Page 23 of Invaluable

19

Kyle

I informed Pat,Vic, and Grant about our plan as Vic held onto Cuervo, who was ready to go. “It would take us an hour or more to get to her by foot. We’re going to take the truck until we are a mile out and thenwalk.”

The four of us piled into the truck after Cuervo and headed straight back to where Maya had come from. Where Sara was. Where those terrorists were holding her hostage. Where I hoped I’d find her alive. My concern in taking the truck was that these motherfuckers would hear the vehicle, maybe assassinate Sara as we approached. But Maya had said she had driven for fifteen minutes. It would take us an hour to reach that location by foot. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t risk Sara’s life. I needed to get to hernow.

Pat drove the truck as the rest of us scanned the landscape with our weapons. Searching for something, anything that would lead us to Sara. I doubted these psychos had night-vision goggles, and their plans had been compromised, especially when they had been foolish enough to allow Maya to escape. But the night held its secrets tight—no flickers of lights, no movement of other vehicles, no sounds of gunfire.

The minutes passed and the sound of Sara’s voice rang in my head. I prayed for a sign, a signal, something to bring me toher.

Pop!

Pat cut the engine before I even asked him to. My prayers had been answered. The unmistakable pop of a rifle. Someone was near. Adrenaline spiked through my body. Had those motherfuckers killed Sara? For a mere second I felt the pit of stomach drop so far I thought I could deposit it out of my ass. But the determination I had driving through my veins was a hell of a lot stronger. I shook the thought out of myhead.

I signaled to exit the truck and the four of us fanned out across the landscape, with Cuervo leading the pack to our front. I focused my night vision goggles but couldn’t see a damned thing yet. We were too far out. Despite the best image intensification and thermal fusion technology in the world, I couldn’t see shit. I had Pat, the best sniper, on my side. And our secret weapon, Cuervo, would smell these motherfuckers before we could spotthem.

The night remained motionless and I still couldn’t detect the origin of the gunshot. But my goggles focused in on a patch of disturbed earth in the distance. I signaled my men and we approached.

There, in a small pile, was fabric from clothes. Sara’s clothes. A sliced piece of a jacket that she had been wearing the last time I’d seen her. And her blonde locks mixed in thedirt.

My hands shook. They were fucking animals. They’d chopped off her hair—what would they do next? I scoured the earth for blood, praying I would find none. Cuervo’s nose must have picked up their scent and he ran in front of Vic. That aboy.

A wave of relief washed over me. “No blood.”

The words echoed in my head. No blood. They had just cut her hair, humiliated her. Images filled my mind—Sara being raped, these vile motherfuckers violating her, grabbing her flesh, forcing their dicks in her mouth, inside her. Since I’d become a SEAL, I’d seen more brutality than I ever wished to recall in my lifetime. But the images of children and women being defiled had always been the hardest ones for me to reconcile. At night, those visuals haunted my nightmares—their screams filled my head. I had been unable to savethem.

But not tonight. Tonight’s mission would be a success. I was more certain than I had been about anything in my life. She was the reason I left my career, though I hadn’t known it at the time. Meeting Sara at the bar last summer, seeing her on the USO tour, all of these events had led me to this moment. I was put on this earth to save her. And no motherfucker would stopme.

Stay strong just a little bit longer, baby. We’re breathing the sameair.