Reclaimed (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 10) (20 page)

****

Fly, baby, fly.

Stretched out on his stomach on the rocky ground near the crest of the hill, Special Agent Brody Colebrook lay still and kept his movements small as he maneuvered the joystick on the drone’s controls. The wind was gusting already, making it hard to get the little guy off the ground.

He gave the drone more lift, maintained the pressure until their little spy finally got into the air and jerked its way into the sky, moving forward toward its target: the long, rectangular-shaped building in the center of the village in front of him.

“Drone deployed,” he announced over his comms, alerting the other six guys on his sniper team. Five years he’d been on the HRT sniper team, had been its leader for two of those, and he’d spent a helluva lot longer than that in the military before joining the FBI.

His job was never boring, he’d give it that.

“You should let me do it, I play way more video games than you,” Napoli remarked from beside him.

Brody shot his spotter a dirty look. “Not happening. Get your own drone.”

Grinning, Napoli ducked his head to check through the laser range finder. “Six hundred yards to target.”

Brody watched the screen on the remote control he held, steering the drone into position. It was bumpy as hell up there, but this latest model was state-of-the-art and was able to overcome the turbulence without much problem. “Coming up on target,” he said. “Thirty seconds.”

On screen the drone’s camera gave a bird’s-eye view of the village, the night vision optics cutting through the murk without a problem. Soon there would be so much sand in the air that all the optics in the world wouldn’t make a difference.

Come on, give me what I need
.

Just one piece of solid intel. Some way to determine the hostages they were looking for were in there, so he could relay it to headquarters and pull the trigger on the rescue op.

The drone circled the building. Three American intelligence employees could be in there, one of them Summer Blackwell. Brody always did his job to the best of his ability and would save any hostages no matter who they were, but knowing a teammate’s wife was in there gave this mission a whole new level of urgency. For all of them.

Every guy on the team wanted her found and taken out of here alive. He had to get the intel they needed now, before the storm became too much of an issue.

“Any movement outside?” he asked.

“Negative,” the others all responded.

He centered the drone over the target building and did a slow pass. The infrared camera picked up several heat signatures, indistinct blobs moving inside the building. “Got possible targets on screen. Moving in for a closer look.” He dropped the drone fifty feet, the reduced distance making the orange-ish blobs inside more distinct.

“I’ve got seven…make that eight tangos moving around inside,” he told them, “and three stationary.”

“I got movement.”

Brody didn’t take his eyes off the monitor. “Where?”

“Four o’clock.”

“I see him.” Someone stepped out of the building, checked around him and hurried alongside the building. “Idiot left the door open,” he said to Napoli. Not much, but enough to get a peek inside. The unsuspecting tango was now busy taking a piss against the east-facing wall of the building. “Can you see anything?”

“Negative, the angle’s wrong.”

Brody seized his chance and shot the drone into a steep dive, hoping the wind would cover the high-pitched whine of its motor from the guy around the corner. He flew it down and angled it until he could get a look inside the open door.

Yup. Seven people moving around, and three seated, unmoving. Each of the three appeared to be inside some kind of structure.

Had to be the hostages.

Bingo.
Adrenaline and elation punched through him as he shot the drone back up into the sky. “It’s them.”

“You sure?” Napoli asked, still staring through the range finder.

“Yeah.” Now it was time to pull the trigger and kick some ass.

With one hand holding the remote control he pulled out his radio and contacted DeLuca back at HQ.

“Go ahead, Charlie-Kilo,” his commander said, using Brody’s operating initials.

“I’ve got visual confirmation on our three hostages,” he replied. “Stand by for coordinates.”

Adam’s eyes snapped open when someone touched his shoulder. He lurched upright on the bench he’d been dozing on for what seemed like only seconds, blinked up into Tuck’s face.

“What?” he asked, his brain instantly clearing. The whole team had crashed in this office about an hour ago.

“Foster just called us back in. Something about a change in the timeline.”

What? Instantly alert, he got up, rubbed a hand over his eyes as he rushed out the door with the others. Up in the command center, the mood was tense.

A familiar sinking sensation formed in his gut.

DeLuca was over at the conference table with Foster, a cup of coffee in hand, his features drawn with fatigue. While they’d all been grabbing whatever sleep they could, their commander had been in here all night—again—without any rest. He straightened and nodded at them. “Everybody gather around.”

Adam and the others fanned out in a tight semicircle around DeLuca and Foster. Dread curled in the pit of his stomach.
Don’t say she’s dead. Don’t say it.

“The sand storm is moving in faster than expected. We just got a call from an informant who says Hadad is planning to move up the executions. He wants to do them before the storm hits and use it as cover to escape across the Syrian border.”

Adam sucked in a sharp breath. “Who is it? Do you have a location?”

“It’s not confirmed yet but our sniper team is already at a village up north near the Syrian border for some recon.” They’d only brought one seven-man sniper team with them for this mission, leaving the other back at Quantico with Blue Team’s second assault team. “They’ll update me as soon as they’re in position at the village. And the informant is…” He looked at Foster.

“Essentially he’s a double agent. Though not a very skilled or trustworthy one,” the director added. “Still, we can’t discount that his intel might be accurate so we’re checking it out.” He gestured to the team of people working behind him at workstations they’d set up using tables and desks.

“How much time do we have?” Adam asked, every nerve in his body screaming at him to
do
something proactive, to get out there and grab Summer before that clock reached zero.

“Less than four hours.”

Adam felt the blood drain from his face. Holy fuck. That was less than half the window they thought they had initially. He swallowed back the fear rising inside him. “Has the sniper team reported in yet?”

“Not yet, but we’re expecting a report soon. Here, take a look.” DeLuca swept aside some paperwork on the long table and revealed a detailed topographical map.

“Somewhere in here,” he continued, indicating a little valley below a tiny village in the Northern Shuneh. “We’re trying to get a satellite feed but the visibility’s already dropping because of the storm. Sniper team’s sending up a recon drone, so hopefully we’ll still have eyes on the target location soon.”

Adam’s entire body was strung taut as he listened to the rest of the intel briefing. In the middle of Foster explaining the layout of the village in question, DeLuca put a hand to his ear and stepped away from the table, expression tight as he listened to whatever someone was saying via his earpiece. Adam watched him closely, saw his lips moving but couldn’t get the gist of what he was saying because DeLuca was too far away.

“All right, stand by,” DeLuca said as he returned to the group. “Colebrook just reported that he’s got visual confirmation via the drone. We’ll get a live feed on screen.”

Brody Colebrook, their sniper team leader. Adam had known and worked with him ever since he’d first made the HRT. He was one of the best snipers Adam had ever met, and an all-around solid operator. It helped to know someone he trusted had eyes on the target location. If Summer and the others were in there, Colebrook and his team would find out.

Grabbing a nearby laptop, DeLuca typed in some commands, hooked up a few cables and brought the feed up. “One sec and I’ll get this on screen.” A moment later it popped onto the big flat screen.

The tiny drone’s camera showed a small group of what appeared to be dilapidated buildings in the green glow of its night vision optics. Several blurred heat signatures were visible in two of the buildings.

DeLuca tapped his earpiece and spoke to someone, presumably Colebrook. “Can you get a closer look at those heat signatures?”

In answer, seconds later the drone swooped down to a lower altitude and did a slow pass over the longer of the two buildings. Adam counted eleven faint heat signatures inside it, and one outside. The one outside seemed to be positioned next to the front entrance, as if the person was standing guard.

It had to be the right place. A burst of excitement and hope flared in his chest.

He shifted his gaze to DeLuca, who was looking at Foster. “Fits the intel we have,” their commander murmured.

Foster nodded, watching the screen closely. “Three of the heat signatures haven’t moved since the feed started, and all the others have,” he said, pointing to two stationary people positioned on either side of the south end of the building, and one alone at the north end.

Maybe because they’re bound and can’t move.
Adam stared at the screen, every heartbeat ricocheting throughout his chest. Were they the hostages?

DeLuca tapped his earpiece again. “Okay, copy that.” He looked up and nodded at the team. “Colebrook confirms the coordinates match the ones we got earlier and he reads a total of eleven heat signatures as well. He’s sending four guys in for a closer look now. We should know for sure whether it’s the hostages in the next thirty minutes.”

Adam started to shake his head. That was too long to do nothing. The intel seemed to justify them heading out to investigate. With the clock ticking down and the weather front closing in they couldn’t sit here and wait, they had to set the wheels into motion.

“So are we going?”
Say yes, dammit.
He was going out of his mind waiting.

DeLuca set his palms on the table and shifted his gaze to Foster. “Your call, sir.”

Before Adam could interject, the director nodded. “You’ll plan the op as if it’s a go and organize a Jordanian crew to fly you up there. If Colebrook and his team report back that the hostages are there, I’ll green light the mission.”

Best fucking news Adam had had in days. An invisible weight lifted from his chest, allowing him to breathe more easily. He couldn’t wait to get in there, kick the door down and rescue Summer and the others. He imagined it happening, imagined finding and carrying her out of there, and swallowed hard.

“All right, boys,” Tuck drawled, taking center stage at the table. “Let’s get to work and be ready for wheels up in thirty minutes.”

****

Outside the building, Summer could hear the storm picking up. The wind howled along the sides of the building, shaking the thin roof. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her knees, curling into a ball to retain what body heat she could.

The hideous orange jumpsuit they’d forced her to wear provided no real warmth but she’d had no choice but to put it on. Hadad had literally stood there and watched her do it.

She’d been lucky that her rock-filled sock had remained a secret. He hadn’t made her turn around while she stripped down to her blouse and underwear, the hem of her shirt covering her to her upper thighs.

The sleep deprivation had pushed her to the point where she couldn’t think clearly. Maybe that was for the best considering the circumstances.

A shudder of revulsion ripped through her when she thought about all the ways they might be intending to kill her and the others. She’d seen enough similar videos to know what was going to happen. It felt like her stomach was full of hot bits of metal, acidic and churning.

She kept thinking about her message in the video. She’d planted it as carefully as she could with only minimal time to prepare her words. Hadad hadn’t reacted to her words at all, so she knew he didn’t suspect anything.

But maybe she hadn’t been obvious enough. Would anyone who had seen the video have been able to figure out she was trying to tell them where they were? Had Adam even seen it yet? He was her only hope because he was the only one who could figure it out.

She dropped her forehead to her upturned knees and closed her eyes.

A door opened somewhere at the opposite end. The wind gusted inside, swirling through the building. It kicked up dust and sand as it carried toward her, coating her in a fine dusting of grit.

Floodlights switched on around the building. She raised her head, squinted through the light, her attention glued to the men who entered.

Hadad was in the lead. He was ordering the others to move things around. Men rushed about, relocating the tripod, shifting the existing lights to different locations.

She resisted the urge to shrink away when one of them stalked toward her. Her right hand slid to her hip, ready to grab her weapon.

Her pitiful, probably useless weapon.

But the man didn’t try to enter her cell. Instead he took out a hammer and began prying at something on the right side of it. The plywood or whatever the wall was made of gave way at the corner. He peeled it back, exposing the iron bars and tossed it aside where it hit the ground with a clatter and he moved around to the left side.

After removing that one he did the same to the back. And once he peeled that board away, she finally understood that she wasn’t in a cell at all.

She was in a cage.

A sickening wave of dread slammed into her. They’d caged her like an animal in this prop carefully designed for the video shoot and were planning to kill her in her steel prison.

Pausing by the front of the cage, the man stopped to look down at her. He stepped to the side, allowing the blinding beam of light to hit her in the face. She got to her knees, ready to defend herself, turned her face away from the glaring light just as he spat at her and walked away.