SEAL Under Siege (Men of Valor)

by Johnson, Liz

  Her feet slipped on wet fall leaves. She hit the tracks and pitched forward, falling onto her hands and knees. Billy was slithering down the hill behind her. Katie gasped for breath, stumbled to her feet and forced herself to sprint.

  The tracks lay ahead of her, disappearing into the blackness, between ragged cliffs on her left and the lake to her right. She could hear Billy’s footsteps pounding down the tracks behind her now. She didn’t risk looking back. Didn’t dare slow. Couldn’t let herself wonder why someone would try to kidnap her. Or what they’d do to her if she were caught.

  A light flickered on the cliffside in front of her. Then the small beam swung across her path, like someone waving a flashlight.

  She hesitated. Billy leaped on her from behind, grabbing her around the knees. He forced her to the ground, pressing her body into the railway slats. She screamed. His hands clamped around her ankles. He dragged her backward down the tracks. Her hands clutched desperately at the rails.

  “Hey!” a male voice shouted. “Leave her alone!” Someone was scrambling down the cliff.

  Billy’s hand snapped to the back of her neck. Skinny fingers clenched the soft skin at the sides of her throat. “Don’t move,” he barked in her ear. “Or I’ll kill you.”

  The tall figure of a man landed on the tracks in front of them. “Let her go.” The voice was strong, deep and dark with the barely concealed hint of a growl. She couldn’t see his face.

  Billy knelt up, his hand remaining firmly clenched on her neck. A bony knee pressed into the small of her back. The weight of his body forced the air from her lungs. “Back off! I’ve got a gun, and I’m not afraid to use it.” The tremor in his voice made her suspect he was lying, but when she tried to speak, she couldn’t manage more than a whimper. “This is between me and her. Just turn around, walk away and pretend you didn’t see a thing.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.” He lunged at Billy, yanking him off her so suddenly the boy yelped in surprise as he was tossed beside the tracks like a sack of bones.

  Strong arms reached down toward her. Hands clasped her arms in a motion firm yet surprisingly gentle. “Hey. Are you okay?” She nodded, using his strength to pull her shaking body to its feet.

  The crack of a gunshot split the night air. Billy had fired wildly, the bullet flying off into the darkness beyond. In a heartbeat, her rescuer threw himself between her and Billy, shielding her with his body. But all that followed was the click of Billy’s gun jamming. The teenager swore. He scrambled to his feet and ran back down the railway tracks.

  The man sighed. “Nothing more stupid than a novice waving a gun around. They pretty much never hit what they’re aiming at.” He unclipped a flashlight from his belt and switched it on. Light brushed along the stubble of his jawline. He was tall, with well-worn jeans and the kind of sturdy shoulders that implied their owner was more at home in a thick and wild forest than inside the walls of an office cubicle.

  “If he had a gun, why not pull it out earlier?” She was relieved to feel her reporter’s instincts kicking in. As long as she focused on asking questions, she’d be able to stay in control of her emotions.

  “My guess is he wanted to take you alive.”

  Her knees buckled. She glanced past him down the tracks, the desire to run as far as she could from the terror behind her battled with legs that threatened to crumble beneath her. For a moment, she fought the urge to let herself fall into his arms and cry. But instead, she planted her feet firmly beneath her. They were still alone, at night, caught in the dark empty space between a cliffside and a lake. Hardly the time and place to let herself fall apart. Besides, this man could be anybody.

  “What happened?” His fingers brushed along her arm. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine. Thank you. I just arrived at the train station, and two strangers tried to force me into a van.”

  She swallowed hard and forced her legs to walk, slowly at first, but knowing that each step would take them farther away from the men who had tried to kidnap her. “Where did you even come from?”

  He matched his pace to hers. “There’s a path that cuts down the cliffside. I was sitting on a ledge halfway up when I heard you scream.”

  “Alone? In the dark?”

  He blinked. “I was testing some broadcast equipment. I’m an engineer of sorts, and broadcasting a radio signal off cliffs like these over still water are pretty much ideal conditions for testing signal strength. I just thank God that I decided to do it when and where I did.” He said the last bit with a bit more emphasis than she was used to. His hand hovered just behind her shoulders, just enough to let her know that his arm was there in case she wanted the support. “But are you sure you’re okay?”

  She paused long enough to let her gaze meet his. The lines of his face were tough and unflinching, which belied a more tender mouth than she was expecting. But it was the depth of concern reflected in his deep eyes that almost made her legs give way. She stepped away from his outstretched arm. He slid his hands into his pocket. “I’m fine, Mr….?”

  “Mark. Mark Armor.”

  “Thank you for your help, Mark.” Her voice sounded more formal than she’d been intending. But it wouldn’t hurt him to realize she was hardly some damsel in distress. Last thing she wanted was another man thinking he could save her. “I’m Katie Todd.”

  She stuck out her hand for a handshake. A curious smile curved up at the corner of his lips. But he took her hand and shook it up and down firmly. Then his fingers lingered over hers. Come on, Katie. Get hold of yourself. It’s not like you can just count on a handsome stranger to step in and save you.

  “The priority right now is reporting this to the police.” She pulled her hand away. “Obviously, the sooner I make a report, the better. But the last I checked I couldn’t get a cell phone signal. Do you know where I can find a phone?” There was that smile again on Mark’s lips. Like he couldn’t figure out whether to be amused or impressed.

  “Most cell providers have no coverage this far north. Here, you can use my phone.”

  Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out an awkwardly shaped silver device that looked like a cross between a smart phone and a Smith & Wesson revolver. Katie ran her gaze all the way from the depth of his eyes down to the mud on his leather boots. Right, so well-worn jeans and a high-tech phone and he was testing broadcast equipment after dark in the middle of nowhere. Oh, right, and he wasn’t the least bit fazed by being shot at. What was wrong with this picture? “That’s actually a phone? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I built it.”

  “You can actually get a signal with it here?”

  “It’s a satellite phone. The signal bounces off a satellite in orbit instead of using cell towers. I can get a signal pretty much anywhere in the world with it, no matter how distant or remote.” Something in the way he said it made her think that he’d actually tried. “Is there anyone else we should be contacting? Were you traveling with anyone? Or was there someone who was supposed to be meeting you?”

  “I’m just up here for work.” On a nonsense assignment that was quickly unraveling before it even started. “I’m a reporter for a newspaper in Toronto.” And hopefully its editor soon, once she managed to get Ethan out of the way. “How about you? I’m guessing from your gear you’re with some kind of secret international law enforcement?”

  Mark laughed. “Hardly. I run a small disaster-relief charity called Technical Response United Solution Teams—or TRUST for short. We travel around the world helping local charities respond to humanitarian crises and disasters mostly by designing and building different gadgets and equipment to help them.”

  Disaster relief. Perfect. She took the phone and dialed 911.

  *

  Mark paced in front of the police station. After he’d given his statement, the officers had told him he was free to leave or welcome to wait for Katie. But the idea of being stuck in a chair in some waiting room gave him cabin fever—and there was no
way he was about to leave.

  Then again, why not just go? This was hardly the first time he’d come across someone in trouble. The way he’d always seen it, it was his responsibility to get that person to the right authorities. After that, he moved on.

  So why wasn’t he moving? Thunder rumbled in the distance. The smell of impending rain lingered in the air. Katie’s face filled his mind. He remembered the courage and strength that had flashed in her dark brown eyes. The aching beauty of her smile, as she’d battled the tremble of fear in her lower lip. Not that she’d probably like him thinking about her as either beautiful or vulnerable. She’d practically shaken off the attack like she was even more afraid of showing weakness.

  Now she was on the other side of a closed door, and it was taking all his self-control not to just walk back into the station and see if there was something he could do. He sent some hurried prayers for patience up toward the heavens. But the answer seemed in no hurry to arrive.

  “Sometimes, all God calls you to do, is wait….” The voice of his buddy Zack flickered in the back of his mind. Part of an elite peacekeeping squadron, Zack often said the greatest strength came from self-control. It was still two days before they were supposed to meet up at the campsite, but he dialed his number anyway and left a quick message, asking him to pray for Katie. There, now he wasn’t praying alone.

  He looked back up at the sky, and a thought simmered in the back of his mind. Should he have asked Zack to pray for him, too? After all, tomorrow he was walking into a meeting with the one man he’d sworn he’d never speak to again—his father. No, the less said about that the better. Some battles were just easier faced alone.

  He checked his watch. While he was at it, he might as well put a call in to Nick, his second in command at TRUST. Although, hopefully Nick had left work by now. It was hardly a secret Nick’s fiancée, Jenny, was getting tired of finding him hunched beside Mark at the workbench long into the night.

  Nick answered on the first ring. “Good to see you’re still alive.”

  “Sorry. I decided to stop by the lake to run a quick broadcast test with the radio unit prototype—” and to ask God to give him the strength he’d need to face his dad tomorrow “—and I interrupted a crime in process.”

  Nick sucked in a breath. “Everyone okay?”

  “Yeah. A couple of guys tried to abduct a woman as she got off the train. She’s all right now. Just a bit shaken up.”

  “Thank God. When I see Jenny, we’ll be sure to send up a prayer.”

  Guess that answered the question of whether he was still working. “You about ready to pack up for the night?”

  “Pretty much. Jenny’s on her way over. We’re meeting with our pastor tonight to talk about something wedding related. I don’t know what. But Jenny sounded pretty serious.”

  Mark ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Everything okay there?”

  “I hope so.” Nick chuckled nervously. “The bigger problem is we got a call from the Chipe Orphanage in Zimbabwe today. Their electricity is on the fritz due to flooding, and they were hoping TRUST could help improve the weather resistance of their infant incubators.”

  Mark groaned. If the electricity was already cutting out in October, there was no way the orphanage would survive when the real rainy season hit. Plus, knowing the African nation’s crumbling infrastructure, chances were they wouldn’t even get their lights on for weeks without outside help.

  He was already booked to fly to Lebanon at the end of the month, and Nick was scheduled to be in Romania in December. Donations weren’t as strong as they used to be, and the cost of airfare had skyrocketed.

  “Shall I tell them we’re grounded?” Nick offered.

  “No.” Since founding the charity three years ago, he had yet to turn down a single plea for help. He was not about to start today. “I’ve got two boxes of vinyl records back at the apartment. Rob from church has been eyeing them for months. Tell him we need the money for a trip. He’ll make a generous offer.”

  “Will do.” Relief flooded Nick’s voice. “You know, I’m still not clear on who you’re meeting tomorrow or what you’re hoping to sell him.”

  Because you don’t need to worry about it. “Just the deed to a small, useless piece of land.”

  “Huh. How are you feeling about it?”

  So anxious he was almost sick to his stomach with stress. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.” At least that’s what he was going to keep telling himself. Too many lives were counting on him for it to be any other way.

  ISBN: 9781460319079

  SEAL UNDER SIEGE

  Copyright © 2013 by Elizabeth Johnson

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