by Rie Warren
Looked at her like his life was tied to hers.
Shouted for her to come back. To come back for him as he pounded her chest . . . I’d nearly lost my grip on the steering wheel, Majedah sandwiched between us, and Storm and Bane stationed on the back of the vehicle with rifles in hand.
A love like that I’d never witnessed, never had. Once . . . fleetingly, I’d wanted . . . I’d lost . . .
In that small room in the airtight warehouse, Bane had brought Jade back from the brink, snarling fiercely, touching her with only as much force as he needed to.
“If you don’t wake up, woman, I’ll have to listen to Walker raining abuse on me for the rest of my days.” He’d hit her with another round of epi. “I can’t keep you alive if you don’t fight. And I know damn well you’re a fighter, because you made my life a bitch today.
“What’s her tox screen?” Bane had glanced back, teeth bared, hunkered over Jade as if he could keep the Grim Reaper at bay.
I’d read the printout. It wasn’t pretty. She’d been maxed out on a cocktail of opioids. No wonder her heart refused to beat, her lungs to fill, her eyelids to open.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Bane had vaulted onto the gurney, pressing both hands over her chest. “Paddles!”
He’d laid them on her bare chest, and I’d watched the current of electricity shock through her body down to her toes.
Asystole!
There’d been a massive bang outside. The cavernous room beyond our little slapdash field hospital filled with raised, unrecognizable voices.
Danger was close at hand.
Jade was still dead on the table.
The solid beep of the alarm shot like an arrow through my spine.
“You either pump her chest or guard that door because there is no fucking way on this earth I’m telling Walker Jade is dead.” Bane popped off the stretcher and filled another needle.
“She’ll stroke out if you shoot her up with too much more.” My hands, folded one on top of the other, massaged her stilled heart beneath the wall of muscle and bone.
He spit off the needle cap. “Think I don’t know that?”
Bane had pushed the epinephrine, looking for a blip on the monitor that flatlined.
“Walker is waiting for you. GODDAMN YOU! WAKE UP, JADE!”
My stomach clenched like a balled fist as I counted the seconds, watching the door, watching Jade’s monitor for any action.
A sudden huge gasp filled the room, filled her chest.
Bane bowed his head to hers for a moment, his eyes shut. “Thank you. Thank you.”
The commotion outside eclipsed her reawakening, and Bane pounded to the door, opened it for a quick scan then closed it with a hard hit from his shoulder.
“There’s a team here. Your team from the Ministry, Jade.”
Red-rimmed eyes met his, and her fingers fluttered to her chest where her heart had just started beating again.
The shouts outside escalated.
I helped her sit up, aiding the woman who had probably never been weak one single day of her life.
“Walker?” she’d gasped.
“He’s holding them off.” Bane stomped forward, his fierce scowl slowly dissolving as he checked her vitals.
“He doesn’t want to let you go.” I’d gripped her hands that searched . . . searched for something I couldn’t give.
“I . . . I need to go with them.” She sank down. “Better for him.”
“Fucking doubt that,” Bane had gritted out.
In the end, Walker had no choice but to let her go. After that night, raw pain had consumed him like a wound festering from the inside out. No one could talk to him. He never joked around anymore.
He hadn’t come back to life until Jade had returned.
The two of them had been through ten thousand kinds of hell, and that was exactly why I was never falling in love again.
I glanced at Bane, wondering if he’d ever been tortured because of love.
With his hard features and gruff demeanor I somehow doubted it.
It was best for all of us to stay unattached.
Yeah, Bane was a good one to have on the team.
Didn’t hurt he was an ace shot, too.
I moved into the seat next to him, and we hunched over the iPad I’d jacked up until Apple wouldn’t even recognize it anymore. Watching the footage of the embassy siege several times, the two of us tried to calculate a plan that wouldn’t get us killed on the way in or the ambassador and his daughter slaughtered on the way out.
Simple infiltrate and retrieve, Blaize had said.
Riiiight.
Sana’a, Yemen, was a straight-up hellhole. Unrest had reached epic proportions, anti-American sentiments sky high, culminating in the attack on the United States embassy. If it wasn’t al-Qaeda instigating rebel strife, it was the Houthi Shia seeking a toehold. For years, bloody turmoil and terrorist cells had overrun the country’s government and the operations of international bodies.
The embassy had been stripped down to a skeleton crew. The official building and the residence both situated inside the same compound were blocked off from the surrounding area by high walls and a supposedly impenetrable gate—a gate that had been breached on more than one occasion. The place was basically a military bunker inside enemy territory.
Lawless should never have brought his daughter there.
How the pair of them had gotten trapped inside the residence without any support staff or security forces quickly became evident. For the first few minutes—proceeding and during the bombardment—we had full footage of the interior and exterior of the embassy buildings and compound.
When the first missile rocked the exterior, blasting into the barricade wall, the security team had rushed from the embassy and scattered to cover the grounds.
Breach of protocol if ever I saw one.
Someone should’ve stayed with Lawless. Two someones at least. Four or five would’ve been better. But . . . fucking skeleton crew . . . and maybe they’d gotten their orders mixed up.
The emergence of the American security team signaled the onslaught of a second wave. Black-clad figures clambered over the wall. A sophisticated military transport vehicle carrying a car bomb exploded at the main gate. Grenades shot into the compound detonated with clouds of gray smoke and bright flashes of fire. Bodies went flying from their sentinel outposts. The sharp report of gun blasts rat-a-tat-tatted. By the time it was over the entire American force had been swiftly taken out.
All except one man, who was either fearless or had a really big death wish. Somehow Ambassador Lawless made it across the consulate grounds to the residence where the footage picked up inside.
No other friendlies left on the premises, he’d performed a quick, computer-activated lockdown.
The last frame of the video showed one woman arguing—without the benefit of audio—with Ambassador Lawless. Had to be his daughter Matilda although on screen she was just a smudgy figure with her back to the camera.
Following the 2008 attacks, all of the structures in the complex had been reinforced with built-in safe rooms. And that was the only reason we could even begin to hope the ambassador and his daughter were still alive. They’d been sequestered in the far left corner of the building within the high-level, attack-resistant bunker meant to keep them safe from peril. Occupying the space of six rooms out of the dozens more now shut off, they sought to outwait or outwit the invaders.
But who knew how long they could hold out in there? Any and all attempts by sympathetic forces had been staunchly met with firepower and resistance. And it was safe to say the PSO—Yemeni internal law enforcement—had its own corrupt agenda.
The rebels were not backing down. They wanted hostages or more dead Americans, and they had them, whether they were in hand or not.
Over the intervening hours, more offensives had whittled down the building’s structure until it resembled a burned out husk. Each blitz aimed at flushing Lawless out.
We couldn’t go in through the roof—what was left of it bristled like black spikes with rifle-toting terrorists.
The front door?
Fuck.
There was no front door anymore.
“That only leaves one other option.” I decided, clicking off the tablet and stowing it away.
Chapter Four
Sana’a, Yemen
THE INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT—commonly known as verbal abuse—arrived when Walker left his copilot’s seat, less green around the gills than usual. He took the sway of the bird in stride, like a sailor walking the swells of a mighty deck.
He rubbed his hands together. “Pretty boy figured shit out for us yet?”
I knew what this was. One last moment of levity before we went postal down below.
My first time in charge of a mission.
Testing grounds.
Everyone counting on me, the pretty boy.
Well, I wasn’t that pretty—inside or out—no matter what they thought.
Bane made no comment, pretending to be asleep.
“Hey. Wake up, Mr. Clean.” Walker kicked his boot, and Bane snarled in his direction. “You hear me, soldier?”
Lifting a lazy middle finger, Bane flipped him off. “I ain’t no soldier.”
“And I ain’t no pretty boy, but I do have a plan.”
“Don’t believe him,” Bane muttered. “He was just whining about shit like can’t go over it, can’t go under it . . .”
I groaned, my head in my hands.
Walker whacked me on the back. “Can’t you just hack into the controls of that fancy safe room set-up? Get us inside the cyber ops way?”
Slanting down in my seat, I raised my chin. “”Course I could. Child’s play. But we’d still need to get close to the compound undetected. And I think I figured it out, but it’s not gonna be a joyride.”
Unperturbed, Walker plunked down. “Great. If the plan’s fucking up the enemy, inside and out, I’m all for that. Brought a new toy too.”
“What’s that?” I hooked an eyebrow in his direction. “A dildo?”
Bane choked on a laugh, but Walker?
Walker’s face lit with a tinge of pink beneath his darker skin.
Interesting.
Couldn’t recall him ever blushing before.
I’d have to remember to use that info for later.
Walker cleared his throat. “Not a dildo, fuckhead. My new M183 demolition blocks. Satchel charges,” he said. “Gives me a boner for bombs. Dying to try them out.”
“Dying being the keyword. You’re such a geardo.” I folded my hands over my belly and lengthened my legs in front of me.
He stomped on my booted foot. “What’s the plan, schmuck?”
“I think I’ll wait until we land. No sense going over it without Storm here.”
Bane growled something insulting about Storm I chose to ignore.
“Think you can keep it in your pants this time?” Walker shoved my foot away from his.
“Why don’t we talk about that dildo, dude?”
Walker’s face blazed up a second time.
I chuckled, leaning my head back. “Oh yeah. That’s right. You said dynamite was your new toy of the month.”
“I’m gonna put a stick of dynamite up your ass if you don’t watch it.”
“Watch my ass, Walker? Have you been?” I smirked.
“Hardly, Yoda.” He cut a glare at me, the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Speaking of assets. You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’ve never fucked an asset before.” I punched forward, my hands hanging between my knees.
“Probably fucked an ass or two though,” Bane cut in.
Chuckle chuckle.
“A tight hot ass is just as good as a warm wet pussy. Right, Walker?” I winked at the man.
“Nothing wrong with a piece of tail.” He patted the braid down his back. “But it ain’t my tail getting had.”
I had no further comment. I’d seen Jade in action in the field. It was a pretty sure bet she was a wild thing in the sack.
Leaning forward, I bumped Walker’s fist.
****
Hours later we’d touched down at Al Anad airstrip.
I’d run through the plan not once, not twice, but three times because Storm glared with wicked eyes at Bane, Bane popped his knuckles and scowled, and Walker? Walker looked way too gung ho about the possibility of getting his explosives on.
Just getting from the outpost in Lahj Province to Sana’a had been less than party time. But true to her word, Blaize had transport in place every step of the way.
Now we were in the bombshelled city, and all bets were off. We were on our own, and I was mission leader.
We soundlessly glided through the dark streets, hoofing it on foot through the route I’d mapped earlier. A vehicle had been placed at our ready for escape, but the entry had to be quick, quiet, and unforeseen.
Care of the siege and ongoing warfare, a curfew was in affect for Sana’a’s citizens, and all except the terrorists and patrolling forces were holed up inside.
“Got a bad feeling this whole place is crawling with unfriendlies,” Storm mumbled.
“Thanks for the heads-up, sunshine,” I hissed at him.
Dressed head to toe in black, our faces painted, too, we stuck to the shadows. I signaled with my fist in the air as a patrol unit from the militant PSO cut too close to our path.
Storm, Bane, and Walker at the rear, dropped to a crouch. A pebble rolled into a ditch, and suddenly four guns locked on our positions, beaming bright blue-white lights in our faces.
Officers in Yemen’s Political Security Organization were a major threat. They had no love for Americans. If they sounded the alarm, other units would converge on us.
I didn’t even need to give the kill order.
As a group we rushed forward. We couldn’t let them get shots off.
Walker took one down to the pavement.
I unleashed blows on another, throwing his sidearm across the road.
Bane leaped onto one of the PSO’s backs like a monkey and snapped his neck with snake-like precision.
Storm exploded with silent fury, bashing his opponent’s skull to the ground.
I took a blow to the face before unsheathing my blade and slicing it across the neck of the man beneath me. Blood washed over my hands, slicking my fingers in red-hot crimson. Glancing over at Walker as my prey gurgled out bloody bubbles, I saw him stab and twist his blade, but another officer appeared out of the gloomy night, intent on Walker.
It took me two seconds to flip a shuriken into my hand. The throwing star with the saw-sharp talons sheared through the air.
Walker recognized the whistle of the weapon, ducked out of the way, and reached up in time to crank the head of the fresh assailant as soon as he swayed on his feet, blood gushing from the shuriken’s path across his chest.
Death toll: five.
We didn’t stop to take a breath or slap backs. Hurrying to clear the street of our clean kills, we carried the bodies into a bleak black building Storm forcefully shouldered into.
“Well, this isn’t going according to plan,” he said.
I looked up from digging through their weapons and walkies. “Don’t think we’ve ever done anything according to plan.”
“Truth.”
Most of their gear was shit. I passed out the walkie-talkies though, and we all lowered the volume to zilch, pocketing them along with the guns and extra ammo.
Using bottled water and scraps of cloth, we quickly wiped off the stains of killing. Just another day in the motherfucking life.
My pulse hadn’t even started to pound during the fight.
Storm eased the door closed after we exited, and padlocked it from his personal treasure trove.
We encountered no further resistance along the way, but I kept a steady eye peeled in all directions. We snaked through the city, only occasionally hunkering into alleys to avoid the lights of the vigilant PSO and the
rowdy roundup calls of Houthi rebels.
Sherping our packs, locked and loaded and ready, we stopped exactly two blocks away from the embassy compound.
Bane pried a round galvanized cap from the surface of the road. He hefted it aside and waited, his flashlight lighting only to shine down below in a cursory inspection.
Nodding once, he motioned us forward.
We dropped silently into the sewer network, its dank dark recesses and stench rankling my nose, the ankle-high murky water muffling our tread.
The light from above blanked completely out when Bane housed the sewer cap back into its rounded-out space. He splashed with a small shiver of water behind us.
No light.
No fresh air.
Almost a tomb.
Rats scurried—snicks of claws on concrete were impossible to ignore.
The tunnel was tight, one large man abreast if that. I curved my fingers to follow the hollowed out walls, taking lead and talking in a hushed tone once I turned on my coms unit.
“Half a klick ahead we should reach the basement. Keep it nut to butt.”
Water slurried around our feet and slushed forward. Above us, it sounded like heavy artillery moved in. The ceiling—the bottom of the road—rumbled. Silt and cement rained from up top. All was black in front of me.
All I could think about was this Matilda Lawless. I’d only seen a ghost of her image on screen. Her name made her seem old, but maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she hadn’t even gone to her first high school dance, had her first kiss.
But she’d adamantly—stubbornly—stayed put with her dad.
I’d never failed a mission.
I wouldn’t fail her.
“I ever tell you how much I hate tunnels?” Storm sloshed behind me.
“I’m feeling claustrophobic.” Walker tunneled closer.
I turned my head briefly. “Remember that one time in—”
“Lahore,” Bane added, bringing up the rear.
“Thought that was Libya that time.”
“And don’t mention Cuba.”
“Or Kazakhstan.”
“The Icky-stans,” Walker added.
Muffled laughs over the coms.
Laughs that ebbed one-by-one as we heard it.
A scream that overtook our voices.