Protecting Caroline (SEAL of Protection Book 1) (17 page)

She watched the
men bumble around the boat getting it ready to push off from the dock. Just as
they were about to leave, the smelly man and the man in the suit joined them.
The smelly man walked right over to her and smacked her hard across the face,
then laughed. The fancy man, as she dubbed him, ignored her and went into the
small pilot room. She was dead. She knew it.

* * *

Wolf was glad
the sun was going down. It’d work in their favor. His skin was crawling. He was
ready to have Caroline back in his arms and out of danger. They followed the
motor boat from a distance. It wasn’t as if they’d lose them on the open ocean.
It made it trickier to follow them without their knowledge, but after a while
it wouldn’t make a difference if the terrorists knew they were there or not.
It’d just be a matter of catching up to them before they could kill Caroline.

Wolf knew their
boat was more powerful than the one the terrorists were in, but again, he wanted
to wait and see what they were going to do. In any rescue, the goal was to get
the captured person back alive. Until they knew what the terrorists had up their
sleeve, they couldn’t guarantee Caroline’s safety.  

Wolf and his men
watched from a distance as the traitor boarded the boat. They weren’t close
enough to see him clearly though. Wolf sat silent and still, almost too still.
Every fiber of his being was focused on the boat slicing through the choppy
water ahead of them. All of the men who’d hit his woman were on that boat. If
he had his way, they’d all die today; after he got Caroline safely away.

* * *

Caroline hung on
to the side of the seat, wincing every time the boat hit a wave. Her ribs hurt
like hell. She tried to ignore it and concentrate on where they were. If she
had to swim back to shore, she wanted to be sure she was going the right way. It
would be just her luck to escape from terrorists only to swim
out
to sea
instead of toward shore.

After navigating
what seemed like miles, the boat finally stopped. The man in the suit came out
of the wheelhouse and watched silently as one of the other men grabbed her
ankles. Because Caroline wasn’t thinking clearly and was distracted by the cold
demeanor of the man in the suit, she didn’t have a chance to fight or to jump
overboard. She didn’t notice the chains they were putting around her ankles
with the weights until they were firmly attached. She tried to kick at the
nearest man, but it was too late. Oh. My. God. She really was going to die. In
one corner of her brain, she’d kept the hope alive she’d be able to escape, but
it was obvious what they had in store for her.

The fancy-man
was holding the camera again.

“Say goodbye to
your SEAL, bitch. It didn’t have to come to this. You could still tell me what
I want to know.” He paused as if giving her a chance to talk and to save her
life.

Caroline glared
at him, refusing to talk. She knew even if she spilled her guts now, he’d still
kill her. He was crazy. He looked sane in his pressed and flawless suit, but it
was obvious he was the craziest one of the bunch. Caroline didn’t want to die,
but at this point she didn’t think she had any other option.

“That’s what I
thought. Brave to the end aren’t you? Well, we’ll see how brave you are when
you’re sitting on the bottom of the ocean. Oh don’t worry, I’ll make sure your
SEAL sees your last minutes alive. I’m sure he’ll blame himself for the rest of
his life.” He chuckled under his breath, laughing at himself. Then he nodded at
the smelly man. He grabbed her under her arms and one of the other men grabbed
her legs. The third man picked up the weights. They moved in tandem toward the
side of the boat.

Caroline
thrashed and fought against their hold. She raked her nails down the side of the
closest man’s face in desperation. She finally found her voice and started
screaming. She pleaded with them not to do it and promised she’d tell them
whatever they wanted to know. At the realization that her death was immanent
all thoughts of being noble and brave flew out of her head. The men her just
laughed at her feeble attempts to get away and threw her over the side of the
boat like they were throwing out the garbage.

Caroline gasped
and tensed, knowing hitting the water was going to hurt…badly. She choked and
sucked in a bunch of water when she hit. Damn, it
did
hurt; she landed
on her side with the broken ribs. She felt herself sinking quickly. They hadn’t
tied her hands, so luckily she could use them to try to help get to the
surface. Luckily, she was naturally buoyant. She’d never regret those extra
fifteen pounds again.

She took a gasp
of air before sinking downward again. She tried again and managed to tread
water quickly enough to keep from sinking. The weights they’d tied to her
ankles fortunately weren’t too heavy. They’d underestimated her. She knew she
wouldn’t have the energy to keep it up for long though. She was heavy, in pain,
and tired, and while she was a good swimmer, she knew she couldn’t keep herself
above water indefinitely. There was no way she’d survive if they left her in
the middle of the ocean.  

The waves were
crashing over her head as she bobbed up and down. Caroline didn’t know why she
thought the water would be calm out in the middle of the ocean. It was a good
thing she was a chemist and not an oceanographer. She swallowed water each time
she took a gasping breath, but since she was getting some air, she didn’t think
she could complain.

She heard the fancy
man call out from the boat. It was keeping near her, but not near enough for
her to grab the side. They circled her, as if taunting her further.

“We’ll pull you
back in if you tell me about the plane. All you have to do is tell me how you
knew about the ice and you’ll live.”

He was screwing
with her and she knew it. She’d promised to tell them everything she knew
before they threw her overboard. If he’d really wanted to know, he would’ve made
the guys put her down and listened to her.

“Screw you!” Caroline
cried out at the man, even though it wasn’t much of a yell. She watched as the
stupid red light on the camera kept blinking. The bastard was still filming
her. The man next to him raised his arm. Oh geez. Really? Now they were going
to shoot her? She choked back a sob. This would be so much easier if she didn’t
want to live so badly.

Caroline took a
deep breath and let herself sink. She’d be damned if she’d be shot on top of
everything else she’d gone through. Hijacked, stabbed, stalked, blown up,
kidnapped, beaten, thrown overboard
,
and
then
shot? No. Just frickin’
no.  

She vaguely
remembered a television show where the hosts proved that ducking underwater
would protect a person from a bullet because once the bullet hit the water it
slowed down or was deflected or something. She couldn’t really remember the
science behind it, but she hoped they hadn’t made it all up.

She sank quickly.
The weights around her ankles helped. Caroline stopped thinking and just sank. It
was almost like floating. The silence was heavenly.

* * *

Abe floored their
boat and headed straight at the other boat, now bobbing in the water. They’d watched
in horror as Caroline was thrown overboard, screaming, then in relief when she
came back up. It was now or never. Wolf and Benny were ready on board, Dude and
Cookie were in their wet water gear and ready to go overboard. They’d discussed
the plan and each of them knew their role. They’d worked together so long they
could almost read each other’s minds. They were a SEAL team, and they were here
to do their job. Failure wasn’t an option. It
definitely
wasn’t an
option when one of their own was involved. And Ice was theirs. One hundred
percent.  

They heard the
shots as they pulled up near the terrorist’s boat. Wolf’s heart was in his
throat. Caroline had to be okay, she just had to.

“Put down your
weapons, United States Navy,” Abe hollered through the loudspeaker of the boat.
He aimed the floodlight at the other boat, partially blinding them. They saw
two men hurry into the relative safety of the wheelhouse. At least the gunshots
stopped with their actions. One of the men who’d run into the pilot house had
been the one who’d been shooting at Caroline. The man in the suit just laughed
and turned the handheld camera to them. The fourth man, the one who’d been on
the video beating Caroline the most, just stood there arrogantly.

“You think you’ll
save her?” The suited man yelled.  “I don’t think so. Didn’t you see the chains
that were attached to her ankles? You’ll never find her now. The bitch is on
the bottom.”

Keep him
talking, keep him talking
, Wolf said to himself over and over, refusing to
rise to the bait of the other man. He had to distract him. He had to do his
job. Caroline’s life depended on it.

“Give yourself
up now and you’ll be spared.” He responded loudly, knowing it wasn’t going to
happen, but he tried to convince the man anyway.

The man finally
put down the camera.

“No way in hell!”
He yelled back and pulled a pistol from his pants. He pointed it at the SEAL’s
ship and fired. Wolf ducked just in time and swore he heard the bullet pass
over his head.

“I’ll give you
one more chance, asshole,” Wolf yelled again, making sure to stay low in the
boat.

When there was
no answer, Benny gave Abe the signal to pull back from the terrorist’s boat.
They’d have to do this another way. They always had a Plan B. In fact most of
the time Plan B was really Plan A, everyone knew it, but they’d always tried to
go the “nice” route first.

Wolf knew the commander
would be pissed, but they had other things to be concerned about, namely Caroline.
They’d given the traitor a chance to give up, but he hadn’t. They’d wanted to
interrogate him, find out more about his connections and how ingrained the
terrorist cell was, but now they had no choice. Everyone on the team hoped this
was a fed working independently, but until they got back to base and analyzed
the videotape of what was going on tonight, they’d never know.

It was standard
operating procedure to film their missions when possible. Benny had hooked up
the camera before they’d left the dock. Tex would be able to check it out and
they’d see just how deep the traitor’s reach had gone. Hell, Tex probably
already knew who the traitor was by analyzing the security tapes at the marina.
The man was spooky good at what he did.

There wasn’t a
lot of time to save Caroline and deal with these assholes. It was them or
Caroline, It wasn’t even a choice. It was time to make their move.

Making the terrorists
think they were giving up, the SEALs backed off. One of the men on the
terrorist boat started its engine and began to peel away. Wolf and Abe could
just hear his cackled laughter before he put the boat into full throttle.
Counting down three seconds, Wolf turned his head to protect his eyes just as
the boat exploded.

Pieces of the terrorist’s
boat rained down in the water around them. Wolf and Abe knew the terrorists wouldn’t
be an issue anymore.

Wolf didn’t
spare a second’s thought for the four men who’d literally just exploded in
front of his eyes. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about them. All he cared about
was Caroline. Had they taken too long? Was she still alive?

*
* *

Caroline felt
herself sinking further and further down in the water. Her ears popped and it
brought her out of her stupor. Shit, she’d sunk too far. She didn’t think she
was going to make it back to the surface before she ran out of air…or energy.

She hurt all
over, but she had to try. She’d started to use her arms to swim back up to the
surface when someone grabbed her from behind. Caroline panicked. She kicked out
with her bound legs, she tried to get her arms to move to hit whoever it was,
but her arms were pinned to her sides. Oh Jesus, she was gonna die. She was
going to die right here, after all she’d been through, after all her fighting
and struggling. It wasn’t fair. She might as well inhale as much water as she
could to try to make it quick.

Caroline felt
something being put over her face and tried to get away from whoever held her,
but she couldn’t fight her body’s natural reaction of inhaling for the need of
oxygen. This was it, she was dead….but somehow she wasn’t.

She inhaled
again. Oxygen. It was a diving mask over her face. She sucked in the oxygen
greedily. She was still terrified, but at least for now, she had air. She tried
to turn her head, but the hand holding the mask over her face was too strong.
She started to panic again. Was she being kidnapped by the terrorists again?
Had they laid in wait in the water making her think she was going to die before
they caught her again? Was this some new kind of torture?

Just before a
full-blown panic could set in, Caroline felt the person behind her take one of
her hands in his and press his second and fourth fingers down hard. Caroline
almost sobbed in relief. Matthew….no, it wasn’t Matthew, but it was one of his
team. She grabbed the man’s hand and squeezed it has hard as she could, which
probably wasn’t really very hard in her condition, to let him know she
understood. That she knew he was with Matthew. She was just so glad they’d
found her. She wanted to cry, but she had to concentrate on breathing.