Hit and Run (28 page)

Brakes screeched below as the Humvee arrived on target. Derek heard a string of pops, like firecrackers, as the other teams dealt with the doors. So much for quiet.

“Going explosive,” Derek said, and everyone hunched down.

Pop!

The door burst open and a barrage of machine gun fire spewed through gap. Derek rolled away, breathing hard. Even when you expected it, it was always a shock when bullets whizzed over your head. Luke laid down cover fire as Derek reached into the doorway and pulled away the ruined gate.

They darted through the opening, one, two, three, with perfect coordination born of years of training.

“Room one clear!” Luke shouted, tossing an infrared chem light to the floor to signal his teammates.

Derek darted past him and cleared the next room. A staccato of bullets echoed in the stairwell.

“This is Alpha,” Luke said over the radio. “Level two clear.”

“This is Bravo. Level one clear.”

Derek rushed down the stairs, stepping over a body as he joined his team. Two tangos lay dead in the middle of the floor, their AKs and chest racks beside them. Derek glanced around. Sleeping pallets, trash, empty food cans. The smell of cooking oil hung in the air.

Mike looked at him. “Notice anything funny?”

“No women, no kids.”

Taken with everything else, it confirmed their intel. This was no typical family home.

“This is Delta. House two clear and we need Dietz over here ASAP.”

Mike rushed to answer the call while across the kitchen Luke kicked open a door.

“Basement!”

“Check for booby traps,” Derek said, following him down a primitive staircase carved from the rock. At the bottom was a door with a heavy-duty lock.

“Need your sledge,” Luke said.

Derek was already pulling it from his pack. They didn’t want a breaching charge in case a hostage was being held on the other side. Derek swung back the hammer and gave the door a sharp
whack,
sending splinters flying as it burst open.

Luke ducked in first. Derek covered him. The room was dark and cold and reeked of urine. In the corner was a shadowy lump with a mop of blond hair. She wasn’t moving--not good news, considering all the noise.

“NVGs,” Derek said, shoving his up. Their goggles and greasepaint made them look like alien robots, and they didn’t want to scare the hell out of her. Derek switched on the flashlight attached to his helmet as Luke reached to check her pulse. She flinched, then rolled over and suddenly started kicking and screaming like a banshee.

“It’s okay, ma’am,” Luke said. “Don’t be afraid.”

More shrieks and kicks.

“Hailey, it’s okay.”

She went still. Derek aimed the light at her as she cowered back. Dirt smudged her face and the collar of her shirt was dark with blood. The nasty gash above her eye made Derek’s stomach turn.

“I’m Petty Officer Luke Jones, U.S. Navy.” He was already digging through his medical kit. “We’re here to take you home.”

Derek knelt down and looked the woman over. She held her wrist protectively against her body, and it was wrapped with a dirty scrap of cloth. Luke tore open a syringe as Derek peeled away the bandage to reveal an oozing green wound with bone jutting through the skin.

Derek glanced up at her. “We’ve got a helo coming to give you a ride.”

“You’re... American,” she rasped.

“Yep.” Derek got rid of the filthy-ass bandage as Luke prepped the shot. “Hey, your Bruins are doing pretty good. We plan to get you home in time for the Cup.”

She made a wet, choking sound, and Luke darted him a look. He’d meant to distract her, not make her cry.

“Five minutes!” someone yelled from upstairs. Derek’s radio crackled and he got to his feet.

“Alpha this is Delta. We need Vaughn or Jones over here.”

Derek rushed back upstairs, checking his watch as he went. He’d known Sean since BUD/S training and he could tell by the tone of his voice that something was very wrong. Probably the hostage. A cold feeling of dread gripped him as he thought of losing another one.

In the courtyard one of his teammates was building a pile of guns and ammo. The heap of AKs, chest racks, and RPGs took up most of the space. Another pair of guys had already started SSE--Sensitive Site Exploitation--which meant confiscating any potential intelligence, as well as fingerprinting and photographing casualties and their weapons, not only for ID purposes but also so that if the mission came to light, the enemy couldn’t claim they’d killed a bunch of innocent civilians.

Inside the second building, the SEAL pulling security directed Derek toward a stairwell leading to the basement. Someone had slapped a chem light on the wall with duct tape.

The cavern smelled as rank as the other one. Remnants of a wooden door lay on the floor. Mike emerged from a chamber with the doctor slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“He’s alive,” Mike said, answering the unspoken question.

Derek stepped out of his way. “We been on target too long, bro. Need to speed it up.”

“Vaughn, get over here.”

He followed a narrow corridor and almost stepped on a pair of legs jutting out from the wall. A young man was seated on the floor with his hands zip-cuffed behind him. He wore loose-fitting pants and high-top sneakers and was fifteen, max, but his eyes already had the flat, battle-hardened look of a warrior.

“Found him in the tunnel.” Sean nodded toward a passage that connected the house to who the hell knew what. The tunnel system here was like a rabbit warren.

Derek spotted a workbench littered with electrical wires, nails, several jars of black powder--all bomb components. He scanned the rest of the room and his gaze came to rest on a large safe in the corner. It was a serious box, definitely imported, and would have been a major pain in the ass to get here.

Now Derek understood why he’d been called over. He glanced at the kid and tried to remember his rudimentary Pashto.

“What’s the number?” Derek asked in Pashto, because he didn’t know the word for “combination.”

The kid didn’t answer.

Derek pointed the stock of his gun at the safe. “Open it.”

The kid looked away, sullen.

“Fuck this.” Sean reached for his kit and got out some C-4. Derek stepped over to check for booby traps. He didn’t see any, but there was only one way to know for sure.

Sean set a small charge and they crossed to the other side of the room. The burst reverberated through the cavern and they rushed back over.

“Shit, look at all this.” Sean pulled out a stack of papers, singed around the edges and still smoking. He flung it to the ground and stomped the fire out as Derek reached in and pulled out a notebook computer.

“Two minutes,” the CO said over the radio.

Derek cursed. Even with the extra minutes they’d built into the plan, they were running behind.

Sean was already pulling out his mesh bag, which they carried for this purpose. Some of the papers were in English, but Derek didn’t take the time to read them as he jammed everything in the bag. He reached in and snatched a thumb drive as Sean grabbed another batch of papers. Loose pages fluttered to the ground.

His teammate held up a sheet. “Hey, look at this.”

“No time to read. We need to move.”

“It’s a map.”

Derek glanced at it. It was in English, with notes scrawled around the edges. Derek scanned the street names.

His blood ran cold. He looked at Sean.

“Guys, move it!” someone yelled down the stairs.

Derek glanced at his watch. They’d been on target way too long. He glanced at the kid. In a matter of hours, this house would be looted and abandoned. In a matter of minutes this guy would be in the wind.

“On your feet,” Derek ordered.

Sean shouldered his pack. “They said no prisoners.”

“On your feet!”

The kid stood grudgingly, proving he knew at least some English. Sean shot Derek a look before taking the prisoner by arm and propelling him toward the stairs.

Derek’s mind reeled as he looked at the papers strewn about the floor. He scooped up every scrap and checked the safe again to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, then threw his bag over his shoulder and raced upstairs. All the windows rattled as a Black Hawk swooped overhead en route to the landing zone. He glanced in the courtyard just as their EOD guy ducked out. He’d been setting the charge on the ordnance, and the look on his face told Derek it was about to blow.

“Hey, what are you doing here? Haul ass!”

Boom!

Derek dropped to his knees as the house shook. Chunks of debris rained down from the ceiling.

“Come on!” Derek yelled.

They sprinted outside where the last member of their team was holding security by the door. A few neighbors’ lights had come on. People peered through windows and leaned out from doorways.

“Vaughn, where the hell are you?”

It was Luke’s voice over the radio, probably already at the LZ, which was a vacant lot at the end of the street.

“We’re half a click away.”

They double-timed it toward the landing zone, pushing the prisoner ahead of them.

“We got company,” Cole said over the radio as a truck screeched around the corner. It was a shit vehicle, but it was packed with armed men and had a .50 cal machine gun mounted to the roof.

Derek grabbed Sean’s vest and yanked him out of the road. He pushed him down the alley leading to their alternate exfil route.

“Vaughn, report! Where are you?”

“Almost there.”

The street smelled like sewer water. Trash swirled in the rotor wash as they neared the waiting helo.

Rat-tat-tat.

The gunner on the truck let loose with the .50 cal. His buddies with AKs were well out of range, but that didn’t stop them from spraying bullets.

Derek rounded the building just in time to get a mouth full of dust. Mike was lifting the doctor into the chopper. Hailey had a SEAL on each arm and they were practically carrying her, but she tore away from them and made a sprint for it. She flung herself onto the helo and about a dozen hands reached out to pull her inside. Luke and Mike jumped in behind her.

Rat-tat-tat.

Derek and Sean ducked and sprinted while several teammates aimed over their heads and returned fire. The prisoner reached the helo first and Mike pulled him aboard.

Rat-tat-tat-tat.

Sean crashed down behind him. Derek turned and hauled him to his feet.

I’m hit.

Noise drowned out the words, but Derek could read his friend’s lips and the panicked look in his eyes. Derek heaved him over his shoulder and stumbled forward. Bullets peppered the helo’s sides as Luke jumped down and helped lift Sean inside.

“Go, go, go!”

Derek grabbed the outstretched hands of his teammates as they seized his pack and yanked him aboard. His boots were barely inside when the Black Hawk lurched off the ground and lifted into the sky.

# # #

Copyright 2015 Laura Griffin

Enjoy this excerpt from
COMPULSION
, the second book in Allison Brennan’s Max Revere series.

I.

Nine Months Ago

Sweat beaded on Adam Bachman’s forehead. He told himself the lights up ahead were just emergency vehicles because of the accident. No one cared about him or this car.

But it wasn’t his car.

He had another problem. The girl was starting to move in the trunk.

Everything had gone wrong from the beginning, but he didn’t see it right away. Because he was focused on
her
, the pretty blonde. The way she looked at him and he
knew
she was worthy. She saw him – the real him – and that gave him a thrill unlike the others. When she looked over at him at the bar, she smiled a little smile, like they shared a secret.

Maybe he’d imagined it. Maybe he’d made a mistake picking her. Why had the drug worn off so quickly?

Except it wasn’t quickly. He’d been stuck in this traffic jam for thirty minutes. Only one lane was open, and cars were backed up. It was summer, people wanted to get out of town, but it was
Tuesday
, not the weekend, and so the accident must be pretty bad for them to only allow a couple cars through at a time.

The girl kicked the trunk as the car rolled closer to the emergency vehicles. Then Adam noticed the two cop cars. They must be here for the accident.

If it was just a terrible accident, why was his heart pounding?

Be quiet, girl. Just. Be. Quiet.

The drugs usually kept them out for two hours. Enough time to drive to his handpicked location. To revive them. To watch them die. Sometimes, it took hours. Preparation and practice to get everything
just right
. There was a fine line between life and death. Uncovering that exact moment, right before their very last breath, wasn’t science. It was art. Every person was unique. It’s what made his process so interesting, so provoking. If he made movies, he’d win awards for his precision and care.

He’d made mistakes, but he’d cleaned up his mistakes. The last two had been perfect. First the boy, then the girl. And he’d thought this girl would be just as satisfying.
More
perfect.

He rolled closer to the police cars. They waved cars through, barely glancing inside.

Okay. Good. Stop sweating.

Why would they be glancing inside at all? Did they suspect something? Habit because they were cops and all cops were suspicious by nature?

There was no way these cops knew anything about the girl in the trunk. He’d only grabbed her forty-five minutes ago. No one even knew she was missing. His process was perfect; no one had ever been reported missing until they were already dead.

This girl had been very chatty at the bar. She lived in Baltimore. She’d come to the city—alone—to visit her boyfriend. She stayed with him one night, but nothing was the same.

“People aren’t who you think they are,” she’d said.

He had agreed. She’d read his mind.