by Kell, Sheila
Damn, his earpiece was dead. He wanted to yank it free and stomp on it but left it, just in case the comm piece came to life. But, oh how he hated not being the first in the know.
Franks picked up his pace and Ken had no option but to follow him if he wanted to remain with the man. Sam had rescued him, helped him dress and stand, and now she had his back—again. Pride filled his chest. She was so fucking amazing.
“Dammit,” Franks said. “Doesn’t that bitch ever give up?” He halted them, looked down at his GPS unit, said something in the comm piece that Ken didn’t catch and turned back to them.
“Wait right there,” Franks ordered.
Before Ken could question it, Franks slipped off in the direction of the other two agents, blending into the jungle.
At least they didn’t leave them unprotected. He and Sam did have their weapons. If they had to make a dash for it, he’d keep upright to prevent Sam from being held back.
Sam crouched, her chest heaving as she caught her breath. While both trained for endurance, a little rest wasn’t unwelcome. A short one though.
Waiting and not participating lanced his every nerve. With his weapons, he could hold his own, but only if the fight remained stationary. Which was unlikely.
With weapons at the ready, they surveyed their area and kept a watch in all directions for potential threats. Gunfire erupted in the direction the team had headed and snapped their attention in that direction. As a rule, HIS avoided gunfire if at all possible.
Sam surged to her feet, and he pushed back to look around them to ensure their bubble of security remained intact. A barely perceptible unnatural jungle noise behind him carried in the stilted breeze that slithered up his spine with a bead of threat. Although he tried to steady it, his pulse quickened and adrenaline pushed him into his fight-or-flight mode. He made to spin around and protect them.
Before he could, behind them, arms reached out of the jungle and out of the corner of his eye, horror biting down on him for Sam’s safety. His heart pounded and the reflex to fight raged in him. Those arms wrapped around each of them to prevent him and Sam from using their weapons. He couldn’t hear but felt Sam’s strangled cry as hands clamped over their mouths, and a roar came from him into his captor’s hand. Within seconds, the jungle swallowed the two of them.
His stomach clenched and revolted as his heart churned within. Once again, Sam had been captured, and he’d not been able to prevent it.
30
Frantically twisting and turning to free herself or grab a weapon, Sam’s heartbeat went into overdrive racing so fast she thought it would explode from her chest. While that racked her system, her mind remained cold, cool, and focused, yet a little off-balanced.
There’d been one man on each of them. She had no idea if more existed. Judging by where she hit his body, her threat stood at least six feet tall and had been strong enough to lift her from the ground. She didn’t weigh overly much, but it still required a strong man to do so with one arm.
Since she couldn’t wrestle herself free with her current tactics, she went on the attack—one of the only ways she could in her position. Her combat boots made a nice sound when one connected with a knee.
“Oomph.”
While it sounded more like surprise than pain, a short dose of satisfaction lifted her confidence. She’d go for the other knee before she got dirty. If she had to move to that tactic, it’d have to be with a fist instead of her knee since she faced away from him. Somehow predicting her movement toward his uninjured knee, her captor shifted out of her strike range.
“Easy, Sugar.” The whispered name and command set her relief on a whirlwind. Bravo team had arrived. Then her ire rose. Why hadn’t anyone told them? Ken’s comm must be completely down. No wonder her team hadn’t worried about leaving them where they had. They would receive her boot up their asses for keeping them in the dark.
“Package is secure,” Grits said low, presumably to all on their comms.
The thrill of anticipation crept up her spine. They could get Ken to safety even though he thought he could make it by himself. She knew they needed help and not just because of his wounds. Alejandro had more men than they did. No sense playing the odds when you didn’t have to do so.
She spun around and shot a look at Grits, ready to give him a piece of her mind for that stunt, for making her fear for her life, but he placed a finger over his lips. Hoping to hear over the loud pulsing beat of her heart in her ears, she closed her eyes, swallowed, and focused.
Hearing men hurriedly approaching up the path they’d occupied, she silently thanked the agents for saving them from a firefight where Ken’s mobility worried her.
The more they walked, the more pronounced his limp had become and the slower he moved. The stubborn man wouldn’t admit to his team he needed help any more than he already had. That male pride thing would be the downfall of men.
Glancing over, Ken stood strong, his gaze upon the tangos walking past them. Out of her peripheral, she caught Grits giving a hand signal, then Romeo and Celeb silently slipped out behind the men.
Whispering, she asked, “Aren’t you going to send someone to help Franks, Doc, and Cowboy?”
Grits shook his head but never took his focus away from where his agents had left. “Listen.”
Quiet reached her ears. The gunfight had ended. Her stomach lurched at what the result might’ve been.
“Franks called us off or you know we’d have been there.”
As if he could read her mind on their status, Grits quietly announced, “Friendlies incoming.”
A collective sigh flowed through the group. As she looked over her team, she zeroed in on her missing counterpart. “Where’s Nemo?”
“He and Jesse are aboard transport to cover us in the open area.”
Made sense to her, especially since they’d need two birds to extract them now that both teams had arrived. Nothing short of euphoria filled her. Then her mind slipped to what Grits had put her through. Before she could give him a piece of her mind, Grits again warned of friendlies before Romeo and Celeb returned reporting the two tangos had been disarmed and were napping. She realized he’d been doing that for her and Ken as the rest of the team had heard the others’ inbound movement.
“Hey, Boss,” Romeo’s broad grin projected his pleasure at either seeing them again or what he’d just accomplished.
“Aren’t you tying them up or something?” Sam asked before Ken could respond to the welcome. They didn’t need the men reentering the fight.
Grits shook his head. “No. We don’t plan to stay or come back and clean this up. If we tie them, it’ll be a death sentence for them. If we stay on schedule, they won’t make it back to the compound with time to rearm before we’re wheels up.”
Not forgetting what Grits had done, she asked, “Why, pray tell, did you pull us off the track like that? Why couldn’t you just step out?” Anger blended in her voice, but part of it derived from fear.
“FNG.” Celeb shook his head and laughed.
“Celeb,” Ken warned, and the one word inferred something she didn’t grasp based on Celeb’s solemn reaction.
They’d called her that ever since she’d been hired and in front of Ken. Although she’d prefer they didn’t, she understood it as a camaraderie thing. If Ken began treating her differently or challenged the men’s actions, they would have big problems.
With Grits’s nod, two agents took off at a good clip just before the remainder of Alpha team arrived. With the brush and trees and hanging vines, seeing the entire team was difficult. Knowing they were there made the difference.
Grits glanced around the group. “Okay, Speedy and Casper are on point.” He instructed each person on their position so she and Ken—who were the targets—were covered on all sides. He’d left no room for threats to reach them without a ton of trouble falling on their heads. “A
re you ready to move?” He looked at Ken but didn’t ask for what she knew would be humiliating to him in front of the team.
Little did he know, the men had focused on him. His limp and grimace of pain didn’t go unnoticed by them either, no matter how hard he tried to pass himself off as being unaffected.
Due to their number and to make less noise, they remained on the narrow trail where they could barely walk two abreast. Especially with the broad shoulders of these men. With several agents in front and back, Grits strode on her left while Franks walked on Ken’s right.
She wondered if Ken realized they moved at a more sedate pace than normal in what she suspected was meant to accommodate Ken. He hadn’t told them to pick it up; instead, he allowed Grits to decide and run things. It showed her how strong a man he was for not only being such a great leader but following his men without question.
The trail forked and opened up to the route they’d take. Based on how long they’d walked, they should be arriving soon. Maybe she just hoped they would because it meant they were that much closer to a ride home.
Since she didn’t have a comm system, having Grits next to her worked best. While she only heard one side of the conversation, she could put together most of it, and if she asked, he’d probably tell her. The team didn’t keep secrets on an op. That could be deadly.
As they made their three-hour trek, Doc dropped back every so often to check their six and return to take up his position at the rear. Based on Grits’s one-word responses, the agents on point must not be facing any resistance. While she remained focused and ready, relief at almost being safe made her lightheaded. She refused to allow hope to bubble up in her mind until after they boarded the plane. Way after.
They hadn’t encountered any trouble and had almost reached the transport. Either Bev had given up or they just hadn’t been found. Both options worked for her.
Placing hers and Ken’s extraction as priority, she worried that Bev would escape them and not pay for her crimes. Although the crimes were committed in Mexico, she didn’t know how they’d proceed. Bev could pay for sending her own son to Mexico and crying kidnapping. Since she hadn’t reported it to the police, their only recourse would be to ensure Cody didn’t return to her clutches.
Based on all Sam had learned working with this group, Bev’s actions wouldn’t go unpunished. Somehow they’d find a way, no matter how long it took them. She had no idea what the punishment should be for Bev’s men shooting Ken, her holding them in captivity, torturing Ken, and attempting to drug them both. Then there was the shootout with their team.
Sam’s heart ripped open at the thought that she’d brought this woman into their lives. She’d unwittingly led them all to where they could be killed. Refusing to allow grief to overcome her steadiness, she swallowed past the lump in her throat and shoved it down for consideration at a later time.
Approaching the fork, she tensed since they would be more vulnerable. This far from the compound should have fewer threats. Granted, it took them longer to make it to this point since they’d made the detour last night.
The thought of the previous evening had her nerves jittery with a need for Ken’s touch to soothe them. A pulse flowed over her skin, leaving an erotic tingling that touched every bit of her.
“Take cover!” Grits’s urgent voice, while low over the comms, had everyone moving faster than a jungle cat after its prey but nearly noiselessly. Before he’d completed the order, he’d grabbed her arm and basically shoved her into the overgrowth, leaving his body as a target before he joined her under the shelter.
Glancing over her shoulder, she gasped, and her heart skipped a beat as Ken fell when he’d twisted. Instinctively, she moved to help, but Grits held her strong, preventing her from assisting. He pulled her next to him. “We won’t leave him. You two are the targets. You stay with me. Period.”
Half listening to her self-designated bodyguard, her stomach clenched, waiting for Franks to get Ken to safety. Franks reached down, and before he could get an arm under Ken, Doc raced out of concealment to help get Ken to his feet quickly. Her eyes nearly misted at the dedication on this team.
Although Ken could probably walk—it was the getting up that bothered him—they kept their arms around his back, not letting him go until they’d reached a safe spot and confirmed he could stand on his own.
Spread out for yards and yards, the team faced the trails coming into and out of the intersection with weapons at the ready. An odd sort of adrenaline traveled up her spine, leaving her feeling as if she weighed nothing while retaining control of herself.
The next moment fear gripped her, and if a hand hadn’t slapped over her mouth, she’d have cried out, giving away their position. Her heart lodged in her throat as she worked to control herself. A big-assed snake dropped on her shoulder and left her quivering and all but ready to faint. Oh, how she wanted to shoot it.
Frozen to the spot, she nearly passed out from failure to breathe. Having ophidiophobia and trekking through the jungle didn’t mix, but she’d had no choice. She’d thought Cody had been abducted and then she had to get her and Ken to safety. Her own fears be damned.
The snake quickly disappeared from her shoulder, yet her fright kept her immobile. Panic ran through her, and every cell in her body stood on alert, expecting the snake to strike from whatever position it had taken.
“It’s okay, Sugar,” Ken whispered in her ear as his hand slid from her mouth. Relief, like she’d never known flooded her, leaving her emotionally spent and living in an air of safety. The one man who knew and understood her fear had kept her from crying out while removing the object of her terror.
She spun around and wanted to fling herself into his arms and soak up his comfort and love, but knew it was far from appropriate. That rescue meant more to her than getting shot at on an exit.
Smiling, he nodded back to the edge of the jungle. Turning, her eyes narrowed. Four men with rifles pointing forward raced toward them and abruptly halted, looking around as if lost. They must’ve realized the trail HIS would take to leave this Godforsaken jungle.
One of the men, a stout guy with thinning hair, appeared to be in charge of the foursome and said something that had them fanning out without entering the forest.
Like the agents on point, HIS didn’t engage the tangos. Not out of cowardliness but because they didn’t harm or kill unless necessary. Especially in foreign countries where worming their way out of trouble might not be easy. Their governmental contacts only went so high up the chain.
Focused on the four men, she hadn’t noticed Franks slip up next to Ken behind her. If she hadn’t seen Grits leaning over and chatting with Ken, she probably wouldn’t have. She gave herself an internal shake to wake up any of her senses dulled from the snake attack.
Once the tangos were a good distance away, the teams slid back onto the path, took the left branch, and moved at a faster pace with heightened tension.
When they halted this time, it meant they’d arrived at their last bit of cover.
Grits looked at his watch and cursed. An inappropriate giggle bubbled up at wanting to tell him he’d owe Reagan a couple of dollars but now wasn’t the time or place. She couldn’t relax, even in thought. “Stand by,” he said, presumably into his comms.
Franks and Ken pulled closer, and Ken directed, “Talk,”—always to the point when he led.
“We’re five early.” He grinned. “We got you here faster than we thought. Of course, you don’t look injured to me at all.”
Most of the blood has washed out of Ken’s pants, but plenty still remained.
Grits lifted his arm and pointed left to right. Half of the men spread out into the jungle. “Boss,” he hesitated.
Ken nodded. “It’s okay. Franks can get me there. I want you on the bird with us.”
“Planned on it.” His grin widened.
The conversation confu
sed her. As Ken and Franks moved in front of them, she’d been about to ask when the welcome sign of helos landing reached them. With two birds, the sound echoed around them. Not good if they were still being followed.
It sounded like they’d canceled the hot-loading. Grits must’ve been concerned whether Ken could launch himself into the bird fast enough. She’d had the same concern.
“On me. Alpha team, bird one. Bravo team, bird two. Keep your eyes open.” Grits turned to her. “Your job is to get on that damn bird. No arguing. We’ll protect you.”
She moved the rifle in her arms. “I’m quite capable.”
“What part of no arguing did you not understand?”
She quirked a brow, even knowing she needed to back down and let everyone do their job in this op. She just hated that even though she’d rested and replenished her energy, she couldn’t be an active member.
“Look, Sugar, I didn’t say you weren’t capable. I need you to be away from any threat. That means you get your ass on that bird. No more discussion.” He moved them back in front of Ken and Franks.
Not being able to be part of the protection was a hit to her ego. Yet, she was comforted that the team went to this length to protect her and Ken.
Her heart pounded in her chest. Having Jesse and Nemo covering them bolstered her courage.
“Go, go, go.” As they stepped out into the open, they ran toward their transport home.
With their sharpshooters in the birds and agents fanning out to protect her and Ken’s trip, she had no idea to what extent Bev would go to recapture them or get to both Ken and Jesse at the same time.
Her stomach tightened at the thought she’d almost been a part of this lunacy.
A shot rang out from the bird, and she reacted unconsciously, stopping and spinning with her weapon at the ready. Before she could search for targets, Grits wrenched her back around.
“What the hell did I say? Get your ass on that bird!” he shouted to be heard over the noise of the engines.