Edge of Reason (EDGE Security Series Book 2)

by Loye, Trish

  The hiss and snowy crackle of a radio sounded loud even over the water. A man’s voice shouted into the radio, while the other laughed. Rhys had no idea what was going on since they spoke Hausa and he had only the bare minimum of the language. The light from the flashlight still waved around.

  Cat shifted her hands on the crossbeam she held. His shoulders burned, so he knew hers must, too. They needed to get across this river before they dropped into it. The waters were deep, the current fast, and if they weren’t dragged down by their equipment, then they’d be pounded by the rocks.

  It was time to do something. He shifted a hand to his rifle. Almost as if she sensed what he was doing, Cat turned her head to him and shook it.

  Fine. He’d wait, but he wasn’t going to let either of them drop into the river.

  A full minute later, the light and the radio shut off. Cat waited another thirty seconds before moving. They quickly made it across from there, leaping to the ground and landing on the river’s muddy edge silently. He unslung his rifle and aimed it upward, through the cracks between the boards to the two soldiers above. The acrid smoke from the guards’ cigarettes had a sweetness to it, probably from some kind of drug mixed into the tobacco.

  They murmured in Hausa to each other, the one’s hands waving with whatever story he told. Rhys had never learned the multitude of African languages—most of his were either European or Middle Eastern. A quick glance showed Marc and Zach almost across.

  Cat nodded at him when the rest of the team landed beside them. In a crouch, he crept along the riverbank away from the bridge. At twenty yards, he crawled up the bank and slid into the stunted trees. He aimed his rifle back toward the sentries, while keeping an eye on the others.

  Cat came next. Her movements held the grace of a stalking predator. From there, the rest of the trek to the militant’s base was a cakewalk. They ran the ten miles through the sparse woods, sipping water from their CamelBaks to stay hydrated, and detouring around sentries easily seen with their NVGs.

  Once they arrived, Cat signaled Zach and Marc to do a quick outer perimeter recon of one side of the encampment while he and Cat did the other.

  The encampment looked more like an occupied village, with its thatched roof huts scattered around five main concrete buildings. One dirt road ran through it. The acrid scent of urine and feces announced the location of the latrines on the west side of the encampment. Not far from that were three flatbed trucks, four pickups, and three jeeps. They crept around the vehicles, using them for cover.

  Shouts and laughter came from one lit-up building not far from the vehicles. Sounded like a party of some sort. A gunshot cracked the night, but only laughter followed it so they kept moving.

  They’d circled the entire camp and met up with Marc and Zach on the far side before they pulled back into the dark shadows of the trees.

  “Any sign of the doctor?” Cat asked.

  “Negative,” Marc said.

  Rhys pursed his lips. “Let’s hope he’s not at the party in that west building.”

  It was 0300 local time. Cat scanned the encampment before her, considering the options. She nodded to herself. “Okay. Lucky and I will take the south end. Doc and Spooky, you’ve got the other end. You see the doctor, then you hit the comm link twice. Let’s find him fast and get the hell out of this shithole.”

  Tension thrummed through her. Something about this place made her back itch, like something bad was waiting to happen. She lifted her chin. She didn’t have time to figure out what bothered her. They had to find that doctor or they had to find hidey holes to watch the encampment for the day. And she had no desire to watch these ignorant idiots play soldier all day.

  She motioned to Rhys and they went back the way they’d come, moving closer to the buildings now. There were three in her area of operation. She and Rhys moved up to the first one. It was dark and quiet. She led the way to the doorway.

  No door, just darkness beyond. Rhys tapped her shoulder, signaling he was ready for entry. She swooped inside, covering the right side. He came in a second behind her, his rifle up and pointed toward the left.

  “Clear,” Cat whispered. Rhys replied the same back.

  Two doors led from the large room, empty except for a desk and a table with papers spread over it. Cat glanced at them as she went to the first door. Maps. She twisted the doorknob.

  “Locked,” she whispered.

  Rhys tried the other one and shook his head. He came to her. “I got this,” he whispered, and knelt. She kept her rifle trained back the way they’d come while he picked the lock. Outside, someone stumbled toward the building. She slung her rifle and pulled her knife, moving to the side of the door. Rhys never looked up, just concentrated on his task, leaving her to deal with any situation that might arise.

  She waited, breathing slow as she focused her mind on her moves. If whoever it was came inside, she would grab them and stab them in the throat—a brutal but effective way to silence any scream.

  The footsteps stopped and heavy breathing sounded. A zipper pulled down, loud in the night, and clothing shifted and rustled. Liquid splashed on the ground outside the door. The man was taking a piss.

  She waited, muscles tense. Rhys had turned to her, still in a crouch by the door he’d unlocked. She met his calm eyes. They were riding a time limit, but this was only a minor delay.

  Outside, the man mumbled something, zipped up, and stumbled on. She slid her knife away and unslung her rifle. She nodded at Rhys.

  The first room held shelving with video equipment, files, and some desks with archaic computers. “Should we look for intel?” he asked.

  “Negative,” Cat said. “The doctor takes priority.”

  Rhys unlocked the second door and a stench wafted out of the pitch-black interior. Cat’s NVGs helped her see the man lying prone facing the wall, his hands and feet bound with rope. She passed shelves filled with ammo and weapons. Kidnapping and ransoming must be lucrative for the group.

  She knelt by the man on the floor and turned him to face her. Dark skin and a torn Nigerian Army uniform. Not the doctor. The man’s eyes remained closed and his breathing shallow and rapid. Unconscious.

  “He’s not our guy,” she whispered, standing up and turning away. Her gut clenched. She was leaving this man to face probable torture and death, but if they wanted to get the doctor out then they had to be ghosts. They couldn’t help this man.

  “Next building,” she said.

  The party in the main building seemed to be dying off. They crept past it to the dark cement building closest to the vehicles. Three large fire pits were in front. After listening for a few moments to the silence inside, they opened the door and slipped inside.

  “Kitchen,” Rhys said.

  “And food storage,” she said. Her hand trailed over the rough burlap sacks of grain piled in the corner. “Still doesn’t seem like quite enough to feed two hundred men.” She refused to call them soldiers.

  “Maybe ransoming people isn’t as profitable as it seems,” Rhys said.

  “Maybe they’re not getting ransom because they keep beheading people.” She glanced out the door. Clear. “Let’s go check that main building.”

  “Roger that.”

  A few men patrolled the perimeter of the encampment, but they looked outwards. Cat and Rhys eased along the side of the rectangular building to one open window that spilled light onto the ground.

  Laughter and slurred words in the Hausa language could be heard, along with grunting and rhythmic squeaking. The skin along the back of her neck tightened. She wasn’t going to like what she found. They inched closer. She now heard the men inside encouraging one of their own to go faster—they wanted a turn.

  It was the small whimper that sharpened her focus. The same focus she had before every firefight. She quick-peeked inside and signaled to Rhys, fighting the bile that rose in her.

  Eight men, she hand-signaled. Two girls.

  She didn’t need to tell him what the gir
ls were doing there. And girls they were. Not women. They couldn’t have been much into their teen years. She pushed her anger down.

  The doctor wasn’t in that room. They moved past to the next window.

  It was shuttered closed and padlocked on the outside. Her heart leapt. Someone obviously wanted to keep the occupants inside from getting out. She signaled and Rhys brought out his tools again. Within moments he had the lock off and was easing the one shutter open a crack to peer inside.

  He stepped back, his lips compressed, and shook his head.

  Damn. Where the hell was their doctor? She stepped forward to peer inside when Rhys grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t,” he whispered so quietly she could barely hear him. What was inside that would make him say that?

  She swallowed against the rising premonition of what might be waiting in that room. “You know I have to,” she said, just as quietly.

  When she saw who lay inside, she had to force herself to remain still and not make a sound, though she wanted to cry out against the tragedy. About twenty girls lay inside, huddled against each other, most teenagers. Some whimpered or cried in their sleep. Bruises and cuts marred their skin. One young one near the door, who looked about thirteen, was obviously pregnant.

  These were some of the Nigerian schoolgirls taken from their families so many months ago.

  Her comm link clicked twice.

  She stepped back from the window to answer. “Go ahead, over.”

  “Valkyrie,” Marc’s voice said in her ear. “We located the target, but there’s a problem and you’re not going to like it.”

  “Define problem.”

  “Just get here ASAP.”

  Fuck. “Copy that. En route to your location.”

  She swallowed hard and closed the shutter on the girls’ room. She couldn’t make herself relock it.

  This wasn’t over, she promised herself.

  They took off running silently through the encampment. Zach stepped out from the shadows of a small building and waved them over. Inside, a small lantern with its wick set low showed Marc leaning against a large table in the center of the room, watching the man they’d come for.

  The doctor was about her age, wiry, with wild dark hair. One of the lenses in his glasses was cracked. He sat on a rumpled pallet in a corner of the room. Boxes of bandages and medical supplies stood against the wall near him.

  “They’ve got you treating people?” Cat said.

  The doctor startled. “You’re a woman! Thank god,” he said. “You’ll understand why I can’t go.”

  “Can’t go?” she asked. She looked to Marc.

  He rolled his eyes. “The problem I mentioned.”

  The doctor stood up. “They’ve got schoolgirls here. It’s horrific. You’ve got to rescue them, too. We can’t leave them here.”

  “Is that true?” Zach asked, coming inside. “Are those girls here?”

  She nodded. “There’s about twenty of them in the main building.”

  “Can they travel?” Zach asked.

  “Not all,” Cat said, thinking of the pregnant girl.

  “We can carry them,” Zach said.

  “We don’t have the manpower,” Marc said, “to carry them or to get that many out.”

  Zach shook his head. “The doctor’s right. We can’t leave little girls here.”

  “We’ll get us and them killed trying to rescue them,” Marc countered. “We have no medevac for them. We need more manpower.”

  “Enough,” Cat said. It was her decision. She looked at Rhys. His brown eyes held pity for the decision that was hers to make.

  She swallowed bile. “Marc’s right, Doc, and you know it,” she told Zach.

  “Marc is a coldhearted bastard.” He shook his head. “Fuck. Don’t do this, Cat,” he whispered. “It’s not right.”

  She knew that better than him after what she’d seen earlier. It wasn’t right to leave them behind, but she knew there was no choice. If she had some quality explosives or more men, then she would be able to think of a plan. But as it was, the four of them trying to protect twenty girls while outrunning two hundred armed men was a true suicide mission. It wasn’t just her team’s lives she had to consider—it was also the girls’.

  Zach opened his mouth to say more, but she held up her hand to stop him. “We can’t get them out. We don’t have the manpower and we don’t have an exfil strategy for them.” She pushed past the urge to vomit at the thought of what she was consigning those girls to. “We’ll come back,” she said softly to him. “We’ll get more men and a decent plan. We won’t forget them.”

  Zach’s eyes narrowed as if he didn’t trust her words. That hurt, but she knew he was right. Who was she to say that their superiors would even let them return? Her lips firmed. They had to let her come back. They wouldn’t be able to turn their backs on those girls.

  Like she was doing.

  Dr. Hutchins crossed his arms. “I’m not leaving without them.”

  Anger flared hot and bright, finding an outlet for her suppressed frustration and rage. “You are going to do exactly what I say, when I say, or I’ll shoot you myself.”

  “You’re worse than a man,” he said. “I can’t believe you don’t care what those girls are going through.”

  She turned away, knowing it was futile to get in an argument with him. “Gather whatever you might want. We’re leaving.”

  She blew out the lantern before stalking outside to wait in the hellish dark of the night, wondering for a moment if she was as bad a monster as the men who’d kidnapped those girls.

  CHAPTER 12

  Rhys wanted to punch something. He knew they all felt it—the anger of doing what was right for the mission and yet morally wrong for their consciences. Leaving those girls behind dug in his gut and stained his soul.

  The trek back to the bridge was slower with Dr. Hutchins in tow. He was fit, just half-starved and indignant about leaving the girls behind.

  “You’ll come back for them, right?” His stage whisper seemed to echo through the trees.

  Cat’s fingers flickered, but she didn’t look back from where she led the way. She wanted the doctor shut up or killed if Rhys read her signals right. It almost made him smile. Almost.

  “No talking,” Rhys said. “Not if you want to get out of here alive.”

  The doctor stopped walking. “Seriously. Will you go back?”

  Rhys grit his teeth. All of them wanted to go back–that wasn’t the question. You’d have to be beyond heartless to not want to save those girls. “It’s not our decision,” he said.

  The doctor opened his mouth, so Rhys shoved him forward before he could speak. “No more talking.”

  They made it back to the bridge about an hour before dawn. He hunkered down beside Cat where she crouched behind a tree watching the lone sentry on the bridge.

  He pointed at the sentry and then himself. Her lips firmed like she wanted to argue, but Rhys wasn’t going to let her. She had enough on her shoulders with the weight of the decision she’d had to make back at the encampment. He pointed at himself again. She gave a sharp nod.

  He stood and crept toward the sentry. There was no sign of the guy’s partner. Maybe he’d left. It didn’t matter—they no longer cared if the sentry missed any check-ins, so Rhys would take care of him permanently.

  The guard never saw his death coming. Rhys slipped up to him from behind, got him in a chokehold, and held on until the man went limp. Then he held on for longer, until he knew the man was dead. He felt no remorse. This man had probably raped those girls on multiple occasions and killed little boys just because they were a different religion. He was Boko Haram, after all. Rhys threw the man’s body from the bridge and into the river.

  The team jogged up, passing him silently. Dr. Hutchins stared at him, his mouth open. Rhys just motioned him along, wanting this mission over with.

  After crossing the bridge, Cat radioed in. “Alpha Charlie this is Bravo Zero, over.”

&n
bsp; After a moment she spoke quietly. “Five minutes to exfil, gentlemen. Let’s hustle. I don’t want to miss our ride.”

  They jogged through the stunted trees on this side of the river. Rhys kept his hand on the doctor’s arm, steering him clear of obstacles since the man didn’t have NVGs, and helping him keep up with the others. His wheezing breath interspersed with whimpers made him sound like a wounded dog trying to keep up with its owners.

  Rhys couldn’t seem to muster any sympathy for him, just kept dragging him along, taking more and more of the guy’s weight as they went. They stayed in the trees when they hit the clearing, waiting for the bird that would take them back to base.

  No one spoke. Usually he’d be cracking jokes at this point in the mission, but nothing struck him as funny. The thumping of the helicopter blades didn’t bring the relief it usually did.

  He probably just needed sleep. He turned his back to the incoming bird and looked back the way they’d come. No movement, but he didn’t let up on his vigilance until Cat tapped him on the shoulder.

  The bird had landed—a UH-60 Black Hawk. The nearest gunner waved to them before going back to scanning the trees with his M134 Minigun.

  Marc and Zach took off with the doctor between them. Rhys and Cat followed. Once onboard, they buckled in for the flight back. Again no one spoke. The young doctor lay his head on his knees. By the way his shoulders shook, Rhys knew he cried.

  He looked away, forcing his own emotions down. They’d accomplished their mission with no loss of life, and yet it felt like they’d failed. Cat sat across from him, her gaze on her hands as she alternated between stretching the fingers out and clenching them into fists.

  He turned from her and gazed out into the dark sky, searching for stars. Even with his NVGs, hardly any still glittered in the predawn light.

  Cat left the crying Dr. Hutchins in Zach’s capable hands. He’d see to him medically, and she wouldn’t have to listen to the man complain about her decision to leave those girls behind. Her mind was already replaying the vision of what she’d seen in that room. Those eight men and the two girls.