“Brenda,” the man coaxed.
“It is Bunny,” she replied. “And I am telling you that you don’t have the clearance to hear my side of the story.”
“Corporal Lopez and the rest have gone AWOL after being ordered to stand down,” Prenner said as if that was going to surprise her. “You’ve got to know how much trouble they are in.”
Really? After Moscow, Slovenia, and Jordan, she should be worried about Rebecca and the rest? Please. Running around the American countryside avoiding MPs was like eating breakfast—in bed. Which is kind of why she didn’t grab that repelling line from the helicopter.
She’d grown to love Rebecca like a sister and Brandt like a brother-in-law, but chasing after the Disciples? That was sheer crazy talk. Whenever the Disciples were involved, you needed to run away—as quickly as you could.
Prenner hit a key on his laptop that started cell phone footage of her and Davidson’s kiss. “Clearly, you care for this man.”
Bunny shrugged. “He’s grown on me.”
Which wasn’t exactly true. There was something there, but between his aborted court martial, reinstatement, then five missions back-to-back, it had been a little hard for them to explore exactly the extent of that “something.”
She closed the laptop. “Just get me my CIA handler.”
Which was kind of weird to say. Her life had certainly taken a left turn since last year. During her graduate studies, the closest that she had come to interacting with the Central Intelligence Agency had been watching reruns of Covert Affairs.
Now she had her very own CIA handler.
“As I said,” Prenner stated very slowly, “Emily Jannus doesn’t exist.”
“Of course she doesn’t. Ugh.” This was going to be a very long night.
Then the door opened as a woman dressed in long black gown, her hair tucked into a sleek bun, strode in.
“This is a closed interrogation,” Prenner growled, but the woman put her hand out.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Emily Jannus.” The woman smiled, looking like she had just stepped into an elegant cocktail party. “And Bunny. So nice to see you again.”
Bunny scooted her chair over to make room for Emily, suddenly feeling underdressed for the occasion. Why did Mrs. Brandt have to go with peach?
“My understanding is that you have a few questions for Ms. Hollingford?” Emily pleasantly asked the lieutenant.
“My commander is not going to stand for this,” Prenner warned.
Emily chuckled. “Who do you think held the door open for me?”
An older man in full dress uniform stepped into the room, his chest bristling with medals. “I am afraid my hands are tied. We are to cooperate fully with Ms. Jannus, or whatever her name truly is.”
Bunny’s CIA handler just bent her head at a cute angle, demurring to the fact Emily wasn’t her real name but not giving any further details. Turning her attention from the men, Emily smiled at Bunny.
“Now, why don’t you catch me up?”
“Well”—Bunny looked to the officers, not sure how much she could say in front of them—”the wackos kidnapped Brandt.”
Emily pulled out a small tablet device and queued up the keyboard. “That much I know.”
“Then it got weird,” Bunny said, nodding to the army men. “Apparently, the military tried to pull Rebecca and Brandt’s team from the pursuit.”
“That I hadn’t heard,” Emily stated as she typed rapidly.
“Of course, they disobeyed those orders.”
Emily’s eyebrows went up. “Of course.” She turned to the general. “Why would you pull a highly decorated Special Ops team from the search for one of their own?”
“The order came from above.” Bunny noted that the general would not meet Emily’s eyes. “Directly from the DoD.”
“See?” Bunny asked. “Weird. It makes no sense unless…The wackos have someone pretty high up.”
“What are you insinuating?” Prenner asked.
It was Emily who answered, though. Her breezy manner evaporating. Replacing it with a cool confidence. “I’m sorry, but you don’t have high enough clearance for me to even approach that question.”
Prenner bristled as Bunny gave him a well-deserved “I told you so” look. The lieutenant looked ready to lash out, but the general intervened, indicating that Prenner should leave. “Regs are regs.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Emily continued. “I meant both of you.”
The general’s brow creased, but he seemed too much of a professional to sputter in front of the CIA agent. Before they could turn from the room, Prenner’s cell phone buzzed. He read the text, then flashed the message to the general.
For a moment, they didn’t look like they were going to share.
“Gentlemen?” Emily asked. “Do I need to call my director?”
With a soul-deep sigh, the general’s shoulders sagged. “Brandt has been located.”
Bunny sat up straight in her chair. This was the best news since…well, ever.
“And?” Emily prompted.
“It looks like he is heading to the Congo.”
Emily turned to Bunny, but she shook her head. “I have no idea why the wackos would take him there.”
Prenner cleared his throat. “I think I might know.” All eyes turned to the lieutenant. “That was the location of Brandt’s last mission.”
Still, it made no sense. Bunny vaguely knew Brandt and Davidson had been on the African continent, but it had sounded like a routine mission. Nothing that ran afoul of the Disciples.
“I think I’ve heard enough,” Emily said, rising from her chair. “I’ll be taking care of Ms. Hollingford.”
The men didn’t argue, but neither did they part to let them leave.
“Prenner goes with you,” the general stated. Emily went to open her mouth, but he continued. “Otherwise, I will call your director. Then he will have to call a meeting at the White House with the Joint Chiefs. I take it you don’t want to wait that long?”
A frown crossed over Emily’s lips, then curved up into a smile. “Prenner it is.”
With that, the men parted, and Emily whisked Bunny out into the hallway, with the lieutenant close behind. Their heels clicking on the tile floor, Bunny asked, “Where are we going?”
Emily grinned. “The Pentagon, of course.”
Right. It involved Brandt and Rebecca, so of course it involved the Pentagon.
Duh.
CHAPTER 4
══════════════════
Outside of Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of the Congo
May 27, 5:05 p.m. (CAT, Central African Time)
Brandt’s head banged against the Jeep’s window. Just add that to his collection of bruises. His body wanted to sink back into a drugged haze, but his mind had other plans. The next time the Jeep dipped into a huge hole in the dirt road and bounced out of it, Brandt braced, demanding that his muscles obey.
And they did. Well, at least a little bit. The paralytic must have been wearing off. Obviously, the Disciples were prepared for this fact since they had zip-tied Brandt’s hands and feet.
Squinting his eyes open, Brandt took in his surroundings. Actually, he took in the enemy number first and foremost. Besides the driver and the ever-so-pleasant Disciple, there were three other men in the Jeep. All black. Not just black, but with ritualistic face scars. These weren’t just any mercenaries. These men had been carrying a weapon since childhood. They had been boy soldiers who had grown up to be highly trained mercenaries.
He’d dealt with this brand of men before. Just last week, as a matter of fact. Taking in the passing scenery, Brandt realized he’d seen that too. Just last week as well. Lush jungle lay ahead as they drove through the misty, low-rolling hills of the Congo.
Why the hell would the Disciples bring him back here? Brandt’s last mission didn’t have anything to do with the Ten Commandments or even religion. A World Bank envoy had been kidnapped and needed ext
raction.
Sure, the mission had gotten bloody. Any mission in this impoverished part of the world invariably did. But what did the Disciples care about that?
Apparently a lot.
There were at least three Jeeps in front of them, and as they made a curve around a large hill, it seemed at least three Jeeps behind them. The last carrying the young woman from the plane. The Disciples had come in force.
Again, for what, though?
A zap from his molar brought Brandt back to more practical matters. All of this backcountry driving, chattering his teeth, must have fueled his transmitter. He was pinging his location, for who knew how long.
The Jeep’s engine groaned as they began the steep climb up into the dense rain forest, heading toward, Brandt could only guess, the war-torn village where his last mission had culminated.
What the Disciples would do to him there was anyone’s guess.
With a drug-besotted mind, Brandt tried to calculate when he’d activated his transmitter and how long it would take for his team to catch up. With a sigh, he slumped back into his seat. Even if his team had left the States the moment he had pinged them, the Disciples were at least six to eight hours ahead. Add in the time it would take to arrange transportation into the mountains, and his team would be ten hours behind.
Ten hours that the Disciples could spend torturing him.
Not even Lopez and his need for speed could make up that difference.
* * *
“We are totally going to beat them there,” Lopez announced.
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. However, the other men seemed to believe the corporal.
“Don’t believe me, chica, but we will,” Lopez insisted.
Of course, that made no mathematical sense whatsoever. Even without her laptop, Rebecca knew they were nearly half a day behind Brandt. Granted, Lopez had made up a ton of time over the Atlantic and it had turned out to be way faster to simply land and steal another plane in Lisbon rather than wait for a refuel, but still, that left a minimum of a four-hour gap, which Rebecca couldn’t see how they were going to make up.
Then she noticed the men getting parachutes out.
“No,” Rebecca hissed, suddenly understanding how Lopez planned to make up the difference.
“Yes,” Lopez teased, his eyes wide with anticipation. “We are coming in from the other side of the mountain and dropping directly into the village.”
The corporal raised his hand for a high five, which Rebecca did not return. Talli fulfilled the action for her. The sniper actually had a smile on his face. “All’s that stands between us and setting up an ambush is a little low-attitude jump. My fav.”
“I…I’ve never…skydived,” Rebecca admitted. Normally a paleo-archeologist whose specialty was genetic migration wouldn’t feel ashamed about such a thing, but most PhDs weren’t hanging out with Special Forces.
“Never?” Davidson asked behind her as he strapped himself into his parachute.
She shook her head.
“Dude,” Lopez snorted. “What the hell were you and Brandt doing all this time?”
Rebecca’s face reddened. Oh, they were doing lots of stuff, just not anything that could be mentioned in mixed company. Besides, having way too much action in their work lives, they liked their downtime to be…down.
Not up, jumping from planes.
No matter her hesitation, Davidson handed her a parachute. She studied the myriad of straps.
“No worries,” he coaxed. “I’ll get you hooked up. Then we’ll tandem jump.”
“Yeah, right,” Lopez retorted as he rose from the pilot seat. Talli followed.
“Um,” Rebecca stammered. “Who is going to fly the plane?”
The corporal waved his hand at the controls. “The autopilot is set to fly past the mountain and crash in Uganda.”
Rebecca didn’t even have time to digest that news when Lopez grabbed for her parachute. “No, Ricky. I think I’d rather have Davidson.”
While just as insane as the rest, Davidson did have some concern for her personal safety. Lopez, on the other hand? His motto? Personal safety was for the dead. Which didn’t even make sense, but he certainly said it frequently enough.
Besides, she and the corporal had being staying at arm’s length since that unfortunate incident of mistaken identity in Russia.
Lopez was having none of it, though. “Please. Chica. Look at those hips of yours.”
She glanced down to her tattered gown. Rebecca liked to think of her figure as hourglass.
The corporal nodded to the lean Davidson.
“Do you really think that skinny-ass frame could handle your curves?”
“Hey,” both Rebecca and Davidson protested at the same time.
“I am team leader,” Lopez said, surprisingly serious. “Chica and I are doing the tandem tango.”
Davidson backed down with a shrug. However, Rebecca didn’t have the same deference to military chain of command. As Lopez started strapping her in, she complained, “Ricky, I really think—”
“Look at his hands,” Lopez whispered in Rebecca’s ear. At first, she had no idea what the corporal was taking about. Then she noticed Davidson shake out his arm. When they came to rest again, the sniper’s fingers, especially those on his severely scarred left hand, began to twitch.
It was no wonder. They were all trashed. After twenty hours on the road, who wouldn’t be? And Davidson was under the most strain of all. Usually, after a mission, he would have to have several hot paraffin treatments to soothe the pain from his tortured hands. Davidson tried to shield it from the rest, but Rebecca had been there through the multiple surgeries to cut out the scar tissue. She knew the pain even routine movement brought on, let alone the strain of an operation. And he’d gone right from the conflict in South Carolina to this cross-continental plane hop. All of that strain showing in those twitching fingers.
“If anything happened during the jump…I’m not sure if he could hold you,” Lopez continued. “We need his hands for shooting.”
She looked to the corporal with a bit more appreciation for his leadership skills. Far better to tease her about her hips and Davidson about his slight frame than embarrass the sniper with his much more pronounced weakness.
“Besides,” the corporal followed up, “it’s been a while since I’ve held you.”
Typical Lopez. Profoundly insightful one moment, then Lopez the next.
“Let’s just make sure that weapon of yours is holstered,” she challenged back.
With a broad smile, Lopez settled the weight of the parachute on Rebecca’s back. “We shall see.”
Readjusting the straps onto her shoulders, Rebecca realized this was like wearing the world’s most uncomfortable bra. The straps already dug grooves into her skin. Nothing about this experience was going to be pleasant.
As the plane’s yoke inclined on its own, dropping altitude, Rebecca frowned. It just seemed wrong they trusted the computer to drop them off at the right place.
“Ricky, are you sure about this?”
Lopez finished adjusting his parachute before answering. “Oh, please. In these calm skies? The autopilot will be fine…”
“Unless?”
A boom sounded off to the left. The plane veered as fire filled the sky. Lopez grabbed hold of her, breaking her fall as the tip of the wing shuddered, then broke off.
“Unless we’re attacked,” Lopez answered, jumping up, springing for the pilot’s seat.
* * *
Davidson searched out the plane’s window. Scattered clouds blocked the view of the ground. Then bright-red flared.
“Incoming from the left!” he shouted.
Lopez banked to the right. Just in time. Still, the explosion rocked the plane, sending them careening.
“Another!” Levont yelled.
They avoided another direct hit, but that wasn’t going to last long.
“I’m opening the hatch!” Davidson announced, making sure Rebecca had tight hold o
f a seat. Bracing himself so he wasn’t sucked out, Davidson opened the door. Wind whipped around them. “Somebody get ready to hold my feet!” Davidson announced as he dropped to the floor.
As Levont grabbed his dress shoes, Davidson swung his rifle to bear. Ignoring the fact he was only a few inches from falling from the plane, he yelled, “Turn into it!”
Lopez obliged, tilting the plane toward the left. Through the scope, Davidson scanned. Where are you?
The attackers weren’t the Disciples. They were far too north for that. No, this attack was simply the cost of doing business in Africa. Some tribal lord thought that a nice expensive Learjet would bring in some good money. And the chief wouldn’t be wrong. Selling the jet scrap metal could probably feed the village for a year.
The only problem was that Davidson and the rest still needed the plane. Intact.
There it was. That flash as the RPG was fired.
“Into it!” Davidson shouted. Lopez, as always, was right on it, cutting under the RPG as it sailed over them. Davidson fired before the cloud cover obscured the launch site. They were impossible shots. He didn’t expect to hit anything or anyone. He just wanted to give the men on the ground something to ponder. Passenger planes usually didn’t shoot back.
Unfortunately, the attackers didn’t seem to care.
“Here!” Tallie said as he shoved an RPG launcher at Davidson. The metal object slid across the floor. Davidson snatched it before it went over the side.
Now this, this might give them something to seriously ponder.
Before he could get the launcher up onto his shoulder, Rebecca screamed, “Incoming!”
She was right. And this one was coming straight at them. Lopez tried to maneuver, but there was no way they could get out of range. The trajectory was all wrong, and Davidson was all about the trajectory.
There was only one thing to do.
* * *
Rebecca watched as the RPG seemed to swim out of the clouds and streak toward them. Despite Lopez’s best efforts, the RPG was still going to hit them. Maybe in the tail of the plane now instead of the nose, but they were going to get hit.
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