Got Thrills? A Boxed Set (A McCray Collection)

by Carolyn McCray

  “Dork! Dimwitted dork!”

  Ah, it was sad when the mighty fell. Jarod remembered something and whispered to Mia.

  “Was Buton quoting Freud? Van Gogh?”

  Mia grinned back at him. “More like Sherlock Holmes.”

  The two shared a moment until Stavros planted himself toe to toe with Jarod. He leaned in with menace.

  “Where did you hide it?”

  Jarod shrugged, spreading his arms wide. “We only found a few small gems…”

  Cleo stepped forward, revealing three small shards of crystal in her palm. The gemstones sparkled brilliantly in the bright sun, sending slivers of rainbow light darting around the faces of everyone present.

  Gil stepped up to Stavros’ side, yelling in Jarod’s face. “Bullshit! You never would’ve left with just those baubles. Where’s the real find?”

  “That’s all. I don’t know where this ‘mother lode’ crap came from. Everyone was insane up there.” Jarod looked Gil straight in the face.

  Captain Stavros snatched the jewels out of Cleo’s hand and growled in Jarod’s face. “A rumor? I risked lives for these?” He clenched his fist around the stones. “These are government property now.”

  Jarod fired back at him. “Hey! We’re not to blame. We were just protecting ourselves. Whoever said we had the mother lode…”

  Jarod paused and glanced at Gil, winking at him from the eye Stavros couldn’t see. Jarod watched as Gil’s face blanched.

  “…that’s the person to blame.”

  Captain Stavros’ tone dipped down dangerously low. “Rest assured. The blame will be placed where it’s deserved.” Stavros motioned to the men around him. “Take him into custody.”

  The captain then pointed directly at Gil. His men grabbed Gil’s arms and yanked them behind his back, slapping binders in place on Gil’s wrists.

  For the first time Jarod could remember seeing it, Gil was speechless.

  Stavros glanced back at the Rogues. “You’ll be debriefed. If you cooperate, you should be released by this afternoon.” He turned on his heel and stalked off toward the base.

  Jarod took the opportunity to speak one last time to Gil before he was carted off.

  “Gil, how’s it feel to be the gazelle taken down by lions?”

  Gil’s mouth worked, but no sound came out as he was dragged off toward the base in Stavros’ wake. What awaited Gil there, Jarod was not entirely certain. It would make for some awesome conjecturing as they were being debriefed, though.

  Rob gazed up at the palm trees surrounding the base as the crew was led inside. “Well, at least we got a free trip to someplace tropical.”

  The debriefing was as long and as painful as Stavros had probably ordered it to be. Jarod felt a bit as if the captain had to take out his frustration on someone. At least they weren’t in Gil’s shoes right about now.

  Even their ejection from the base wasn’t gentle. Their escort threw open the gate and all but threw the Rogues into the street.

  “Hey…” Jarod protested. “The least you can do is buy us dinner after stealing our diamonds and grilling us for hours.”

  The only response was the gate slamming shut.

  The Rogues brushed themselves off, looking at each other. Cleo broke the silence.

  “Where to now?”

  Jarod shrugged, picked a direction, and started walking. Mia, looking as dead tired and haggard as Jarod had ever seen her, fell into step beside him. She glanced over at him.

  “I don’t suppose there are any taxis?”

  Jarod laughed. “We couldn’t afford one, anyway.” He stopped and slapped himself on the forehead. “Damn! I lost my boat, my car, and my house…Man, this has not been a good week.”

  Mia grinned up at him, her eyes twinkling. “Hey. You met me.”

  Jarod chuckled, assenting. “You’re the silver lining, babe.”

  Mia drew herself up at that, apparently taking umbrage. “Silver?” She punched Jarod in the shoulder, causing him to shake his arm out. Mia continued. “I’m worth way more than that!”

  Mia pulled out her scorpion pendant. She turned it around and opened up a compartment in the back to reveal a small but brilliant diamond. Jarod gaped at her, his eyes moving from her face to the gem, and back to her face.

  “How?”

  “Cleo and I took a little precaution.”

  Cleo grinned at him. “We girls have to tuck something away for a rainy day.”

  Jarod whooped, then grabbed Mia around the waist and spun her around. She giggled…Mia giggled…then flushed. She gazed through her eyelashes at Jarod.

  “It’s worth enough to outfit the Rogues with a new seagoing vessel…And maybe even a little left over for my research.”

  Jarod peered deep into Mia’s eyes. Damn, but this woman was beautiful. She had whirled and kicked and insulted her way into his heart. His pulse pounding in his throat, Jarod leaned in and kissed her. She stiffened for a moment, then melted, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Enthusiastically. The Rogues cheered.

  Rob slapped Jarod on the back. “It’s about freakin’ time!”

  Jarod held out his hand to Mia, gesturing at the gemstone. “Let me see that.”

  The shard flared up brightly, as though it reflected a tiny piece of the sun.

  Jarod turned to the crew. “You know, guys…I think I might just know which ‘shipwreck’ to pursue next.”

  “Let me guess…” Mia teased. “Was it sunk somewhere near the Mariana Trench?”

  “For someone who just met me…” Jarod pulled her in to his side, tight. “You know me too damn well!”

  Buton smiled at Jarod, showing all his teeth. “How do you feel about karma now?”

  “I’m loving it!” Jarod announced to anyone who would listen.

  The Rogues turned as one and walked back toward civilization, leaving the base and all its conflict behind. Jarod looked out over the group. It didn’t really matter where they were going.

  They were together. They were already home.

  EPILOGUE

  Deep under the surface of the ocean where little to no light penetrated, a glow suffused the terrain. The seascape appeared exposed, almost uncomfortable, with this new intruder to its realm. Fish and more mysterious sea creatures darted away, seeking darker, more hidden climes.

  The massive stone shone with an inner radiance. Denizens of the deep, those with no eyes to be burned by the light, crawled onto its surface, extruding sediments and catalysts that would eventually turn this radiating orb into just another dark stone on the floor of the ocean.

  But for now, the gem burned brightly, brilliantly in this darkest and deepest of the world’s hidden places. It shone as a beacon, calling out for rescue. Calling out to be seen. Calling out to share its beauty with the world.

  The call…was heard.

  Want more eclectic novels from McCray? Check out A Reader’s Feast Collection, something for everyone, here!

  * * *

  CAUGHT

  Caught is the prequel short story to the first book, Crossfire, in the second cycle of the Betrayed series. This short story follows the exploits of Davidson, Bunny and Lopez after Brandt and Monroe move to California. Expect Crossfire in January of 2014!

  CHAPTER 1

  ══════════════════

  Bunny held onto the car handle as their black SUV hit another pothole. Actually, the term “pothole” in Afghanistan was a misnomer. First, it implied that they were on a real road, instead of the world’s longest dirt trail. Second, there was nothing pot sized about the holes. More like crater sized.

  Lopez had to gun the engine just to get out of the sinkhole that they had fallen into. It was hard to see out the front window, as the dust from the two lead vehicles obscured the view.

  Levont was in the lead vehicle. Prenner was in the seat beside Lopez. Their new sergeant, Drecker, was in the back seat next to her. Despite her vow to never go out into the field agai
n, here she was yet again. And, this time, in the car with the president of the United States. How her life had changed since meeting Lochum just a few years ago.

  No longer was she the queen bee in the archaic halls of archeological academia. No, now she was the liaison between the army and the Secret Service sent here to protect the President. There was quite a bit of jurisdictional jostling, and it turned out that all of those years coddling professors’ egos had prepped her for this mission.

  Over her earpiece, Bunny could hear the sounding off of the various cars and support services. The president had insisted on not just visiting Afghanistan, but going outside of the capital city, Kabul, and its relative safety. The people in Washington who decided such things clearly had never been to Afghanistan. Yes, the girls’ school the president had visited was only twenty-seven miles outside the capital city. With these conditions, they were lucky if they got back to Kabul in an hour and a half. And that was if they didn’t get hung up by some goat farmers. Sometimes they drove herds of hundreds of animals, and that could take a while for them all to cross the road.

  “Why hasn’t your boyfriend checked in?” Drecker asked Bunny, startling her.

  Bunny listened to the chatter over the com. “Echo one check in,” she heard.

  She frowned. Davidson was rock solid. If he wasn’t checking in, there was a reason. And, in Bunny’s experience, a bad reason.

  “Go to high alert,” Bunny ordered. None of the men in the car seemed pleased that she was giving the orders. “There’s something wrong.”

  * * *

  Davidson could hear everyone’s desperate plea for him to check in and he would love to, but he couldn’t waste the breath or distraction. He had his sniper rifle set up, scanning the mountainside on the far side of the road. He’d sworn he’d seen something.

  A glint, perhaps. But that had been several minutes ago. He couldn’t let his focus slip, even to check in. He heard a high alert command go out. Like he wasn’t already there. At least Bunny must have realized that if he didn’t check in something had gone sideways.

  There it was again. The flare of light from a sniper’s scope. Davidson’s scope, like all high end snipers’ scopes, was coated in anti-reflective material. Cheaper, older scopes were not.

  Someone had a nest over there.

  Someone not on the guest list.

  Time for him to earn his keep. He had set up about three-quarters of the way up his mountain. Most people would try to go to the peak. However, that was the obvious choice. Davidson had burrowed in between two large rock formations. Much better natural cover.

  The other sniper, while using an older weapon, was pretty good, as well. He, too, was nestled beneath the crest line. A perfect perch to shoot at the presidential SUV.

  Davidson breathed out through his nose, slowing his heart rate, stabilizing his respirations. Telling his brain to ignore the pain from the scars on his hands. He had a picture in his head of where the flare had come from. Looking to the strips of camouflage strips that he’d tied to his rifle muzzle, there was only a light wind—, nothing that should interfere with his shot.

  Keeping both eyes open, he scanned the other mountainside, relocating the exact location of that blaze of light.

  In theory, protocol stated he should ask for permission to fire. However, with the president in the mix, he’d been given the Scorpio order as soon as he headed out. He had pre-permission to use deadly force as he saw fit.

  And he definitely saw fit. He couldn’t wait for confirmation. The next time the scope was used might be to take out one of the convoy’s cars. Davidson couldn’t let that happen.

  Taking in a shallow breath, Davidson held it and counted between heartbeats, firing in the pause between.

  The crack sounded loud in his ears. There was a slight pause, then a body tumbled out of the terrorist’s hiding place and rolled down the mountainside.

  Subject neutralized.

  * * *

  “Sniper taken down,” Davidson said in Bunny’s earpiece. “I strongly recommend a change of route.”

  The head of the Secret Service detail shook his head. “This is the only vetted route until we get to the juncture of the highway.”

  “So well vetted that you knew about that sniper?” Bunny shot back. All of these alpha males thought she was a pushover. A pretty face just to smooth things over. They were about to find out, not so much.

  “Lopez!” she barked. The divider window came down.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  Bunny didn’t have time to give the order before a huge explosion sounded ahead of them. In the dust and fire, it was hard to see what happened. The only thing she knew for sure was that a SUV in front of them had been hit by an IED and hurled into the air. It fell to their left on its top.

  The sound of the explosion. The flash of gunpowder. The reek of burning flesh. All of it threw her back to the stairwell in Paris. She wrapped her arms around her waist. The last time she’d been that close to an explosion, she’d woken up in a Parisian hospital two weeks later, minus a spleen but the new owner of a pin in her hip and eleven broken ribs. So many broken ribs that it qualified her as a “flail” chest. Whatever that meant, it had hurt like hell and taken over twelve weeks to heal.

  Then she snapped back to the present, worried that Levont had been in that lead car.

  Then their point man’s voice came over the com. “Holy shit, that was car two. I repeat, car two is off the board.”

  “Lopez, get us out of here,” Bunny said, trying to shake off the flashback as Lopez jerked the wheel to the right and was taking them nearly straight up the mountainside. The SUV bounced and popped over rocks and large stones.

  The engine whined, but Lopez offered no sympathy. He was nearly standing on the gas pedal.

  “This is crazy,” Drecker said. “There isn’t even a road.”

  “Exactly,” Lopez said.

  Bunny had to interpret for the sergeant. “You can’t plant a device if you don’t know where the car is going to be.”

  The president had two Secret Service agents on top of him, keeping him seated. Bunny was not so lucky. Her head hit the roof of the car several times, even with her seat belt on.

  “You’ve got company,” Davidson said. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “How many?” the head of the Secret Service detail asked.

  “I don’t know,” Davidson said. “Is there an exact number for horde?”

  Drecker frowned. But Bunny wasn’t sure if that was from the news or from the fact that Lopez had taken them airborne for a few seconds. Of course, coming down wasn’t all that pleasant. The suspension screamed on impact, but Lopez ignored it, gunning the engine again.

  * * *

  Davidson could only watch as dozens of ATVs, Jeeps and other vehicles swarmed out from the pocked mountainside and descended on the presidential motorcade.

  “This seems a little more coordinated than the tribal lords,” Davidson said into his mic.

  “I agree,” Stark said from his tech den in Washington. He had been reassigned from the Pentagon to be their IT support. “I’m looking into who financed this.”

  Davidson scanned the vehicles. None could outrace the SUV that Lopez had tricked out. After seeing the terrain when they scouted the area last week, Lopez had made some very specific demands on after-market improvement he wanted made to the SUV. And you could see them in action now.

  He was pretty sure that the thing had a tractor’s chasse fused onto the undercarriage. Which was why the drive shaft hadn’t just snapped in half from the way Lopez was forcing the vehicle up the mountainside. Sure, it had made the car weight twice as much, but fuel efficiency wasn’t their concern today. It was getting the president home alive.

  Davidson aimed at one of the lead ATVs, but then saw a greater concern. Men on horseback. Sure, they weren’t as fast as the other vehicle, but in the rocky terrain, they could traverse far deeper into the mountains than any SUV.

  Even after
all of his training, Davidson couldn’t stomach shooting a horse, so he aimed at the riders. The first one fell off the back of the horse and the beautiful bay just kept running, his reins fluttering over his shoulders.

  The rest of the riders were taken out within seconds. Still, Lopez had to deal with a literal swarm of ATVs, plus a tank that had appeared out of one of the lower caves. It was getting ready to fire one of its rounds.

  Figuring it was Afghanistan and not freaking World War II, Davidson didn’t have an anti-tank rifle or bazooka with him. Surprise, surprise.

  Tanks were a serious problem for a sniper. There were no wheels to shoot out. No windows to shatter. Whoever had coordinated this attack knew the ins and outs of an in-theater assassination.

  Just because Davidson didn’t have anything in his bag of tricks didn’t mean that they were defenseless. Levont must have gotten a hold of the wheel of his SUV, as he rammed sideways into the tank. Again, the aggressive modifications that Lopez had insisted upon were coming in handy.

  Normally an SUV would bounce right off of a tank—however, Levont’s SUV was not normal. It was about three times heavier than it should be, with way more horsepower than an SUV should be allowed to have.

  Therefore, he was able to nudge the tank off its trajectory. Just a few degrees was all they needed, as the explosive round blow up ten feet from the president’s car.

  “You’ve got to get into that tank!!” Davidson yelled, feeling helpless. There was nothing he could do from his position against a tank.

  Then, a bit of luck. The tank went over an IED, throwing it farther off target. Levont sprang from the SUV, launched himself onto the tank, and climbed up the side. You could see the effort he was using to get the hatch open. Whoever was inside was attempting to keep Levont out.

  Which meant he was not available to fire on the president. Whatever it took to neutralize that tank worked for Davidson.

  * * *

  “They have a tank,” Drecker said. “How do they have a tank?”

  Drecker was many things. Calm in the face of a shitstorm? Not so much, it turned out. Who knew replacing Brandt would be so hard? Actually, everyone. Trying to find a man who was as aggressive as Brandt yet had a level head on his shoulders turned out to be a herculean task.