by Allie Adams
RESCUE ME
TREX Adventure 2
By Allie K. Adams
A TREX ADVENTURE
RESCUE ME
Copyright © 2013 by Allie K. Adams
First E-book Publication: October 2013
Cover design by Laura Jochum
All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Allie K. Adams
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This Ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This Ebook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with others, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Allie K. Adams
www.alliekadams.com
TREX'S MISSION STATEMENT
Tactical Retrieval Experts (TREX) is a privately funded agency independent of law enforcement, military, or any governmental restrictions. Our focus is on tracking and retrieving objects. Simply put: we find things. Employing highly-trained agents with extensive experience in covert operations and unlimited resources, we will find anything and with guaranteed confidentiality. No matter the circumstances. No matter the danger. Call on TREX—we find what's been lost.
ONE
TREX Special Agent Spencer Allen crouched low enough behind the evergreen shrubs to stay hidden yet keep a constant eye on the cabin as he approached it twenty-five yards to the south. The still, moonless night, coupled with the night vision device, gave him the advantage. While he stayed beneath the trees and used the NVDs to see everything as plain as day, the fucknuts that drew him here would never see him coming, even with the snow blanketing the ground, illuminating the scene.
He settled where he could keep an eye on their escape route. The dumb sons of bitches. Why choose a place in the middle of the Black Hills of Washington State with only one way in and out of the area as their center of operation? And in the middle of winter? Every step of the way, the kidnappers TREX tracked to this location screamed amateur.
Yet, as Spencer watched the cabin, something felt…off. His nerves, already raw from the unease gnawing at his gut, tightened to the breaking point. Tension pulsed in his veins and made him hyper aware of everything. The distant hoot of an owl. The bite of the frigid air in his lungs, mixing with the overwhelming musty scent of the saturated forest. The dense, frozen fog that had pooled in the valleys around them.
He didn't have to turn to see his five-man team move up behind him. TREX Team Two had been together so long they had the same blood type by now. Switching from night vision to thermal imaging, he did another sweep, taking his time to pick up on any heat sources.
What the fuck was that?
He narrowed his eyes as he studied the near white blob inside the cabin blocking out everything else in his thermal imaging device before pressing the mic resting on his neck to switch it on. Maybe the TREX team on the north side of the cabin had a better angle.
“Gessler, what are your TIDs showing you?” Spencer didn't need anything louder than a whisper with the mission mics. Or finds, as TREX preferred to call them, since everything they did at the covert agency surrounded finding something.
“A whole lot of nothing.” Steve Gessler, the team leader of TREX Team One, added a curse. “What are they burning in there? Oxyacetylene? I know it's cold out here, but give me a fucking break.”
It was more than that. Spencer's unease edged higher. They wouldn't burn something so unstable in a confined space, especially with their meal ticket right there with them. They may be amateurs but they weren't suicidal, not with the payoff they were looking at.
Too bad they'd never get the chance to enjoy any of the ransom.
TREX pulled out all the stops in tracking these guys to this cabin and it thrilled the shit out of Spencer to lead one of the two teams positioned to take them down. He kicked his lips up into a slight grin. These poor bastards had no idea the shit storm they brought down on themselves when they kidnapped the grandson of Martin Miller. The powerful billionaire had friends in very high places.
Like on the board at TREX. One call and Miller had a team of tactical retrieval experts deployed, tracking down his grandson and the dumbass kidnappers. From TREX's intel, there were three. Two males and a female. The female, no doubt, to give the six-year-old boy that maternal comfort. The males to do the grunt work women didn't have the stomach for.
Spencer stilled as he listened. His ears rang from the silence. A six-year-old kid being held against his will was not going to be quiet. Something didn't feel right. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as his instincts kicked in. Three kidnappers. Why, then, couldn't they pick up any of them on the thermal imaging devices? What the hell was that giant white obstruction that blocked out anything else?
“Team Two in position,” Spencer said into the mic.
“I've got a pretty good view from this side,” Gessler pointed out. “We move on my count.”
“I don't think so.” Special Agent in Charge Dan Weber's voice sounded over the airwaves, shocking the shit out of Spencer. What the hell was their SAC doing there? “Team One report.”
“Weber?” Gessler sounded as shocked as Spencer felt. And then his voice grew hard. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Later. We've got a six-year-old to retrieve and three kidnappers to neutralize. Report.”
“This is bullshit. You gave me the lead on this.”
“And now I'm taking it. Report, Team One.” The SAC did not sound happy. Spencer knew Weber well enough not to push his buttons. Gessler, on the other hand, pushed his buttons on a regular basis just to rile Weber. Being the SAC's best friend definitely had its perks.
“In fucking position.”
They didn't have time for a pissing match between Weber and Gessler. A little boy's life was at stake. Spencer tuned them out and switched back over to his NVDs. Whatever they had burning inside that cabin masked any other heat signatures, rendering his TIDs useless. The thick log walls made it impossible to see details inside the cabin, no matter which device he tried.
“Move in and wait for my count,” Weber told the teams.
The instant Spencer stepped out from under the canopy of trees, a chill ripped up his spine. The freezing wind, keeping the temperature well below too fucking cold, bit into him but he barely felt it. He'd been conditioned to ignore the elements. They all had.
He tangled with all the sharp fucking branching trying to gouge out his flesh as he moved his team down the incline around to the back of the cabin while Gessler led his to the front. And now they waited for the SAC's count.
“Okay, boys. It's a quick flash and grab.”
“I don't like this,” Spencer muttered.
“What was that, Allen?” Weber asked and didn't sound happy about it.
Shit. His mic must have jumped to VOX so that it picked up on any voice exchange. Goddamn this thick underbrush. Spencer reached up and set it back to manual before purposely clicking his mic on.
“Thermal imaging picked up an abnormally large heat source that blocked out anything else. Night vision can't see through the log walls. We don't know what we're about to jump into.”
“Fuck the count. Get in there. Leave the female alive. Kill the other two.”
Spencer nodded for lights on. The team all clicked on the LED streams attached to their M16s. He kicked down the back door and charged inside, his team pouring in behind him. The crash of the
front door meant Gessler did the same on the opposite side of the cabin. After clearing the other rooms, Spencer moved toward the main room where the kidnappers were supposed to have the boy.
And froze.
It had to be over a hundred degrees in the room. Why in the hell would they need it this hot in here? Then he saw it. There, in the middle of the room, sat a ridiculously large propane heater. Below that, what the heater masked.
Gessler stood over the body and shook his head. “Son of a bitch.” He pressed the mic on his neck as he knelt down and rolled the body onto his back. “Shit. Weber, someone beat us to the punch. We got a body.”
“Is it the kid?”
“No. It's a guy. Mid-thirties. Hasn't been dead long. Maybe a couple hours. My guess is it's one of the kidnappers.”
“But no kid?” Weber's tone sliced through the airwaves.
Gessler lifted his attention to Spencer in question. Spencer shook his head as the answer. No, the boy wasn't in any of the rooms they'd cleared. “No kid.”
“Fuck! Where the hell is he? Intel tracked these assholes to this cabin.”
David Snyder, a member of Spencer's team, knelt down next to Gessler and studied the body. “Rigor hasn't set in, yet. Our buddy here has been dead less than four hours. Based on the precise direction of that hole in his head, he didn't put it there himself.”
“Looks like one of the kidnappers got a little greedy. Bet we can track him. Come on, Weber. Let us loose, man.” Gessler twitched with excitement. The man loved field work.
“Sir?” Spencer prodded. They could still salvage this if they got out there and found the kid before morning. “We have a good six hours before sun up.”
“You have two.”
“And then?”
“And then,” Weber said in way too calm a voice. Spencer immediately tensed. He knew better than to trust that tone. “You call in search and rescue.”
Not just no, but hell no. “We can find the boy without any help. It's what we do.”
“Not in this terrain and not with a snow storm closing in. I realize this is your backyard, but we've got a little boy out there and right now his life takes precedence over your pride. You have no idea the fuckton of shit that will rain down on us if this goes south.”
“SAR asks too many questions,” Gessler whined. “I'm with Allen on this. We don't need any agency outside of TREX getting involved in our find.”
Spencer nodded, agreeing with Gessler. “The last time we pulled in another agency, we ended up in front of the board.”
“Not all of us,” Weber pointed out.
No, just me. Thank you for the fucking reminder.
“This isn't up for negotiation. Two hours, Allen. Then you make that call.”
He didn't want to make the call. It had been a year since he'd last seen her and even that wasn't nearly long enough. Everything he faced, he approached with fierce conviction. Strength. Deadly accuracy. He wasn't afraid of a goddamn thing—except being anywhere near the only woman with the power to bring him to his knees.
Kathryn Davis. The founder of K-SAR. The woman of his dreams. The woman of his nightmares.
“Time to move,” Spencer barked, pushing the thought of making that call way way into the back of his head. They'd find the boy. That was the only option. “Team Two this way.”
“Team One,” Gessler said. “Let's go. Five miles?”
Spencer nodded. A five mile perimeter sweep would tell them if the kidnappers were up here with them, even if they were no longer within range. They'd find traces of them. A shoeprint in the snow. A snag of material on a branch. Something. And that was exactly what Spencer planned to find.
“Snyder, you and McKoy take the left. Aims and Cummings, you're on the right. Lyons, you and I have the middle.” Spencer always took Lyons with him. Although he had eyes like a predator, always watching, he moved a bit slower as the years of being a TREX field agent started to catch up with him. Spencer refused to let his mentor be the weak link on the team. He'd cover for him each and every time. Lyons would retire when he was good and ready. Until then, he stayed by Spencer's side.
“See ya on the other side.” Gessler led his team out of the cabin the same way they came in. Spencer nodded for his team to move. Gabriel Lyons kept his ever observant gaze bouncing in every direction. Spencer did the same.
And then he saw it. If he hadn't been looking for that exact thing, he would have missed it in the pitch black of the frozen night. There, in between two trees no bigger than dog hairs, a freshly snapped branch gave away the kidnapper's direction. They'd escaped by running in between those trees.
“This way,” he whispered into his mic and nodded for Lyons to follow. He pointed out the branch and Lyons nodded in understanding. Moving without making any noise, they crept through the inky darkness, following the trail of broken twigs on the ground, snagged branches, and fresh needle fall from the evergreen trees.
“This is too high for a kid to make,” Lyons pointed out when he caught sight of another broken branch five feet off the ground.
“But perfect for an adult shoulder.” Spencer grinned.
Lyons wiped at the sweat that had collected on his brow.
“Look at this.” Spencer ignored how tired Lyons looked and pointed at a fresh carving in a tree. The sap hadn't even completely hardened. “They're marking the trees like breadcrumbs.”
Lyons narrowed his eyes. “Why? It's not like they'll be back this way.”
Spencer shook his head and touched his mic. “Teams, be on the lookout for chunks cut into the trees. These guys are a special kind of stupid, marking their trail like this.”
“It'll lead us right to them,” Gessler commented.
Spencer's anxiety inched higher and tightened his nerves even more. The markings were on the wrong side, making them visible leading away from the cabin, not toward it. They weren't marking the trees to find their way back. They marked them as a trail away from the cabin.
Again, why?
The kidnappers left that body to send a message. If they had no qualm with killing one of their own, they wouldn't hesitate to kill the kid the instant he outlived his usefulness. And now they literally cut a trail into the trees, purposely leading TREX away from the cabin.
Nothing about this find made any sense.
“Check this out,” Lyons said, drawing Spencer's attention.
More broken twigs on the ground and with them, footprints in the rot of a dead log. Spencer knelt down and studied them, using his hand as a gauge on the size of the prints. Only two sets, neither small enough for a six-year-old. They definitely went this way and from the displacement of the tree rot, they were moving fast. Why would they be running with the boy if they had a four hour head start?
“We've got prints,” he said into his mic. “Two sets. Adults. One a male, size twelve. The other more than likely a female, size eight. Unless the man is a good fifty pounds overweight, I'd say he's carrying the kid.”
“Teams, time to reposition,” Weber ordered. “I want everyone's attention to the north. Team One, get your asses two miles up and see if you can head them off. Team Two, tighten your path. Move to the middle.”
Spencer spotted Snyder and McKoy to his left. Soon Aims and Cummings came up on his right. They moved forward, following the trace the kidnappers left for them.
“We're two miles up,” Gessler reported twenty minutes later, panting from the run.
“What took you so long?” Weber asked, his tone light.
“Had to stop to take a piss.”
Even in the middle of an op Gessler couldn't stop himself from trying to get a rise out of Weber.
“Move south. See if we can box them in.”
Tense minutes passed as the teams moved in. No one talked. No one made any noise, which wasn't easy in the thick forest in the middle of a cloudy night. The vapor from his breath lifted and swirled above him, mixing with the darkness. It had to have dropped ten degrees since they got out here. At
least with the snow he smelled in the air, they'd be able to see any that brushed off branches as well as fresh prints on the ground.
Spencer smiled. These guys were so screwed.
He quickly lost his smile as he spotted what at first looked like a split stump ahead. As he drew closer, he made out the shapes. Holy shit. That was no stump. He broke into a run and skidded to a stop as his blood froze in his veins.
“Holy shit,” Lyons muttered when he stopped behind Spencer.
“Weber, we've got a problem.”
TWO
Spencer stood over the two bodies, still trying to process what it meant. First the dead kidnapper in the cabin. Now both remaining kidnappers dead. The boy missing. Who killed them? Did the killer take the boy? Or was there a fourth kidnapper TREX never knew about?
He glanced down at the guns in each of their hands. Maybe a lover's spat gone wrong? The male had a lethal shot to the forehead just as the first male had. The female's shot could have been a suicide. A bullet to the temple would do the trick.
But that didn't explain how they ended up leaned against each other like this. She could have killed him and then held him up with her own body as she took her life. But why?
“This is fucked up,” Snyder said as he kicked the gun out of the male's hand. With a stick through the trigger guard, he lifted the barrel to his nose and took a quick sniff. “Metallic sulfur. That smell always reminds me of a dirty penny. This gun was recently fired.”
Spencer swept his gaze around, studying each tree for anything that could pass as a bullet hole. He didn't see anything. “He missed.”
“Did he?” Gessler knelt on the ground not more than ten feet away from the bodies. He pointed at something in front of him. “I've got blood here.”