Personal Target: An Elite Ops Novel (25 page)

“I’d say we have the secluded part down.” She squeezed his hand.

“We’ll have to travel through the Hoggar if they’re headed for Algeria. I’m not sure what the closest port would be. Algiers is over thirteen hundred miles from where we were at the dig site.”

“We’ve been travelling for almost a day. Surely it’ll be less than that now, unless we’re riding in the opposite direction?”

He nodded against her hands in the darkness. “If Algiers is where we’re headed, it’s still not exactly a Sunday drive.”

“Do you think they’ll take us all the way to wherever they’re going?” she asked.

His laughter vibrated against her thighs, but his voice didn’t sound cheerful. “As opposed to dropping us in the desert?” he asked. “I think we’d just as soon ride in the truck, darlin’.”

Darlin’?
Did that mean anything?

She was too keyed up to dwell on the thought, but for a moment it made her feel less frightened. Still, the words were no sooner out of his mouth than she felt the downshift of the truck’s engine, and they rolled to a stop.

“Or maybe not,” he muttered.

The cloth doorway of the two-and-a-half-ton truck was pulled to the side, and a flashlight shone in their eyes. Two men in stained white T-shirts pulled Nick out of Jennifer’s lap despite her protest.

Another man pulled himself inside the truck bed and began to unfasten the chains that tethered her in, but he didn’t unfasten her wrists.
What is he going to do?

Outside Nick was propped up between the other two men. His head hung down as if he wasn’t able to hold himself upright. She hadn’t realized he was so weak. They shuffled him off to the side where she could no longer see him.

The man dealing with her chain had to climb farther in to release her, and a couple of the women seated in the darkness inside started moaning, almost keening. The eerie sound echoed all around her.

The man managed to touch Jennifer’s breasts and squeeze her butt from the side as he moved closer to unlock her chain. She knew without being told that this was to be expected. Wherever he was about to take her, it wouldn’t be pleasant.

The other women’s reactions seemed to confirm it. Ambient light from the stars overhead reflected off the sand outside and revealed the man holding part of her chain wrapped around his own wrist, pulling the slack out of the way in an effort to get to the lock behind her.

She heard rather than saw what happened next: an
oomph
and a cry from outside the truck was cut short. Light from a flashlight threw zigzag shadows across the canvas at the back of the vehicle. The man dealing with her turned as Nick burst around the corner with his wrists still in zip ties.

One of the other men grabbed Nick around the waist from behind, and he disappeared from view again. She heard another short cry. A gunshot tore through the night.

Jennifer screamed as she jerked hard on the chain holding her by the waist. The man dealing with her tripped inside at her feet. Sassy came forward, clobbering him in the head with both hands over and over again, holding what looked like a wedge-heeled shoe between her bound wrists.

“Having to wear heels all the time has to be good for something,” the petite woman muttered.

Where was Nick?

Jennifer pulled at her chains, but she was still attached to the truck bed. Her line of sight was blocked by the canvas side of the truck. She was powerless to help or even see what had happened until she was free.

Sassy came up with the keys to the chain from the now unconscious man’s pocket and unlocked Jennifer, before moving to loosen the chain that ran between each woman and the sides of the truck. The freed women found a knife on the prone guard and started cutting the others’ plastic cuffs.

Jennifer slipped to the edge of the tailgate, still in her zip ties, searching the darkness for Nick. One moment there was nothing but empty space and the dim light from the stars, the next he stood before her. She stifled her own squeal, all but tumbling off the back and into his chest.

His heart raced against her cheek as his arms came around her waist. His nose was bloody, the zip tie was broken off from his hands, and his wrists were bleeding. But he was holding a gun with a competence that made her feel infinitely safer.

“Are you okay? God, I thought . . .” She couldn’t finish. The frightening thoughts about what could have happened rose inside her like a hot angry tide, clawing to get out.

He pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Yeah. I’m alright now.”

She swallowed hard against the panic and looked around, still processing it all. The man Sassy had hit with her shoe was out cold, and the other women from the back of the truck were free. The two men who’d had Nick were on the ground alongside the truck. She wondered if they were dead or just wounded. She was surprised that she didn’t care if they were indeed dead.

This area didn’t appear as bleak as Jennifer had first assumed. It wasn’t a true desert, but rather the edge of another oasis settlement. Beyond the front of the truck, lights shone in the distance, illuminating palm trees and homes constructed of
banco
outlined by moonlight. The men had definitely been stopping here for some “recreation” before heading into the town.

Jennifer turned her head back into Nick’s chest. “What do we do now?” she asked.

At her question his body tensed up completely in her arms. “Stand perfectly still,” he said.

“What?” She tried to pull away.

He tightened his hold. “We’ve got company.”

Three more men, much better dressed than the ones who’d been driving the truck, stepped around the canvas side of the vehicle. All held scary-looking weapons pointed directly at them.

Jennifer turned and watched as Sassy froze, then sank to her seat in the truck. One of the three gunmen moved to the tailgate and directed all the newly freed women to sit back down. The second man began cuffing and chaining them again.

The other gunman took Nick’s weapon and directed him and Jennifer to the front of the truck. They stepped from relative darkness into the blue white beams of headlights from both the canvas-topped truck and a four-door Mercedes parked beside it.

“Hello, Mr. Donovan.” The accented voice came from the shadows. “It seems I had to find you rather than the other way around. I’m not sure I believe you are that good at what you do after all.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

S
HIT
. N
ICK RECOGNIZED
the voice immediately.

“What is it?” whispered Jennifer.

He didn’t answer but pulled her behind him as Ernesto Vega stepped from the shadows.

“I was told you had information for me,” said the cartel leader.

Nick shrugged. He’d lied at the camp about having a name for Ernesto. Saving Jennifer from being assaulted and sparing his own life had seemed worth the risk.

If Vega’s fantastic accusations were true about a drone attack on the Rivera compound and the vet clinic, Nick leaned toward believing there was a U.S. government connection. And after his conversation with Sassy, he had to consider that someone in AEGIS could be involved as well. But he wasn’t ready to share his theories with anyone yet, much less Ernesto Vega.

“You ignored my request. I don’t take disobedience well.” Ernesto motioned for another man to come forward who’d been watching from the shadows beside the sedan. The man looked vaguely familiar.

“You should get used to disappointment. It builds character,” said Nick.

Ernesto sighed, and his two men stepped closer. One patted Nick down a second time for weapons. Without warning, the other punched Nick in the back at his kidney. As Nick reeled to the side, “Pat Down Guy” hit him with an upper cut to the jaw.

Combined with the lick to his head he’d received earlier, Nick wasn’t surprised that he came to on the sand. He was out only a few seconds, but his brain felt like a scrambled egg.

The headlights illuminated his immediate surroundings perfectly. Jenny’s face blanched, and tears shimmered in her eyes as the two men pulled him roughly to his feet.

The man who’d hit him in the kidney grabbed Jenny and pulled her into his body, wrapping his hand possessively around her waist. He whispered something in her ear, and she bit her lip. A lone tear broke free and slid down her cheek.

“What do you want with me?” Nick’s mouth was bleeding, among other things. But he wanted their attention on him, not on Jenny.

Ernesto moved closer and got in Nick’s face. “I thought I made that perfectly clear a week ago. I want to know who killed my brother and my sister. Surely you’ve been able to figure that out by now. Is it someone at AEGIS?” The man’s words were clipped, his eyes wild and unfocused.

Nick shrugged with an air of nonchalance he didn’t feel. “I’ve been trying to find out, but it seems your family is into some sketchy stuff.”

Pat Down Guy shoved the butt of a Heckler & Koch MP5 into Nick’s abdomen—once, twice, three times before Ernesto held up his hand to stop. Ernesto pulled a .357 Magnum from his own shoulder holster and pressed the barrel against Nick’s forehead.

“I could shoot you. There’s no reason I can think of as to why you should live.” Ernesto stared into Nick’s eyes; his own were cold and devoid of emotion.

Nick knew that look. He’d worn it himself in the past. And that particular weapon he was holding would more than get the job done. At point-blank range the revolver would practically take his head off.

Undaunted, Nick stared back. If he blinked, he was dead. And Jenny was dead, or worse.

Ernesto seemed to read his mind and turned his attention to her, swinging the gun around to Jenny’s chest. The other man still had his arm around her waist.

Nick tried to move toward her but was held back.

“I would think you would know how this feels. You’re the one whose . . .” Ernesto stopped talking and studied Nick in the white beams of the multiple head lights. The look in his eyes was coldly calculating, even as the man seemed to lose interest in Jenny. Nick fought not to respond to the relief coursing through his body.

“Reese Donovan was a conflicted man,” said Ernesto.

The sudden chill in Nick’s chest at hearing Vega mention his father made the pain from the punches thrown earlier feel insignificant. “How do you know my father’s name?”

“Know thy enemy and all that shit.” Ernesto smiled with a grim insincerity. “Don’t you ever wonder what really happened to him?” He lowered the .357, but Nick had gone completely cold—the way you did when you knew you were about to hear something you didn’t want to know.

“I have information for you, even though you’ve brought me nothing.” Ernesto’s laugh sounded liked a crow’s cackle. “I’m a giver that way.” He turned to the man holding Jenny. “Juan, put Dr. Grayson in the truck.”

Ernesto pivoted back to Nick. “Yes, I did learn her real name, no thanks to you, Mr. Donovan. Santos, take the shipment and all the other men with you, except Félix. The women must be in Constantine by seven
AM
.”

Juan Santos nodded and started for the back of the truck, dragging a struggling Jenny along with him. Something caught the man’s attention out of sight of the others, and he stopped at the edge of the vehicle’s hood. “Mario’s dead,” he called, looking toward the back of the truck where Nick knew he’d left two bodies.

“Happens to us all eventually,” said Vega.

Nick heard Jenny gasp in what sounded like pain. He strained against Ernesto’s last man, trying to see what Juan was doing to her. But Félix, aka Pat Down Guy, was ready for him, and Nick couldn’t get away. He heard Jenny shout, then the sound of a hand striking flesh, then nothing.

Moments later Santos was climbing behind the wheel of the canvas-sided truck along with the other men who’d been securing the women earlier in the back. Apparently, the one who’d been laid out cold by Sassy was remaining in the truck bed.

Without a word the men drove into the darkness with Jenny, Sassy, and the other women—leaving Nick alone with Ernesto and Félix. Nick watched the truck’s progress, and his stomach churned.

Once these women were shipped from the coast, they’d never get away from the traffickers. They’d be turning tricks on the streets of Milan or Paris until they were dead either from drugs, AIDS, or some overzealous john or pimp.

He could taste the bitterness in the back of his throat. As the taillights disappeared in the darkness, Nick studied Ernesto. This was about to get very ugly. He strove for a disinterested expression but doubted he was selling it too well.

He assumed Ernesto was planning to kill him and leave his body here in the desert. But what was he going to do with Jenny? Her fate wouldn’t be much brighter than Nick’s unless he did something right away.

He shifted on his feet, desperately trying to detach from the conversation, from the situation. Where was his iceman persona now? He had to ignore the danger to Jenny and to all those women, or he’d never regain control.

“What, no interest in your father?” asked Ernesto. “And here I thought you were such a family guy.”

Nick took a deep, silent breath. “What can you possibly tell me about Reese Donovan that matters? My parents have been dead for a long time.” He’d prefer to know what was happening with Jenny, and why Ernesto had been after her to begin with.

It was Ernesto’s turn to shrug. “You never know. You might learn something.”

Nick clenched his jaw. He was on the edge of losing control and didn’t want to hear anything about his father. There’d been such a sense of betrayal when the news broke about Reese Donovan’s embezzlement. It was why Nick had changed his plan for law school, wanting nothing to do with anything resembling his father’s career path.

Ernesto sensed Nick’s discomfort and absolutely reveled in it. “I can’t tell you everything, but you should know by now that the past, as well as the present, isn’t always what we think it is.”

The flash of anger was there instantly, and Nick couldn’t stop himself from snarling, “What the hell kind of mumbo jumbo is that? I don’t give a damn about my father. I want to know why you’ve been targeting Jennifer.”