Final Target (SEAL Team Blackout), page 4
What did she have left anyway? She’d shoved away the only person who meant anything to her.
Oh, Crew. Where are you now? Are you failing at life as much as I am?
Air flooded into her lungs, and she made a godawful braying noise. She sucked in another breath, then another. Panting at the pain and fighting the nausea caused by a fist to the stomach, she glared at her captor.
“I buy jewelry. I can’t tell you what you want to know because I don’t know anything.”
“Put her back in the cell!” he barked.
The other man who’d done his own bit of torturing her lunged forward and yanked her off the chair. With no ability to use her bound feet, she fell on her face. She hit hard and next thing she knew, he dragged her up again. He cut her bonds, freeing her wrists and ankles, and began dragging her out of the room and down a hallway.
More of that orange light filled the place. She knew by now that it couldn’t be sunlight. It had to be some strange light bulb choice or a bad paint decision.
She almost laughed at the idea of terrorists having no design sense, but she managed to cut off her laugh before it got out.
The guy pushed her past Sophia’s cell. The woman let out a gasp, and Teigen whipped her head around to see her, but too late. He shoved her in the back, and she crumpled into her cell.
The gate slammed shut. She pressed her hot, swollen, bruised cheek against the cold floor and tried to figure out how to make it back to the corner. Right now, she wished she’d been given a dingy mattress like Sophia. Anything to cushion all the painful bruises on her body.
How could she escape these walls? Did anyone know where she was? The pendant with the camera was long gone. They’d taken her phone. They’d see the last person she called was her handler. Men like her captors liked to boast. They’d probably called her handler and told him they had her. That meant somebody had to be searching for her.
She still had a little hope to cling to.
But the scientist had been here nine months. How would Teigen survive nine months in this place?
Sophia let out a deep, racking cough.
Teigen squeezed her eyes shut and focused on the cold seeping into her bruised skin. And to think, last year around this time she and Crew were on a beach sipping drinks.
Her mind retreated into the memories of sun and sand. They’d built sandcastles that day, and when it got too hot, they jumped into the waves. The feel of his muscular arms locking her to his body made her feel like the most cherished woman on earth.
When they came out of the water and returned to their bungalow, they made love far into the night. Her fingers curled at the memory of digging them into his thick, muscled shoulders as he made her come over and over again.
A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye—the only one she’d released, even when they were torturing her. Good, that meant she wasn’t totally detached yet. She could still cry for Crew.
She hoped he was on a beach somewhere, even if he was sitting in a lounge chair alone, looking out at the waves. She wanted the best for him, and that was her motivating factor in breaking things off.
Her inkling that this job of hers might become more dangerous than she could handle had proved prophetic. She knew she did the right thing in calling her marriage quits. She couldn’t bear the thought of lying here and knowing her captors were after her husband too.
Ex-husband.
A word she never thought would be associated with her. After only one night with Crew, she’d known he was a forever kind of guy. Her forever guy.
If she hadn’t been so ambitious, she wouldn’t be here. She’d still be back home waiting for Crew’s phone call filled with all the sweet talk her romantic heart craved and all the dirty talk she missed when he was gone.
She’d really messed things up.
She couldn’t think about her failed marriage now. She was alone here and needed to hold on to her wits. She needed them to survive until her handler got her out of here.
She may have passed out for a while. When she opened her eyes, she didn’t know where she was. Only when she cast a glance at the bars and saw the never-ending orange light did the painful truth come flooding back.
“Teigen?” The call sounded from the next cell. “Can you hear me?”
“I’m here.” Her tongue felt too thick in her mouth. Her cheek was cut to hell.
“Are you okay?”
A dozen answers popped into her head. But she couldn’t give any of them if she was going to hold on to this life raft of hope.
“Yeah,” she finally told Sophia.
Far from okay, but she would not be broken.
Besides, now she had a mental map of the place. She’d counted the footsteps when they dragged her to the interrogation room and she memorized where all the hallways and other rooms branched off.
“You were gone a long time. I was starting to worry,” Sophia broke in.
Teigen pushed off the cold floor, starting to shiver. She slid into the corner with her back to it and knees curled up. She wrapped her arms around them and thought once more about that beach with the man she loved.
A man she’d never quit loving until the day she died.
“When I first got here, I thought about my parents a lot. What they must be feeling, knowing I was missing,” Sophia went on.
“I’m sure it’s hard on them.”
“Teigen?”
“Yeah?”
“Is there anyone important to you?”
The salty lump bobbed into her throat, and she nearly burst into rough, noisy tears. For a minute, she battled with her emotions.
At last, she said, “Yeah, there is someone important…Crew.”
Her eyes slammed shut and she let the silent tears for all she gave up roll.
For what she’d never have again.
FOUR
“Coming up on the gate,” Sparrow announced from the front of a small delivery van the Blackout team was using as cover.
The plan to follow another delivery van already cleared for entry at the bunker had to work. Their backup plan of climbing the thick stone walls surrounding the place and infiltrating on foot, probably while being shot at by guards, wasn’t as much of a sure thing.
Crew and the others were crowded in the back. The van smelled like rotting produce and the floor was littered with stray bits of fruit that were left behind.
The vehicle geared down, the motion rocking everyone. They were prepped for a raid, with assault rifles and enough ammo to take out an entire block of bunkers. From what they knew, there weren’t that many people inside. Blackout would be in and out and back on a flight for home within the hour.
They rolled over a few hard bumps. Crew engaged his ab muscles to keep from pitching into Ramsey. Their equipment rustled.
“Always a party. Stuck in the back of a hot, smelly van waiting to jump out and get shot at.” Ramsey’s sarcastic drawl broke the tension, and a couple of them laughed.
Crew didn’t, though. He wasn’t sure he was capable of joking these days.
Ramsey’s gaze fell on him and his expression sobered. Crew gave him the smallest nod, which his brother-in-arms returned.
The van continued to bump along the drive leading to the building.
“Get ready, Blackout.” Sparrow’s order projected into their ears, and they all snapped to attention. Two men near the back door perched at the ready to shove open the doors and jump out.
“Now!”
Crew went into autopilot. His boots hit the ground and he ran straight for the front. A guard stepped out, weapon aimed at Crew’s head. He took the guard out before he could be mowed down by a bullet.
“Go, go, go!” someone bellowed.
Crew took point with Frost on his six as they entered the building. Shouts sounded from somewhere deeper inside.
Blackout was looking for the woman. The codebreaker. Finding her in a maze of corridors wouldn’t be easy. He took a right then a left, rushing past rooms. A guy leaped out and poked a rifle at them.
Crew swung his weapon up just as Frost did. The man crumpled, and they continued on. At the end of the hall there was a ring of orange light.
“Want to find out where that’s coming from?” Frost asked.
“Let’s go.” Crew ran through the corridor all the way to the end. “There’s another level below. Going in.” He started down a short run of stairs leading to a basement level. But once he was down there, he realized the earth under the bunker had been dug away by hand, probably over the course of months.
“What the—” Frost broke off, his breaths coming heavier as they searched the area. The orange light was coming from a few bare lightbulbs hanging from the low ceiling. The bulbs were low wattage but the earth had an orange cast.
The place smelled damp and musty. Under the echo of gunfire on the floor above them came a low sound like ripping paper.
He paused. “Hear that?”
“Sounds like we have company,” Frost replied.
On the defensive, they hurried along the passage. It branched off to the right and came to a dead end. A rat scurried by Crew’s boot.
He wouldn’t be surprised if they were keeping prisoners down here.
The sound of tearing reached them again. Frost spun and headed toward it. On his heels, Crew’s adrenaline fueled his every step. Sweat trickled down his nape.
He slowed. Along one wall small cells had been dug out and bars were fitted in the openings. “Oh, shit.”
“I hope we don’t have to leave a bunch of fucking prisoners here to die,” Frost muttered.
“I was thinkin’ the same thing.” Crew switched on his head lamp to shine a light into the first cell. Exposed to light, rats skittered.
Empty. They moved to the next and the next. All empty. When they turned a corner and cell after cell lined both walls, Crew’s gut sank with sickening dread. What the fuck was this place? Why were they holding so many prisoners here?
“We found the prisoners. A lot of them,” Crew announced to the team.
“We’re only looking for one,” came Sparrow’s reply.
“Fuck.” Frost’s low voice had Crew pivoting to see where he was.
Frost’s light beamed into a cell, and in one corner huddled a man in ragged clothes. Even in the dim light and the orange glow, Crew could see raw sores on his bare shins.
They weren’t looking for a man. They needed the codebreaker.
“Goddammit!” He strode to the next cell. Another man was curled on a mattress in the corner. More rats crawled over a tray holding the meal it appeared he didn’t have the strength to eat.
Quickening their pace, he and Frost searched both sides of the hall. When long, dirty brown hair came into view in one cell, Crew stopped.
“Safe word?”
She stared at him with blank eyes.
“Do you know the safe word?” he asked again.
She shook her head.
Disgusted that he had to keep moving, keep searching for the woman he was ordered to save, he continued on.
“It will take a ton of aid workers to get these people out,” Frost said quietly.
“I know.” They wouldn’t be left behind. Someone would come for them. But for a few, it might be too late.
Another hall cut to the left. The ripping noise grew louder. Crew realized that they were hearing someone coughing. And by the higher tone of the noise, it was a woman.
With weapon raised, he hurried into the hall. From behind him, Frost fired on an armed man coming to stop them.
Crew ran to the cell. His light panned over a woman on a mattress, coughing her lungs out.
“What’s the safe word?” he demanded.
She couldn’t quit coughing long enough to tell him. He waited for her shoulders to stop shaking with the force of the cough. Then she shook her head. Weakly, she said, “I don’t know a safe word.”
She had a light German accent under the reedy wheeze emitting from her.
In two ground-eating strides he reached another cell. The woman’s head was bowed. Brown hair trailed into her eyes but couldn’t conceal the swelling in her face. She’d been beaten and recently.
Above them, gunfire exploded. Screams sounded.
“We don’t have much time,” Frost said.
“What’s the safe word?” Crew forced out.
She lifted her head, eyes wide in the light shining on her from his head lamp.
Another scream, this one closer.
“Fuck, they’re shooting the prisoners!” Frost whirled to the head of the corridor, prepared to blast the first man who stepped out.
“Do you know a safe word?” Crew barked at the woman.
Her voice cut through the blast of gunfire and the new coughing fit of the woman in the next cell.
“It’s wasabi, Crew.”
He blinked. His heart gave a hard heave, and he stared harder at the prisoner, searching her swollen and bloody face for the woman he’d married on a whim that had turned out to be the best decision of his life.
“Teigen?”
She lurched forward but almost fell on her face. On her hands and knees, she started toward the gate.
“No! Stay back! I have to shoot the lock.”
She scrambled backward and huddled in the corner. His gaze washed over her, and he tried not to react but seeing her hands thrown over her head to protect herself from any flying debris ripped his fucking heart out.
“We got her,” he heard Frost say just before Crew blew off the padlock. The rough metal gate swung outward, and he whipped it open, lunging toward his wife.
His mind couldn’t wrap around how she got here. Or why she was sitting in a cell in Egypt instead of back home in Virginia Beach.
The codebreaker. My wife’s the fucking codebreaker?
No way.
Even if he was wrong, he wasn’t leaving her here to die.
* * * * *
Teigen’s mind was blurry with shock. Or maybe she was about to pass out again. She was not looking at Crew, the man she’d married after one weekend together. She must be hallucinating.
She’d taken more than physical blows and was probably nearing her breaking point.
Crew couldn’t be here because he was off fighting for his country.
Her traumatized brain was making her think Crew was standing in front of her decked out in military gear. More likely she was actually looking at one of her kidnappers or her handler or even Santa Claus.
She was losing it. No wonder she’d blurted the safe word they used in the bedroom.
He tried to enter but was too tall for the low ceiling of her cell. Folded in half, he moved toward her.
Through the slit of her eye, she peered at his face. He had the same rugged features as Crew. The straight nose and hard lips. Why was she even questioning whether or not it was her husband who’d come to save her? It didn’t matter. She just needed to get out of here.
“Jesus Christ. Teigen!” His hands closed on her upper arms. He lifted her into his arms and twisted for the gate.
Her cheek pressed against his steely chest, and she dragged in a deep breath.
He smelled like Crew.
As he ducked through the opening with her cradled against him, reality struck.
“No!” She threw out a hand, locking it on the doorway like one of those cats that refused to go into a carrier. “I can’t go with you.”
“We can negotiate terms later. This is about saving your life.”
“I’m not going—”
“Teigen,” he rumbled in warning.
“Without the scientist!” she finished.
Now that they were out of the cell, he straightened to his full height and let her slide to her feet. With an arm locked around her waist, he started dragging her down the hall.
“Crew! Listen to me! I can’t leave without the scientist!”
“We have to get her out of here. Who knows how safe this place is or how determined the guys we’ve left alive are to keep their prisoners from being rescued?” he was muttering to the huge man barreling ahead of him.
“Crew, stop!”
He towed her another few steps, no matter how much she dug in her heels.
He was still playing the big protector card. But oh, he looked so damn good and rugged in his gear, that thick, muscled chest strapped with ammo.
How did he look more muscular than when she’d seen him last? When was the last time she set eyes on her husband?
Five months. Back before she realized she was going to get him killed with her work.
She dug her fingers into his muscled arm. “Crew! Listen to me! We have to get the woman in the cell next to mine! Go back now!”
He stopped and glared down at her.
A man appeared at the end of the hall, blocking the entire entrance with his enormous body. He took one look at them and ran forward. “Get her out of here. They’ve got the place wired to blow.”
“Blow? Oh, god!” Teigen cried out.
Crew yanked her another step. When she didn’t come easy, he whipped his head toward her. “You’re going to listen to me and run out of this goddamn building or I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you.”
“The scientist! She’s been here nine months!”
A low growl vibrated from him. He jerked his head toward the two men with him and they turned back. Relief swept through her in a hot rush. Her knees felt like two limp noodles but she managed to run through the maze of hallways.
They rounded a corner. Crew kept his rifle up. The fact that he was prepared to shoot anybody barring their way made her stomach quiver.
Behind them came a blast and then the creak of metal that was all too familiar to Teigen after mere days in this place. They’d freed Sophia.
“No! Leave me!” came the scientist’s desperate cry.
Teigen’s chest flexed. With all her strength, she ripped free of Crew’s grasp and ran back to help her friend.
“Goddammit!” Crew’s roar felt like it vibrated the air, but Teigen ignored his wrath.
She could barely see through her swollen eye but managed not to smash into any walls. Two men on Crew’s team blocked Sophia’s cell.
