Reclaimed (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 10) (23 page)

To his left he saw two of his other teammates had engaged more fighters. Adam moved forward with Vance to check the far end of the building as the others cleared their own areas, scanning through the darkness with his NVGs.

Another fighter swung out from behind some stacked crates. Adam and Vance fired simultaneously, hitting him center mass. Before he’d even hit the ground, Adam was already searching for a new target. The building was long and the smoke made it hard to see clearly but it was lessening the farther he moved away from the front.

There should have been two more hostages in here but with all the smoke and confusion he couldn’t see any sign of them yet. Where the hell were they?

Please let Summer be here and let her be okay.

He shook that thought away too, focused on the darkness up ahead. He funneled out the shouts behind him, the sharp pop of rounds firing, knowing his other teammates had things well in hand.

Then, as the smoke grew thinner, he saw it up ahead.

Another cage. There was someone in it, and they were still moving.

And someone was hurrying away from it.

Adam instantly shifted his focus to the man as the tango whirled, a pistol in hand, a fraction of a second too late. A bullet whizzed past his shoulder, barely missing him while he swung the barrel of his rifle toward the target.

Adam fired a double tap from his M4 at the tango’s chest. The man stumbled backward and went to one knee, but didn’t drop. And he got off another shot.

The round hit Adam in the lower ribs. He grunted, tensed against the hammer blow to his vest but kept his focus.

Fuck you, asshole.
Staring his target down, he squeezed the trigger. Winged him as the guy dodged behind a stack of crates.

Adam followed, determined to kill the motherfucker.

It took every ounce of control to ignore the need to go to Summer, his heart screaming at him to free her and get her the hell out of there. But he couldn’t until he’d eliminated this threat.

He crouched and wheeled around the corner of the stacked crates, just as a whooshing sound and a flash of light burned his retinas. He ducked and staggered back a step behind the crates, cursing as he shoved his NVGs up with one hand, momentarily blinded.

He blinked to clear his vision, saw that something on the ground between him and Hadad had ignited.

Hadad appeared through the veil of flickering flames. He was on one knee, raised his weapon as Adam took aim again.

In the light of the fire Adam could see the smug smile that formed on the bastard’s face an instant before Adam pulled the trigger.

The round hit Hadad dead center in the forehead, dropping him where he knelt…

Just as a shrill female scream split the air.

Adam’s head jerked up, every muscle in his body snapping tight at that sound. He stared in horror through the shimmering flames.

For one brief instant he glimpsed Summer’s panicked face as she stood there outlined by the rapidly spreading fire coming toward her. Then Adam lost sight of her behind a wall of smoke and flame.

****

Summer shrieked again as the fire spread toward her and shrank back against the bars of her cage. In the darkness the fire blazed a bright orange and yellow, lighting everything up in front of her.

Even through the thick smoke she could see that Hadad was dead, lying a few yards away, right in the fire’s path. It raced over him, sending up more of that godawful stench of burned flesh. The man who’d killed him was somewhere in front of her but she’d lost sight of him a second after the fire had started.

Something must have sparked the gasoline soaked into the ground. It was racing toward her now, moving closer with every millisecond. The heat was already so intense she had to cover her face with her arms. She cowered in the corner of the cell, as far away from the accelerant on the ground as possible, coughing as the smoke rose in a suffocating cloud around her.

Her instinct was to drop to the ground, but she knew she couldn’t risk it. Not when more gasoline soaked areas of it.

“Help!” she screamed, hoping to get one of the rescuers to see her, even if she couldn’t see anything past the fire. More gunfire cracked in front of her, telling her the good guys were otherwise occupied and couldn’t help her.

Oh God, oh God…

With desperate hands she began tearing off her jumpsuit, afraid some of the accelerant had splashed on it without her noticing. Fumes could catch fire and she wanted the hideous thing off her before the flames got close enough to ignite them. Even a few seconds more time might mean the difference between life and death if it provided her rescuers with a long enough window to free her.

She stripped the garment down her legs, wrenched off the remaining sock and the shoes and hurriedly tossed everything through the back bars of the cage. The smoke was slowly choking her. Each time she drew a breath it filled her lungs.

“Someone, help!” she screamed, then choked. “Get me out of here!” She coughed again, covered her mouth and nose with a hand but it didn’t help. At this rate the smoke might kill her before the flames reached her if she didn’t escape the cage.

Naked except for her bra and underwear, she turned and grimly faced the lock, her frantic gaze automatically measuring the distance between her and the encroaching fire.

Less than ten feet. Only seconds before those hungry flames tore into her shrinking flesh.

A shudder ripped through her and tears burned the back of her throat along with the thickening smoke. She couldn’t die with help so close! It was too unfair, too horrible to contemplate.

With her heart thundering against her ribs, she backed up as far as she could into the corner, gathered her nerve and lashed a bare foot at the broken lock with all her might. A roar exploded out of her as she did it, borne of anger and despair.

Pain reverberated from the sole of her foot and up her leg, but she barely felt it, every part of her focused on breaking through that fucking lock and saving herself.

“Summer!”

Her name, that voice, momentarily startled her out of her panic. Hope and recognition swelled inside her ribcage. Adam?

She blinked fast, frantically trying to find him through the smoke and flame, but her eyes were watering too badly. “Adam! Help me!” She doubled over, hacking as her body fought the effects of the smoke.

“I’m coming!”

More male shouts came through the wall of fire trapping her from her would-be-rescuers and the roar and crackle of it grew louder.

She drew a deep breath, coughed twice. “
Adam
!” She screamed it, those two syllables tearing from her throat, forced out by all the terror and horror smothering her as surely as the smoke was.

“Hang on!”

She still couldn’t see him.
I can’t
, she wanted to cry out, but she was out of breath, the coughing and lack of air weakening her quivering muscles.
I can’t!

The heat was too intense now, scorching her bare skin. She shrank back until the bars dug cruelly into her back, but there was no escape. All she could do was cower there, and shield her face as her flesh crawled with the knowledge that the flames would consume her at any second.

In that moment, everything went eerily silent. The only sound she was aware of was the roaring of blood in her ears. There was nothing but fear and horror and the terrible anticipation of the agony that awaited her.

Then, a miracle.

From out of nowhere a stream of foam sprayed through the bars of her cage. It splashed over her and the ground in wet, cooling rivulets, soaking her, dripping off her hair and skin. Automatically she shielded her face, turned her head to avoid the blast as someone aimed it at her.

“Summer!”

Adam. She couldn’t answer him, doubled over in the corner struggling to breathe, coughing and gasping for air. The foam prevented her from opening her eyes. But she heard the hissing sound of it as it sprayed over and around her, felt the heat of the fire recede as it smothered the voracious flames.

And then she caught the sharp squeal of metal on metal as someone finally broke the lock and wrenched the door open.

A second later, strong hands grabbed her upper arms and pulled her away from the bars. Blindly she reached out to grip her savior’s wrists as the hands wiped the foam from her face.

“
Summer
.”

Adam’s voice, right in front of her. Hoarse and shaken.

God!
Her face crumpled as she flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his throat. She fought back a sob of pure relief and gripped his shoulders tight.

Adam, Adam, Adam,
she chanted silently, reeling from everything that had happened, hardly able to believe that he was actually here, actually holding her.

Without a word he hauled her into his arms and lifted her from the ground. The world tipped sideways as he levered her across his wide shoulders and carried her out of the cage that had almost been her slaughter pen. Then he was running through the smoke.

Summer held on tight, kept her head down and her eyes closed. There were no more shots but she could hear men running, urgent commands and voices flowing around her, too fast for her to decipher. She bounced up and down with each of his running strides, hands gripping the back of his uniform.

“Hold up,” someone with a Southern accent called out. Tuck maybe? She still couldn’t see anyone, it was too dark and smoky.

Adam stopped and she struggled up through the heavy blanket of shock engulfing her, tried to understand what was happening.

“Summer, you okay?” he asked, his voice urgent.

She was alive and Adam was holding her. Nothing else mattered. “Think so,” she murmured back, her throat raw from the smoke and the screaming. She was shaking all over, so hard her teeth chattered.

“You’re safe now, we’ve got you. We’ll get you out of here in a minute,” he reassured her, running a soothing hand up the back of her thigh.

“W-want to go…h-home,” she whispered, unable to stop trembling. Every second she could feel herself sliding deeper into shock. She fought it, wanting to stay alert and aware, but it was powerful, and coupled with the exhaustion, she knew it was probably a losing battle. And, as long as Adam was here, she was safe.

“I’ll get you home, sweetheart,” he promised, that steady hand wrapping around the back of her thigh and squeezing gently. “Just another few minutes and we’ll be on a helo back to Amman, then we’ll take a look at you and make sure you’re okay.”

She didn’t answer, only clung tighter, savoring the feel of his hard muscles beneath her chest and belly, soaking up his warmth. Two minutes ago she’d been in danger of burning to death and now it felt like she might freeze. Had to be the shock, she reasoned.

Forcing her eyes open, she squinted and lifted a hand to wipe away the residual stinging foam. She was surprised to see they were at the front door now.

What were they waiting for? Adam was poised behind someone even taller and bigger than him and she could make out the silhouettes of other men gathered around them from the thin line of light coming through a crack in the door.

A moment later, she realized why they weren’t leaving.

Somewhere outside in the distance she could hear the sound of gunfire. Sporadic, far away. Her stomach clenched as she realized what it meant.

More attackers.

Tuck’s Alabama accent came again as he responded to something she couldn’t hear. Then, “Ah, hell. The other enemy force spotted the helo. They’re moving toward the ridge, between us and the LZ. Sniper team’s moving to intercept. We’re gonna have to fight our way out of here.”

God dammit…

If he lived long enough, maybe one day he’d be part of a mission that actually went according to plan. But that day wasn’t today.

Bracing for a firefight with another enemy force was yet another shitty complication for them to deal with, on top of the strengthening storm.

Wasting no time, Brody Colebrook organized his sniper team into various positions around the LZ and kept a close eye on the enemy force through his binos.

Visibility sucked ass at the moment and it was only getting worse. The wind howled around him, whipping at his utilities and spraying him and his equipment with sand. Soon it would be bad enough that the helo crews would have a hard time navigating through this.

Those evil fucks inside that building had just burned one of the hostages alive but at least Blackwell’s wife and the other hostage were okay. Brody and his team were going to make sure the survivors and assault team got onboard the helos safely.

He got on comms to his team, and Tuck. The first Blackhawk was already here, holding just out of firing range, waiting to attempt a landing on his order. But with the number of enemy fighters he knew about coming out of that valley beneath them, it was too risky.

“Change of plans. We’ve got company headed our way, so I’m going to request a new LZ, half a klick to the east. I’ve requested air support as well. Stand by.”

As he received replies in the affirmative, Brody got on the radio to the second Blackhawk pilot and motioned for his spotter to get up and follow him. Together they ran in a crouch to a better-concealed position and hunkered down behind a large group of boulders just below the lip of the ridge. From there he had a decent view of the new LZ, and so far, it was clear.

Now he and his team had to keep it that way if Tuck and the others were going to get the remaining hostages out of here in one piece.

“Hey, I got movement at my one o’clock,” one of his guys reported from the northeast. “One tango. Appears to be unarmed.”

Brody immediately stretched out on his belly to take a look. Sure as hell, off in the distance he made out a man’s silhouette skirting around the east edge of the ridge. He was bent forward, one hand raised to shield his face from the blasting wind and sand.

Too far away for Brody to see him clearly through the storm. “You sure he’s unarmed?”