The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (121 page)

He’d dealt with this brand of men before. Just last week, as a matter of fact. Taking in the passing scenery, Brandt realized he’d seen that too. Just last week as well. Lush jungle lay ahead as they drove through the misty, low-rolling hills of the Congo.

Why the hell would the Disciples bring him back here? Brandt’s last mission didn’t have anything to do with the Ten Commandments or even religion. A World Bank envoy had been kidnapped and needed extraction.

Sure, the mission had gotten bloody. Any mission in this impoverished part of the world invariably did. But what did the Disciples care about that?

Apparently a lot.

There were at least three Jeeps in front of them, and as they made a curve around a large hill, it seemed at least three Jeeps behind them. The last carrying the young woman from the plane. The Disciples had come in force.

Again, for what, though?

A zap from his molar brought Brandt back to more practical matters. All of this backcountry driving, chattering his teeth, must have fueled his transmitter. He was pinging his location, for who knew how long.

The Jeep’s engine groaned as they began the steep climb up into the dense rain forest, heading toward, Brandt could only guess, the war-torn village where his last mission had culminated.

What the Disciples would do to him there was anyone’s guess.

With a drug-besotted mind, Brandt tried to calculate when he’d activated his transmitter and how long it would take for his team to catch up. With a sigh, he slumped back into his seat. Even if his team had left the States the moment he had pinged them, the Disciples were at least six to eight hours ahead. Add in the time it would take to arrange transportation into the mountains, and his team would be ten hours behind.

Ten hours that the Disciples could spend torturing him.

Not even Lopez and his need for speed could make up that difference.

* * *

“We are totally going to beat them there,” Lopez announced.

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. However, the other men seemed to believe the corporal.

“Don’t believe me, chica, but we will,” Lopez insisted.

Of course, that made no mathematical sense whatsoever. Even without her laptop, Rebecca knew they were nearly half a day behind Brandt. Granted, Lopez had made up a ton of time over the Atlantic and it had turned out to be way faster to simply land and steal another plane in Lisbon rather than wait for a refuel, but still, that left a minimum of a four-hour gap, which Rebecca couldn’t see how they were going to make up.

Then she noticed the men getting parachutes out.

“No,” Rebecca hissed, suddenly understanding how Lopez planned to make up the difference.

“
Yes
,” Lopez teased, his eyes wide with anticipation. “We are coming in from the other side of the mountain and dropping directly into the village.”

The corporal raised his hand for a high five, which Rebecca did
not
return. Talli fulfilled the action for her. The sniper actually had a smile on his face. “All’s that stands between us and setting up an ambush is a little low-attitude jump. My fav.”

“I…I’ve never…skydived,” Rebecca admitted. Normally a paleo-archeologist whose specialty was genetic migration wouldn’t feel ashamed about such a thing, but most PhDs weren’t hanging out with Special Forces.

“Never?” Davidson asked behind her as he strapped himself into his parachute.

She shook her head.

“Dude,” Lopez snorted. “What the hell were you and Brandt doing all this time?”

Rebecca’s face reddened. Oh, they were doing lots of stuff, just not anything that could be mentioned in mixed company. Besides, having way too much action in their work lives, they liked their downtime to be…
down
.

Not up, jumping from planes.

No matter her hesitation, Davidson handed her a parachute. She studied the myriad of straps.

“No worries,” he coaxed. “I’ll get you hooked up. Then we’ll tandem jump.”

“Yeah, right,” Lopez retorted as he rose from the pilot seat. Talli followed.

“Um,” Rebecca stammered. “Who is going to fly the plane?”

The corporal waved his hand at the controls. “The autopilot is set to fly past the mountain and crash in Uganda.”

Rebecca didn’t even have time to digest that news when Lopez grabbed for her parachute. “No, Ricky. I think I’d rather have Davidson.”

While just as insane as the rest, Davidson did have some concern for her personal safety. Lopez, on the other hand? His motto? Personal safety was for the dead. Which didn’t even make sense, but he certainly said it frequently enough.

Besides, she and the corporal had being staying at arm’s length since that unfortunate incident of mistaken identity in Russia.

Lopez was having none of it, though. “Please. Chica. Look at those hips of yours.”

She glanced down to her tattered gown. Rebecca liked to think of her figure as hourglass.

The corporal nodded to the lean Davidson.

“Do you really think that skinny-ass frame could handle your curves?”

“Hey,” both Rebecca and Davidson protested at the same time.

“I am team leader,” Lopez said, surprisingly serious. “Chica and I are doing the tandem tango.”

Davidson backed down with a shrug. However, Rebecca didn’t have the same deference to military chain of command. As Lopez started strapping her in, she complained, “Ricky, I really think—”

“Look at his hands,” Lopez whispered in Rebecca’s ear. At first, she had no idea what the corporal was taking about. Then she noticed Davidson shake out his arm. When they came to rest again, the sniper’s fingers, especially those on his severely scarred left hand, began to twitch.

It was no wonder. They were all trashed. After twenty hours on the road, who wouldn’t be? And Davidson was under the most strain of all. Usually, after a mission, he would have to have several hot paraffin treatments to soothe the pain from his tortured hands. Davidson tried to shield it from the rest, but Rebecca had been there through the multiple surgeries to cut out the scar tissue. She knew the pain even routine movement brought on, let alone the strain of an operation. And he’d gone right from the conflict in South Carolina to this cross-continental plane hop. All of that strain showing in those twitching fingers.

“If anything happened during the jump…I’m not sure if he could hold you,” Lopez continued. “We need his hands for shooting.”

She looked to the corporal with a bit more appreciation for his leadership skills. Far better to tease her about her hips and Davidson about his slight frame than embarrass the sniper with his much more pronounced weakness.

“Besides,” the corporal followed up, “it’s been a while since I’ve held you.”

Typical Lopez. Profoundly insightful one moment, then
Lopez
the next.

“Let’s just make sure that weapon of yours is holstered,” she challenged back.

With a broad smile, Lopez settled the weight of the parachute on Rebecca’s back. “We shall see.”

Readjusting the straps onto her shoulders, Rebecca realized this was like wearing the world’s most uncomfortable bra. The straps already dug grooves into her skin. Nothing about this experience was going to be pleasant.

As the plane’s yoke inclined on its own, dropping altitude, Rebecca frowned. It just seemed wrong they trusted the computer to drop them off at the right place.

“Ricky, are you sure about this?”

Lopez finished adjusting his parachute before answering. “Oh, please. In these calm skies? The autopilot will be fine…”

“Unless?”

A boom sounded off to the left. The plane veered as fire filled the sky. Lopez grabbed hold of her, breaking her fall as the tip of the wing shuddered, then broke off.

“Unless we’re attacked,” Lopez answered, jumping up, springing for the pilot’s seat.

* * *

Davidson searched out the plane’s window. Scattered clouds blocked the view of the ground. Then bright-red flared.

“Incoming from the left!” he shouted.

Lopez banked to the right. Just in time. Still, the explosion rocked the plane, sending them careening.

“Another!” Levont yelled.

They avoided another direct hit, but that wasn’t going to last long.

“I’m opening the hatch!” Davidson announced, making sure Rebecca had tight hold of a seat. Bracing himself so he wasn’t sucked out, Davidson opened the door. Wind whipped around them. “Somebody get ready to hold my feet!” Davidson announced as he dropped to the floor.

As Levont grabbed his dress shoes, Davidson swung his rifle to bear. Ignoring the fact he was only a few inches from falling from the plane, he yelled, “Turn into it!”

Lopez obliged, tilting the plane toward the left. Through the scope, Davidson scanned.
Where are you?

The attackers weren’t the Disciples. They were far too north for that. No, this attack was simply the cost of doing business in Africa. Some tribal lord thought that a nice expensive Learjet would bring in some good money. And the chief wouldn’t be wrong. Selling the jet scrap metal could probably feed the village for a year.

The only problem was that Davidson and the rest still needed the plane. Intact.

There it was. That flash as the RPG was fired.

“Into it!” Davidson shouted. Lopez, as always, was right on it, cutting under the RPG as it sailed over them. Davidson fired before the cloud cover obscured the launch site. They were impossible shots. He didn’t expect to hit anything or anyone. He just wanted to give the men on the ground something to ponder. Passenger planes usually didn’t shoot back.

Unfortunately, the attackers didn’t seem to care.

“Here!” Tallie said as he shoved an RPG launcher at Davidson. The metal object slid across the floor. Davidson snatched it before it went over the side.

Now this, this might give them something to seriously ponder.

Before he could get the launcher up onto his shoulder, Rebecca screamed, “Incoming!”

She was right. And this one was coming straight at them. Lopez tried to maneuver, but there was no way they could get out of range. The trajectory was all wrong, and Davidson was all about the trajectory.

There was only one thing to do.

* * *

Rebecca watched as the RPG seemed to swim out of the clouds and streak toward them. Despite Lopez’s best efforts, the RPG was still going to hit them. Maybe in the tail of the plane now instead of the nose, but they were going to get hit.

Then Davidson fired his RPG. The rocket shot out of the aircraft, scorching the chairs next to Davidson. She expected the RPG to sail downward, but instead, its path was nearly parallel to the plane. Right at the incoming missile.

In a fiery explosion, Davidson’s RPG slammed into the enemy’s. Close. Too close. The shock wave cracked metal, sheering off an entire wing. The plane tumbled onto its side as the seam that held the front and the back of the plane split open.

“Go!” Lopez yelled from the cockpit. “Jump!”

Davidson scrambled to his feet, letting Talli and Levont follow orders and leap from the plane as he tried to make his way to Rebecca. Then the unthinkable happened. The plane cracked in two. Davidson lunged forward, trying to grasp her wrist, but their fingers barely brushed. She was on her own.

Without any thrust of its own, the back of the plane tilted nearly vertical and fell, with her
inside
.

Tears ripped from her eyes, Rebecca latched onto the edge of a seat, her feet dangling, useless. Then she passed Talli and Levont, their parachutes already open. She could see the men point at her, but what could they do?

Pull it together
, Rebecca thought. You’re just falling at terminal velocity. Okay, that didn’t help. No, she needed to get out of the plane. She needed to climb to the top and jump, getting clear of the wreckage. Or pre-wreckage.

She tried to grab hold of the armrest in front of her, only to have her grip slip. Dangling by one hand, Rebecca tried to push the panic down. What would Brandt say?

“You’re still alive, so stop whining.”

God, she loved him, but his voice really wasn’t all that helpful in a crisis.

“Rebecca!”

She looked up to find Davidson curled into a ball, cutting his wind resistance, hurling toward her. He pantomimed for her to grab a cord on her parachute and pull.

Not even thinking about it and all the things that could go so horribly wrong, Rebecca jerked the cord. Or at least the cord she thought she should pull. But nothing happened. Rebecca looked up to find Davidson nearly on her.

“The orange one!” he yelled.

Fishing around, she found the orange one and pulled it.

* * *

Davidson waited until the parachute flung open. It hit the side of the plane, but the wind caught in its canopy and jerked Rebecca up and out of the tail. As he pulled his own cord, Rebecca shot up past him.

That was okay. He’d rather have her up above him than hurling to her death. His own parachute popped open, sucking in air, snapping his risers, just as the tail of the plane crashed into the mountainside. Guess the tribal lord was going to get his cash, after all. Then Davidson was whisked upward as the skirt caught air. He sailed up and slightly past Rebecca. Guess Lopez was right. He must be little lighter than her. Not that he would ever tell Rebecca.

Sheer terror masked her normally pretty features. He guided the braking lines, slowing his ascent to match hers, pulling them almost even. His intent was to grab hold of her rigging and help control her descent, but Rebecca’s eyes stared over his head.

He looked over his shoulder to find the plane’s front half plummeting out of the sky—with Lopez standing on the nose of the plane.

“Quick!” he yelled. “Somebody get this for Ricky Junior!”

Davidson ignored the corporal. At some point, Lopez was going to have to pull the cord. Picture or not. Davidson’s priority was getting Rebecca down safely. Carefully positioning his canopy over hers, he inched into position. They were close enough he could see Rebecca’s terror returning to her eyes.

“See?” he tried to coax. “It’s not so bad.”