Swift Strike (SEAL Team 14 Book 2) (3 page)

“You know I was surprised, really, that your father didn’t pay the release price,” he continued, his voice filled with faux concern. “What is your father’s net worth, by the way? Four hundred million dollars? Five hundred million? Surely, he does not have a problem coming up with one hundred million dollars in order to rescue his only daughter? If I were your father, I would consider money spent on ensuring your safety money well spent.”

God
. She wanted to tell him to go eat shit. She desperately wanted to knock that smug look right off his insufferable face. Instead, she bit her tongue and stiffly retorted, “Yeah, well, apparently you don’t know my father.” She hadn’t spoken in such a long time that her raspy, dry voice sounded foreign even to her own ears.

“Apparently not,” Hazel Eyes conceded before shifting forward in his chair. He reached out then, enveloping her small hands in his large ones. She moved her hands to the side, recoiling from his unwanted touch. She tried to shake him off, but he held on stubbornly to her bound wrists.

His thumb began to caress her hands ever so softly. The next words out of his mouth belied his actions. “Don’t mistake the kindness we have shown to you as weakness,
Azeezee
. I promise you, we are many things, but weak is not one of them.”

She looked him straight in the eyes, but kept her mouth closed. There was no doubt in her mind that he was as brutal and callous as any other terrorist she’d heard about in the news.

“Tell me
,” he continued in a calm, modulated voice, “
do you think your father would start taking our demands a little more seriously if we send you home to him...piece by piece?”

She visibly shuddered. It took all of the courage she could muster to keep her head held high and her back ramrod straight in the steel-spined, aristocratic fashion of her upbringing. “I believe that you are capable of all kinds of terrible things. You are going to do what you want, regardless of what my father does. And if you’re still wondering, he’s not going to give you anything. Not. One. Red. Cent.” This time when she jerked her hands away from him he let her go.

Her pulse kicked up a notch, throbbing rapidly in her neck. Her heart skittered in her chest like a caged bird attempting to gain flight. She felt like she was going to simultaneously throw up and pass out.

Hazel Eyes only laughed at her, taking in her obvious discomfort. His cryptic smile still planted firmly on his face. He wasn’t the least bit cowed by the ferocity in her voice. He was enjoying himself, completely at ease with the situation. It was as if he were playing a twisted game of chess with her, and he was already thinking five moves ahead. He coolly motioned to his minion standing in the corner. The other man dutifully walked forward, placing a pair of large, serrated kitchen shears into his boss’s outstretched hands.

“Let’s hope for your sake that that’s not true. I, for one, have a little more faith in your father than you do. And I am confident that he will have a change of heart once his mailbox starts becoming littered with your fingers and toes. Now, let’s start with your hair first, shall we? Before we move on to other parts that won’t grow back.”

With his threat hanging low in the air he moved closer to her, resembling a lion circling his prey. With scissors in tow he roughly grabbed a fistful of her hair. She knew that he wanted her to be afraid of him. And as much as she tried to be brave, to deny him the satisfaction of seeing her fear, she couldn’t help but let out a soft whimper. She swallowed, inhaling a panicked breath, when he moved closer. The sharp metal blades touched against her throat, the cold steel pressing against her veins.

Arching her back toward the chair, Lena shifted her body away from Hazel Eyes as much as she could. Clutching her bound hands to her chest, she placed her bare feet firmly on the ground. Then pushing as hard as she could, she tried her best to move away from the bastard, not caring if she upended her chair in the process.

He only grabbed her tighter, scraping the chair across the floor as he pulled her back toward him.

“What do you want from me?” she gasped out in between shaky breaths, her voice culminating in a shrill pitch.

Another hollow smile. “For the moment, just your hair.”

She stilled herself as she felt the shears sink into her hair, heard the soft
snip-snips
as her golden locks fell to the cement floor below. It was such a small thing, the cutting of her hair. In the grand scheme of things, she understood that losing some or even all of her hair wasn’t a big deal. But it still had its intended effect—to humiliate her.

Hazel Eyes wanted her to know that right now, he could do anything to her and she wouldn’t be able to stop him. And he was correct. He probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds. Not to mention, she was outnumbered by at least ten other men. She’d grown up in such a privileged life that there’d never been a moment in her childhood where she’d felt defenseless against other people. Never had there been a time where she’d felt this powerless.

Suddenly, the door slammed open with a jarring bang. Whirling her head, she saw two more of the terrorists dragging in one of the male hostages. The older man stood there slumped between his two captors.

“Ah, yes. You have been such a delight, Ms. Westlake. I’d almost forgotten about your friend here, Mr. Cutler.”

Steven
. He was completely unrecognizable. They had really done a number on him this time. His right eye was completely swollen shut and an assortment of grotesque, purplish bruises maligned his face. Blood oozed from a cut on the corner of his mouth. He stood there impotently, his head bowed. With his shoulders slumped he radiated an aura of defeat.

“You all are a bunch of animals,” she hissed out, the words catching in her throat.

Shifting his attention away from her for the first time, Hazel Eyes rose from his seat and walked over to stand in front of Steven.

“Now, that wasn’t nice at all, Ms. Westlake. Indeed, a very harsh statement to make. You’d be wise to exercise more restraint with your tongue in the future. As I understand it, Mr. Cutler and your father are old business partners, correct?”

How could he possibly know that?
The unasked question must have been etched on her face because he responded, “There are plenty of ways to make a man talk. Mr. Cutler here became a lot more forthcoming during the third round of our little conversations.”

“Why are you doing this to us?” Her voice sounded shriller by the minute. Her nostrils flared as she released a deep breath. She had to at least appear as if she were in control, like these creeps weren’t getting the better of her. But God, how was she going to get out of here? And Steven, he was barely able to stand up; it was a wonder he was even conscious at all. Even if by some miracle she managed to break free, she couldn’t just leave Steven here to fend for himself, and he was in no condition to run.

“The
what
question is the only question you should be concerned with at the moment. And as I stated earlier,
what
we want is one hundred million dollars.”

If her hands were free, she would’ve pinched the bridge of her nose. Talking to this maniac was more frustrating than talking to a brick wall. “That’s impossible. I told you. None of us here have that type of money.”

“Yes,
you
do.”

“I’m only an engineer. My salary doesn’t even come close to a half percent of what you’re demanding.”

“Your father has more than enough money.”

“It’s my
father’s
money. He’s not going to give away one hundred million dollars. Not even for me,” she said, her voice cracking in the middle of the sentence.

He looked directly into her eyes then, some darkly disturbing emotion reflected back, something animalistic. “I truly hope you are mistaken about that, Ms. Westlake.”

It happened so quickly. She hadn’t even seen a weapon in his hand. She didn’t have time to react, to shout out a warning. Hazel Eyes plunged a large knife into Steven’s chest. One time. Two times. Five times. The sudden, unprovoked act of brutality shocked her to her core. The sound of the sheer force of the blows against flesh and bone was jarring. Bright red blood blossomed out from the holes in Steven’s chest, forever staining his blue shirt as he collapsed to the ground.

Lena sat there, motionless, watching the life force drain from her friend. Watched his normally rosy red cheeks, which hinted at his Scottish ancestry, fade into a dull, colorless pallor. She listened to his horrible, deafening screams. The cries reverberated like a hollow echo inside her ears. But then it dawned on her that Steven’s eyes and mouth were closed. Those agonizing, gut-wrenching sounds were coming from her own mouth.

****

Eight guards down, so far, so good.
Jesse led his three-man triangle formation as they methodically checked the rooms in the third quadrant of the facility. Luke and Hank Kellerman were guarding his six as he rounded the first corner. Leading with his gun, Jesse cleared the corner and crossed the corridor to stand outside of the first door on the hall.

The darkness of the inner walls of the facility was all-encompassing. Not a single overhead light was functioning in this underground level. It was so quiet down here in this chamber the only sounds Jesse registered were his team’s own muted footsteps and steady breathing. As far as special ops went, these conditions were perfect because they were outfitted with night vision goggles. From what the Team knew about the money that was in AnSawar’s war coffers, the fledgling terrorist group probably didn’t have a cache of fancy gadgets like night vision goggles or thermal imaging cameras.

But what the extremist group did have in abundance were old-style Kalashnikov automatic rifles and PK machine guns. The weapons had flooded into Somalia in the late 1990s courtesy of the new Islamic jihadists who’d set up shop in the perpetually government-less country. The guns they used may have been revamped holdovers from the post-World War II era, but AnSawar didn’t need cutting edge weapons in order to be lethal. Kalashnikovs weren’t the most accurate guns in the world, but you didn’t have to be a crack shot from close range.

Perspiration dripped down Jesse’s face as he gripped the door handle. The sweat was from the stifling heat, not from nerves because his hands were as steady as stone. He’d been in some intense situations as a member of Team Fourteen, but he’d come to realize that no matter what type of bullshit was flung his way, his hands never shook.

Entering the building hard and fast, Team Fourteen had quickly scouted the interior. In the first few minutes of the raid, they’d secured six hostages who’d been held together in one of the control rooms. Two more were still UA. Lena Westlake was nowhere to be found.

Then the sound of a woman’s high-pitched, ear-splitting, blood-curdling screams coming from underneath their feet stopped them in their tracks. The panicked shrieks sent Jesse and his unit scrambling down deeper inside the bowels of the facility. The entrance to the dank, underground lair was located directly below a compact utility room. Reasonably certain that the screaming had been coming from behind the door at the far west end of the corridor, Jesse carefully stalked toward it.

Rotating around, he looked back at Hank and Luke. Both men gave him quick nod of their heads signifying that they were ready. Kicking the door wide open, Jesse muscled his way into the room.

Pop! Pop!

Jesse took out an armed enemy combatant in the corner opposite the doorway. Luke and Hank, hot on his heels, took up flanking positions on Jesse’s left and right sides. Instantly, he saw the grand prize standing in the center of the room. Lena Westlake.

Still among the living.
Alleluia
.

She stood there rigidly as one of the AnSawar members held her head tilted back, a sharp knife touching the delicate stretch of skin covering her carotid artery.

Quickly scanning the interior, Jesse verified that there were not any other threats in the room to contend with. The only sounds in the darkened crypt were Lena’s panicked, staccato breathing.

Hang in there, sweetheart
.

Jesse’s attention snapped back to the face of the man threatening Lena. He was stout, swarthy-skinned, balding, and clearly agitated. This guy was playing a game that he had absolutely no chance of winning. And from the way his beady eyes wildly darted from Jesse to his teammates, the guy knew it.

“
Zaida ya kivuli
,” the man barked out in a low, gritty voice. Jesse didn’t have a freaking clue what language the guy was speaking in. Jesse was fluent in Arabic, but the words falling out of the militant’s mouth were definitely not Arabic.

“Don’t move a fucking inch,” Jesse commanded, raising his Sig Sauer P228 a notch higher. He repeated his directive in Arabic. It was going to be a tough shot. Lena’s head blocked all but a quarter of the shorter man’s face. “Slowly, put the knife down and step away from the woman.”

“
Zaida ya kivuli
,” the man recited the words again before saying the more familiar, “
Allah Akbar
.”

A soft anguish-filled sob escaped Lena’s lips. Her eyes widened with fear, sweat rolling down the sides of her face. Then the militant moved his wrist. The movement was so slight as to be almost imperceptible, but he was ready for it.