate. Inside the yard was a small van with a sign on top.
“Taxi.” He nodded and then went to the door, banging loudly.
An older Afghan answered. The two spoke, and the older man went back inside and came out with a set of keys.
“Where do you want to go?” the older man asked as he walked toward the vehicle.
“Bagram Airfield,” Rucker responded.
The six of them crowded into the van, and the old man slipped into the driver’s seat. Soon, they were on their way through the city toward Bagram Airfield and the plane that would take Kylie away from Mac.
Kylie sat between Dash and Mac, holding Mac’s hand. He squeezed tightly, the pressure bringing tears to her eyes. Not because it hurt, but because it might be the last time they held hands for a long time.
She didn’t want to let go.
Mac liked the feel of Kylie’s hand in his. For years he’ dreamed of holding her, of loving her and making her his.
With her back in his life again, he didn’t want to let go.
The taxi slowed at an intersection, and the driver waited for traffic to pass before he could merge.
A vehicle slowed and allowed them to join the long line heading in the direction of the airfield.
Two blocks later, the van came to a complete stop.
“What’s holding us up?” Mac leaned forward, looking over the driver’s shoulder.
Rucker, in the front passenger seat frowned. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” He glanced over his shoulder as he pushed open his door. “Comm on?”
“Roger,” Mac said.
The others responded in kind.
Rucker dropped down from the van and walked at a determined clip alongside the standing vehicles, disappearing withing seconds.
Mac held his breath, a bad feeling making his gut knot. Thankfully, he was on the side of the van with the sliding door. If something threatened them, he’d be out on the street with Kylie in less than a heartbeat.
“Damn,” Rucker said into Mac’s ear.
“What?” Mac shot back, his gut screaming for him to reach for the doorhandle.
“Got a checkpoint up here…manned by our trusty men in black. On my way back. Get the hell out of the van and go.”
Before Rucker completed his sentence, Mac had the sliding door open and he was out on the pavement, dragging Kylie out with him.
“What?” she asked, her gaze shooting the direction Rucker had gone.
The other members of his team climbed out behind them.
Mac, holding onto Kylie’s hand, turned back the direction from which they’d come and walked fast, putting as much distance as possible between them and the checkpoint.
“They spotted me,” Rucker said. “Run!”
Mac’s hand tightened on Kylie’s as he took off, pushing past pedestrians and cyclists, attempting to get around the parking lot of vehicles in the street.
As if they were swimming upstream, Mac waded through the throngs of humanity, trying to get Kylie to someplace safer.
Ahead, he heard the sound of shouts and a woman’s scream.
The crowd of people on the sidewalk parted.
Half a dozen men in the black uniform worn by Ahktar’s Taliban soldiers appeared, shoving people out of the way, waving their AK-47s and shooting as they stormed through the crowd.
“Got more trouble from the other end of this wagon train,” Mac reported. “Heading east off the main drag.”
“We’ve got your back,” Dash said. He and Blade stopped at the corners of the buildings flanking the road Mac turned onto.
He leaned down to speak into Kylie’s ear. “We need to move out sharply. You up to it?”
She laughed. “Do I have a choice?” Picking up the pace, she broke into a sprint.
Mac had to hurry to keep up with her.
They ran a long block and cut back north.
“Keep going,” Dash urged. “We’re behind you, trying to stay out of sight of our friends.’
“Sorry, guys,” Rucker’s voice cut into Dash’s report. “I’ve been spotted. I’ll try to lead them away. Problem is, now they know we’re out here.”
Mac’s grip tightened on Kylie’s hand.
“I’m going with Rucker,” Dash said into the radio. “Someone has to cover his ass.”
“What am I missing?” Kylie asked, looking up at Mac’s face as they moved through the streets.
“Rucker was spotted. The Taliban now knows we’re close,” Mac said. “Dash is dropping back to cover for Rucker. It’s you, me, Josh and Blade.” He glanced back as Blade brought up the rear of their small group.
Blade said something to Josh. The two moved faster to catch up to Mac and Kylie.
“Shit, Mac,” Blade huffed. “We’ve got a tail of four guys in black.”
“Gotta move faster,” Mac said.
Kylie was breathing hard. She’d started to slow her pace, but he gripped her elbow and helped her to go faster.
He dared to look back at the men trailing Blade and Josh. They were raising their rifles to their shoulders. If Mac didn’t get Kylie out of the line of fire, she might be hit.
He rounded the next corner at a sprint and came to a skidding halt.
A dozen men were dropping down from a truck, each carrying a rifle.
A shout went up, and they rushed toward Mac and Kylie.
Josh and Blade raced around the corner, running into Mac and Kylie, sending them lurching forward.
The Taliban encircled them before Mac could do anything to stop them or get away.
“We’ve been surrounded,” Mac whispered into his mic, holding up his hands as a dozen rifles pointed at Kylie, Mac, Josh and Blade. “We have no choice. Surrender or die.”
“Calling in the rest of the team,” Rucker said. “We’ll find you. Just do us a favor and stay alive until we do.”
“Roger,” Mac said without moving his lips.
At that moment, one of the men in black grabbed the radio earbud from Mac’s ear, threw it on the ground and stomped on the device. He jerked his head toward the others. The men searched Kylie, Josh and Blade, finding the earbud in Blade’s ear and destroying it in the same manner.
They frisked the four of them, removing guns, knives and ammunition from Mac and Blade. The Deltas were forced to remove their bulletproof vests, and then the
y were searched again.
When the Taliban soldiers were satisfied, they tied their wrists behind their back with zip-ties, slipped black hoods over their heads and shoved them into a van that had pulled up behind the truck the men had arrived in.
Mac hated that he’d failed to protect Kylie. He should have gotten her away from the traffic jam sooner. He should have put up a fight with the men who’d captured them.
No. He’d done the only thing he could. If he’d tried to fight the dozen or so men, he might have picked off three or four, but not all twelve. They’d have shot him dead. Once the bullets started flying, they wouldn’t stop until Mac, Blade, Josh and Kylie were dead on the ground.
Being captured alive gave them a second chance to come out of the situation alive. Mac would do everything in his power to make that happen.
Chapter 8
When they’d flung Kylie into the van, she’d hit her head on the floor. The force of the blow made her black out. It wasn’t until she heard the sound of Mac’s voice whispering to her that she came to.
“Kylie,” he said so softly, she wasn’t certain if she was hearing him or dreaming that they were alone together in the darkness of the hotel room, about to make love again.
A jolt woke her the rest of the way, reminding her she was lying on cool, hard metal, not a soft mattress. And the darkness had nothing to do with night, but the bag they’d draped over her head.
“Mac?” she responded softly.
“Are you okay?”
“I think so,” she said, moving her legs. She tried to move her arms, but a hard strand of plastic around her wrists kept them motionless.
“Josh?” she whispered.
“I’m okay,” he responded from somewhere behind her.
“Blade?” she asked.
“Here,” he said.
A voice shouted in Pashto, and someone popped Kylie in the side of the head.
She grunted and lay still.
“Bastard,” Mac said and moved beside her, as if trying to rise up.
The crack of plastic on something hard sounded, and Mac dropped to the hard floor of the van and lay still.
Kylie’s heart leaped into her throat. “Mac?”
Again, a man shouted in Pashto. Expecting to be slapped again, Kylie hunkered down. Instead of a hand, something hard and plastic slammed into her head.
Pain shot through her temple, and she blacked out.
How long she was unconscious, Kylie didn’t know. A rush of cool air revived her, and she realized the van was no longer moving.
Hands reached out to grab her arm. She was dragged from the van by two men, one on either side. They barely let her get her feet beneath her before they marched her across uneven ground.
The creak of door hinges sounded. The two men on either side of her shoved her hard, sending her flying forward. She landed on her knees on a dirt floor, the forward momentum taking her the rest of the way down. With her hands tied behind her back, she had no way to slow her fall. Kylie landed on her face, the jolt making her head swim from the pain.
The creaking of hinges sounded again, and then silence reigned.
“Mac?” she called out, her voice the only thing she could hear. “Mac?” Panic rose up her throat, threatening to choke her. “Josh, Blade?”
She couldn’t see, couldn’t move, and now, she didn’t know where the others had been taken, or if they were still alive. Where they hell was she? How was she going to escape?
For a moment, fear and hopelessness threatened to overwhelm her. Kylie had been in some bad situations, but nothing like this.
With her hands restrained and her vision blocked, she couldn’t see her way out, physically or figuratively. Her breathing became ragged as she almost hyperventilated.
What was she going to do? How could she help herself? How could she help Mac and the others? This couldn’t be the end for them. It just couldn’t.
Now was not the time to lose her shit. Forcing back the wave of panic, she rolled onto her side.
“Breathe,” she said to herself. “Just breathe.”
For several seconds, she drew in breaths and let them out slowly, bringing her heartrate under control. As she calmed, her head cleared, and she struggled to a sitting position.
First things first. She had to get out of the sack covering her head and the ties binding her wrists.
Once she was seated in an upright position, she scooted across the dirt floor, searching for a wall, a chair, anything she could lean against. Within seconds she bumped into a wall.
The rough bricks helped to snag the fabric of her hood, allowing her to scrape it from her head. Once she was free of its mustiness, she sucked in deep breaths and cursed a darkness so complete, she couldn’t make out anything. Not a door, window or anything else in the room.
Turning her back to the wall, she scraped the zip-tie across the roughness of a brick. She took off a layer of skin before the plastic tie finally broke, freeing her wrists.
Pushing to her feet, Kylie rubbed at the rawness of her wrists before laying her hands on the wall. Inch by inch, she felt her way around the small room that had a dirt floor and brick walls. The door she’d entered through was the only opening. When she reached up, she could touch the low ceiling. Besides the walls, ceiling and dirt floor there was nothing else in the small room.
If she wanted out, she’d have to leave through the door.
Kylie felt the door for a handle, knob or latch, finding none. When she pushed on it, the door held firm. With nothing to pry it loose, no handle to pull, no lock to pick, she would have to dig her way out of her cell with her bare hands.
Despair hit her square in the gut. What was hardest to accept was that she could do nothing to help Mac, Blade or Josh. Had they been delivered to similar cells?
“Mac,” Kylie called out softly and strained to hear his response.
When none came, she tried again. “Mac?” Her voice shook in the silence.
Nothing. Not a single sound.
“Blade? Josh?” she called out, raising her voice a little. No one responded.
“Anyone?” she cried, leaning her forehead against the rough wood door. She’d come to rely on the Deltas to keep her safe. Now, they were in as dire a situation as she was. They might not be around to help her out of this. Which meant she had to figure out some way of extricating herself so she could help them.
Kylie straightened, squared her shoulders and ran her fingers along the edges of the rough-hewn, wooden door, searching for a way to open it. Perhaps she could remove the hinges. Her search revealed that the hinges weren’t on her side of the door, nor was the handle. The only way she was getting through that door was if someone opened it from the other side.
Fine. She ran her fingers up the rough wall, bumping into a low ceiling. Maybe she could force her way through the roofing material. She pushed on what felt like material similar to the walls. Scratching at it with her fingernails, she tested the hardness.
The roof and walls weren’t going anywhere without a knife, pick or jackhammer. Which left the dirt floor.
Kylie dropped to the floor and dug at the dirt with her hands. It, too, was hardpacked and difficult to move. But it was easier scraping away the dirt than it was to break up the bricks in the walls.
With nothing else to do with her time and the safety of the Deltas on her mind, she dug, inch by inch, breaking her nails and rubbing her fingers raw in the process. At one point, she stood and kicked at the dirt with the heel of her boot, working it loose so that she could move it away with her hands. After what felt like an hour, she’d created a shallow depression in the far corner of her cell. At the rate she was working, she might dig a hole big enough to fit through by the time she turned forty.
She hoped and prayed the guys were having more luck getting free.
A couple hours later, she sat with her back to a wall, her hands aching and hope diminishing with every breath she took. There had to be another way.
Foo
tsteps and voices sounded outside the door.
Kylie sprang to her feet and raced to the door. She pulled off one of her boots and held it in her hands ready to use it as a weapon as soon as the door opened.
Mac, didn’t come to until he was dropped onto a hard dirt floor. The jolt brought him back to consciousness with a vengeance. He jerked away and fought to get his feet beneath him.
Someone kicked him in his side. Pain shot through him, making him even angrier at himself and the men targeting them. If his hands were free, he’d take the bastard down and choke the life out of him.
A hand slammed down on his head, and the hood flew off.
Mac blinked and looked up at four men holding AK-47s pointed at him, Josh and Blade. The other two men looked to him. He gave a slight nod, indicating he was okay. Blade and Josh returned the nod. A single lantern provided the only light.
He could have kicked himself for letting the Taliban get the better of him and compromising Kylie’s safety. But he didn’t have time to berate himself, he had to come up with a way out of this mess and to get to Kylie before Ahktar claimed his revenge on her.
The four men with the AK-47s moved aside to allow a man to walk between them. He wore black robes and a black turban. His thick brows and the scar near his left eye gave his identity away. This man was Ahktar, a Taliban leader Special Operations Forces had been after for months and the brother of the man Kylie had killed.
Mac twisted his hands, fighting the plastic zip-tie binding his wrists. This bastard would kill Kylie for having killed his brother. But killing her wouldn’t be the worst he could do to her. He’d make her suffer before she died. He couldn’t let any of that happen. He couldn’t fail Kylie so completely. And when they got out of this alive, he’d tell her exactly how he felt about her and that he wouldn’t let her out of his life ever again.
Kylie was his one and only love. He didn’t want to live without her. If it meant they only saw each other two weeks out of the year, he’d be happy he was with her for every second of those two weeks. If crumbs of their lives was all he got, he’d be grateful.
Ahktar crossed his arms over his chest and looked down his hawk-like nose at Mac. “Infidels You will tell me who you are and why you plague my country.”