The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (125 page)

In the tumble, Brandt’s shoulder hit the roof of the car just before he was slammed against a seat. Rinse and repeat. Finally, they came to a stop, wheels down. Lopez gunned the engine, skidding them out since the elephant did not seem quite done with them.

Granted, the car was moving. However, they were going backward down the steep slope. Lopez steered like crazy, avoiding the huge trees and equally dangerous saplings. And now it seemed the rest of the elephant herd was joining in. You know, just for fun.

“Why are there elephants?” Lopez yelled.

“Yes,” Brandt responded, prepping his weapon for a shot, “why are there elephants chasing us?”

Lopez shrugged that shrug of his as he narrowly avoided them ramming into a huge stump. “I might have challenged them to a race. Maybe getting a little too close to the herd.”

That’s what Brandt thought. He did not know much about elephants, but buzzing their family was probably not a good idea. Brandt raised his gun to shoot, but Talli forced the barrel up.

“The forest elephant is endangered,” Talli said, then hurried on as Brandt glared. “Besides, we don’t have anything large enough caliber to penetrate its skull. You’d just piss it off with that.”

As the elephant trumpeted again, gaining ground, Brandt found it hard to believe it could really get much angrier.

“Is somebody taking video of this?” Lopez asked, his head craned over his shoulder as he tried to steer. Even so, he must have felt Brandt’s ire. “What? For Ricky Junior!”

* * *

Davidson ran across the thin tin roof, hurling himself across the open space between buildings. He’d run out of village, though. Davidson hated losing the high ground, but sometimes the high ground was simply lost. He jumped the eight feet from the shantytown roof to the ground.

He landed with a gun in his face. The gunman’s dark face split by the flash of a white smile. There was no way Davidson could get his gun up in time to shoot.

That didn’t mean it was useless, though. Pretending to surrender his weapon, Davidson bowed over. In a single motion, he swung the gun hard, nailing the guy in the crotch with it.

A shot went wide overhead as the gunman stumbled. With his good hand, Davidson pulled his knife from its sheath. Wielding it backhanded, Davidson slammed the blade into the man’s belly. He removed it and stabbed again and again. The gunman slumped against Davidson.

You could see the surprise in the man’s eyes. He had thought he was capturing a sniper. Well, just because he was a perimeter specialist didn’t mean Davidson wasn’t highly trained in hand-to-hand combat. Not Brandt level, of course, but he could get the job done.

Still, Davidson took no pleasure from the man’s death. He could only be glad to have come out still breathing. Although, that was not guaranteed to last, as shouts rose all around the village.

Gunfire spat at his feet as he released the deceased and sprinted for the tree line.

Lopez and the others should have been here by now. The plan had been to drive by Davidson’s roof so that he could provide cover fire until the last second. Then he was supposed to jump onto the roof of the SUV and be gone.

Given the shouts and strange trumpeting from the jungle, that was not going to happen.

Time to improvise.

Without thermal imaging, Davidson just had go by his gut.

And his gut told him to take to the trees.

* * *

“I thought elephants were sprinters?” Lopez demanded as the elephant lowered his head and butted the SUV.

“Watch out!” Talli yelled, but it was too late. Lopez hit the gunman head-on. The wheels thumping over his body.

Bullets pinged off the SUV as other gunmen burst from the jungle. But equally quickly, they threw themselves back into the bush as the elephant swung its huge tusks side to side, knocking one man off his feet and ten feet into the air.

“Hey, maybe there’s an upside to this!” Lopez, ever the silver lining kind of guy, shouted.

Then, of course, the elephant lowered its head again, but this time, instead of butting the SUV, aimed its tusks and shoved through the grating. And given the steam spraying, the bull elephant had also punctured their radiator.

Lopez gunned it, hurling them down the slope, disengaging them from the tusks.

The elephant shook its massive head, seeming rattled by the exchange. Good. Maybe he’d given up.

“Stop!” Talli screamed.

“Stop?” Lopez retorted. “But I’m—”

“Stop!” Brandt ordered, now seeing what Talli had. He could see clear sky past the trees. Unfortunately, that was a hundred-foot drop on the other side.

Lopez slammed on the brakes. The SUV skid side to side, tires laying down rubber, trying to find traction on the slick jungle floor. Luck, if you could call it that, put a tree right in their path. Lopez turned into the trunk, slamming the SUV to a stop.

Jarred by the impact and more than a little shaky from his near-daylong drugging, Brandt tried to pull it together. However, he doubted it even if he was at the top of his game he could come up a better plan as the elephant stood, ears out, flapping them in agitation. Tail swishing across its haunches. The bull seemed to be very aware he had them cornered.

“I’ll provide cover while you two jump out.” There was no saving all of them. They had to split up to increase their odds that
any
of them would survive. “Head in opposite directions and—”

“No way,” Lopez said as he whipped out his gun. “I can—”

Then a shot rang out, accompanied by a high-pitch shriek. Far to the back of the herd, a baby elephant explored a long wound along its flank with its trunk. Another shot forced the baby to step away from its mother. The entire herd vocalized their distress.

Davidson.

Maybe they couldn’t hurt the bull elephant, but clearly the little one was not nearly as invulnerable to gunfire. For now, the sniper had only grazed the little guy. Brandt was loathe to do anything more, but that really was up to the elephants. Brandt was sorry for trespassing, but work was work.

The bull searched the trees, finding Davidson perched in the basket made up of the canopy’s intertwining branches. Was the animal intelligent enough to know its choices? Could it see past its rage to the danger of its offspring?

Apparently not, as it turned back toward the SUV, its enormous ribs heaving, drawing in breath for a final attack.

“Don’t worry,” Lopez said. “I am totally getting this on film.”

Brandt shoved the corporal toward his door. “On my mark.”

Before he could give the order, several gunmen burst from the brush. In a panic at the site of an entire herd of elephants, they sprayed the animals with bullets. Talli had been correct. The gunfire barely scratched the adults. But now they had a new focus to vent their anger upon.

The herd charged in unison, stampeding toward the gunmen. The bull took one last look at the SUV, then turned as quickly as a two-ton elephant could and charged after the herd.

“Classic, man!” Lopez yelled, turning his digital camera back to himself. “Can’t wait until you’re old enough to get chased by elephants, RJ.”

Brandt wasn’t so sure Maria was going to be quite as up for “take your son to work” day.

Lopez lowered the camera and revved the engine, getting them the hell away from the cliff as Davidson scrambled down from the tree. He waved the SUV over, then leaped onto the roof then squeezed this lean frame through the damaged window frame.

Once settled, Davidson turned to the rest. “Does it seem like that was way too easy?”

Brandt couldn’t agree more. That wasn’t an escape. That was a release back to nature. It should have been impossible, but the Disciples must have had the frequency for his intra-dental tracker.

“All right,” Brandt said with a grunt. This was not going to be pleasant. “Who is up for removing my tooth?”

When no one replied, Lopez’s hand shot up. “Not me, but I’ll film it!”

Great
.

* * *

“What’s wrong?” Bunny demanded.

Emily held up a hand as she listened on the phone. Prenner stood over the technician at the keyboard, his stiff body language asking the same thing.

Still, static filled the screen. It had been like that for nearly ten minutes. Davidson had been ready to take out Brandt’s two remaining escorts and then poof. The feed was gone.

“The feed was overwritten,” the technician finally announced.

“We’ve been hacked?” Prenner demanded.

That couldn’t be, could it? They were in the Pentagon. They should be hack-proof, right?

“No,” the tech reassured them. “Someone within this building overrode my commands and turned the feed off from the satellite itself.”

“Who would do that?” Bunny asked.

Emily hung up the phone. “That is something my boss would like to know.”

“It is something everyone wants to know,” Prenner shot back.

“Yes,” Bunny agreed. “However, that isn’t going to help Brandt and the rest in real time. What are we doing to help them right now?”

Prenner shrugged. He actually shrugged. “Like I said earlier, they are on their own.”

“On their own?” Bunny couldn’t keep the exasperation from her voice.

“The men went AWOL.”

“To save a decorated hero!”

Prenner pulled up to his full height. “Black ops men know the risk.”

Bunny was about to launch into the tirade to end all tirades when Emily stepped between them.

“Now, now,” she cooed. “I’ve asked the Brits for a spot of help.”

Bunny’s mood brightened. “Vanderwalt?” she asked. He had been super helpful during the whole Jordan debacle. And his crooked smile was kind of sexy.

Emily nodded. “We should have a feed on the area within the hour, and they have some ‘aid’ workers even closer than I do.”

Bunny sank into her chair, not realizing tears were at the edge of her eyelids. She wasn’t built for this. She always read the last page of a book so that she didn’t have to stress about the characters the whole time. And if the heroes didn’t win in the end? She just didn’t read the book.

Her CIA handler squeezed her shoulder. “It is going to be over forty-five minutes before we can even get a glimpse of the area. Why don’t you go lay down?”

Wiping the tears away, Bunny shook her head. “No. I want to be here. I
have
to be here.”

“Very well,” Emily stated. “Then I think it is best we all get some food—some
real
food—in our bellies.” She turned to Prenner. “Is the Moulin Rogues still in the Pentagon Row?”

The technician shook his head. “Nope. Closed down last summer, but Panda Express is just around the corner and has a drive-through.”

“Well then, Panda Express it is.” Emily turned to Prenner. “I’ll write our order down.”

“What the hell?” Prenner countered. “I’m not your dinner bitch.”

Emily cocked her head in that really cute way. “Really? Because I am pretty sure that the department that has a big fat mole that ruined a black ops mission, putting all of our assets in the region in danger, gets to go get the food.” She looked to Bunny. “Right?”

Bunny might just have a new hero. “Right.”

“It’s a rule.” Emily turned back to Prenner. “Maybe not written, but a rule nonetheless.”

To Bunny’s surprise, Prenner sighed. “Give me the list,” he said, “and I’ll get a private to do it.”

Bunny could taste the egg rolls now. Although, even the best soy sauce wasn’t going to make the next forty-five minutes go by any faster. She could only prey the men were safe until then.

Safe. Not dead.
Safe
.

Maybe if she repeated that frequently enough, she could make it come true.

CHAPTER 7

══════════════════

Undisclosed Location

9:47 p.m. (CAT)

Rebecca awoke facedown on a cool earthen floor. She felt like she’d fallen out of a plane, through a rain forest, then squeezed by a python.

Oh, wait, she had.

A little worried about where she had ended up, Rebecca was loath to open her eyes. The Disciples were in the area and had already snatched Brandt. Had they found her too? Would she be staring at a room filled with torture instruments?

Squeezing her eyes shut against the horror wouldn’t make it go away. At the least she needed to get her bearings.

Cracking her eyelids open, Rebecca found a typical African hut. The curved walls were made of braided vines. Although, these had some adornment. Scattered throughout the walls were brightly colored strands. The contrast created a random yet beautiful pattern.

Tied to these walls were a line of gourds, primitive storage vessels. The roof above was made of wide green fronds. Unlike the round huts of the African planes, tribes in the moist Congo region could not use dried thatch. Otherwise, they’d have mildewed walls within days.

No, the rain forest tribes had adopted nature’s own waterproofing, using the waxy plants of the forest to construct their homes. Which would have all been great fodder for a scientific paper on aboriginal African hut building. Unfortunately, she was not on an academic assignment.

Rising up on one elbow, her eyes explored more of the hut.

There was a small central fire pit that spit sparks at a chunk of meat being grilled on a skewer. Her fingers felt the soft ground beneath her until she realized it wasn’t ground at all. It was a loosely woven rug of moss.

Again, ingenious use of natural resources, but not exactly information she could use to formulate her escape.

Soft footsteps carried from outside the hut. Rebecca lay back down, closing her eyes.

“Jambo,” a sweet voice called out.

So Rebecca hadn’t been hallucinating. She opened her eyes to find the same little girl sitting on her haunches next to her. The girl opened her small hand to reveal half a dozen burgundy berries. Strangely, they smelled of rose petals.

“Kola,” the girl urged.

Tentatively, Rebecca took one from her palm. The girl urged her to bring it to her mouth. However, when Rebecca bit down, she found it wasn’t a berry. Instead, it was brightly colored nut. A nut with a rather tough exterior.

The little girl giggled, shaking her head as she sat down cross-legged. Tucking her skirt over her knees, she used the orange fabric as a bowl. Picking out a seed, the girl used her fingernail to crack open the burgundy exterior to reveal a smooth white shell. This, too, she opened. Inside the shell were four small seeds.