Page 19

“Yeah, but soon enough?”

They looked at one another. They both knew that the kidnappers were likely to escalate to get the rest of their money.

“Listen up,” Kostya raised his voice so everybody could hear him. “Change of plans. Now that we have the intel that we need, we’re going to do this double time. I want us to get there by dawn. I don’t care if we have to hit them during daylight. We’ll do what we have to get our target out of there safe, sound, and whole.”

Brax grinned, and when he looked around, he saw everybody else grinning as well.

6

Jenny shut her eyes and imagined herself enjoying making mud pies. She knew she had enjoyed doing it when she had grown up in Wyoming. At least for a little while. Before getting dirty was a bad thing. Before everything she did was a bad thing.

She scooped up a glop of mud and tried to form it into a mud pie, but it was no use. It was too runny. So much for recreating a childhood memory.

She started singing the rain song.

“Rain on me. Rain on me.”

She pretended it was only rain streaking down her face and not tears. Then the coughing started up again, and she moaned at the pain in her chest, and the stabbing pain from her rib.

She swiped at her face and saw blood on her hand.

My nose.

Too bad she didn’t have WebMD to figure out why her damn nose was bleeding. Then she could hypochondriac herself to death.

She laughed. Which set off an even worse bout of coughing. Jenny tried to remain upright. She didn’t want to lie down in the mud. It got in her hair, and sometimes her ears and mouth. She felt herself slipping sideways along the wall. She covered her ear and closed her eyes, hoping she wouldn’t drown in mud.

“Three vehicles. A box truck with a logo of a bull on it, an SUV, and a van. Lots of men and weapons,” Brax could barely hear Jase say through his comm device. The monsoon was out of control, and the rain was making things almost impossible, including their ability to communicate.

“Give me a number,” Kostya demanded.

“I see nine. But there’s a barracks, three shacks and it looks like they’ve hauled in a trailer, which should be their command center. It has a satellite. My guess is this isn’t their first rodeo.”

“So, there is a road that wasn’t on the satellite images,” Brax growled loudly into his mic. Even with his poncho, the rain was pummeling his face as it came down sideways.

“Must have been small and covered by the trees, I didn’t see it,” Gideon said.

“If there is a trailer, barracks, and encampment, how did the satellite photos not pick it up?” Brax wanted to know.

“Most of it is under camouflage netting. They have a satellite dish on top of the trailer. That’s how they are accessing the internet.” Jase answered.

“That’s all I can see. Linc, you need to tell us the rest,” Jase said to their sniper who was now in a tall tree.

“I’m counting eleven. The barracks looks like it houses sixteen by my estimate. The trailer would be the command center, but it would also be where the leader stays.”

“The shacks?” Kostya asked.

“Only one has a padlock on it,” Linc answered.

“Then we have our target.”

Everybody heard the satisfaction in Kostya’s voice. Brax could almost hear him thinking. They all knew what needed to happen. They needed to get her piece off the chessboard first, so that she was protected, then they could go in and clean up.

“If I could be one of the ones to help get her out, then I could set that shack to blow as well as the others,” Brax said.

Kostya gave him a considering look, then slowly smiled. “I like it.”

“I need to be there to help get her out. We won’t know what shape she’s in,” Nolan chimed in.