Duke: Alpha One Security: Book 3

by Jasinda Wilder

  Harris stole the cigar from Puck and sucked in a mouthful of smoke before handing it back; he held the smoke in for a moment and then blew a concentric series of smoke rings. “You have a point, there. But it’s not like they can just sit and wait in the helicopter while we infiltrate Cain’s hide out or wherever. Ideas, anyone?”

  Puck chewed on the end of his cigar for a moment. “I got one.”

  Harris eyed the shorter man skeptically. “If it involves hookers, I don’t want to hear it.”

  Puck let out a long-suffering sigh. “Not all my ideas involve hookers, you know.” Dramatic pause. “Strippers also feature prominently.”

  “Puck—” Harris barked.

  “But in this case, my idea contains zero percent naked women…” he eyed both Lola and me as if he was mentally undressing us, “unless you two wanna go skinny dipping with me, that is.”

  “PUCK!” Harris shouted, drawing a pistol from a belt holster and aiming it at Puck’s foot. “I swear to fuck if you don’t make your goddamn point I’ll shoot you in the fucking foot, you creepy, lecherous little nymphomaniacal douchebag!”

  Puck didn’t seem fazed. “I’m not an addict, I can quit any time I want,” he quipped. “What I was gonna say before you so rudely interrupted me with your empty threats, Boss, was that I got a place over in the Ozarks. Been in my family for going on a two hundred years now, and the only deed that exists is a crumbly old piece of paper in a dusty archive somewhere. Meaning, unless you know about it there ain’t no way to find it, and you ain’t gonna know about it unless I tell you.”

  He took another puff of the cigar, rolling it and tapping it at the same time.

  “This place is remote, like way the fuck out there in the middle of damn nowhere. It’s an old hunting shack way up in the hills, don’t look like much, and hell, it ain’t much, but it is private, and as unfindable as anything you can think of.” He gestured at Harris with his cigar. “You fly us near it in the helo and let us down as close as you can. I’ll get these two set up nice and cozy, and then we’ll bug out, rescue Cain from Duke, and find some strippers and blow to celebrate.”

  Harris shook his head. “Is there a word stronger than incorrigible? ‘Cause whatever it is, you’re it, Puck.” He nodded, thinking. “But the idea has merit.”

  Thresh spoke up. “This the place you took me? The one you mentioned on the phone the other day?”

  Puck nodded. “Yep. Where we went after that Moyers-Andersen debacle.”

  Thresh frowned. “That place is a fucking dump, Puck. I wouldn’t want to stay there for more than five minutes, and you’re gonna stick a couple high class women in there for who knows how long?”

  Lola kicked Thresh’s shin. “Who’re you calling high class, asshole?”

  “I mean, it is a little rustic, I admit, but—” Puck started.

  “Rustic?” Thresh echoed. “Rustic is a campground with a communal bathroom, your so-called hunting shack is a two hundred year old log cabin with an actual outhouse, and by outhouse, I mean a hole in the ground with a hut on top of it.”

  Lola cut in. “Look, normally what you’re describing sounds like my idea of hell, but if we have to hide out for a while, then I’ll go with it.” She glanced at me. “But I can’t speak for Temple, obviously.”

  I hesitated. “My idea of rustic is a four star hotel, so this sounds…positively primeval.” I swallowed hard, realizing I didn’t have much choice. “But if it’s a choice between a hunting shack and more shooting, I’ll take the hunting shack.”

  Harris nodded. “Then we’re agreed.” He clapped his hands together once, sharply. “Thresh, get the women to the helo and start her up. Puck and Anselm, we’re gonna go down to the bunker and gear up.”

  Which was how I found myself buckled into a seat in the back of a Vietnam-era ex-military helicopter, complete with the machine gun and a complicated system of winches and cables meant to let people rappel from the hovering aircraft to the ground. Thresh had driven a tank truck over to the helicopter, fueled it up, re-parked the truck, and then went through an extensive checklist for starting up the helicopter, fumbling through each step, especially since he only had one working arm.

  Another few minutes, and the other men arrived in a battered, rusted pickup truck. The bed of the truck was full of black bags, each of which looked heavy, meaning they were full of guns and ammunition and other such unpleasant things these men liked to play with. They also had a huge white YETI cooler and a smaller, less heavy duffel bag, which they tossed to us.

  I unzipped it, and discovered it to be full of what appeared to be Layla’s clothing.

  Harris shrugged when I glanced at him in curiosity. “You’re all of similar size and build as Layla. Might not fit exactly right, but I figured it’s better to have extra clothes that don’t quite fit, and Layla has so much clothing she’ll never miss that shit anyway.” He gestured at the cooler. “That’s got food in it, as Puck wasn’t sure what was at the cabin. Sit tight for now, we’ll be underway shortly.”

  By underway, I discovered, he meant skimming the treeline at speeds that made my stomach queasy, the side doors hauled open so the ground whizzed beneath us mere feet away, only the seatbelt keeping me inside the aircraft. Anselm, for his part, had his rifle on the floor beside him and was sitting half out of the helicopter, one foot on the landing strut, not even holding on to anything, looking absolutely at ease.

  Once I got used to the speed and the open doors, though, the flight proved boring, and I felt myself nodding off.

  Eventually, I gave in and let myself fall asleep.

  11: THE BEAST

  Motherfuckers weren’t playing around, this time.

  I spent a good hour and a half in the back of that Wrangler, broken arm throbbing like a bitch. I wasn’t bound in anyway, but the Wrangler was doing eighty-five on a freeway, and there were two other SUVs full of Cain’s guys behind us, so there wasn’t much I could do just yet.

  We pulled into the private aircraft section of a rural airport and parked by a waiting Gulfstream. The line of vehicles maneuvered to a stop around the rolling stairs leading up to the jet, positioned in such a way that I had nowhere to go but up and into the jet. Rayburn yanked open the back door, grabbed me by the collar, and hauled me out of the back of the Wrangler fast enough that I had to scramble to avoid hitting the tarmac. A quick glance around told me that my escape wasn’t happening now, either, as I was surrounded by HKs and M-16s, each one trained on me; I counted a dozen.

  Guess they were finally starting to feel a bit of respect for my abilities, huh?

  Rayburn gestured at the jet. “Get up there, or die on the tarmac. Your choice.”

  Knowing when to cut the bullshit is an important skill to have, and one I’ve not exactly mastered, but in this situation I was prudent enough to know I’d pushed Rayburn as far as I could. If I wanted to keep my body free of unnecessary holes, I’d keep my mouth shut and watch for the lowest-risk opportunity to escape.

  Thus, I walked my ass up the stairs and into the Gulfstream. It wasn’t as nice as Harris’s, and certainly not as swank as Roth’s, but it was a nice jet.

  It was also stuffed full of more mercs with assault rifles and submachine guns.

  I shot a look at Rayburn, who had come up behind me. “Seriously, how many of you fuckers are there?”

  Rayburn quirked a grin at me. “More than you know.”

  I rolled my eyes as I took an empty seat. “You know, this whole Cain-is-so-mysterious, Cain-is-more-than-you-know bullshit is seriously over the top. Like, dial it back a few notches, ya’ll. This ain’t a Clive Cussler novel, and Cain sure as shit ain’t some super villain.”

  Rayburn laughed. “You know, under different circumstances, I think you and I might have gotten along, Duke.” The humor drained out of him, and he stuck the barrel of a pistol against my forehead. “But the circumstances being what they are, you need to shut the fuck up. I’m under orders to bring you in alive, but you keep running th
at mouth of yours and I’ll put a bullet in your pretty fucking head.”

  “Aww, Rayburn, you think I’m pretty?” I winked at him. “I don’t swing that way, but I’m flattered.”

  Rayburn thumbed back the hammer of his pistol with an ominous click. “One more joke, Silver—watch what happens.”

  I leaned back in the comfy leather seat and buckled up. “All right, all right. I’m shutting up. Don’t get your panties in a rumple, Stiltskin.”

  The door was closed from the outside, and then after a couple seconds I felt the engines spool up; a minute later I was pushed back in my seat as we launched skyward.

  I’ve always been a restless, active kind of guy; if I’d gone to school regularly past, like, seventh grade, I’m guessing I would have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, because I just can’t sit still, can’t be inactive, can’t just sit and do nothing, and focusing on boring shit like reading is an act of will—which makes my university degree one of the greatest accomplishments of my life, because that shit was hard. I don’t sit still well, which means flights are fucking torture for me. My knee bounces on its own like a motor-driven piston, my hands find something to fidget with, be it a pen I click or a seatbelt latch, or paper I can shred; if there’s just nothing to do, I can get…annoying, let’s just say. The guys in my unit, when we took long flights to deployment or an insertion or something, discovered the best way to keep the peace with me on the flight was to keep me entertained. We’d arm wrestle, play cards, prank each other, immature guy shit like that. It helped that we were usually in the back of a military cargo jet or something like that, maybe an Osprey if it was an in-country insertion, meaning there was more room for me to move around.

  This shit? A fancy ass jet with leather seats and no legroom and nothing for me to fidget with?

  I suffered in stillness and silence for about fifteen minutes before my restlessness kicked in. Plus, my arm was killing me—well, not literally, maybe that was a poor choice of phrasing…but I needed a distraction or I was gonna get cranky.

  “Yo, Rayburn. I’m bored as shit, dude.” He was sitting in front of me, so I emphasized my point with a kick to the back of his seat.

  He twisted in place. “I can break your other arm. That’ll give you something to focus on.”

  “Nah, that’ll just piss me off.” I nodded at the wood paneled wall at the front of the cabin. “This thing have a TV?”

  That earned me a chuckle from one of the operatives in the back of the jet, which was quickly stifled behind a cough as Rayburn shot a glare back that way.

  “Maybe you don’t fully understand the gravity of your situation, Silver. You are only alive right now because Cain has plans for you which are best carried out with you still breathing.” He rested the barrel of his pistol on the top of his seat back, aiming it at me. “This isn’t a social call. You are a prisoner. So no, there is no fucking TV, you fucking twat.”

  “Okay, well, I’m just saying, when I get bored, I get annoying. How long is this flight, anyway?”

  A long, irritated sigh. “You’re like a goddamn child, you know that?” He rubbed his forehead with a knuckle. “Couple of hours.”

  “And you expect me to just sit here doing dick that whole time?” I groaned. “I’m so gonna get shot before we get there.”

  Rayburn dug through a compartment hidden next to his seat and tossed me a stack of magazines: Wine Enthusiast, Cigar Afficionado, Ultimate Homes, Luxury Real Estate…the kind of boring shit only rich pretentious douche-lickers subscribe to.

  But then an idea hit me.

  I still had my belt on, with the empty kydex sheath threaded through it. And I had a decent sized magazine…

  I whipped my belt off, zipped the sheath off, chose what seemed to be the best magazine from the selection I had, and then stuck the sheath between my jaws. After examining my broken forearm, I summoned every ounce of badass tough guy macho I-don’t-feel-pain courage I possessed, and tugged at my wrist until the shard of bone slipped back under my skin—that was part one. I managed not to scream, but there was a lot of clenched-jaw heavy breathing, which drew the attention of pretty much everyone. Rayburn, for his part, pivoted in his chair to watch, but didn’t make a move to either help or hinder me.

  Part two—I prodded at my forearm, which felt super fucking awesome, trying to ascertain how the break was aligned without the benefit of an X-ray. A deep breath, repositioned the sheath in my jaws, braced my shoulder against the seat back, extended my arm out straight—I was already snarling in pain and hadn’t actually set it yet…this was going to be fun. Another bracing breath, got a good grip on my wrist with my good hand…and pulled my wrist away from my body. The pain that lanced through me then was unlike anything I’ve ever felt, including that time I was pushed off the third story of a parking garage and broke pretty much everything. I didn’t set my bones then, and when it was done to me, I was under anesthetic so I didn’t feel it. This was just…utter blinding agony so fierce I nearly passed out.

  When the worst of it passed, I wiped the sweat off my forehead, took another few moments to breathe through the waves of pain, and then set the Wine Enthusiast magazine underneath my forearm and wrapped it upward around the set bone fracture. I then wrapped the belt around the magazine several times—the belt was just a knock-off para-military web piece, so I was able to tug the it tight enough that I was sure it would function to cinch the magazine tight as a makeshift brace, and then looped the excess belt material between the magazine and the belt so I could pass the bitter end through the loop to make a knot.

  By time I was finished, I was breathing hard, feeling faint, and was in so much pain I felt my temper flaring.

  The thing about me that might become relevant at this point is that I have a vicious bitch of a temper, but it’s one I keep tightly caged at all times, because once it’s been let loose, it’s pretty much impossible to contain my appetite for destruction until I’m either tranquilized or my rage burns itself out. The funny thing is, I’m hot headed, quick to irritation, but just as quick to let it go. I’ll throw myself into a bar brawl without a second thought, but I’ll turn around and buy the poor bloody bastards a round. That’s not my temper, that’s just my basic, essential personality. I run hot, but it cools off quickly, and my overall good humor returns. No hard feelings, kumbaya, what the fuck ever. Someone nails me in the jaw, yeah I’m gonna kick and shout and curse and then beat the ever loving hell out of the dumb motherfucker, but I haven’t lost my temper, I just don’t like being punched.

  Me losing my temper is a whole different beast.

  Thresh is the only person who’s ever seen me go truly berserker. Without going into detail, let’s just say I don’t deal well with two kinds of people: rapists, and those hurt kids. Well, Thresh and I got sort of involved in a scenario where there was guy who’d done both to this little girl. Nasty, vile, evil shit, and he thought we’d laugh with him when he described what he’d done. My memory of what followed is hazy at best, because I saw black. Thresh tried to haul me off, but even he couldn’t control me—he got a black eye and three teeth knocked out for his trouble. The piece of shit wasn’t recognizable as a human by the time I finished with him. Thresh hasn’t spoken of it since, and neither have I, and nor will we ever. But the knowledge is there, that the beast inside me is something that should never be let out.

  But I felt it boiling, now.

  The trouble I’d been through, being yanked away from Temple after what we’d shared together, the fact that the fuckers had destroyed my boss’s house, the humiliation and helplessness of being captured, and now the pain? Yeah, Evil Duke was rearing his ugly head.

  I focused on breathing, then, focused on building mental bricks around the Beast’s cage, deep down inside me where he lived.

  Something to focus on, at least, right?

  I built those walls high and thick, focused on the pain, breathed through it.

  When that stopped helping, I re-lived everything Temple and
I had done together, but that started giving me wood, so that wasn’t going to work, not in a plane full of men, all of whom would kill me soon as they look at me.

  Eventually, I settled into a light doze. It wasn’t really sleep, because the seething anger was still on simmer just beneath the surface, but pretending to be napping worked as well anything in terms of keeping myself from yanking one of those submachine guns away and going apeshit on this jet. Which would be a bad plan, since we were at cruising altitude and I didn’t have a ‘chute.

  So thus, I napped.

  But make no mistake: the Beast was awake.

  12: TRANKED

  Puck went down first. He stepped into a harness and just sort of swung out of the side of the helicopter like he was climbing over the side of a boat for a swim. Anselm was working the controls and lowering Puck to the ground. When he was down, Anselm drew the cable back up, worked it in a complicated series of knots and loops around the cooler and lowered that to Puck, and then it was my turn. I’m not afraid of heights, but getting into a stupid harness and dangling out the side of a stupid helicopter just seemed ridiculous. Did I mention this was stupid? But yet I got into the harness, let Anselm clip the carabiner to the harness, and then I climbed carefully out onto the strut, my heart in my throat, my stomach doing backflips and pirouettes, my palms sweating.

  “You must slide off of the strut, Temple,” Anselm called to me. “You will be safe, I swear to you. I have done this countless times.”

  I should point out that a hovering helicopter doesn’t just sort of float there like a balloon. It moves this way and that as the pilot—in this case, Harris—feathers the controls. So it’s not, like, steady. Harris was a talented pilot, I’d been told, but this was terrifying. Sitting on the strut of a helicopter a hundred feet off the ground, trees looking small beneath my feet, nothing to stop me from falling except some material around my hips and waist and a thin cable? Yeah, it’s not exactly mimosas for brunch, which was, up until I woke up in that basement next to Duke, the most demanding thing I’d ever done in my short, stupid life.