Trapped (Delos Series Book 7) Page 7

  Ram wasn’t sure. He rarely thought about why he did things. He’d done everything on his own since he was a young child without parental guidance or support. What had kept him alive until now was his own intuition and strong sixth sense when he was in a threatening situation. And he never questioned those choices because he was still, for some reason, alive.

  Sensing she needed to talk—like most women—he said, “I’ve got a good ear to listen to you, if there’s anything you want to get off your chest.” Well, these weren’t exactly warm, fuzzy words, but he knew she’d get the gist. “I know how close Husna is to you. It had to hit you pretty hard finding out she was one of the kids who were kidnapped.”

  Instantly, those tears were back and Ali jerked her head to the side, trying to hide her reaction from him. “Leave me alone, Torres.”

  The huskiness in her voice told him she was close to losing control. “Yeah . . . okay,” he replied, and turned away. Well, what should he expect? He’d set it up like this between them from the beginning so that he’d have no major connection with her on the team. Dan Cousins and Manny Felix were usually the ones who worked with her when two SEALs were needed in a tactical situation.

  And why the hell did it bother him that she wanted to cry? No one had cried for him growing up. And any tears he’d shed had always been in the safety of that dark hidey-hole of a closet, where no one could hear him sobbing.

  Finding an empty spot close to the front where the rest of the team was gathered, Ram sat down next to Manny.

  “Is Ali pretty tore up?” he asked, concerned, giving Ram a brief glance.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “She loves that little tyke, you know? From the first, Husna singled her out and that kid loves her more than anyone else in the world.” He shook his head. “I once asked Ali if she could adopt the child, if she would.”

  Frowning, Ram asked, “What did she say?”

  “Well, you know Ali: she’s ever the realist. She said she would, but Husna had family, lived with her aunt, and no one would ever let her adopt a child under those circumstances.”

  Rubbing his beard, Ram nodded. “Think she’ll be okay for the mission?”

  Manny grinned. “Hell, yeah, dude. She’s got her shit together, no worries.”

  “We’ll be using an infrared scope to look through that canvas fabric to see how many Taliban are in the back with those kids.”

  “Nobody better than Ali, then, to be with you on that part of the mission. She’s deadly behind a scope, as you know.”

  “Yeah, but she’s upset.”

  “Stop worrying. Hasn’t she proved to you in the past that she’s a professional? Her shit is tight.”

  “Yeah,” Ram mumbled and sat back, closing his eyes, trying to focus only on the dangerous plan that Wyatt had dreamed up. They had to get lucky. Damn lucky. And even then it was anyone’s night to die. Oddly, he wasn’t afraid of his own death. As he looked a little deeper into himself, he suddenly realized that he was afraid—for Ali.

  Now why the hell would he do that? He never worried about anyone else on the team dying. This was another first for him, throwing him into a quandary, unable to figure out why he’d even thought up such a thing.

  Maybe Lockwood’s inspiring talk had done it. He’d not been concerned about her before his “woodshed” moment. Opening his eyes, he lifted the flap on his watch. In fifteen minutes they’d be on the ground. And then they had forty-five minutes before that Unimog rolled into that damned narrow dirt road in that canyon they’d spotted on the map. On the one side, it had a two-thousand-foot rocky cliff above the road. On the other, a boulder-strewn thousand-foot drop-off. And there weren’t any guardrails in this country, either. That vehicle was going to have to do a bare crawl for the half mile where the road narrowed like a test tube beside that huge cliff.

  Wyatt’s plan was totally unconventional, but it was brilliant, using the geography in that area to assist them in the rescue. Ram was sure that at the War College, where Wyatt had taught, if he’d pulled this one off, they’d probably call it the “Hail Mary Op.” That, or the “Oh Jesus Op.” A sour smile edged his mouth. This whole mission had been chaos from the start: expect the unexpected. He was confident in his comrades to be a calm, reliable force in the face of the coming danger. Ali had always been that way, too. But tonight, might she falter? Would her emotions, because she was a woman, get the best of her so she’d screw up and leave everyone in a lurch and vulnerable to a bullet? Fuck.

  *

  After landing, the team made it to the canyon, the high cliff and equally deadly one-thousand foot drop off on the other side of the road. Lockwood dispersed his people. They all knew where they had to be and their job. She had gone to the side of the road that had the drop-off. Torres was about seventy feet away from her, farther down the road. Right now, Lockwood was creating a manmade avalanche of rock and dirt across the road that would stop the Unimog. Ali lay on her belly, her M4 rifle nearby and tucked against her body to protect it. She hid her face in the crook of her arm when Steve Allen tossed a grenade as high as he could up onto the rugged, rock cliff face. She lay on the other side where the road narrowed, about a hundred feet from the actual area and waited until the grenade exploded.

  A booming sound erupted into the dark night, bright red and yellow tentacles of fire arcing outward. Rocks of all sizes and dirt blew outward, falling across the road, making it impossible to drive any farther. The pressure wave struck, rolling across her and she burrowed deeper into the cliff slope to protect herself and her rifle. Some of the dirt and smaller pebbles pelted down on her, striking her helmet and the back of her Kevlar vest. She pulled her NVGs down over her eyes after lifting her head, and saw the dust floating high above the road.

  “Everyone okay?” Lockwood demanded over the radio.

  Everyone answered in the affirmative.

  “Take your positions,” he ordered.

  Ali got to her knees, holding her M4 up, the butt resting on her thigh as she surveyed the area. The side of the cliff, a thousand feet below her booted feet, looked like a black maw. She saw Wyatt and Tinker roll out some huge, round boulders from the edge of the road. They had been loosened by the grenade, and would make it impossible for the Unimog to drive around them. Wyatt’s plan was to blow a hole into the cliff and cause a landslide across the road, making it appear to be a natural event that had occurred. The enemy would never guess it was an ambush because there were many rocky avalanches in these mountains every day. Ali felt Wyatt had come up with a clever plan to use the land to his advantage.

  Now, she looked down at the drop-off behind her. Luckily, there was a thirty-foot wide shelf about three feet below the main road. It was going to provide excellent cover, and she could use her infrared scope to seek and find the Taliban hidden in the rear of the transport without being seen. She estimated where the truck might stop, and dug a couple of toeholds into the dirt and rocks to give her leverage when necessary.

  Through her NVGs she saw Torres settling into his area, his M4 ready. Lockwood and some of the other SEALs finished rolling a few more boulders up on the road. Her gaze drifted back to Torres. He looked powerful and confident. Too bad he was such a sourpuss. But maybe that was a good thing because, to her shock, she’d been drawn to the dude since she’d arrived on the team. It was a constant battle not to give into her curiosity and try to know him on a friendlier level.

  But friendship would be it. She would never initiate any kind of a personal relationship with anyone from her team. Never.

  At times, Ali felt as if Torres was the ultimate male tease to her inner female that she hid from everyone. He was handsome in a rough kind of way. She liked his over-the-top confidence because it was backed up with skills and talent. He wasn’t cocky, which was always a turnoff—he was more like the Rock of Gibraltar, steady and reliable. Those two traits were a turn-on for her.

  In some ways, he reminded her of her father, who had that same kind of rooted ste
adiness. But that was where those two split and went opposite directions personality-wise.

  She was glad Wyatt had ordered the two of them to work as a team. They were to use their infrared scopes to peer through the canvas fabric on the rear of the truck, locate where the children were, and how many enemy were there. Through the scope, they would see where the enemy stood, and then kill them. The infrared scope would clearly show the bright red outlines of the children and where they were located. Wyatt’s whole plan hinged on the truck being placed into park, and the two men in the front seat, and some of those in the rear, getting out to go move the many boulders out of the way so they could continue down the mountain. It was a long shot. But it was the scenario that was the least dangerous for the vulnerable children. Any other plan would put their lives in real jeopardy. At least here, she and Torres would have a close shot at the enemy and swiftly take them down. In another ten minutes, the truck should arrive at this point on its journey. She saw Ram get up, go to the top of the road, peering around. Did he not like the spot? That was possible. She waited, saying nothing.

  Ram moved easily over the edge of the road and carefully checked out the lip before stepping onto it. Even then, he sat down on the edge of the road and tested its strength because he wasn’t a lightweight. Ali understood his precautions and watched as he held up his M4 with ease, shooting gloves on, the tops of each finger cut off so he had physical contact with his weapon. He resumed a crouched position, fully hidden below the road, his rifle at the ready.

  They had discussed their plan earlier after unloading from the MH-47. He would take a spot farther down on the lip from where she was situated. That way, if the truck didn’t stop where they thought it would, at least one shooter would be able to take out two or three of the enemy who were in the rear of the truck with the children.

  She moved a bullet into the chamber of her M4. There was no safety mechanism on any SEAL weapons. Both she and Ram had silencers on their rifles so it wouldn’t startle those enemies who were up ahead of the parked truck tossing rocks off the road, until it was too late.

  Wyatt directed Dan and Steve to scramble up the two-thousand-foot cliff on the inside of the road, hiding among boulders, insuring good range of sight with their weapons. He, Chuck, Manny, and Tinker were stationed on the low side of the road, just beyond the nasty avalanche, with good visibility to shoot when it came time to take the tangos down as they cleared the area. All of them carried silencers on their weapons. They had the most up-to-date equipment in the world at their disposal and tonight, it was going to make the difference. Steve and Dan were high enough so there would be no crossfire or friendly-fire casualties from either side of the road. Wyatt was a stickler on that one.

  Struggling to keep from worrying about Husna and the other children, Ali had never worked so hard as tonight to put her emotions in her kill box. She loved children. Her thoughts drifted momentarily to her family back home. Cara, had always been the soft, gentle sister in their family. Ali was the warrior, just like her mother, who came from fierce Yaqui warrior blood in Mexico. She was on the council of the Pascua Yaqui tribe who lived on a reservation, near Tucson, and was a fighter for the rights of her people. Her father, Diego, originally from Sonora, Mexico, was a peaceful man who doted upon his two daughters. He was the most loving man she’d ever seen and he, like Cara, was on the peacemaking side of their family.

  Children were important to the Montero clan. Even though Ali was going to try saving these terrified children tonight, she wasn’t a kindergarten teacher at heart like Cara. No, she was a warrior and celebrated that every day. She fought for the underdogs of life, just as her mother Mary did. She was as good as any man, and her mother had given her confidence, as well as her DNA. There wasn’t anything a man could do that she couldn’t do—and sometimes better.

  CLICK.

  Ali instantly snapped her head to her right. There, coming down the twisting, snake-like dirt road, was the Unimog. Its headlights bounced and swayed because the road was in terrible shape, the shafts of light moved like wavering twin beacons, carving the blackness out of the night, making strange shadows that looked more like evil monsters lying in wait. Eventually, she heard the deep growl of the Unimog’s engine as it crawled off the slope and onto a flat stretch toward where they were located. The click was from Wyatt’s radio. From here on out, only a click would be used to communicate, no human voices, no whispering, which could alert the enemy. They had to fade like unseen ghosts into the surrounding shadows. The whipping wind came up from behind Ali, through the unseen valleys below and around the massive peaks, kicking up puffs of dust on the road in front of them every now and then.

  Her heart slowed in rate as the Unimog rounded the last curve, its headlights flashing upon the avalanche that was spread across the road. There was a grinding of gears, a slowing of forward motion as the driver spotted the blockade. She forced herself to breath as the truck inched closer and closer. She could hear someone in the rear yelling, “Is it an ambush?”

  The driver leaned out the window yelling, “No! It’s a landslide! Get out! Come help us move these boulders out of the way!”

  Ali felt some relief, bringing up the M4 into firing position, finger lightly caressing the two-pound trigger. The truck came to a stop four feet in front of where she lay. She and Torres had a perfect and unobstructed view of this side of the truck. She watched as four armed Taliban soldiers slipped out from beneath the canvas flap, leaping out of the truck bed and onto the hard dirt road. They were cursing as they trotted toward the front of the Unimog, where rocks blocked their forward motion. The driver and his sidekick climbed out, both doors remaining open, the truck idling noisily. The smell of diesel hit her nostrils. She hated the odor.

  Bringing up her M4, she looked through the infrared scope. She spotted two men standing up in the truck, hands on their AK-47s. Scanning slowly one way and then the other, she counted fifteen red outlines of the children sitting far below where the guards stood over them. The kids were probably sitting on a long wooden bench, she guessed. She clicked her radio, connected on a special channel with Torres’ radio.

  He returned the click. This alert told him she was now going to fire at the count of three. Ali had put her sights on the nearest guard inside the rear of the truck, brushing the trigger. The heavy jerk of her M4 slammed into her shoulder. At the same time, she heard Torres fire almost simultaneously. Watching through her scope, she saw two Taliban soldiers collapse and disappear.

  The night suddenly erupted in gunfire coming at every angle as the shocked Taliban, busily lifting and pushing rocks out of the way, froze. The muzzle flashes were minimal, and so was the sound. Taliban began to get hit, hurled two or three feet off the ground, AK-47s flying out of their hands.

  Without a word, Ali and Torres scrambled up the lip and onto the road, rushing for the rear entrance to the Unimog. Torres was closer and reached the step first, leaning up, yanking the covering aside. Ali was right next to him, her rifle on her shoulder, ready to fire, swiftly taking in the heat signatures.

  The children, seated on a wooden bench, were screaming and crying, hugging one another, trying to hide, but there was nowhere to go. Blocking out the chaos, Ali concentrated on the two unmoving bodies lying sprawled out across the metal floor. Looking through the scope, Ali could tell the tangos were dead because the reddish glow around them began to dissolve.

  She hopped up into the bed of the truck, her rifle on one of the enemy and Torres’ muzzle aimed at the other one. They were taking no chances. With her boot, she pushed an AK-47 away from the farthest soldier’s hand and Torres did the same thing to his tango.

  Both of them leaned down at the same time, placing two fingers against the carotid arteries of each the unmoving soldier. Ali felt no pulse, but she heard other gunfire ahead of them. It took but a minute more and suddenly, there was silence outside the truck as well. Ali knew Wyatt and the team had dispensed with the rest of the Taliban. Torres radioed and confir
med it.

  Only the pitiful cries of the frightened children in the dark hold, clinging to one another, broke the blackness of the night now surrounding them.

  “Let’s get these tangos outta here right now. The kids don’t need to see them when we get a light thrown into this truck,” Torres growled.

  CHAPTER 5

  “All clear,” Lockwood announced over the radio to his team.

  Ali took in a swift breath of relief on hearing those words. It meant that either all the Taliban were dead, or that they’d been captured and their weapons confiscated. The team and the children were now safe—up to a point. Even though the Raven drone hadn’t found any nearby infrared signatures showing human activity in the vicinity, it was still possible there was some. Although their weapons’ muzzles were muted, the noise still carried in the canyons between these peaks like a huge echo chamber.

  Ali knew that the Taliban rarely traveled after dark, but if there was a group of them bedded in for the night close by who’d heard the noise, they might come around to check things out. No, it was never truly safe anywhere in this country.

  “Hey,” Tinker called from the rear, lifting the flap, “how many dead you got in there?”

  “Two,” Ram said.

  “Wyatt said to come back and help you. What do you need?”

  “You and I are going to take these dead bodies out of here. I don’t want the kids seeing them,” he told Tinker. “Ali, you want to stay with the kids and calm them down until we can get back?

  “I will,” she agreed, moving swiftly towards the trembling children.

  Tinker climbed into the truck. “These poor kids don’t need to see this,” he muttered sadly, shaking his head.

  Ali wanted to know what Wyatt’s next move would be, and she pressed down on the radio button. She knew he was out in front of the truck working with the other SEALs on the dead and wounded.

  “Have you assessed the kids? How are they? Any injured? Need me to call in a medevac for them?” he asked all at once.