Delta Recon (SEAL Team Phantom Series, Book 2) (2 page)

“You will do as I say.” He took a menacing step toward her.

The look in his eyes let her know he would be more than happy to help rid her of the soaking wet clothes.

Shouts rang out from the hall. The sound of gunshots followed by men yelling had Diego jerking toward the doorway, his body tensed. “Stay here.”

She turned the water off, using the piece of cloth they’d left her to use as a towel and dried off as best she could. With nothing in the room to use as a weapon, she was a sitting duck if whoever was out shooting up the place came in.

Nerves stretched tight, keeping her back to the wall, Jaqui made her way to the door. The handle turned under her palm. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed nobody was on the other side. Any minute she expected Diego, or one of the others to appear. Yet time stretched, and when the silence extended, so did her nerves.

Easing the door open, she peaked out. Bodies were strewn along the hallway. Blood soaking their clothing indicated the battle they’d fought. She walked back toward the office where the man in charge had been, stepping over a couple men, Diego’s lifeless body lay a few feet from her destination.

She grabbed the gun from his hand, her training might not be on the same level as the men, but she knew how to use most weapons. She heard nothing beyond the closed door, but fear kept her from entering. A look to the left and right showed her at least ten dead men, which meant there had to be a survivor or two.

Her heart kicked beneath the drying shirt, the pounding was deafening to her ears. Mentally counting to five, she gripped the handle and turned. Inside the room where she’d been tied to a chair less than an hour before, was empty save for the furniture.

The reality of her situation hit her. The men who’d abducted her were dead, or had left amid the attack, leaving her stranded in the middle of nowhere. Her eyes landed on the desk. Papers on the top held no answers other than the local news. Jerking open the drawers afforded her nothing more. Panic threatened to send her to her knees, but then she remembered if they were getting local news, they couldn’t be too far from where she’d been.

In the bottom drawer she found her bag, a feeling of relief was quickly wiped away when her cell wasn’t inside. Shrugging her shoulders, she loaded up the few bottles of water she found in the mini cooler, checked the gun for bullets and headed for the door, only to stop at the sound of a vehicle.

Knowing if she was found alive in the middle of all the carnage, she had little to no chance of escape, she slipped out the window. Her feet hit the dry dirt soundlessly, jarring her back teeth from the long fall. With her bag slung across her body, she ran toward the forest.

****

“W
hat the hell?” Tay glared at the phone. He’d been ready to return to his team for the last two weeks, but hadn’t been allowed because of the injuries he’d sustained from the last mission. They’d sent a little bit of fluff of a woman in to do his job. A woman he knew intimately, yet couldn’t imagine her being held captive by the scums of the earth like Medellin.

“Don’t take that tone with me, Taylor Rouland.” Kai Swift growled. His tone hadn’t raised, yet Tay could hear the leashed fury.

Taking a deep breath, he counted to ten. “What do you know?”

“She had a solid cover. Hell, the little condo she rented had three names listed, but she was taken right out from under the SEALs’ noses. Medellin must’ve gotten inside intel with details of our mission, or at least part of it.”

“Again, what are you doing now?” He looked around his apartment, calculating the time it would take him to get from Hawaii to Columbia, hating the fact their base was so far away.

“She’s been gone for over twelve hours. We’ve been doing all we can to locate her, but she hasn’t activated her PLB.” Each member had a personal locator beacon, whether it was in a watch or on a piece of clothing, it only took a press of a finger, and their location would be pinged to their team leader.

“Fuck me man, tell me you have a backup plan.” Jaqui was all of five feet two in her bare feet, and weighed in at a total of a hundred and fifteen pounds. She may be one tough woman, but she would be nothing against a man like him, or the drug dealers they were up against. Chauvinistic? Yes, he admitted he definitely was when it came to the woman in question. He’d seen her spar. Had gotten hard while watching her take on men twice her size, all the while he’d made a list of who he planned to beat the shit out of. His list had gotten shorter, while her sparring partners had also shrunk.

“We’ve narrowed down the location of Medellin to three possible sites. We’ll be rolling out in the next hour, but I wanted to give you a heads up. I’ll keep you updated.” Kai sighed before continuing. “I’m sorry man. I can’t tell you how pissed we all are.”

He didn’t care how anyone else felt, only that they’d lost Jaqui. Not wanting to investigate why her wellbeing was so important to him, he began gathering up things for his trip south of the border.

“I need transport like yesterday.” He made sure Kai understood it wasn’t a request.

“I assumed you’d say that. I also checked and found out you were cleared for duty. However, I need to ask how you are truly feeling. Oz is also cleared, but I haven’t spoken to the big bastard yet.”

Tay took one more look around his place. “I could be bleeding out, but I’d still be getting on a plane.”

Kai’s cursing could be heard through the line. “Yeah, I thought so. Your ride is waiting. See you soon.”

As the line went dead, he sent up a prayer. If anything happened to Jaqui he’d never forgive himself. He didn’t understand why she was with his team in the first place. Last he’d heard, she was shipping out to Afghanistan. Another thing he’d be getting answers for. With his laptop slung over his shoulder, he hopped into his jeep and raced toward the hangar. The faster he got to Bogota, the faster he’d find his answers.

Images of the last time he’d seen Jaqui popped into his head. God! He hated the hurt he’d caused her. His body ached to hold the one woman he couldn’t have. She deserved a man who could offer her more than him. The weekend they’d spent together a year before had been the best damn two days of his life. Yet, he had left her lying on rumpled sheets with a promise to return.

She’d been a twenty-six year old virgin for crying out loud. He’d been a thirty year old man who’d seen and done things no woman would want to know about, let alone be with a man who’d done those things. He’d felt like he’d dirtied her more than just taken her virginity. Oh, he’d made sure it was good for her the two times they’d come together. And she’d been more than satisfied even though he knew she’d be sore when he finally let her sleep. It was when he’d woken in the wee hours, with the morning sun coming in through the window that he’d realized, sometimes when things seemed too good to be true, they were. She’d lain there smiling in her sleep, her long blonde hair looking like a halo around her head. The sheet had fallen away from her perfect breasts and he wanted her one last time. Bastard that he’d been, he’d almost taken her. Needing one last memory to hold onto. Had her phone not interrupted his sleep, he was sure he’d have made the biggest mistake of his life

He shook his head, clearing the memories away. Why the hell Commander Lee allowed her to go with his SEAL team he didn’t know, but he’d make damn sure the fucker never made the same mistake again. His hands balled into fists on his lap, the computer unopened.

Tay realized he hadn’t once thought to check the files of the mission. If Jaqui had input anything in before her kidnapping he would be able to see it, and possibly trace her, or who she’d made contact with.

By the time they landed in a field on the outskirts of Cartagena, Tay was no closer to finding Jaqui. His eyes hurt from staring at the screen. His cell beeped, a message from Kai about his pickup. His eyes narrowed as he read the instructions.

“Thanks for the ride,” Tay nodded at the pilot.

“Not a problem. Have a good trip.” The two man crew watched him as he walked down the stairs. Tay felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise. With an inborn sense of survival, he ducked and rolled, pulling his SIG Sauer and fired off two shots toward the plane he just exited. The pilot’s eyes widened before he jumped back into the cockpit. The other man returned gunfire, making Tay feel like a sitting duck in the middle of the open field. He wondered where his pickup was, and hoped like hell the pilot hadn’t brought him to the wrong destination.

Kai’s message lit up, the words “Big Black Jeep” and “Incoming Fast” gave him a boost of happiness. He lifted his gun and aimed just as the other man brought his arm out to shoot. The pain filled yell had Tay sprinting back toward the plane, using the man’s distraction as his advantage. When he was close enough, he aimed and fired again in the vicinity he assumed the other man was hiding. A low grunt was his answer. With his back against the plane, and no longer in the middle of the field, he shot off a text to Kai explaining about the situation.

The roar of an engine wasn’t as welcoming since he didn’t know if it was his team, or another ambush.

He checked his clip and waited. “Fuck it.” The sight of the big black jeep slowing down had him preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best. Coyle standing up with an AR15 aimed at the plane made him laugh out loud.

“You run into a little problem or what,” Sully Griggs drawled, his own automatic weapon aimed at the plane. “You didn’t tell us you were coming in hot.”

Kai sat at the wheel with a man Tay had met before. Dallas Holt was a Navy Special Ops team member, but they’d never worked on the same team. He was known for his demolition skills, similar to Oz.

“You waiting on a special invite or what?” Kai looked at the plane and then at Tay.

Tay pointed to the open door. “There’s a shooter inside. Not sure if the pilot is in on it or not.”

Dallas grunted. “Well, we can jaw all night, or we can find out.”

The tall man hopped down, rounded the front of the vehicle, his arms held loosely at his sides. Wearing black cargo pants and a black T-shirt that stretched across his wide chest, he looked more like a wrestler ready to do battle. He paused next to the steps, saluted Tay, then walked up the stairs.

“You might want to take a gun with you or something.” Tay held out his own toward Dallas.

“I got my own,” Dallas said, pointing to his back.

Kai stood next to the vehicle while Coyle had his weapon trained on the plane.

“I’d say this one ain’t gonna be causing anyone any more problems.” Dallas’s voice carried from inside.

Tay went back up the steps, then stopped at the sight of Dallas squatting over the prone form of the male flight attendant. “I know I shot him in the hand and maybe the arm. How the hell is he dead?”

“Looks like he killed himself.” Dallas shook his head.

“What about the pilot?” Tay felt the fine hairs on his neck standing up again. “Shit, we need to get the hell out of here.”

Grabbing the man’s ID out of his pocket, they both stood and ran for the door. “I’m thinking the pilot is either dead, or gonna be. Get out of here,” Tay yelled.

Kai pulled the jeep up close and he hopped inside with Dallas on his heels.

“What the hell is going on,” Kai asked.

Just as they reached the edge of the makeshift landing the ground rocked with an explosion.

“I assume that was a set up for all of us, or at least me.” Tay fell against the seat.

“Oh, I don’t know. We were supposed to have been there fifteen minutes earlier, but had a blowout nobody could have known about.” Kai looked at him through the rearview mirror.

“I have one of the guys’ ID, although I’m sure it’s not his real one. Think you can figure out who he was?”

Tay nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. My priority is finding Ace first.”

Dallas looked at him. “Who the hell is Ace?”

“Jaqui Wallace, aka Ace to only a select few.” Kai navigated through the trees.

“Have you anything new on her whereabouts?” He tried to keep the fear out of his voice.

Kai shook his head.

“One of you want to climb up front? It’s a little tight back here for all of us,” Coyle complained.

“Well if you didn’t have to carry such a big ass gun, it wouldn’t be so tight.” Dallas elbowed Coyle, but climbed between the two seats upfront. His dark hair, cut military short and dark eyes made him fit in with the locals more so than Tay would. He and Kai with their coloring could fit into the culture without raising too many eyebrows, unlike him with his blond hair.

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J
aqui ran like the hounds of hell were chasing her. Luckily for her, she was in shape and used to running miles on the daily. Unluckily for her, she had no shoes, and it was hotter than two squirrels humping in a wool sock in the desert.

Once she was certain she hadn’t been followed, she slowed to get her bearings. Getting lost in the middle of the rainforest wasn’t the smartest thing she could do. Getting dead though wasn’t on her list of things to get done either. She hoped her PLB was still in her bag. The one in her watch she was sure was long gone, but the one discreetly disguised as a feminine product was her only hope. “Please be here,” she begged.

The little feminine product holder was buried at the bottom of her bag. She was sure the men who’d gone through her stuff had probably seen it, and tossed it down like it was a rattlesnake. Pulling the two ends apart, she let the little female applicator fall unneeded inside, then pushed the locator button. A sigh of relief escaped her lips. Now, she just had to survive in the wilds until they sent a team out to find her.

A lone thought that her team had been ambushed, threatened to send her into a fit of tears, but Jaqui fought them back. “Should’ve worn big girl panties,” she muttered and looked up to the sky. With all the overhead trees the sun was hard to see, but the heat still had her shirt sticking to her like a second skin. Now that she was no longer running, her feet were screaming. Lifting one, she saw it had a few cuts from her flight through the forest. Knowing her other foot would be just as bad made her grimace. A small cut could lead to a huge infection out in the climate she was in, not to mention her blood could be a call to the larger predators.