Danger Close (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 1) (18 page)

Fifteen feet into the air, he lay back on the thick, forked branch that had been his perch last night when he'd watched Lt. Sasseville break into her door with a credit card. The lieutenant had stayed in there until he was joined an hour later by Miss Scott, who'd come out of the neighbor's house. The two might have spent the entire evening together if Chief Adams hadn't come huffing up to the tree asking Bamm-Bamm if he knew where the LT was.

Sure enough, he'd known. He'd even had a good idea of what Lt. Sasseville was doing at the time, and Master Chief Kuzinsky wouldn't like it, but Bamm-Bamm wasn't about to rat on his platoon leader for getting a piece of action when they weren't supposed to have anything to do with the civilian population.

Tonight, Miss Scott's condo looked dark and deserted. The sky had turned a deep indigo blue in anticipation of nighttime. Already, it was shot with the same stars that had prompted him last night to recollect the names of all the constellations. As a bright kid growing up in the hicks of Kentucky, he'd taught himself to identify them all. But tonight he would remain vigilant, so no stargazing. Miss Scott, he already knew, liked to keep the lights blazing. Her dark condo told him that, despite the vehicle parked out front, she wasn't home.

Flipping down his NVGs, he scanned the street, wondering where she might be and scoping out potential threats. His thoughtful gaze returned to a nondescript van parked a block up the road from her home. A man sat unmoving in the driver's seat. Squinting through his NVGs, Bamm-Bamm wondered if he was seeing a neon-green beard or if the man was wearing a fuzzy sweater. He swiveled his head in the opposite direction, and that was when he caught sight of two individuals hustling up the sidewalk from the heart of town.

The long hair and lithe curves of Miss Scott made her immediately identifiable as she hurried ahead of a shorter woman. That woman was her neighbor, Bamm-Bamm determined, spying a sling across her chest with the baby in it. The women walked as quickly as they could along the unlit and uneven sidewalk, looking antsy about the lateness of the hour.

Suddenly the lights on the van blinked on, catching them in its high beams as it pulled from the curb and rumbled toward them. Bamm-Bamm's pulse accelerated as he split his attention between the women and the approaching van. He willed it to rumble right past them. Miss Scott finally saw it, her stride faltering. He saw her step in front of her companion as if to protect her.

"Drive on by," Bamm-Bamm whispered, hefting his submachine gun just in case.

The angles were not at all in his favor. With a tell-tale screeching of brakes, the van slowed as it neared the women, blocking them from Bamm-Bamm's view. A misfired shot might go right over the top of the van or through a window and strike either one of them.

"Damn it!" he hissed, debating whether to jump out of the tree and get a better angle. But then the wall would briefly obstruct his view and he didn't dare take his eyes off Miss Scott.

Except that he couldn't even see her. The sound of a van door grating open greeted his ears, followed by the bark of a male voice. This wasn't good.

A woman screamed, prompting Bamm-Bamm to make a decision. Aiming at the tires, he depressed the trigger, deflating both passenger-side tires in an instant. The van listed. A door slammed shut and the van pulled forward, tires slapping the ground. Jiggling wildly, it nonetheless accelerated, pulling farther and farther away, leaving one woman cowering on the sidewalk where there had been two previously. Miss Scott had been taken.

"No!" Horrified, Bamm-Bamm shot at the retreating taillights. They exploded under the onslaught of his bullets, but the vehicle didn't stop.

With a wild leap out of the tree, he managed to land on his feet. Sprinting to the gate, he yanked it open and stepped out into the street, swinging his MP-5 up to shoot, just as the van turned out of sight at the next intersection.

Too late.

Stunned, Bamm-Bamm stared in consternation at the neighbor now screaming for help in front of her condo. Knowing there was little he could do for her, he lowered his weapon and crossed the street to see if she was injured. The necessity of telling his platoon leader what had happened made him cringe. He'd screwed up royally. Lt. Sasseville would never trust him again.

* * *

This isn't a dream
.

The blue-green eyes that had haunted Maddy since the incident at the warehouse glinted within the shadowy interior of the vehicle, making it suddenly clear what was happening. One minute, she'd been anticipating the cool shower awaiting her inside her condo, the next she'd been staring into the barrel of the gun and realizing if she didn't cooperate, then baby Isabella and Lucía might be gunned down. Her nightmare had just morphed into reality.

To the accompaniment of gunfire—coming from where?—the besieged van had lurched forward, and her nemesis had caught her against his uniformed chest, keeping her from losing her seat. The sound of shattering plastic paired with the
thunk
of a bullet embedding itself in the van's bumper had given her to realize that
someone
endeavored to prevent her from abduction. Only, it was too late now. Though hampered by flat tires, the vehicle had nonetheless lumbered from the scene, and the sound of gunfire ceased.

Peering through the dark, her heart thundering, Maddy recognized the same men who'd forced their way into the lab last week. The cruel one with a scar bisecting his right cheek seized her wrists, cinching them together and binding them with a plastic zip-tie while the youngest glared up at her from the floor. Their leader, meanwhile kept a firm arm around her shoulders as the fourth man drove the van. Even with flat tires, it floundered on.

Steeped in shock, Maddy failed to respond to the spate of Lebanese being muttered in her ear. The sting of a brisk slap brought her sharply to reality. Not a dream at all.

"Enough," barked the leader, speaking in English for her sake, she realized. The scarred devil who'd slapped her backed off.

Taking heart from her nemesis's mercy, Maddy turned her head to regard his handsome profile. His jewel-like eyes returned her scrutiny. He'd spared her life the last time. She could only hope he would do the same now.

But the inscrutable lines of his face said otherwise as he returned her frightened gaze with a long stare. Dread chilled Maddy to the bone. She averted her eyes, her thoughts flying at once to Sam. He had failed to keep her safe. What made her think he could find and rescue her now that she'd been taken?

She was doomed—unless she admitted to these terrorists whose daughter she was. Would that guarantee her safety? Her father would pay any sum required to secure her freedom, but what if money wasn't their goal?

It probably wasn't. She shouldn't tell them anything.

Sam and his teammates would have to rescue her. But how would they know where to find her?
My satellite phone!
She could feel it burning a hole in her back pocket, broadcasting her location with its built-in GPS. Hope surged through her, driving away the paralyzing effect of shock. But if the terrorists found it, they would immediately seize it and destroy it. She had to keep it out of sight, perhaps even hide it before they found it.

With the wobbling van masking her movements and hampered by the cuff that bound her wrists, she managed to draw her phone from her back pocket. Silencing it with her thumbnail, she deliberated where to hide it. Here in the van or wait until they arrived at their final destination? The longer she held it, the more chance it would be seen and seized.

The seat on which she sat provided a solution. She could feel a crease right at her fingertips between the bench and the back of the seat, with just enough room in between to push the phone out of sight. With trembling fingers, she slid it into the aperture.

Find me, Sam!
Tears of desperation swarmed into her eyes.
Find me and save me!

* * *

God, I hate spiders
.

"Sir, wait!"

Carl Wolfe's last-second admonition froze Sam in the act of reaching past the EOD expert to sweep aside the spider web that draped like a curtain from the tunnel's low ceiling. Directing his gaze downward, Sam saw what he'd completely overlooked in his quest to keep all spiders from dropping onto his helmet and scuttling down his back: the glint of a needle-thin filament bisecting the tunnel right in front of the foot he was about to lift.

The terrorists hadn't been content with wiring the shed to blow sky-high. They'd bobby-trapped their escape route, too, apparently.

A cold sweat breached Sam's pores in an instant. Lifting his right arm at an angle, he wordlessly communicated to Bronco, who followed some distance behind them, to halt.

"You might want to step back, sir," Carl suggested sounding as calm and unruffled as a still pool of water.

Swallowing hard, Sam slowly backed up. With his shirt sticking to his back and his mouth desert-dry, he watched the EOD expert crouch over the menacing filament and follow the path it took to a tin bucket standing inconspicuously off to one side.

The tunnel had been built just wide enough to allow a wagon to be pulled through it. Littered with relics of two past eras—mining and war—it was filled with rusted trowels, buckets, and bottles, all vestiges of decades gone by. The bucket didn't look any more suspicious than the others Sam had seen. But Carl's low whistle conveyed that it was packed with enough gunpowder and hardware to shred a man's flesh.

As Carl went to work disarming the device, Sam sought to slow the tempo of his convulsing heart. His gaze flickered to the lumber and metal plates buttressing the crumbling walls. Over a hundred years old, the tunnel had obviously been put back into service by the terrorists, who'd used it to sneak past Charlie Platoon's reconnaissance because they sure as hell weren't in the camp anymore. They weren't down here, either, not with the place rigged to blow sky high.

Sam had never envisioned himself being buried alive. But that was the death that awaited him if Carl failed to disarm the IED. A rivulet of sweat trickled between his shoulder blades.

I should have gone all the way with Maddy
.

Of all the regrets he might have entertained, that was the one that came to mind. He'd cheated himself out of a life-defining moment, and if he didn't survive this night, he'd never get another chance to make her his.

In an effort to distract himself, he keyed his mike. "Cougar, this is Eagle," he murmured, smoothing the tremor of uncertainty from his voice. "Any idea yet where this tunnel ends?" He and his men had been following it for half a mile or more. If he knew the end was near, maybe he could shake the sense of doom pressing down on his shoulders.

Lt. Cooper's chipper reply was a balm to his ears. "Roger that, Eagle. We've located your exit. Looks like it was trespassed a while back by our targets. You've got maybe two hundred yards to go. How's it going down there?"

"It's ugly," Sam reported, revealing his true feelings. His earpiece crackled as another voice broke into the conversation.

"Sir, this is Bullfrog. HQ reports a secondary situation."

Something in Jeremiah's voice suggested Sam wasn't going to like what he heard. "What is it?"

"Bamm-Bamm just informed Master Chief that Miss Scott was abducted. She was grabbed right off the street as she approached her house. Bamm-Bamm managed to compromise the vehicle—a white van—but it got away all the same."

The tunnel seemed to shrink in on Sam, boxing him in on every side. He stared desperately at Carl who was now bent over the IED wielding a pair of specialized clippers.
Come on, buddy. You can do it
.

"You need me to repeat, sir?" Bullfrog asked.

"No." Sam's thoughts raced, even as his muscles quivered with a frustrated need to respond. "We have to find her before they can..." He trailed off, unwilling to consider what would happen to her now. His thoughts went to finding her instead. "Wait, she carries a satellite phone everywhere she goes. If we're lucky, she's got it on her. Tell Master Chief to call her father. Get her number and use GPS to track her location. Call me back when you know more."

"Yes, sir. Over."

Christ.
"How much
longer
, Carl?" he raged.

A soft
snick
preceded Carl's answer. "All done, sir." He rose fluidly to his feet. "You'll want to stay behind me," he chided gently as he slipped his tools back into his pockets.

Sam acknowledged the subtle admonition with a nod. The spiders could have at him for all he cared. Still, considering Maddy's present terror—God, she had to be beside herself!—he chafed to sprint for the closest exit. But who knew how many more filaments lay in his path? An explosion of any size would bring the earthen ceiling crashing down on their heads. He licked the salty sweat off his upper lip and gestured for Carl to proceed.

This is a nightmare
.

The terrorists, if they could see him now, would gloat at his predicament. Here he was, trapped in a tunnel laden with IEDs, looking for
them
when they were already long gone. More than that, they'd seized a prize that Sam had failed to sufficiently protect.

The walls of the snaking tunnel blurred as denial raged inside of him. An image of Maddy lying beneath him, her gaze unfocused and glazed with passion, swam before his eyes.