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“Yeah,” Cunningham piped up. “I was thinking they could be setting up an ambush further ahead for us.” He looked around. “We’ve never been in this area. We know nothing about this part of the jungle.” He looked up at Alex. “Do you?”
“No. I have never been beyond this village. We always stuck to the known trails when I was with Alexandrov.”
“Shit,” Killmer growled. He downed two salt tablets, chewing on them, thinking. “There’s five of them and four of us.”
“Good odds,” Alex said.
“But they have surprise on their side.”
“Do you think they want to capture some of us?” Merrill posed.
“Yeah,” Nate said. “Maybe they see us as trying to take their territory away from them? Make examples of us? Scare the U.S. into not sending more Army teams down here after they greet us, hang us in some tree limbs, strip us naked, take cell phone photos and post it all on YouTube?”
Alex looked around at their dirty, sweaty faces. “None of us want to be caught alive by them.”
The heaviness and warning in his tone made all the operators grimace.
“I think they’re setting a trap for the bigger prey:us,” Killmer said. “They knew we’d come after Lauren. And they’re hoping we’ll go off half-cocked, over-emotional, and become distracted.”
Alex said nothing, unable right now to control his own emotions where Lauren was concerned. The sergeant was right. Dead right.
Killmer looked at him. “What kind of ambushes do Spetsnaz like to set up?”
“Like the SEALs,” he told the sergeant. “L-shape or Diamond. My bet is they will lay an L-shape ambush for us, if possible.”
“That means it has to be in an area where they have one shooter looking straight at us and the other three on one side or the other of where we’re coming in.”
Alex nodded. “The land shape determines the place they chose.”
“Then,” Killmer grunted, pushing to his feet and shifting his ruck into a more comfortable position, “I need you on point. You’re the only man here who is familiar with their ambush tactics. You know the kind of land they’d choose to set one up.”
“Night is coming,” Alex warned. “We will be moving slower. And I am going to have to stop if I see an area ahead that I think might be a trap.” He didn’t want to slow down. But he knew Petrov was a wily fox. It made more sense to him, now that they’d taken Lauren, that they would lay a trap for a larger prey:them.
“Fine, take your time,” Killmer said.
“I WISH we had a map of this area,” Cale bitched.
Killmer nodded. “Put a sock in it, Merrill. Let’s saddle up,” he growled.
Volkov lay nextto Burak and Laskin in an L-shaped ambush. There was a small, rocky cliff rising out of the soggy ground to his left where Petrov sat dry beneath an overhang with his AK-47. The rain had stopped. They were lying on their bellies on dry, waterproof tarps, but their clothes were soaking wet. His skin was goose-bumped, the temperature dropping. He thought about the red-haired bitch in the cave. Morozov had better patch her up good because he had plans for her. Smiling in the dark, Volkov thought about how he was going to claim her, rape her in front of everyone. He would teach her to kick him in the knee and break this thumb, and embarrass him in front of his team. Chances were, though, Petrov would trump him and claim his right as leader, to take her first. He wanted to feel her soft flesh in his hands, spread her legs, and then take her hard, hear her cry out in pain. Petrov liked doing the same thing, dammit. If only their leader would let him have this woman first! Perhaps he could make the argument to Petrov that it was revenge and, therefore, that first claim belonged to him. She had injured his pride. His reputation. And he had a right to extract his revenge on her as a result. Would Petrov buy his reason? He was still limping a little on his knee. He’d been lucky the bitch hadn’t cracked his knee cap.
Wiping his wet face, Volkov wondered how long it would be until that traitor, Kazak, and those three Special Forces soldiers would fall stupidly into their trap. They knew how to track at night. And Petrov had left plenty of easy tracks for them to follow. Sooner or later, they’d stumble into their ambush. It was dark and miserable out. They’d be humping a lot of weight, and the jungle humidity always wrung a man dry in a hurry. Dehydration played tricks on the mind, on perception, on visual acuity. Especially at night.
It had been a shock to Volkov to have discovered Kazak among the American black ops team. He was a traitor. Volkov had wanted to put a bullet through his head right then and there but Petrov, the cooler head, had prevailed. He’d come up with this scheme. Petrov had been ordered by Yerik Alexandrov, while in mourning over his son’s death, to put a hit out on Kazak. And whoever made that hit would receive a million U.S. dollars. Sadly, Yerik had been killed in Costa Rica by an American black ops hunter-killer team. Volkov had heard that Alexandrov’s empire was in disarray in New York City. That four top mafia leaders, all Georgians, were fighting among themselves, to become the new leader. Petrov was Georgian. He felt he stood a good chance that, if he took out Kazak, and brought photos of the kill to the new leader, he would be paid well for his efforts. Russian or Georgian, it didn’t matter. Traitors were hated by all of them. They were killed. But first, they were tortured. And Volkov couldn’t wait to get his hands on that bastard: Kazak. Who would regret the day he was born.
Lauren slept despiteher predicament. As she slowly awoke, she realized the cave was dark and she couldn’t see anything. Morozov had given her a low dose of morphine because she had been in agony, the pain in her head so bad that she couldn’t speak. Now, as she lay still, listening, sensing, Lauren had a dull headache, but that was all. Morozov had been gentle with her. He’d expertly taped shut the cut on her scalp. The bleeding had stopped. Lauren slowly lifted a hand toward her tender scalp, feeling the gauze dressing over it, the bandage wrapped firmly around her head.
She finally remembered who Morozov was, her mind starting to work once more. Alex and Nik were best friends. She remembered Alex telling her once that they had both grown up on nearby farms. Alex didn’t have a brother, but had confided to her that, if he could have chosen one, then Nik would have been his younger brother. There was a year’s difference in age between them. Did she dare tell Nik about Alex? Did they see him at the village, too? She had no idea how long they had been lying in wait, watching them. Lauren shivered, her clothes damp.
Something moved nearby. She froze.
“It’s only me, Nik,” he told her gruffly. “How do you feel?”
Relief sped through Lauren. “I don’t know yet.” She felt him close, still unable to see him. He had to be wearing NVG’s. She heard a match being struck, the light suddenly illuminating the area. She saw Morozov kneeling nearby, lighting a kerosene lamp sitting near the wall. The cave slowly revealed itself and she blinked, realizing her vision had cleared. Morozov’s face was deeply shadowed. He sported a beard, making his lean face look stony. He looked exhausted. She watched him rise with the same male grace that Alex possessed. Much leaner than Alex, but he still had Alex’s height. She watched him come over and kneel next to her.
Picking up her wrist, Nik felt her pulse, avoiding her gaze, looking down at the ground.
“Good, your pulse is returning to normal.” He pulled something out of his cammo jacket. “Can you sit up? I need to see how your pupils are reacting.”
