And a big part of her wanted him to. She wanted vengeance on the man who was part of this sick conspiracy. Even if he hadn’t threatened her daughter directly, his men certainly had. They’d ruined her chance with Mack. She stared with the sick sort of fascination as the man’s face turned purple and his eyes popped.
Suddenly, Merc loosened his grip, and the man choked and gasped and gagged as he fought for air.
“Looks like you’re going to be hanging out with me, friend.”
The man still couldn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. The raw power emanating from Merc was enough to subdue a herd of elephants. He could crush the assassin with his fist and not think twice about it.
Mack stood and dusted off his knees. Then he wiped his blade down his pants, and said, “Where are you supposed to rendezvous for extraction?”
The man didn’t even try to put up a front this time. “Airfield, two klicks north. Helo waiting.”
“Good thing we brought our pilot then.”
Marley blanched. She was trained to fly C-130s, not Black Hawks; she didn’t know the first thing about flying helicopters.
Aaron stepped forward and saluted. “Ready and waiting, Sir.”
Thank God. She didn’t want to let the team down again. Or Mack. But what about her daughter? Ramsey had sent her a picture from her parents’ backyard. Maddie could still be in danger. The team was gearing up and falling in line, getting ready to march out. Marley steeled her resolve and grabbed Mack’s arm, not letting go this time when he looked at her like a bug crawling beneath his foot. “Mack, what about Maddie?
He blinked as if just now bringing her into focus.
Had he forgotten? Did he not care?
Mack pulled free of her grip and went back to the assassin. He quickly patted him down and yanked a small gray phone from the man’s pocket. “Sat phone.”
She watched as Mack quickly punched in a series of numbers and held the device to his ear. “Tomahawk.” He waited.
Marley’s heart hammered in her chest.
“Susie Q had a date with Tom Thumb. She ate his palm,” Mack said into the phone.
The rest of the men of Mack’s team stood still and silent as the trees around them, their expressions not giving away one hint of their thoughts.
“K, we hit a snag in our transport, but we’re moving again. We will be en-route to target by sunrise.”
There was another pause as Mack listened. Then he said, “I need you to take a little vacation. I’ll explain later. There is a Colonel Mitchell, who lives in—” Mack looked at Marley, waiting for her to fill in the blank space.
“South Carolina. Greenville.”
“He lives in Greenville, South Carolina. I need him and his family to take a trip before sunrise.”
Marley’s body swayed forward as she listened, straining to hear Agent K’s response.
“Roger.” Mack snapped the phone shut, dropped to the ground, and crushed it beneath his heel.
“What did he say? What’s he going to do?” Marley rushed him. She didn’t care if he hated her, not right now.
Mack’s steely resolve didn’t even slip a fraction. “He will get your family. You don’t have to worry now.”
Marley wanted to drop to her knees and kiss his feet and thank him, but the way he was looking at her right now . . . She didn’t want him to step over her like she was something dirty.
Mack turned his back on her, circled his finger in the air, and pointed his hand in the direction of the woods.
No matter how many times she told herself she deserved it, the pain wouldn’t lessen. The change in the air was as palpable as a tidal wave and just as crushing. These men were focused on one thing now. Tracking down and killing Jack Mankel.
Chapter 27
They hurried through the jungle. Mack didn’t feel the heat or humidity. He didn’t feel the torso-sized leaves slapping his arms.
He didn’t feel anything.
The blessed numbness had settled over him after he’d stabbed the lead assassin in the thigh. He’d needed to do violence and hadn’t felt one single tinge of remorse, especially since the motherfucker had just tried to kill him a minute before. Mack wasn’t above using a little torture to extract information, even though the threat of torture usually worked better. He hadn’t exactly been operating with all cylinders firing. Not when Marley was just a foot away from the action.
He’d wanted her to see the monster he could be. To make her fear him so she’d stop staring at him with longing and hurt. He tried to tell himself it was better this way. She had a kid, for Christ’s sake, and Mack had already failed the parenting test. He had no desire to start over with a miniature female version of Marley.
When Mack slapped a huge vine out of his way, the thwack of the thick wood slammed into his wrist and he embraced the pain. What right did she have to look all hurt and betrayed? She was the one who’d lied. The one who’d almost betrayed him and his team. If he hadn’t stumbled on her in that exact moment . . .
“Keep up. Almost there.” Mack barked the order and forged ahead, slicing a long-bladed knife a little harder than necessary but relishing the energy burn—he needed something to take the edge off before he imploded.
“On your tail, old man,” Ranger called out from somewhere in the middle of the line behind him.
Merc bit out, “Keep up, asshole.” Their prisoner wasn’t going fast enough. Good thing Merc was in charge of him. That man could make a boulder move with his stare.
Riser was bringing up the rear, and without looking back over his shoulder, Mack could sense Marley’s presence behind him.
Finally, a few buckets of sweat later, they pulled up at the perimeter around a small clearing that housed a flat, grassy helo pad with a nice, fat stealth helicopter sitting right in the middle, a ripe peach ready for the plucking.
Merc slapped a hand over the assassin’s mouth and shoved a knife to his throat, dragging him back into the woods so he wouldn’t alert the pilot to their presence.
Riser touched Marley’s arm, right above her elbow, to get her attention, and held a finger to his lips. Mack had to fight off a wave of red-hot anger. He was the one who had the right to touch her, to protect her.
Bullshit. He didn’t have that right. He didn’t want it either—or at least that’s what he told himself as he circled two fingers in the air, silently ordering his men to spread out and flank the helo from both sides. They’d snagged the weapons from the team sent to kill them. Now they had the rifles notched to their shoulders, sidearms holstered on their hips, and they approached at a fast, crouched pace. The darkness camouflaged them. The pilot, although sitting up straight in his seat, had slumped forward slightly, indicating he was asleep.
Mack waved his men on. Hunter rushed past him, ripped open the door, and pressed a gun to the pilot’s temple.
He startled awake instantly and froze.
“Nothing like a gun to the head to wake someone up,” Mack quipped as he approached.
“Where’s my team?”
“Ranger, why don’t you disarm our new buddy here?” Mack ignored the man’s question. The pilot knew exactly who they were, and he also knew what had happened to the team of assassins that had been sent to ‘deal’ with them.
Ranger did a quick frisk of the man, and then Hunter collared him and yanked him from the helicopter. Aaron darted past all of them, launching himself into the pilot’s seat to begin cranking up the bird.
“Aaron, radio base that we’ll have a package waiting on them. They’ll be tied up nice and neat in about two.” No matter how deadly Mack and his team were, they wouldn’t kill unarmed men.
Aaron fiddled with the controls and then pushed the radio close to his mouth. “Hawkeye, this is Tomahawk calling from latitude 692 and longitude 273. Got a package ready for pickup. Over.”
A few seconds later, the helicopter’s radio crackled through the jungle. “Roger, Tomahawk. ETA thirty minutes. Over.”
Aaron gave Ma
ck a thumbs-up and then slipped on the large, black headset to finish his preflight check. Mack turned his attention to their newest prisoner, who knelt at his feet with his hands laced behind his head, staring at the ground as if it were his grave.
Mack chuckled. After the boys back at headquarters got through with him, he’d probably wish for a bullet.
“Merc, bring our other friend over here.” Merc emerged from the woods, a giant deadly apparition. He shoved the assassin to his knees next to the pilot. There was a glance between the two, the kind that men shared right before they hung from the noose. Mack could come out and tell them he wouldn’t kill them. But where was the fun in that? “Merc, you want the honors?”
“Absolutely.” Damn, that man sounded scary as shit. The two on their knees started shaking; straight-up fear would do that to any man. Merc stepped up to the assassin, lifted the butt of his rifle, and shoved it into the man’s temple. The bad guy went down with a grunt, face first in the dirt. Mack nodded at Hunter to do the same to the pilot. Smack. Grunt. Second guy went face first.
“Secure the package for pickup. Don’t want them waking up or running off to warn Mankel of our approach.”
“Yes, Sir.” Hunter didn’t bother with a salute. He disappeared into the helo, emerged moments later with a wad of 550 cord, and proceeded to wrap those two up like a stuffed burrito.
The rest of the guys eased out of the tree line, Riser and Marley last. Mack’s gaze locked with Marley’s. Heat flowed through him. His skin prickled. Shit. Mack did the cowardly thing and turned, making a big show of jumping into the helicopter and waving his men onward. “Come on, boys, we’ve got a party to crash.”
They loaded up, packing into the stealth helicopter like sardines. Aaron got them in the air within seconds and skated across the night sky into the sunrise. Mack had positioned himself on the outside, holding onto a metal handle overhead for balance. “See if you boys can dig up some radios. A team that size would have had some kind of comms. We’re going back to the original plan. Go in wet; come out dry.”
They zipped through the air to a cool 150 miles an hour in the stealth helo, which Mankel had been kind enough to provide. Using his own devices against him made the victory even sweeter.
With this kind of equipment, Mankel would never detect them coming in. And even if he did, he’d be expecting his men on this craft.
The only person on this helicopter who didn’t belong was Marley. Marley with her wounded doe eyes and stiff, prideful spine. Marley, who kept shooting Mack furtive glances full of longing. Her body was as sweet and lush as a ripe peach in summertime.
A peach who lied.
Mack averted his gaze, staring instead at the blindingly bright light of the sunrise on the horizon. A few white clouds marred the sky, but other than that it was a pure, beautiful blaze. It was a morning meant to be savored and enjoyed.
It was the morning Jack Mankel would die.
Aaron yelled back at the crew behind him, “Ten minutes out, boys.”
“Looks like it’s going to be a hot day, I wouldn’t mind a little dunk in the water,” Mack yelled over the roar of the helo.
Despite the fact he’d pointedly ignored her, he couldn’t let Marley out of his peripheral vision. He knew she was nervous. Hell, she should be. She was flying in with a team of special operatives’ intent on waging a war against a bloodthirsty killer. She’d be inhuman if she weren’t nervous. The old Mack might’ve comforted her, reassured her. But that was before she’d taken a knife to his trust and sliced him open and poured acid on the wound.
Chapter 28
If Mankel really had stayed at the compound out of overstuffed confidence, a water insertion would be the easiest way for Mack’s team to gain entrance. That big-ass lake that was north of his base was big enough for them to insert a good ways out undetected.
Ethan shoved his hand into a large duffel bag held in place by a cargo net and pulled out a bunch of radios. “Got the communications system.”
“Hook us up. I’m in for a good gunfight.”
Ethan quickly filtered through each radio, turned the different dials so they’d all be set to the same frequency. “Emergency only, boys. Mankel will be scanning the radios, paranoid bastard that he is. We can use these to radio for pickup once we’re done.”
Everyone slid on their backpacks in silence. Mack focused on a silver metal screw along the floorboards to keep from looking at Marley, who was huddled next to Riser and Jared, looking for all the world like a lost little girl.
“Do I get a gun?” Her quiet question drew Mack’s attention like a shout.
“You’re staying in the air until the mission is over.”
She licked her lips, damn her, and his body reacted instantly. He tightened the backpack strap on his right shoulder too hard and winced.
“I’m trained with a weapon. I can help.”
His team turned to him.
“No.” He couldn’t do his job effectively if he was worried about her catching a stray bullet the whole time, trained or not.
Besides, he hadn’t one hundred percent ruled out her possible involvement with Mankel.
Marley slammed her mouth shut with a mutinous look and crossed her arms over her knees. Mack turned his attention back to gearing up, doing his best to focus on the mission ahead and not the woman he was desperately trying to put into his past.
“Five minutes out, boys. Who’s ready for a little swim?” Aaron said over his shoulder and then pushed the steering stick forward. The helicopter dipped and picked up speed, the nose tilting slightly down as they shot across the treetops, the struts at the bottom of the helicopter only ten feet above the tree line.
Not exactly the safest way to fly, but the lower they stayed, the less visible they were on radar.
They burst over the edge of the jungle, moving into the rapidly disappearing sunlight reflecting off the lake. The helicopter dipped again, getting up close and personal with the water.
“Go time!” Riser called out.
“You boys ready?”
Mack reached up and tapped Aaron’s shoulder.
Aaron pulled back on the stick; the helicopter slowed and hovered just above the water’s surface. Mack ripped open the door, welcoming the blast of wind off the rotor blades whirling overhead. He took a breath, crouched, and without a backward glance at Marley, launched himself from the cabin. Lukewarm water rushed over his head; he kicked his legs and broke the surface, dog paddling in the water, as the rest of his team inserted after him. Aaron gave him a salute from the window and pulled up. The last thing Mack saw before the helicopter disappeared back over the tree line was Marley’s stark face peering out at him from the cabin.
Mack clenched his jaw, forcing himself to ignore her worry. She didn’t have the right to feel that kind of emotion about him. Not anymore.
“Damn, this water is as hot as a bathtub,” Riser muttered.
His team started swimming across the lake, moving fast but pacing themselves. They’d trained for this their whole lives; it was just the warm-up before the real exercise.
“Dude, there’s a constant temperature of a thousand degrees here. Did you really expect it to be cold?” Ethan asked.
“I’m not an idiot. Of course I didn’t expect it to be cold,” Riser muttered. “I just didn’t expect we’d be taking a group bath.”
“You boys better keep it down before you attract some crocodiles.” Mack kept swimming, barely feeling the weight of the rifle slung across his back.
“Not gators. Hippos. Those are some bad mamas,” Hoyt said, as he pulled closer to the rest of the group.
That might be the first time he’d cracked a joke since, well, since his capture and torture. Maybe he was going to be all right after all.
Jared snorted, “How many hours of National Geographic TV have you been watching?”
“About as many as you’ve been watching of Grey’s Anatomy.”
The low hum of laughter was sweet music to Mack
’s ears. His team worked as one, thought as one. He savored the way they pulled together as one tight-knit unit. They picked up the pace, skirting along the edge of the water to stay out of sight. After swimming for what seemed like hours, Mack caught sight of a huge, ugly, gray compound up ahead. “You see that boys?”
“Man, Reaper wasn’t kidding when he said it was a fortress.” Hunter let out a low whistle.
Mack kicked his feet, keeping his head above the water. “Doesn’t matter how it looks; there’s always a way in. Merc, you still got that scope?” Mack asked.
Merc made his way closer to Mack and handed him a long, black scope. Mack lifted it to his eye and did a quick scan of the long, low wall bordering the water. Two guards patrolled the top of it. The wall butted up straight against the beach, leaving no trees or bushes for cover in a covert approach. The parts along the sides of the fence were cleared out as well.
“Looks like we’re going in hot, boys,” Mack said.
“We’re ready, boss,” Hunter said.
Mack handed Merc the scope. Kicking his legs, he pulled his rifle over his shoulder and checked the silencer attached to the end of the weapon. “Thank goodness, Mankel sent some nice big silencers with his team to kill us.”
“Almost as good as cheating on a cheater,” Riser said, as he checked his own weapon.
“Hoyt, Jared, if we get you in close enough, how fast do you think you could scale that wall and set up an overwatch to give us some cover to breach the compound?”
“Fifteen seconds, boss,” Jared said quickly.
“All right, let’s hug the shore. We can go under just before we’re visible. Merc, you take out the guy on your left. I’ll take out the guy on my right.”
Merc nodded, “Roger.”
They made their way quietly, moving closer to the shore until their feet touched the bottom and sank in the mud. They slowly made their way to the waterline, making the smallest ripples possible. Once they got to the spot where the trees ended and the yard began, Mack held his hand up and indicated with a flat palm down for everyone to submerge.
Men of Mercy: The Complete Story Page 167