The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (163 page)

Yeah, he got it. Once he knew Brandt was heading to the front, Davidson had abandoned his perfect perch and flat out run across the valley floor. He had no roost. No time to set up. No time to even climb to the highest branches.

“They’re opening the doors!” Bunny exclaimed in his ear.

Davidson straddled the nearest branch and swung his rifle up to bear. Through his scope he could see the large gray doors swinging open. He didn’t bother to align the shot properly. They didn’t need to know how good a sniper he was, they just needed to know that there was one in the vicinity.

Pulling the trigger, he shot at the stone just in front of the door. The bullet kicked up broken stone. That stopped the Disciples in their tracks. They pulled the door closed again, giving Davidson time to properly set up, belly against the branch, rifle tight against his shoulder.

When the Disciples decided to give it another try, Davidson was ready. He let the next bullet fly. This time, if the guy hadn’t ducked back behind the door, he would have lost a nose.

Davidson waited a few breaths. The door stayed closed.

“I think I’ve got them contained,” Davidson reported.

They would try again, though. There was no doubt. They weren’t going to let Brandt walk out with their prisoner without an epic battle. Davidson took a moment to swing his rifle down to make sure the others were making it down the steps. They were about a quarter of the way down. That was a lot of real estate before they could reach the safety of the trees.

Davidson refocused on the door, waiting, watching for the slightest movement. But after several seconds ticked by, nothing. What was going on? The Disciples hadn’t just given up, had they?

As much as Davidson wanted the Disciples to just let Brandt get away, it felt wrong. Like the other shoe hadn’t dropped yet.

To confirm his suspicion, Bunny cursed. “Oh shit.”

CHAPTER 2

══════════════════

“Oh shit, what?” Brandt asked.

“We’ve got two Royal Thai Air Force jets coming at you.”

“Why the fuck is the Thai government coming after us?” Brandt demanded, although did it matter? If they were coming, they were coming.

“They’ve been told that you are narco-terrorists attacking the temple.”

“Could you clear that up for us?” Brandt suggested.

“Stark’s mom is on the phone with the State Department right now.”

Why did he not feel all that much better that Stark’s mom was in charge of saving their lives? Then the air filled with the sound of approaching jets. At first they were two specks on the horizon, then, way too fast, they became way too real.

“Hunker down!” Brandt yelled as the first plane broke formation to come in for the attack.

He didn’t expect any of them to live through the next few moments, but at the last moment, a shot rang out from the trees and the jet veered, just enough so that the missiles it shot flew past the mountain and exploded deeper in the valley.

Just when he thought Davidson couldn’t get any better, the kid pulled off a Hail Mary shot like that. In that moment, Brandt forgave Davidson for all of his previous transgressions.

Unfortunately, the other jet was speeding toward them. Davidson shot and shot, but the plane just wouldn’t back down. It let loose two missiles at them. Both struck the side of the mountain.

While none of them were hit directly, it had been too fucking close. Especially when half the steps cracked and fell away. Brandt dug his finger into the stone, grinding rock under his nails trying to keep himself and Rebecca from falling. It wasn’t going to be enough, though, as the steps beneath his feet crumbled.

His last act was to shove Rebecca back to safety as he slid down the mountain face.

“Gotcha,” Rebecca said, as she grabbed his wrist. Although, by the strain in her arms and her blotchy face, it wouldn’t be for long.

“Let me go,” Brandt begged. He didn’t want them both to die in this wretched jungle.

“Never,” Rebecca insisted.

Her foot slipped on the wet rock. Both would have plunged to their deaths if someone hadn’t grabbed her around the waist. Lopez. And then Prenner was there, helping haul both of them back from the precipice.

Which would have been great, except the first plane had circled back around, and it looked ready to prove itself this time.

Brandt tucked Rebecca’s head against his chest. Davidson was firing, but they couldn’t expect another miracle from the sniper. Then, at the last minute the jet pulled up short, not firing.

“Stark’s mom did it!” Bunny yelled in his ears.

Yes, Stark’s mom had done it, as the two jets arched away from them, heading back to Bangkok.

“There’re ground forces in the way, though,” Bunny stated. “And I doubt they are Thai.”

“Copy that,” Brandt responded, then turned to his team. “You heard the lady—double time.”

* * *

Rebecca climbed into the back of the four-wheel drive SUV, then turned to help Levont get settled in.

“What took you guys so long?” he asked Lopez.

“Yeah, like a Buddhist temple in Thai was our first choice,” Lopez answered.

“Lopez never gave up,” Rebecca interjected. “He wouldn’t rest until you were found.”

“Don’t make it sound so gay,” Lopez said, then turned to Prenner. “No offense, man.”

“None taken,” their new point man said. “I was going to ask if you two needed a few moments alone.”

Rebecca tensed. This whole gays served openly in the military was kind of new, and Prenner’s sexual orientation hadn’t been a problem so far. However, it hadn’t really been addressed, either. The guy was Svengurd’s boyfriend, so it seemed that if Svengurd loved him, the team would, too. And it turned out he wasn’t a half bad point man. How did she know? Brandt wasn’t constantly complaining about him, as he had done with Harvish.

Lopez smiled broadly. “Nah, man. We just have a little bromance going on.”

Brandt loaded into the front seat, eyeing the men. “Anything I should know about?”

“Absolutely not,” Lopez answered back.

Rebecca smiled as she sank into her seat. All was right with the world again. The team was back together, and they were headed for their flight in Bangkok. Of course, that meant a no-holds-barred flight through the jungle.

And it was going to be a doozy. Lopez revved the engine.

“Do I have some direction, Bunny, or should I just wing it?” Lopez asked.

* * *

“No!” both Bunny and Brandt exclaimed at the same time. She glanced up to the screen that showed the Thai valley. “Head south by southwest, and we’ll update as we go.”

“If you insist,” Lopez answered, the growl of the engine behind him.

“We do,” Brandt countered.

Bunny had been in the back of many of vehicle that Lopez drove. It was bad enough even if he wasn’t “winging it” with directions.

Stark muted his microphone and spoke directly to her. “Isn’t that taking them into the path of the oncoming vehicles?”

“They’ve got to pick up a package before heading out,” Bunny reminded the hacker, pointing to the speck that was Davidson.

“Still, that is going to be close,” Stark said, turning back to his keyboard.

Clearly, the man had never ridden with Lopez.

The car on the screen practically flew down the dirt road, despite the ground being half flooded from the storm.

“They are turning to adjust,” Stark noted, and he wasn’t wrong. The enemy must have had some satellite feed, as well, or they had placed a tracker on Levont. Either way, it gave the Disciples an advantage.

“Brandt, they are watching, as well,” Bunny warned the team. “It’s going to be extremely close.”

“They will have line of sight,” Stark confirmed.

“Knock it out for five minutes,” Brandt responded.

“What do you mean?” Bunny said, even though she was pretty sure of what he meant.

“Block all signals. Satellite, radio, everything.”

“But—”

“Do it,” Brandt barked as only Brandt could do.

Bunny nodded to Stark, who typed in a few commands, and the screen went to static. She watched a small digital display that Stark had put up counting down the five minutes. Until then, they were blind, deaf and mute.

* * *

Brandt clutched the dashboard as Lopez bounced them over another branch in the “road.” It was more like a poorly maintained game trail than an official kind of street. That didn’t stop Lopez from having some fun.

The corporal slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel to the right as a tree appeared right in the middle of the roadway. The vehicle was slapped by fronds and branches as they raced through the jungle, the actual jungle. Then Lopez took them right back onto the “road.”

“Davidson better be on it,” Lopez said as he drove.

A loud thunk shook the SUV. “If you mean on the roof, then I think he is,” Rebecca said.

They broke out of the jungle into a clearing, with the Disciples coming straight at them. Somehow, riding on the roof, bouncing like a rubber ball, Davidson still managed to take out the lead vehicle’s tire. The car careened as the driver lost control. The second vehicle, unable to slow in time, slammed into the rear of the first car.

Two vehicles down with one shot.

Brandt was having a bit of a bromance with Davidson at the moment. If he weren’t straight and married, Brandt would have been the first one in line to lay a lip-lock on the kid. As they turned sharply to the left, Brandt and Prenner added their weapons to the fray, firing at the last remaining pursuit vehicle.

Somehow, through it all, Davidson managed to climb in the side window.

“Sorry,” he said.

“For what?” Rebecca asked.

“Not taking out the third car,” he responded, completely straight faced.

“Yeah, you’re such a slacker,” Lopez said, gunning the engine.

“Take a sharp right, “ Bunny said. The five minutes must have been up. Lopez complied, streaking them through the green foliage. “There is going to be a slight decline…”

Slight? They were going practically straight downhill. “You do have topography, right?” Brandt asked as they hurled down the mountainside.

They would be lucky if they didn’t pitch over end over end.

Then they were at the bottom of the mountain, to find an actual
paved
road. Brandt looked through the back window. The pursuit car was still at the top of the hill. Either they were too smart, or they valued their life too much to follow Lopez’s performance.

“Well, that was invigorating,” Lopez said, putting the pedal to the metal, racing them off to the Bangkok airport.

CHAPTER 3

══════════════════

Rebecca sat in the back of the SUV as it made its way through the clogged streets of Bangkok. The storm had finally let up. However, evidence of its passing was everywhere. The streets were still slick with rain, and the water flowed down the drains like tiny waterfalls.

The denizens took it all in stride, though. These were a people used to monsoons and such. A little storm didn’t stop them from living their lives. The streets were lined with small stalls selling everything imaginable. From sweet meats to handcrafted baskets, you could get anything you wanted. Mothers swatted at sons who played behind them. The children had a stick and a ball—although it appeared they used the stick to hit their siblings more than the ball.

Boys
.

Then there was a woman weaving a scarf right in front of them. While the city burst with life, there was also a pall, a sense of desperation. Just glancing down any of the dark alleys confirmed the city’s underbelly.

Rebecca looked to her phone. She’d just spoken with Bunny at length about the Disciples’ connection to Bangkok. The question was, did Brandt want to hear about it?

Lopez stopped at an intersection. “To the airport, right?”

“Well…” Rebecca said, before Brandt could give the order.

“No
wells,”
Brandt said, shaking his head. “We’ve got Levont. We’re not going to any church, synagogue or temple. No museum or art gallery. We are getting out of Thailand. Period.”

Brandt was so cute when he was laying down the law. Rebecca shrugged. “I just thought you might want to break up a human trafficking ring. My bad.”

Her husband turned around in his seat. “What are you talking about?”

“Bunny, why don’t you do the honors?”

“Actually, it was Stark and his mom who figured this out.”

“Figured what out?” Davidson asked.

* * *

“First off, they followed the money, so to speak,” Bunny answered, and patted Stark on the shoulder. “The Disciples have such an elaborate organization—how are they paying for it? The Knot had ancient wealth, but the Disciples don’t seem to be funded that way.”

Stark took over. “We think they make their money a much more modern way, in human trafficking. It is lucrative, if you don’t mind the whole business of buying and selling other people, but given their morals, it doesn’t feel like a stretch.”

“So Bangkok was already on our radar,” Bunny stated. “Since it is the Asian hub of modern-day slavery.”

“Then we monitored communications in and out of the temple during the rescue operation, and voilà, the calls traced back to a downtown Bangkok building,” Stark finished.

“You have an
address
for the Disciples?” Brandt pressed.

“Yes, in fact, we do,” Bunny stated. “Whether it is their central operation or just an outpost, this is the best intel we’ve had on them…
ever
.”

Silence came from the other end. Then Lopez asked, “Well?”

“Take the left,” Brandt said. “But we are stashing Levont and Rebecca before we head out.”

* * *

“You are going to do what?” Rebecca asked. His wife held up her hand to stop him from interrupting. “What? It’s okay for me to get nearly blasted off a mountain, impaled on a tree, but I can’t do a simple recon at an office building?”

Brandt sighed. This is not how he wanted the conversation to go. He took in a deep breath. “The temple was different. We needed you to interpret symbols if we found any. And there is nothing ever simple about Bangkok.”

He knew from experience. They all knew from experience. He wanted to get out of this city as quickly as possible, but he couldn’t ignore their best chance to discover something tangible about the Disciples. Still that didn’t mean it was okay to put Rebecca in harm’s way.