Code of Honor (HORNET)

by Tonya Burrows

  “Jesse…” She dragged both of her hands through her hair, sighed. “I’m not yours to lose. Right? Before all this…” She waved a hand toward the hotel. “That wasn’t what tonight was supposed to be about. We agreed—” Her voice caught and she backed up another step. “I’m finally earning the team’s trust. I can’t jeopardize that.”

  “Lanie, I—” He stopped short because it was too fast, too soon, to say what he’d been about to confess. But then, why wait? Especially since there was a good chance one or both of them might not make it through the night. They’d both already had close calls. Why the hell wouldn’t he tell her what was brewing in his heart.

  He took a step forward.

  “Jesse, please don’t,” she whispered. She backed up and held up a hand as if to ward him off. To his surprise, tears welled in her eyes. “We can’t go where you want us to go.”

  “I can’t just flip a switch and turn off how I feel.” He caught her wrist and pressed her palm to his heart. “Lanie, I love—”

  His phone rang.

  Chapter Twenty

  Trinity Sands Resort

  Lobby

  The explosion rattled the windows of the lobby and made the constant, calming rush of water from fountain stutter. Briggs strode over to the window, and what he saw outside left him cold with a strange mix of fear and rage. The two men he’d sent after the woman were down, and flames danced on the beach from the remains of his team’s boat.

  “This is fucked,” Kennion muttered. The old man was sweating and glassy-eyed, but he was the steadiest of the men. That explosion had shaken all of them. “We should exfil.”

  “How?” Briggs swung out an arm, indicating the window. “That’s our fucking boat. No, we’re not leaving until we complete the mission.”

  The mere idea of failure had Briggs grinding his teeth so hard his jaw ached. He’d lost nearly three years of his life to this. He’d been put in place to watch Claire and Tiffany’s research, then take it and quiet them once it was viable. The women were still somewhere in the building—probably barricaded up on the fourth floor with the blond bastard in the Saints T-shirt—and he wasn’t letting them slip through his fingers at the eleventh hour.

  He glanced over at the three operators he had bound and gagged. HORNET. Part of Tucker Quentin’s ever-amassing army of mercenaries. Briggs was aware of Quentin’s reputation and knew the billionaire was making a lot of powerful people very nervous, but he hadn’t heard of HORNET until about twelve hours ago. He’d been undercover since before they’d burst onto the private military circuit. Since then, he’d heard the stories about HORNET’s accomplishments—dismantling drug cartels in South America, taking out some Big Bad in Afghanistan, exposing massive corruption high up in the military. Ask him, they sounded like a bunch of goody two-shoes with codes of honor and ethics and shit like that. From what he’d seen so far, they didn’t live up to the legend. After all, his guys had managed to capture three of them without much hassle and had another trapped on the fourth floor.

  Briggs was unimpressed.

  You should be, a small voice said at the back of his mind. He may have captured three of theirs, but they had killed three of his.

  Maybe Kennion was right about this. Maybe—

  No. He squelched the niggle of doubt. He’d never failed a mission and he wasn’t going to now.

  He walked over to the big man he’d been questioning before the woman interrupted. He pegged the guy as their leader. The way he was holding himself screamed “boss-man” and, Briggs realized, he’d been the wrong one to start with.

  He scanned the other two. The one with the buzz-cut hair and gray eyes looked mean as hell, like a starving caged pit bull spoiling for a fight. But the other one in the Star Wars T-shirt? He was young, skinnier, and smaller than the other two. If they were the heroes Briggs suspected, the young one would be their pressure point.

  He strode over and grabbed the kid, hauling him to his feet by his hair. Sure enough, the gray-eyed pit bull tried to lunge and got a kick to the kidney by the man standing guard over him.

  Briggs dragged the kid into the leader’s line-of-sight and pressed a gun to his temple. “You wanna start talking now?”

  Despite the weapon, the kid shook his head hard. “Gabe, don’t—”

  Briggs pistol-whipped the kid and he sagged to the floor, half conscious. Had to give credit where credit was due, though. The kid was a rail, but he had brass balls the size of an elephant’s. “Heroes. The whole lot of you.” He grabbed the slumping kid’s hair again and dragged him upright enough to return the gun to his temple. “I will shoot him. Gabe, is it?”

  Gabe’s lips twisted into a sneer, but like the good boy he was, he asked, “What do you want to know?”

  Briggs tilted his head toward the window. “The chick. She one of yours?”

  No answer but mulish silence.

  “Hey, if you don’t want to talk, I have plenty of hostages. I’ll start with the nerd here, and work my way through them all until you tell me what I need to know.”

  Another long pause. Briggs had just about decided to shoot the nerd to make his point when Gabe said through his teeth, “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “The woman is with us.”

  “How many of there are you?”

  “Ten.”

  Evenly matched then. Briggs had started with ten men, and HORNET had taken out three. But they had taken three of HORNET’s people hostage—well, four if you counted the guy barricaded upstairs. So he had seven men left and HORNET had six.

  Briggs let the nerd drop to the floor, motioned for one of his guys to take over holding the gun, and grabbed his cell phone. “I want to talk to your people on the outside. Give me a number.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Trinity Sands Resort

  Cabana 47

  The phone rang again.

  Jesse let go of Lanie’s wrist and fished the device out of his pocket. He checked the screen and didn’t recognize the number, which could be good or bad. The sudden knot in his stomach told him it was bad. His customary greeting was to answer with his last name, but this time he decided to go with a plain, “Hello.”

  “Are you with HORNET?” a male voice asked. “And think about that before you answer because if you’re not, I’m going to shoot Gabe here in the head.”

  Lanie touched his arm and he realized he wasn’t breathing. He sucked air into his lungs and met her gaze. Whatever she saw there—soul-deep fear, a consuming blaze of anger—had her eyes widening in response.

  “I’ll get help,” she mouthed and took off running toward the cabana.

  He limped as fast as he could after her. “I’m the medic.”

  “Good. Good. In my experience, medics tend to be nice guys. They like to be helpful. You want to be helpful, don’t you? You like for everyone to live.”

  He did not like where this convo was going. “Yes, I want everyone to live.” Up ahead, Lanie disappeared inside the cabana. A heartbeat later, Danny and Marcus raced out to meet him. As trained negotiators, they’d know how to handle this. Smart woman, sending them first.

  Danny made a motion indicating Jesse should put the phone on speaker. He complied just as the hostage taker asked, “What’s your name?”

  He looked to Danny, who nodded and rolled his hand, silently telling him to answer. “Jesse. And yours?”

  “You can call me Paul.”

  Marcus had a pad of hotel paper and a pen in his hand. He wrote, Keep calm. Active listening. Empathy. Rapport. Create sense of humanity. Find out demands. He underlined that last one.

  Jesse took a breath. “Okay, Paul. What can I do to be helpful?”

  “Well, let’s start with some cold, hard facts before we get to that. Fact: I have guns to the heads of three of your men right this very second. Fact: I have another of your men barricaded three floors above me. Fact: I have more manpower than you do and a hell of a lot more firepower. Fact: I have explosive booby traps
rigged throughout this building. Fact: I have about twenty civilian hostages. Fact: I will shoot one hostage every hour until you give me what I want. Starting with your friend Gabe.”

  It was like a cold fist grabbed his stomach and twisted hard.

  Danny shoved his shoulder and made bug eyes at him. He realized he’d missed whatever Paul had said.

  Wants to know he has your attention now, Marcus scrawled on the paper. Say yes.

  “Yes,” Jesse choked out.

  Paul laughed. “And we all know saving lives is what you do. It’s the code you live, eat, breathe, and shit, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Jesse said again because he wasn’t sure he was capable of squeezing a more complex sentence from his throat right now.

  “So,” Paul continued, “here’s what I want. There are two doctors somewhere at this resort. Tiffany Peters and Claire Oliver. Bring them to me, and I let everyone go. Simple as that.”

  “Everyone except for the doctors, you mean. What if we don’t know where they are?”

  Both Marcus and Danny started shaking their heads. Marcus flipped back to the first page of his notebook and underlined the word rapport.

  “Then you’re fucked,” Paul said casually. “If you’re worried I’ll hurt the women, I give you my word I won’t.”

  “Except you can kill a person without hurtin’ them.”

  “Caught that, did you? You’re smarter than that redneck accent of yours led me to believe.” Paul laughed, but then got serious. “It doesn’t matter what I do with them once I have them. All that matters is I’ll start killing people if they don’t show their faces in the next hour.”

  “Do you honestly think you’re goin’ to get away from this island with the doctors? You don’t have a boat.”

  Danny silently smacked his forehead. Marcus tossed the notebook in the air with an expression of exasperation. Jesse ignored them both. No doubt their tried and true negotiation tactics worked in the average hostage situation, but nothing about this was average. They didn’t have the time to talk Paul down or wait him out or call his bluff. When he said he was going to start killing people, Jesse believed him.

  “Yes. I believe I’m going to walk away with exactly what I want and you’re going to help. Otherwise, people you care about are going to die and you hate death, don’t you, medic? And if you think the local authorities will intervene before the deadline, you’ll be disappointed. They won’t be coming to the rescue. You may have Tucker Quentin in your corner, but we have friends in high places, too.”

  He doesn’t know this is Tuc’s hotel.

  That might be an advantage.

  On the other end of the line, Paul made a tick-tock sound. “One hour and the clock’s already ticking.”

  And he hung up.

  “Well…” Danny said on a sigh. “Fuck.”

  Jesse gave himself a second to calm down. The smugness in that bastard’s voice had sparked his temper, but he couldn’t lose control now. Not with so much on the line. He pointed toward the beach. “Get Ian. Is Seth still inside? We have less than an hour to come up with a plan of attack and put it into action.”

  “So we’re going Full Metal Jacket on their asses?” Marcus asked. “I thought we all agreed that was suicide.”

  “You have a better idea? I’m open to suggestions.”

  Marcus thought about it. “Nope. I’ll get Ian.” He clapped palms with Danny—it was a thing they always did, like a see-ya-later without words—then ran for the beach.

  Jesse pushed through the cabana’s door and found Seth offering water to one of his patients. He gazed around at the injured and swore under his breath. “We need to get these people out of here.”

  Seth looked up at him. “Something happen?”

  “Demands. And if we don’t comply within the hour, they’re going to start killing hostages, starting with Gabe.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Seth’s curse was heartfelt. “What about the local authorities?”

  “If the Tangos are to be believed, the locals are in their pocket. We’re on our own.” Jesse again assessed the room. None of his patients were immobile. They could move, and he wanted them as far away from the resort as possible. Shit had a tendency to roll downhill, after all, and if things went south on them in the next hour, he wasn’t about to hand more hostages over to the bad guys. “Does anyone here speak English?”

  The thin man with steel-gray hair and pock-scarred face he’d helped down from the terrace earlier raised a bandaged hand. “I do. What do you need?” He spoke with a faint German accent, but his English was perfect.

  Jesse walked over to him. “What’s your name?”

  “Dr. Steffan Ostermann.”

  “You were here for the virology conference?”

  He gave a huff that might have been laughter. “I wasn’t supposed to be, but my schedule cleared and I jumped on the only available flight here earlier this afternoon.”

  “Should’ve stayed home.”

  He lifted his arm, which was bandaged and immobilized in a makeshift sling. “You’re not wrong.”

  Jesse felt for the guy. To go on a trip you expected to be a work conference and end up in a hostage situation? It’d throw even the most stable man for a loop, but Dr. Ostermann seemed steady enough. Confused, angry, but steady. “The nearest hospital is seven kilometers away.” He’d mapped it before arriving on the island. Knowing his teammates like he did, it would’ve been negligent of him not to know. He swept a hand out, indicating the other patients. “Can you lead these people there?”

  “Yes,” Ostermann said without hesitation and stood. “Shall I alert the authorities when we arrive?”

  Won’t do any good, Jesse thought but replied, “Please. We need all the help we can get. Even better—alert the military.” The Tangos couldn’t possibly have the entire French military in their pockets as well as the local police. But as the thought crossed his mind, he knew that even if the French stationed on the island were inclined to help, they wouldn’t mobilize in time. It’d take Ostermann at least an hour to march his band of wounded into town.

  Ostermann nodded. “We’ll get help.”

  Jesse squeezed his shoulder in heartfelt appreciation. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  By the time the last of his patients filed out of the cabana, Lanie was huddled together with the guys, discussing their options, tactics. It struck Jesse how right she was with them. She thought she didn’t belong with the team, but she did. She’d changed out of her bikini and looked tough, strong, and capable in cargo pants and fitted T-shirt with her braids pulled back in a ponytail. And although he knew she was all of that and more, the thought of her taking part in this probable suicide mission twisted his guts. As the current team leader, he could order her to stay behind…

  And she’d accuse him of being sexist.

  But it wasn’t because she was a woman. He’d known plenty of women who could kick ass and take names, and she was top of the list. But she was also his woman and it might break him if she was harmed in any way.

  “I called Tuc again,” she said as he approached. “Gave him the update.”

  “What did he say?” he asked as he approached.

  “Pissed off is an understatement,” she answered. Yes, she was back in warrior mode, but she was still careful not to meet his gaze. “His team is still at least two hours out.”

  Bad news. They could sure use the extra manpower before that. Jesse shook his head. “And in the meantime, we’ll have lost hostages, includin’ Gabe, Quinn, and Harvard. We can’t wait for him.”

  “He knows that, and he’s getting here as fast as humanly possible. He said to be careful.”

  “Does he want us to stand down?” Seth asked. “Because that’s not happening.”

  She winced slightly. “He didn’t say it in so many words…”

  For once, Marcus wasn’t smiling. “Not a fucking chance.”

  Seth held out a hand and they bumped fists in a show of
solidarity.

  “If he’s worried about his precious hotel’s reputation—” Ian started, but Lanie cut him off, slicing her hand in the air in a gesture that shouted “enough!” It was a very Gabe way to quiet the group, and the men all shut up.

  Lanie set a hand on one cocked hip. “Tucker’s worried about y’all, not his property. He can always build another hotel, but for all his money and talents, he can’t raise the dead. He cares about his men—you knuckleheads included.” Her tone said they should all be ashamed of themselves. Surprisingly, even Ian appeared chastised when she poked a finger at his face. “I could tell he wants us to stand down, but he knows we won’t, so he didn’t even ask. Instead, he’s going to move Earth itself to find us reinforcements, and until then, he’s researching the photos I sent him so we know who the hell we’re up against.”

  Her phone chimed and she reached into the pocket of her cargo pants for it. “And speak of the devil,” she muttered after checking the screen. “Tuc just emailed me.” She was silent a moment, reading whatever he’d sent, then passed the phone to Jesse.

  “The man we’re dealing with, the one in charge, is Jerome Briggs,” Lanie summarized for the others as he scanned the rest of the email.

  “If this is the guy I spoke to, he told me to call him Paul.” On screen was a slightly grainy, cropped and zoomed-in photo showing an average-Joe kind of man with a serious black eye. Next to it, another photo of the same man. Except in this one, he had no gray in his dark hair and no black eye. And he looked as mean as a rattler.

  “Paul? Really?” She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe you didn’t speak to this guy?”

  “I don’t know, Lanie. I got the feelin’ I spoke to the one callin’ the shots.”

  “Then it was him. I snapped this photo before he realized I was there, and Briggs was definitely in charge. But why call himself Paul?”

  “So we can’t identify him later?” Danny suggested.

  “Except Gabe, Quinn, Harvard, and the rest of the hostages have all seen his face,” Seth pointed out. “That indicates to me he doesn’t plan to let anyone live.”