Strike Back Read online

  “At the storage facility.” Calhoun’s voice was completely neutral, calm and commanding. “Give me the name.”

  “U-Store It. It’s just up the street from NCTC.”

  “How the hell would they know about you?” Ike demanded. “Did Hilary tell them?”

  “No, sir.” Checking his magazine, Stu ascertained his pistol was loaded then slipped it into the paddle under his arm, along with two extra clips. “I ran into her and Malki at the Expo last weekend. Assuming the man had clearance, I introduced myself as a Ghost Security Group member. That’s on me. They know what I do—or least half of it,” he amended, thinking they still didn’t know he was a SEAL.

  “You’re with GSG?” It was Calhoun’s turn to be surprised.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Damn. Now it makes sense,” Calhoun murmured.

  Stu immediately guessed he’d also seen Zafrani’s Facebook post.

  “Listen up,” Calhoun added, his tone suddenly more urgent. “Luckily, I’m at the office still, not far from her. Where are you now?”

  Threading his arms through a lightweight jacket, Stu headed for the door. “Leaving my hotel in D.C.” He zipped the jacket, concealing his weapon.

  “Good. I’m assembling my team, and we’ll meet you in my office at NCTC, second floor, third door on the right, as soon as you can get here. I’ll clear you at the gate.”

  Relief eased the vice around Stu’s chest.

  “Yes, sir. I’m on my way,” he said, scooping up his room key.

  As the former SEAL hung up, Stu didn’t even pause, texting Hillary’s phone as he dashed down the corridor toward the hotel’s exit: Traffic is bad. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

  Picturing her terrified by the soulless ruffians who were using her as bait, Stu’s focus threatened to unravel. God forbid he never got the chance to tell Hilary how much she really meant to him.

  He was slipping into his car thirty seconds later.

  “Shit!” Sayid thumped an open palm on the table, whipping Hilary’s pulse into a gallop. He’d just received a text. Obviously from Stu and seemingly bad news.

  “What’s wrong?” Tarek looked up from the floor where he sat across from Elias, playing a game of cards.

  Sayid’s dark gaze lifted. “He says traffic is bad. He’s keeping us waiting.”

  Elias riffled the cards in his hand. “Don’t worry,” he soothed. “He’ll be here.”

  “How can you be sure?” Sayid shot back. “She says he’s not her boyfriend.”

  “He loves her.”

  Elias’s calm reply brought Hilary’s head around. How could he be so certain? She and Stu had had a serious falling out at their last encounter. Her stomach cramped as she recalled her rejection of him, her stubborn refusal to believe her neighbor could be friends with terrorists. Yet Stu had been right about Elias all along, and she had been so wrong. Tears of remorse burned her eyes, but terror kept them from falling.

  Sayid’s laptop chimed, signaling an incoming post on Facebook. The sound distracted the leader briefly into reading whatever his followers might be saying to his latest comment. His eyes narrowed and then swung thoughtfully toward Hilary, whose nape prickled at his contemplative regard.

  “Our brethren are asking for a taped execution,” he announced to the other two.

  Talons of fear clambered up Hilary’s back and dug into her shoulders, stealing her breath.

  Elias looked up sharply from the cards in his hand. “You can’t post a video like that on Facebook,” he cautioned. His gaze darted to Hilary, then back to Sayid, who shrugged off the warning.

  “I’ll find somewhere else to post it,” Sayid said mildly.

  Hilary’s vision blurred as the blood drained from her head. Taped execution? She remembered Ike relaying a similar event that had nearly happened to his wife, Eryn, years ago.

  Elias went quiet. When he spoke again, his voice came out on a strangled note. “Just the guy, right? Just Rudolph.”

  Sayid wrested his gaze from his computer to regard Elias. “What’s it matter to you, Malki? You know we can’t let her go.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Why would you care how she dies?”

  Hilary’s head seemed to fill with a fog. The voices of her captors came from a greater and greater distance.

  All at once she felt herself falling. Her temple struck the concrete floor with a painful crack. The blow brought her sharply back to the moment, yet she kept her eyes intentionally closed, her breathing shallow. Let them think I fainted. Perhaps she could trick them later and rise up in retaliation—who knew?

  All she was certain of was if Stu was caught and executed, his death videotaped and publicized worldwide letting ISIL crow in triumph, she would never, ever want to open her eyes again, even if she got the chance.

  Chapter Nine

  Stu burst into Calhoun’s second-floor office a tad out of breath from his sprint down the last long hallway. Barreling through the empty secretary’s alcove into the bigger office beyond, he came upon three men, all standing and looking at blueprints displayed on a wall-mounted monitor. Their heads swiveled at Stu’s abrupt entrance.

  “There you are.” The silver-haired Taskforce leader beckoned him closer.

  Stu noticed each man was wearing a Kevlar jacket, the sight of which jacked his heart rate another few beats per minute. They carried enough weapons on their bodies to start a small war. Meanwhile, Stu had been made to leave his Sig Sauer with security downstairs.

  Calhoun made brief introductions. “Stuart Rudolph, meet Special Agents Jackson Maddox and TJ Hamilton.”

  Maddox was a light-skinned black man; Hamilton as tall as Stu, with a face that suggested American Indian heritage. Both men shook his hand, then they all looked back at the monitor.

  “These are the floorplans to the storage facility,” Calhoun explained. “Any idea what unit she’s in?”

  Stu scanned the plans in less than a second. “Right here. C3.” He pointed it out while considering the facility’s layout. “Her text said the main gate will open automatically. I’m assuming they’ll have eyes on me and raise the gate remotely. Looks like I drive around back, through here.” He traced the route with a finger. “I’m supposed to text her when I get there. I’m assuming the code is for the storage unit, and this door here will be unlocked.”

  “What if the code triggers an explosion?” Maddox’s question betrayed first-hand experience with bombs and booby traps.

  Stu’s stomach lurched. He hadn’t thought of that. Glancing around, he saw a laptop, open and active on the next desk.

  “Can I use your computer for a moment?”

  “Of course,” Calhoun replied, looking curious.

  Stu approached the keyboard, typed quickly as if someone’s life depended upon it because he was now certain that it did, and then nodded at the info that appeared on the screen. He turned to the others. “It’s unlikely the storage unit is wired. I just pinged Hilary’s phone, and it’s in the building. That means they’re in there, too. They’re not going to risk their own lives or risk triggering an alarm with an explosion.”

  Calhoun nodded, looking impressed. “Agreed. They want to capture Rudolph so they can pick his brain, not kill him right away.”

  “OK, so this is a basic rescue with one hostage and three or more unfriendlies,” Hamilton stated matter-of-factly.

  Stu swallowed. He’d participated in several HR missions, but he’d never been in love with the recovery target before. That circumstance made the whole scenario way more precarious in his opinion.

  “What about cameras?” he asked, his voice gravelly with tension. “If they have eyes on the gate, we have to assume they’re tapped into the rest of the surveillance system.”

  Calhoun stepped toward the monitor. “I just spoke with the company that installed it. It’s a basic wireless system with remote access. I have a code that will override it. Once we’re through the gate, I’ll disable the system and they’ll be bli
nd.”

  Stu’s respect for the Taskforce leader soared. An obvious question remained, however. “How are we all getting through the gate when they can see us?” he asked.

  Calhoun pinned a bright green gaze on him. “What kind of car do you drive?” he asked.

  “Nissan Leaf.”

  The man stared at him, his expression completely enigmatic, yet Stu had the feeling he didn’t approve of his vehicular choice, especially in this instance.

  “We’re taking my truck,” Calhoun informed the room at large. “Rudolph drives the Durango. The rest of us will be sitting in the back.”

  “But—” Stu remembered how Malki had been watching them from his balcony the other morning. “What if Malki knows that’s not my car?”

  Calhoun shrugged. “That’s just a chance we’ll have to take.” Grabbing an extra Kevlar vest off the chair behind him, he lobbed it at Stu. “Put this on under your shirt,” he instructed.

  “He’s here!”

  Hilary nearly flinched at Sayid’s sudden announcement. With her pulse racing, she forced herself to lie unmoving, even though the cement floor bruised her hip. Eyes closed, she continued to feign unconsciousness. After a brief discussion that revealed their original intent to tie her to the chair, the men let her be, assuming her to be unconscious.

  Tarek and Elias abandoned their card game and scrambled off the floor. Hilary listened to them hurry over to the table. Peeking through her lashes, she saw them bending over Sayid’s laptop, which apparently gave them a view of the front gate.

  Her heart thudded painfully. She didn’t know whether to weep for joy or in dread of what was about to happen. Hadn’t Stu found her circumstances the least bit odd? Would a man with his training really stumble blindly into a trap like this?

  “That’s not his car.”

  At Elias’s dark comment, Hilary snapped her eyes shut. The fear swirling in her gave way to hope.

  “He drives a Nissan Leaf,” Elias continued, “not a truck.”

  Stu must have guessed something was amiss!

  “Is that him at the wheel?” Sayid demanded.

  Elias took his sweet time answering. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  Hilary fought to keep her breathing even.

  “What the hell’s in the back of that truck?” Sayid muttered.

  “I can’t see anything,” Tarek answered. “The windows are tinted.”

  “Maybe he brought a truck because the text said she’d come to the storage to retrieve something,” Elias suggested.

  Sayid gave a growl of annoyance. “Tarek, stand over that bitch,” he ordered.

  With a lurch of her heart, Hilary realized she must have moved.

  “If the Ghost tries anything funny, shoot her in the head but make sure he sees it.”

  Hilary’s blood flash-froze. She listened to Tarek’s approach, heard him flick off the safety on his pistol as if it was cannon fire in her ear.

  “Wait.” Elias protested unexpectedly. “Let me do that,” he said. “I’m not equipped to take on Rudolph. You guys have the training, not me. I’ll shoot her if he tries anything. You all worry about him.”

  “Fine,” Sayid agreed.

  Listening to Tarek and Elias trade places, Hilary wondered if she was any better off being shot by one man than the other. Maybe without training, Elias’s aim would be off.

  “Shit, now what?” Sayid hissed. His tone suggested something awful.

  “Why aren’t the cameras working?” Tarek asked.

  “I don’t know.” Sayid tapped frantically at the keys. “Damn it. We’ve lost all visual contact. How is that possible?”

  “Could he have overridden it?”

  Oh, you bet he could, Hilary cheered inside her head.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Go stand by the door,” Sayid growled at Tarek. “We’re proceeding with the plan. Maybe it’s just a glitch.”

  Hilary could hear Elias breathing raggedly as he stood over her.

  Her phone chimed, signaling an incoming text.

  “What’s it say?” Tarek demanded.

  “He says he’s at C3,” Sayid answered, “and he’s asking for the code.”

  “What do we do? Should we give it to him? What if we’ve been made?”

  “Shut up,” Sayid answered. “We stick with the plan. No more talking. I’m texting him the code.” Two seconds of silence elapsed. “Turn out the light,” he added.

  As Tarek hit the switch, Hilary slit her eyes in time to see Sayid shut his laptop. The unit plunged into darkness.

  Profound silence followed. Hilary strained her ears for the sound of Stu’s approach.

  This is it, she thought. The next few minutes would determine whether she lived or died. I can’t die! She and Stu were meant to be together. Or, at least, they deserved the chance to figure that out. Her getting killed would accomplish nothing.

  She made up her mind. She would not go down without a fight. Whatever it took to stay alive, she would do it.

  Over the soft tread of his own soles, Stu heard the other three men steal up the unlit hallway behind him. His heart galloped like a thoroughbred. The cool deliberation he normally laid claim to during operations had utterly deserted him. His palms were actually sweating. Get it together, man, he told himself, even as his gut churned. If something happened to Hilary in the next few minutes, he would never forgive himself.

  Each unit had been spray-painted with glow-in-the dark numbers. The number 3, halfway down the hall, beckoned him. Stu approached it while eyeing the glowing combination lock and recalling Maddox’s concern that the code he’d been given could set off a detonation.

  His mouth went dry at the thought. Not that he feared death. He just didn’t want to die before making things right with Hilary.

  The other three men were right behind him. Calhoun pressed his back to the wall on Stu’s right side, while Maddox and Hamilton crept past him and plastered themselves to the wall on Stu’s left. When Calhoun tapped his shoulder, Stu applied his knuckles to the door as they’d discussed and called out, “Hilary? You in there?”

  The silence that followed his query caused his fear to spike. What if they’d killed her already?

  His phone buzzed as he received a text. “I’m here. Use the code.”

  Right. Like that was her.

  At Calhoun’s nod, Stu raised a hand and, with his breath held, punched in the four-number sequence. In lieu of exploding, the box gave a beep, and a click ensued as the lock released. Stu cautiously depressed the handle, then pushed the door open, just wide enough for Calhoun to toss a flash-bang into the dark interior.

  As the metal canister skittered across the floor, a male voice issued a warning. A flurry of movement accompanied the explosion of noise and white light. Stu and company burst into the room. Calhoun swept left, firing as he identified a tango. Thoop. Maddox and Hamilton swept right. Thoop. Only two tangos were down, yet no one was left standing.

  In the strobe of the flash bang, Stu recognized Hilary and Elias writhing on the ground. She was clawing and gouging him with all her might, fighting to relieve him of the gun in his hand.

  For fear of striking the wrong person, Stu lowered his weapon. Either Maddox or Hamilton hit the light switch.

  “It’s not loaded!”

  Elias’s frightened cry penetrated Stu’s consciousness. Glimpsing an opening, he dove into the fray and wrested the man’s gun from his grasp and passed it off to Maddox, who checked the cartridge.

  “Not loaded,” he confirmed.

  Prying Elias out of Hilary’s ferocious grasp, Stu left him to Hamilton. He pulled Hilary gently upright.

  “Stu!” She hugged him so fiercely she might have damaged a rib if he hadn’t been wearing a Kevlar vest. As she quaked and shuddered against him, he drew her out of the chamber, away from the sight of dead bodies and of Hamilton cuffing Elias and reading him his rights.

  Out in the dim hall, Stu had to put his back to the wall to counter the sudden weakness in his knees.
He kept Hilary locked against his chest.

  “It’s okay,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “It’s over.” His heart continued to beat a loud tattoo.

  For several seconds, she kept her face averted. When at last she looked up at him, the light from the room revealed that she had lost her glasses in the tussle. What’s more, a lump had formed on her forehead, betraying that she’d been struck.

  “They hit you?” He had to push the words through his suddenly tight jaw.

  “No, I think I fainted.” She even offered him a wry grimace to accompany her words. “One minute I was in the chair, the next, I was on the floor. Then I played dead.”

  While her answer reassured him, the tears rimming her lashes made him want to keep her in the citadel of his arms forever.

  “Smart girl,” he murmured.

  “I’m sorry,” she added, her face crumpling with remorse.

  She was sorry?

  “It’s not your fault,” he grated.

  “Yes, it is.” Twin tears raced down her cheeks simultaneously followed by more. “I was stupid and naïve. I’ll never doubt you again, Stu. I should have listened. I—”

  “I love you.” He cut her off so she didn’t beat him to it.

  His confession had the desired effect of silencing her. A tremulous smile transformed her beloved face, chasing away her lament, and making every ounce of stress he’d endured perfectly worthwhile.

  “Oh, Stu.” She lifted her arms to catch his face between hands that still shook. “I love you, too, my beautiful, clever man. I was so afraid they would kill me before I got to tell you. I’ve been such an idiot.”

  “I’m the idiot,” he insisted. “I should never have let you go in the first place.”

  “That’s true.” She issued a sound between a sob and a laugh. “You shouldn’t have.”

  Calhoun stepped out of the door carrying Hilary’s purse and glasses. He drew up short as he looked at them. “You two both good? Any injuries?” His tone betrayed surprise at seeing them looking so intimate.