Cover of Darkness (5 page)

"In a village about fourteen miles from the coast. Our contacts were able to smuggle in some water for them, but they haven't eaten in almost two days, so they'll be dehydrated and weak."

The big man grabbed the map from his desk and set it out on the table while everyone crowded around. Dec went over the logistics of the operation one last time. Once they freed the hostages, they'd have to hump it three miles to the extraction point, where a chopper would meet them. The contingency plan was to head out into the desert mountains to a series of caves and establish a secondary point. Just to be sure, he made them all go over it a third time.

He checked his watch. "Okay, boys. Let's lock and load."

The eight-man team hurried out to gather their gear.

"Spence."

The medic looked back at him questioningly.

"Make sure we bring extra IV bags for the two of them. No telling what shape they'll be in when we find them."

Day 3, Syrian village

Evening

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All day Bryn had prayed Qamar would come back. Through the same exhausting, suffocating cycle of heat and sweat and dehydration, she clung to the hope the woman would return and give them water, maybe untie them this time. But night had fallen, and still no sign of her. The only sound was the whistling of the wind overhead, its high-pitched wail echoing the despair in her heart.

Sometime during the previous night her father had roused for a while. He'd been able to utter a few words, so she knew he was not hampered by his gag, but then his speech would become slurred and he'd fall into unconsciousness. She suspected he must have suffered a head injury, possibly a skull fracture, at least a concussion. Whatever it was, he'd need medical attention.

That is, if the dehydration didn't finish him off first.

She imagined sucking on a lemon drop, but even the thought of the sour taste wasn't enough to squeeze any moisture from her mouth. Still weak and thirsty, she had revived a bit since drinking the water last night. The room didn't spin when she cared to open her eyes and look around her earthen prison. Her vision wasn't doubled anymore. And at least she was rid of the gag now, the wad of cotton long since drying to the point that she had been able to push it out with her thickened tongue. She was pretty sure she'd sweated out all the water she'd consumed, and she felt feverish. Could have been lack of fluids, or it could have been the dozens of cuts on her right side becoming infected. She quivered in the chilly darkness, the trap door rattling on its hinges occasionally as the wind howled. Sometimes fine streams of 45

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sand spilled through the cracks around the edges, showering her in a dusty coating.

In the corner, her father shifted. Hope surged at the even breaths he took. She grasped comfort from that, closing her eyes to better focus on the reassuring sound.

"Someone will come for us," he rasped.

Bryn opened her gritty eyes. "The woman said she would come again."

"They will come for us," he repeated, and she wondered who he was talking about, and if he had begun to hallucinate.

"Yes," she whispered, not wanting to make things worse by telling him they were going to die if they didn't get more water soon. She was going insane, not being able to do anything. If she got the chance to kill her captors for what they'd done to them, she would act on it. The sheer violence of the hatred rising up in her breast startled and frightened her.

"You are a very brave woman, Bryn. I am so proud to call you my daughter...and I love you." He groaned a little. "Wish I...had been a better father."

Bryn stared at his shadowy outline, her eyes hot. Praise was so rare from this harsh, remote man, and that last admission must have been very difficult for him. But for him to have said it at all was testament to just how grave their situation was. He must think they were going to die in here too, or he would never have spoken to her that way. A lump formed in her parched throat.

"I love you, too." It hurt to talk. Not that there was anything else she could add.

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A heavy silence filled the dusty room, as though they had exchanged their final goodbyes, leaving nothing more to be said. Cold and thirsty and exhausted, Bryn hunkered down, wincing at the pain in her strained shoulders. She lay there and shivered, suffering in silence as the night dragged on, the wind moaning.

Dozing in a fitful sleep, she woke suddenly. Her head jerked up. A sound from outside, above them, maybe footsteps. Was it Qamar? She shifted into a kneeling position, heard only the wind as it gusted.

"Hear that?" her father whispered, his voice distorted through lips that had to be cracked like hers.

"Yes."

She tensed, every ounce of concentration focused on the area of the trap door. Nothing. More silence met the grating of their shallow breaths. More agonizing minutes ticked by.

Please let it be Qamar with some water.

Over the wind came more footsteps. Running footsteps.

And then more of them, as if a group of people were rushing toward them. Her pulse tripped. She was so weak now. Far too weak to defend herself, even if they unchained her.

Fear curled low in her belly, its icy tentacles wrapping around her spine, paralyzing her. Had the terrorists come back for them after all?

Declan stood poised above the trap door as the wind blew around him, weapon at the ready. One of his men signaled the door was safe, grabbed the handle and waited.

"Go," Dec ordered.

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One man lifted it, and Dec and Spencer went in, weapons trained.

Dec hit the floor first and swung around, the green glow of his night vision goggles showing him two bodies, tied up on opposite walls, but no terrorists. The stale, hot air hit him like a fist, smelling of sweat and body odor and fear.

"Clear," he called, and shoved the goggles back, approaching the woman while Spencer went to look after the more seriously wounded father.

"Bryn McAllister?" He crouched down in front of her.

Her dark eyes were huge in her pale face as she stared up at him like he was an apparition out of a nightmare. Covered in greasepaint, in his fatigues and the goggles, toting an automatic weapon, he must have looked the part to her.

Frozen in place, blinking against the swirling wind, she nodded slowly, throat moving as she swallowed.

"Lieutenant McCabe, U.S. Navy, ma'am. We're here to get you and your father out of here." All business, he ran his hands over her, checking for injuries. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

She shook her head, so he took his K-bar knife from his belt and slit the tape on her ankles, reaching around to do the same to her wrists, noticing her evening gown was encrusted with grime and salt. Anger surged up. The bastards had tied her up like an animal and left her to suffocate in this hellhole without any water or food. She brought her arms awkwardly in front of her and gasped, moving her stiff wrists and fingers awkwardly.

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He grabbed his canteen and pulled out the stopper, holding it to her lips while she groaned with relief and chugged it, her hands gripping his wrists like claws. He stopped her.

"Slowly," he cautioned, "or it'll come right back up."

His heart squeezed in sympathy as she sipped desperately at it, her trembling hands digging into his to hold the canteen, as though she were afraid he would take it away. He let her drain it, eased her up onto her knees. They had to move.

"What's his status, Spence?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Head injury, sir. I've given him a little water, but we need to get him back to the chopper so I can work on him. They both need IV fluids, stat."

"Roger that." He took the clothes Spencer handed him and held them out for Bryn. "Put these on, and then we'll get you out of here." They had a little time, since no tangos had been spotted yet, but that didn't mean they weren't waiting in ambush somewhere close by.

Bryn hesitated for only a second, then took the shirt and pants he offered. He would have turned his back to give her some privacy but she was clearly too weak to dress herself.

With quick, efficient movements, he stripped the stiff gown over her head and tugged the shirt down to cover her strapless bra. He then helped her pull the pants over her barely-there panties and rolled the cuffs up so she wouldn't trip over them. After tugging on socks and a pair of boots, he hauled her to her feet. She swayed and grabbed at his shoulders, trembling with the effort of staying upright.

Another hot ball of rage swept through him at her slim frame shaking against him, weak and critically dehydrated 49

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after living in an earthen oven for three days. Part of him hoped the group responsible would try and fight their way out when his team found them, so they could dispatch them all to hell where they belonged.

"Here we go," he told her, and hoisted her up through the trap door, where one of his team members waited to pull her out. He boosted himself up after her and reached down for her father, then moved back while Spencer levered himself from the filthy prison. His lungs expanded in relief at being in the cool, clean air, the wind gusts strong enough to spray dirt and sand into his eyes.

He turned to Bryn, who was swaying on her feet. "She needs some more water."

Three canteens instantly appeared in front of her nose. He allowed her to have a few more sips from one of them, and then took her arm. "We'll give you some more when we get you to safety, ma'am," he promised.

At a nod from him, one of his men slid Jamul onto his shoulders and started off behind the point man. Jamul's daughter was shivering, her lips cracked, black eyes bruised-looking and dulled with fatigue.

"Can you walk? We have to move fast, so if you can't keep up on your own, we'll have to carry you."

She blinked, nodded. "I'll try."

"Okay. Let's move out."

Two other men started across the narrow street, gave the all clear for them to follow. He took hold of her upper arm to steady her, began walking through the wind, mindful of her exhaustion. After she stumbled for the second time, he slung 50

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his rifle across his back and hoisted her over his shoulder. Her body stiffened but she didn't struggle, and she was light enough that her weight didn't slow him down much.

From building to building they slunk like ghosts, the cloud-covered moon aiding in their camouflage while the wind whipped sand and dust into the air. Bryn held onto the back of his BDUs, remaining still and quiet as they reached the outskirts of the village. The wind grew to a howling pitch, sand and debris obscuring their vision.

Dec and the team put on goggles to protect their eyes and kept moving toward the open desert, where the helo would extract them two and a half miles to the southeast. He shifted Bryn's weight and leaned forward to keep his balance against the full-fledged sandstorm blowing up around them. The inclement weather was sudden and unexpected, since sandstorm season was usually in the spring. Not that Mother Nature seemed to give a damn, because within a few minutes, visibility dropped by a third.

Another quarter mile out, Dec knew there was no way a chopper could get to them in these conditions. He stopped the team behind the relative protection of a sand dune and set Bryn down, handing her over to one of his men for more water, and used the radio to contact the command center.

Yelling over the wind, he arranged for the helo to pick them up at the secondary extraction point near the caves in another six hours, by which time the ops center expected the weather to improve enough.

They started out again, this time Spencer carrying Bryn, with Dec on point. It took them nearly two hours to cover four 51

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more miles, and by then visibility was almost zero, sand blasting their faces and bodies. Since it was impossible to navigate, let alone breathe, Dec finally called a halt.

Digging their way into the sand, the team made a makeshift shelter and hunkered down to weather the worst of the storm. He caught a glimpse of Bryn trying to help secure the canvas tent and was about to bark an order for someone to protect her from the stinging sand when one of the men took hold of her arm and ushered her inside. Spencer set about starting an IV line in the father's arm, but the old man protested.

"My...daughter first," he said clearly, and so Spence went to work on Bryn.

They'd laid her down in the middle of their makeshift tent, an exhausted, fragile-looking thing surrounded by a wall of special ops soldiers. Despite her lank hair, bruised looking eyes and cracked lips, she remained beautiful.

Spencer pushed the IV needle into her vein and she winced, but didn't make a sound. Little nicks covered her arm, probably from flying debris in the explosion at the embassy. Spence checked her over and cleaned her up, dabbing on antibiotic ointment and covering some of the deepest cuts with bandages. She flinched and gasped when he used a pair of tweezers to dig a sliver of glass out of her, and Dec had to stop himself from stroking a hand over her hair. When the third piece of glass came out she jerked and bit her lip, and he finally reached out to hold her hand, offering what little comfort he could.

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As his fingers closed around hers, she looked up into his face with those dark, mysterious eyes and smiled her gratitude, then closed them. Something twisted deep in his chest. He had the sudden urge to pick her up and hold her, promise to never let anyone hurt her again. It was totally bizarre and unprofessional of him to even think it, but then he'd never been in this situation before, not in all the time he'd been in the Teams.