Cindy Dees - Special Forces - The Spy

For that matter, he needed to get rid of any identification she had on her. He had to keep up the ruse of her being Persephone Black for as long as he possibly could. Until both he and the woman could escape. Everything depended on it.

Including his life. And hers.

* * *

Tessa Wilkes eyed her boss cautiously. Major Gunnar Torsten was not a happy camper this morning. He barked, “Still no answer on Piper’s phone?”

“No, sir,” Rebel McQueen replied from her post at the ops center’s communications panel. “I pinged her phone’s locator function, and it puts her in Houma.” Which was the nearest actual town to their secret training facility.

“Where in Houma?” Torsten demanded.

“Um, at an elementary school.”

“What in the hell is she doing there?” he snapped.

Rebel didn’t answer and instead threw Tessa a distressed look. She felt Rebel’s pain. Torsten was usually a stern guy and all business, but this morning he really had a burr up his butt. Catching the silent plea for help, Tessa sighed and spoke up. “Do you want me to go fetch her, sir?”

“No! But I damned well want to know why one of my highly trained, supposedly responsible operatives has gone AWOL.”

Rebel spoke from her console again, muttering, “That’s odd.”

Everyone looked at her. She glanced up and started. “Oh. Um, I just pinged her backup locator. The one in her class ring from West Point. It’s not in Houma.”

“It had better be headed this way at a high rate of speed,” Torsten ground out.

Man, the boss had seriously woken up on the wrong side of the bed today. Not that he was ever tolerant of screwups. He was fond of saying that seconds were the difference between life and death. He wasn’t wrong, of course.

Rebel reported, “Her secondary locator is moving away from us on Bayou Black Road, heading northwest. It’s about fifteen miles west of here.”

Tessa, the first member of their new Medusa team and more at ease with Torsten than Rebel, leaned forward. “Something’s wrong. Piper would have called one of us if she had a problem and couldn’t get here on time. And she would never go AWOL.”

Torsten huffed in irritation. “We can’t wait any longer. Our Vietnamese instructors are only here for a few days, and I need you to learn as much as you can while you have access to them. Fall out, ladies.”

Rebel and Tessa stood, trading worried glances with one another. It was supremely unlike Piper to blow off required training, and even more unlike her not to check in with someone. A note of worry started to vibrate low in Tessa’s gut.

The major led the way to the reinforced steel door disguised to look like weathered wood siding, unsealing it and stepping out into the morning’s steamy heat. Tessa fell into step beside Major Torsten.

She said soberly, “Sir, I’m worried something has happened to Piper. You taught us to listen to our intuitions, and mine says she’s in some sort of trouble. I think one of us should go look for her.”

He frowned, but at least he didn’t rip her head off. “I’ll take your intuition under advisement. If Piper doesn’t show up in the next hour or so, I’ll go looking for her myself.”

Yikes. Piper was in a heap of trouble.

Piper regained consciousness slowly. Her head throbbed painfully, and it didn’t help matters that every time the van hit a bump in the road, the metal floor bounced underneath her temple, whacking her head again.

Her lips were dry, and her bladder was full, which meant she’d been out for a while. A couple hours, possibly. Dang it! They could’ve changed directions a dozen times without her knowing. She had no way of knowing where she was now!

A sense of disorientation swirled around her. As if she was completely disconnected from the real world. It was scary as hell, and she had to force herself to lie perfectly still until her breathing settled back down and the panic attack passed.

Questions peppered her mind almost too fast to catalog. Where was she? Who were these guys? What did they want with her? How much danger was she in? Where were they taking her? Would she have a shot at escaping them? Did they plan to kill her? Was this even real?

Cautiously, she cracked her eyes open and saw black pants and black combat boots. It hadn’t been a terrible dream. She really had been kidnapped. The weight of panic landed on her chest again, and she struggled to control her breathing.

She could just lie here pretending to be unconscious...but just then the van hit a big bump and slammed her head hard into the floor.

Ow.

She probably had a concussion already from the blow that had knocked her out. No need to exacerbate the stupid thing. Piper pushed against the floor with both hands, sitting up groggily. At least none of the men stopped her from doing so.

The ski masks had come off, replaced by baseball caps pulled down low and dark sunglasses. Drat. She still wouldn’t be able to identify her kidnappers in a lineup. She felt the weight of their stares upon her and did her best not to freak out and start screaming hysterically.

Whatever this was, whoever they were, she had to keep her wits about her, watch, wait and seize the opportunity to escape when it presented itself. And surely one would. She had to believe she would have a chance to get away, eventually.

Be calm. Breathe. Relax.

She did her level best to settle into the state of loose readiness that Major Torsten stressed over and over was absolutely necessary to peak performance.

At least they hadn’t tied her up. It was a small victory, but she knew from her POW training that those were all a hostage could hope to achieve.

Choking fear bubbled up in her throat unbidden, and she stomped it down hard. She had no time for that. This was a battle of wits and wills, and she needed all of hers. In the meantime, maybe she could figure out who these guys were, why they’d grabbed her and where they were going.

Pitching her voice to be polite and diffident, she asked, “Who are you?” A little rapport with her kidnappers could never hurt.

They stared back at her in stony silence. One of the men was seated beside her, between her and the driver. Which ruled out her making a dive for the steering wheel and maybe putting the van in a ditch.

“Why did you kidnap me?” she added.

Still nothing.

She debated starting up a one-sided conversation with these men to provoke them to talk, but ultimately decided she would be better served acting scared to death and letting them lead the conversation wherever they wanted to.

She craned her head to peer out the front window and saw a ribbon of interstate highway stretching away in front of the van. The sun seemed to be overhead, so she had no means of working out what direction they were going. But it confirmed she’d been unconscious for a while.

She realized her elbow was lightly rubbing the arm of one of the bad guys. Based on his build, she thought it might be Goldeneyes. Subtly, she shifted away from him. If she wasn’t mistaken, she heard him exhale in irritation. What did he have to be irritated about? She wasn’t his freaking girlfriend. And she wasn’t about to cozy up to some homicidal terrorist.

Except, when they finally stopped at a rest area near a truck stop, that same homicidal terrorist was the one who helped her out of the van and steadied her elbow for a second while blood flow returned to her legs. Yup. Definitely Goldeneyes. He was the tallest and broadest of shoulder of the whole bunch.

He muttered in unaccented English, “Don’t try anything, or my companions will shoot this place up and kill everyone here.” Oddly enough, he sounded almost apologetic when he made his threat. What was the deal with this guy?