Cindy Dees - Special Forces - The Spy

Goldeneyes hopped out of the van in front of her and turned around to help her out. She was tempted to shake off his hand, but her legs were numb, and as she stood on them, they tingled so badly she wasn’t sure they would hold her full weight. She clung to his powerful forearm while circulation returned to her aching limbs. After a few seconds, she let go of his arm.

“Better?” he murmured under his breath.

“Uh-huh,” she muttered back.

He stepped behind her, efficiently twisting her arm behind her, but putting no pressure on it that would be painful. His intention was clear: if she didn’t fight him, he wouldn’t hurt her.

For now, at least. As long as their silent truce held.

She didn’t for a second believe these terrorists had brought her out here solely to enjoy the fresh air. They had some agenda up their sleeves. She just couldn’t fathom what it was.

Which led her back to the same question that had been preoccupying her all day. Why her?

It didn’t take long after the report of armed men at Southdown Elementary School in Houma hit the news for the Medusas to put two and two together. They were taking a water break in the woods when Rebel, glancing at her cell phone, exclaimed.

Tessa piped up, asking, “Whatcha got, Reb?”

The communications specialist looked up from her phone grimly. “I just got a breaking-news alert. Armed men burst into Southdown Elementary School in Houma this morning and kidnapped an unnamed woman. She’s described as tall, blonde and in her mid-to late twenties.”

Tessa lurched upright from where she’d been lounging on a patch of moss. “That’s got to be Piper!”

Major Torsten cut in. “Where are Captain Ford’s cell phone and class ring locations now?”

Rebel answered, “I’d have to go back to the ops center to answer that, sir.”

“What are you waiting for, then?” Torsten snapped.

Tessa got that he was worried about Piper. But he didn’t have to bite their heads off!

Her train of thought derailed abruptly. Torsten was always tough, but he’d never been this snappish before. She traded worried looks with her fiancé, Beau, and his thoughts clearly mirrored hers. He was worried about the boss, too. Beau had worked for Gunnar Torsten for several years before being asked to help train the new Medusa team. If even Beau was worried about him, something was definitely wrong with Torsten.

When they hustled back to the vehicles to drive back to base, she made a point of climbing in the front passenger seat of the Hummer Torsten was driving.

“What’s up, sir?”

He glanced over at her and bit out, “I’ve got a missing and possibly kidnapped team member.”

“Besides that,” she replied carefully.

“Isn’t that enough?”

“You were way more tense than usual even before we thought anything was wrong with Piper...sir.”

He exhaled hard and turned his eyes back to the road. “I got an intel report last night.”

“And?”

“It indicates that Abu Haddad may not be dead.”

“What?” she and Beau squawked simultaneously. The two of them had by a hair escaped dying in the explosion that had killed Haddad last year. The international, and very illegal, arms dealer, had to be dead! His entire yacht—and everyone on it—had been blown into bits not much larger than her finger. Beau had set the charges himself.

Torsten replied heavily, “We never did get a confirmation of death.”

Beau leaned forward from the back seat and ground out, “That’s because nothing but matchsticks and the occasional chunk of meat were left when I was done blowing up that bastard’s yacht.”

Tessa frowned at their boss. “Why does someone think Haddad may be alive?”

Torsten huffed, clearly as unhappy as she and Beau were. “A rumor has surfaced that the Haddad network may be doing some sort of big secret deal with a Middle Eastern nation. The source apparently has it on good authority that Haddad himself is expected to close the deal. It’s possible that one of his flunkies has taken over the business. But there’s also a very small chance that the bastard is back.”

“What country is this deal with?” she asked.

“Rumor places the deal in Iran.”

“For what kind of weapons?” Beau asked quickly.

Tessa wasn’t sure that mattered. The Iranians were dangerous enough with the weaponry they already had. Although she supposed the last thing anyone needed was for that country’s leaders to get their hands on something high-tech and truly deadly.

“No idea,” Torsten replied.

“It’s not like we have a ton of human information sources on the ground in Tehran,” she commented. “If someone outside its borders could figure out who’s making the sale and what the cargo is, we’d have a better chance of finding out what the Iranians are getting their hands on.”

Appearing to give himself a mental shake, the major replied, “Not our problem, today. Right now, I need us to focus on finding Piper.”

“Of course, sir.” But curiosity about what a dead arms dealer was selling to a country like Iran continued to niggle at the back of Tessa’s mind.

They parked in front of the one-story building that was their communications facility and operational headquarters for Training Site Vanessa, named for Brigadier General Vanessa Blake, the founder of the Medusas over a decade ago.

Their headquarters squatted on stilts and looked like every other ramshackle fishing shack in this part of Terrebonne Parish. Notable only was the building’s lack of windows, and the unusually bulky storage shed under the center of the building.

In reality, that shed disguised the elevator shaft down into the underground/underwater bunker that housed the heart of their ops center. The aboveground building mainly disguised antennae and receivers for the equipment below.

They piled into the elevator and stood in silence as it whooshed them down into the bunker. The door opened into the perpetual twilight of a room crammed with computers and monitors.

Rebel sat at her communication console and typed quickly. In just a few seconds, she reported without looking up from her screen, “Piper’s phone is still at the elementary school where it was this morning.”

“And her backup locator signal?” Torsten asked.

“It appears stationary about fifty miles west of here,” she reported. “Reporters are saying a group of masked men were seen coming out of a white air-conditioning company van and heading into the elementary school. They left in the same vehicle. Presumably with Piper in tow.”

Major Torsten left Rebel to man the ops center in case Piper called in, and loaded Tessa and Beau into his Hummer. They drove west, paralleling the murky waters of Bayou Black to the GPS coordinates Rebel had given them for Piper’s backup locator signal. It turned out to be coming from a crappy little 1950s-era gas station in the middle of nowhere.

The gray-haired Cajun man inside the station swore he hadn’t seen any woman fitting Piper’s description all day. When Tessa showed him a picture of Piper on her cell phone, the attendant declared her hot, but again denied having seen her. Tessa was inclined to believe him.

Torsten called Rebel to confirm they were at the right place, and she was adamant that their position locators were literally on top of Piper’s. And it was still pinging.

They fanned out to search the area, and after a minute or so, Tessa spotted a glint in the gravel at the corner of the building. She bent down and picked up Piper’s West Point class ring. The one with the locator in it.

“I found her ring!” she called out.

“Don’t move!” Torsten ordered immediately. He knelt down, examining the dirt between himself and Tessa. After a moment, he moved off to his right, toward the side of the building. Using his finger, he drew a rectangle on the ground. “Tire track. Recent,” he commented, continuing to stare at the dusty clay.