A Prince Among Men (Red, Hot & Blue)

by Cat Johnson

  The radio sprang to life again. “Let us know if there are any updates. Foxtrot out.”

  Hawk scowled, shaking his head until Wally’s excited voice came over the radio again. “Bravo team to base. Bravo team to base. Hawk, you there?”

  Hawk dove for the desk again. “I’m here, Wally. What’s the report?”

  “We’ve reached Alpha team’s last known location. It’s too dark to see much, but, Hawk, there’s blood on the ground, broken trees off the road and tire tracks leading east.”

  Blood on the ground. Vicki nearly fainted at that news.

  For a moment, Hawk was as speechless as Vicki at Wally’s report.

  “Awaiting orders, Hawk. Over.” Wally’s voice broke Hawk out of his shock.

  He drew in and let out a deep breath. “Relay your exact location to me. Do not follow those tracks. I repeat, do not attempt rescue until backup arrives. I don’t want ten missing instead of five.”

  “You mean thirteen missing instead of eight, Hawk. You’re forgetting the three Brits in the truck.”

  Wally went on to relay some technical sounding coordinates but Vicki’s mind was elsewhere. Something had jarred memories she didn’t even know she had and all the pieces began to fall into place.

  “Hawk?”

  “I don’t have time, Vicki. I need to get out there to Wally’s location.” He turned away from her and toward the soldier still seated at the console. “We need second and third squads suited up and ready to leave ASAP.”

  Vicki had already whipped out her camera and scrolled through the digital shots, zooming in on the face of one ginger-haired player at the volleyball game she’d photographed. Her suspicion was confirmed. “This is important, Hawk. The guy on the radio said one of the missing men is named Wales?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. He’s one of the Brits. Why?”

  Hawk wore a face that told Vicki his patience for her silliness was at an end.

  “Lieutenant Henry Wales?”

  Hawk shrugged and looked to the man at the console for an answer. “Jackson?”

  Jackson referred to a paper on his clipboard and nodded.

  “I think I know why the Brits are freaking out and why these men have all disappeared so completely.” Vicki should have been doing a happy dance. Being here, in the middle of probably the biggest story of the century, was every journalist’s dream. But all she could think was that Ryan was doomed, because he was right in the middle of it too.

  “He’s not just a soldier, Hawk. He’s Prince Harry, third in line to inherit the British throne.”

  Hawk shook his head. He stared at her for a second and then shook his head some more. “That’s crazy. They wouldn’t send him here. And if they did, they sure as hell wouldn’t keep it a secret from the rest of us.”

  “Hawk, I’ve spent the last year in London. I’m sure. I’ve seen Harry in person.” She held her camera up. “I have a picture I took of him playing volleyball here at the base this morning. I was at a press conference in London right before I left for Kandahar where the British Prime Minister practically did a jig dancing around a question about where and when Harry would be deployed. And I just read online that the British press hasn’t been able to spot Harry anywhere for the past six weeks. How long has Wales been here?”

  Again, Hawk looked to the still-seated Jackson, whose face had visibly paled at her question. Vicki already knew the answer before his answer. “About six weeks.”

  Vicki took in a deep breath, taking no joy in the idea all the facts seemed to prove her theory correct. “It’s too much of a coincidence, Hawk. I’m right. It’s got to be him.”

  Hawk’s features took on an expression that Vicki hoped he never turned toward her. It said he was perfectly capable of killing someone and would not think twice about it. “Get me that bastard, Foxtrot, on the radio. Now.”

  Jackson did as told, and fast, handing Hawk the mic as the Brit’s voice came across. “Foxtrot here. Is there news on the hounds?”

  “Yeah, there’s news. Do you have anything you need to tell me? Anything about the identity of one of your hounds? Like perhaps he’s not a lowly mutt like my American dogs, but a purebred? Pedigreed, in fact.”

  “Base, this is not a secure line. Discontinue this conversation immediately.” The connection might not be entirely clear, but the panic in his voice was.

  Hawk thrust the mic back at Jackson and spun to face the wall. “Dammit. It’s fucking true. I can’t believe they’d do this. They put the entire base in jeopardy the minute that guy stepped off that bird and they kept it a secret.”

  Meanwhile, the panicked Brit was still talking. “Base. Security surrounding this matter is at the highest level. Do you understand me?”

  Jackson hesitated, but when Hawk made no move to answer Foxtrot, he took over the communications. “Roger that, Foxtrot.”

  Finally, Hawk got himself under control, at least enough to order Jackson to give the British man Wally’s coordinates so they could send a team there to follow the tire tracks, which more than likely would lead to all the missing men.

  Hopefully.

  Jackson did as told, ending the conversation with, “Base out.” He flipped a switch and the static disappeared. He turned in his chair to face Hawk. “Now what?”

  “Tell second and third squads to stand down. And get Wally on the line. Tell him his team is to secure the sight and not disturb anything before the Brits get there and then return to base ASAP.”

  “You’re just going to leave Ryan and the team out there?” Vicki’s heart felt lodged permanently in her throat.

  “No, but that British bastard was right when he said this may be bigger than we thought. We were going on the assumption it was a scattering of bad guys who got lucky and made off with a truck full of supplies. But in light of this new information, there’s a good chance this entire thing was a well-coordinated kidnapping.” Hawk shook his head, not for the first time that night. “A frigging prince. What the hell were they thinking?”

  “We need to tell the company commander,” Jackson reminded him.

  “He’s out searching too. Go ahead and make the call, Jackson. He needs to get back here so we can tell him what we’re up against.” Then Hawk got a smile on his face. “Vicki, step outside with me for a moment.”

  Vicki couldn’t have been more surprised, or disturbed, by the sight of Hawk’s out-of-place smile, but she followed him outside. He stopped a short distance from the tent so the light from inside dimly lit his face in the night.

  “More than just the company commander needs to know about this.” Appearing distracted, he seemed to mumble as much to himself as to her. Hawk took a deep breath. “This whole British fuck-up may work in our favor after all. Did I see you with one of those satellite cell phones?”

  Still shocked Hawk was confiding in her about matters military, Vicki managed to nod.

  “Can I see it?”

  Digging in her camera bag, Vicki finally found the phone and, puzzled, handed it over. In the meantime, Hawk had dug his wallet out of one of the many pockets in his pants and taken out a small folded scrap of paper. He referred to it as he dialed.

  “Dalton. It’s Hawk. We have a situation. I need you and your team here at the firebase. ASAP.” He waited a beat, listening before talking again. “I don’t think there will be any problems getting approval from central command once I tell you who you’ll be riding in to rescue this time.”

  Then Hawk proceeded to tell this Dalton person on the other end of the line what they had discovered.

  There was a lot of military speak and coordinates that meant nothing to Vicki on Hawk’s end of the conversation, and her frustration and impatience grew. Finally, he disconnected the call and handed her back the phone.

  He turned to walk back into the operations-center tent when she grabbed his arm. “Hawk. Wait. Won’t you get in trouble? Foxtrot said this was the highest level of security. You just told somebody everything.”

  Hawk grinned
. “Vicki, I was just talking to a man whose security clearance is so high, he doesn’t even officially exist. But thanks for worrying about me. Oh, and we should probably keep that little phone call just between the two of us. Okay?”

  He didn’t wait for her answer. Grabbing the door, Hawk wasn’t even through the doorway and inside the tent yet when he began talking to Jackson. “Is the commander on his way back?”

  Vicki scurried after him. “Wait a minute. Who was that? What’s happening?”

  Hawk turned to Vicki with a look of amusement. “Now, now. Wait your turn.”

  Vicki felt her face heat, until she realized that if Hawk was being cocky again, something really good must have just happened on that phone call with the man who didn’t exist.

  There was a whole lot of conversation between Hawk and Jackson about the commander that Vicki didn’t give a damn about before Hawk finally turned to her. He pulled her back outside again. The door slammed shut behind them. “Now. What was the question?”

  He knew what the damn question was. Why was he wasting everyone’s time being a brat when Ryan could be being tortured or bleeding to death at this very moment? That thought twisted her insides with fear.

  “Who did you call?” Vicki said the words very slowly.

  “Let’s just say I called in the men in black.”

  What the hell did that mean? “And when will these men in black arrive?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know that yet.”

  “Ryan could be dead by then.”

  There was that look on Hawk’s face again. His eyes narrowed as he watched her closely. “When all this is over, you and me and Pettit are going to sit down and have a nice long conversation about why you are suddenly so attached to him. But for now, you listen up. I am as sick as anyone about this situation. Those are my men out there. I should have been with them, but instead I was stuck in here coordinating things with the British air support because I thought this was where I would be most useful. You think it’s not killing me they’ve most likely been taken prisoner on my watch, because it is. I’m doing the best thing I know how to get them back. But until my backup arrives, the smartest thing to do is sit tight.”

  Vicki tried to take a breath, but she found it turned into a huge, shaking sob instead. “I’m sorry.”

  Sorry she was acting like a hysterical woman. Sorry she’d accused Hawk of not caring about his men. Sorry she’d ever come to this damn country. Sorry she’d ever fallen in love with Ryan.

  That last one made her thoughts stop dead in their tracks. Was she really sorry she’d fallen in love with Ryan? She’d have to think about that later. It was just too damn painful now.

  Hawk took a step closer and touched her arm briefly before letting his hand drop. “Until the guys I called get here, the Brits are on this, Vicki. It may not be Pettit or the rest of my guys they’re out to save, but if all the prisoners are together, and chances are good they are, then he’ll get rescued all the same.”

  Vicki nodded and then simply gave up trying to be strong. Visions of the horrors she’d seen on television of what happened when American soldiers got taken prisoner filled her head. Ignoring that being a woman in a man’s world meant she needed to never show emotion, ignoring the horrified look on Hawk’s face at the sight of her tears, Vicki broke down and let herself sob.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ryan cracked open one crusty eye and then immediately closed it again. Even the dim light made his battered head ache. Lying still and feigning unconsciousness, he took stock of what he knew.

  The floor beneath his cheek was cool, damp and gritty. Dirt floor, he concluded. That didn’t narrow it down too much. They were in Afghanistan, the land of the mud hut. The fact there was light meant they were most likely not in a cave. That was good. The rescue teams would search every hut, barn and tent in the province looking for them. Caves, however, were harder to locate in these mountains.

  The one major problem would be if they were no longer in Afghanistan. How long had he been unconscious? Ryan tried to reason it out. He and the team had been taken after dark, so if the light originated from the sun and not from some artificial source, it meant he’d been out of it until sunrise. That was bad. That was long enough for the baddies to drive their prisoners over the Pakistan border, where coalition forces were not allowed to go. That was the one place Hawk and Bravo team couldn’t follow.

  And that raised the next question within Ryan’s scrambling brain—how many of Alpha team, his team, were here with him?

  He’d have to open his eyes to determine that. Should he risk it? When in a hostage situation, it was always better to let the bad guys think you were incapacitated for as long as possible. They tended to watch you far less closely.

  Blindly, Ryan took inventory of his bonds. Wrists, tied behind his back with what felt like rope. Good. Rope gave and stretched. Plastic ties didn’t give, though plastic was easier to cut. Not that Ryan thought he was still in possession of his knife. Oh, no, that would be long gone, along with the rest of his weapons, ammo and radio. Probably his ID too. That was most likely on the black market already. Soon, some lucky militant would be walking around as Ryan Pettit.

  Ryan stifled a sigh, trying to keep his breathing even to maintain the charade.

  Back to the problem at hand. His hands behind his back were not only bound, but numb. Yeah, he’d been in this position for quite a long time. His feet were tied also.

  Dammit. He really needed to know if Moraches, Bender, Walker and Black were here with him.

  A sudden voice startled the shit out of him. Ryan remained motionless, almost afraid to breathe.

  “Where did the guards go?” a very familiar British accent asked.

  Ryan’s brain worked hard to place the voice, using both the sound and his knowledge of who else was missing. Wales, Rumsfield and Jordan had been in the supply truck.

  He concluded it was Wales who was seated near him and had inquired about the guards. Even knowing who was here, Ryan still didn’t react, not trusting that they weren’t under surveillance.

  But this did make the situation more interesting. The same bad guys who’d taken the truck had gotten Ryan’s team too. Which made sense since his team had just spotted tire tracks leading off the road when the ambush hit. Which begged the question, were the bad guys after the truckload of supplies and grabbing Ryan’s team was just a lucky bonus? Or was the truck taken to be used as bait for capturing coalition soldiers?

  The tricky old chicken-or-the-egg question. There was no answer to that riddle, but hopefully there was an answer to this one, and Hawk would find both it and them.

  “Looks like they’ve left us alone for a bit,” a different British voice informed them. “We have to get the bloody hell out of here before they figure it out and realize who they’ve got.”

  Who have they got? Good question.

  “We shouldn’t be talking about this. They could be listening,” a third British voice warned. Rumsfield, the worrier. Ryan recognized the nagging-wife tone of Wales’s sidekick immediately.

  “I don’t think anyone’s listening. The two guards disappeared into a hut, and no one else is in sight. I think the bloody bastards went inside for some scran. I can smell it cooking.”

  By process of elimination, it would have to be Jordan who delivered that news.

  “Besides, there is no way they know who he is. This is too low level an operation. They tied us in some old rope that smells like goats. They didn’t even have plastic ties. And they only left two guards. I’m telling you, we were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was just dumb luck they got us three along with the truck.”

  “I knew you shouldn’t have gone to get the supplies,” Rumsfield whined.

  “If I wanted to sit around and do nothing, I could have stayed at home. I want to fight side by side with my men. I want to serve my country like every one of my ancestors did.”

  Ryan could hear the frustration in Wales’s vo
ice and shared it, but for a different reason. He decided he’d had enough with playing possum. He needed to see if he was the only American survivor. He tried to open his eyes, but the constant pain in his head had him barely squinting.

  “I think the Yank’s awake,” Wales informed the room loudly, the words shut up, he can hear unspoken in his sentence. Why were the Brits acting so secretive?

  “Hey, mate. You up?” Something bumped into him, rocking his body on the floor. Ryan managed to crack one eye, peering through his eyelashes to spy the camouflage-covered leg that had nudged him.

  Ryan turned his head and peered across the room.

  “Good morning. Got any plans to get us out of here?” Jordan asked from his standing position against the door where he appeared to be peering through a crack.

  Ryan frowned and rolled, pretty ungracefully, until he could leverage his shoulder against the ground and push himself up onto his knees. Just that little effort had him winded. He was in bad shape and he ached everywhere.

  Flexing his hands behind his back, he looked around the room. “Where are the rest of my men?” He feared the answer.

  “They’re in the room behind us, still out of it, I think. They really did a number on you lads. You were all knocked out when they brought you in last night,” Wales informed him.

  “How many of mine are here?

  “Five including you.”

  Ryan sighed and said a silent prayer. “All alive?”

  “Yeah. I checked.” Jordan answered him this time with a nod.

  Thank God. Another wave of relief washed over Ryan. He could now devote the time to take better stock of their situation, what they had at their disposal to try and stay alive until the rescue teams got here.

  Ryan realized that though Jordan’s hands were tied behind his back also, at least he was on his feet. In fact, none of the Brits’ feet were tied. Good. That made things easier, but why?