“Look into the camera,” a hard voice ordered. Dylan couldn’t see the speaker. He figured the voice probably belonged to the man recording the video. “Say your name.”
“My name is Tina Jamison.”
“Good girl,” the guy murmured.
Her voice held fear. The same fear that filled her eyes. Tina wasn’t supposed to be in the field. Her place was in the office.
And Dylan knew why. Mercer had briefed him during that second phone call. Told Dylan all of Tina’s secrets.
“Tina Jamison is my friend,” Sydney said softly. “I want her back. The EOD wants her back.”
“Bruce Mercer, we have your daughter,” the rumbling voice said on the video then.
“Tina isn’t his daughter,” Sydney said at the same instant. “The kidnappers are mistaken about her identity. When they realize that mistake, Tina will become expendable to them.”
Rachel raised her dark brows. “They took the wrong bait,” she said sadly.
Yes, they had. The EOD’s careful plans had gone horribly wrong.
Before Dylan could reply to Rachel, the voice from the video was talking again. “We want an exchange,” the man continued. “Her life for yours.”
Dylan whistled. Mercer had suspected this would happen.
“For every day that you delay, we will hurt her.”
Tina stared out of that video, her eyes wide. But, wait, did her gaze just flicker to the left? It looked as if some of the tension had eased from her shoulders.
“We gave you proof of life,” the male voice said. “Now it’s time for proof of pain.”
Another man approached Tina. All Dylan could see was the guy’s back, his blond hair and the knife in his hand.
“Oh, dear God,” Rachel whispered.
“Slice off her finger,” the grating voice ordered.
The knife lowered toward Tina’s hand.
“Stop!” A familiar bellow. Drew’s bellow.
But the knife didn’t stop.
Tina looked away.
After that, all hell broke loose. Or, rather, Drew Lancaster broke loose. He leaped forward and attacked the blond. The video image twisted, flew sideways, and Drew pummeled the guy on the floor.
Then another image filled the screen. A man wearing a black ski mask stared straight ahead and said, “We have your daughter, Mercer, and we have one of your precious EOD agents. If you don’t come for them, if you don’t trade yourself, they’ll both die. I can promise you, their deaths will be long and very, very painful.”
The video ended.
Rachel slowly exhaled. “That would explain why Drew isn’t making contact.”
Because he’d had to blow his cover to protect Tina.
“There is no exchange,” Sydney told them. No emotion had entered her voice. For a moment she almost reminded him of Drew. “You have to extract Tina and Drew, immediately. Backup agents will be sent down to assist your team.”
“And the original mission?” He wasn’t just going to let a domestic terrorist group walk away unscathed. If those SOBs escaped, thousands could die.
Not on my watch.
“Contain Devast’s group. Local law enforcement has already been alerted, and they’ll move on your command.”
This was a mess. A terrible, dangerous mess. “What about the group’s boss? If we just get the underlings, we don’t stop Anton Devast.” That was why Drew had gone in. To take down the real threat. Not just the lackeys.
“We’ll work to make his men turn on him. If he isn’t there, if we can’t get Devast in this raid, then we’ll use any prisoners that are taken against him.”
But they might not turn on their boss. If they were afraid enough—or stupidly loyal enough—they wouldn’t.
He ended the call with Sydney. He understood exactly what had been said and what hadn’t.
The EOD wasn’t like other government agencies. They didn’t follow official protocols, and they didn’t always tie up their cases with nice, neat little bows.
More often, their cases ended in bloodshed and death.
Their cases were the darkest. The most dangerous.
An extraction wouldn’t be easy, and attacking that compound—that attack could turn into a full-on war.
“Are you ready?” Dylan asked Rachel. Because sometimes, it didn’t take an army to fight a war.
It just took a few well-trained soldiers.
She nodded.
“Then let’s do this.” Before any more innocents were pulled into the fray.
* * *
HE’D LOST THEM, for the moment. That moment wouldn’t last long, though.
And, unfortunately, neither would he.
Drew blinked, trying to keep his eyes open. He’d driven for at least two hours, stopping when he thought he saw lights in the distance, making sure that he didn’t turn on his own lights because he hadn’t wanted to alert the enemy to his location.
He’d gotten Tina away from those men. He’d done his best by her.
But now he was about to collapse. Too much blood loss. Not enough sleep. He couldn’t even remember the last time that he’d slept and, normally, that wouldn’t be a problem but—
The bullet’s still in me. The wound was making him too weak. He had to find a place to hide. A place to rest so that he could get that damn bullet out of him.
Or so Tina could remove it. He had a doc. He was going to use her.
He saw the small ranch, a dot in the distance. Cautiously he drove toward it. The fence was broken, the grass overgrown. No signs of cattle or horses. No sign of anyone.
The windows were boarded up. The roof slumping.
“Are we going there?” Tina asked, her voice barely rising over the rumble of the motorcycle’s engine.
He shook his head. Not there. If their pursuers came this way, they’d search the ranch first. But...
Drew drove past the ranch. He kept heading across that overgrown field.
Then he saw the shack. Maybe it had been used as a storage building once or even as a small house for a ranch hand, but time hadn’t been kind to the place.
The front window was broken. Two boards had been crisscrossed over the window and nailed in place.
The little structure was nestled behind some trees, so it wouldn’t be immediately visible to anyone who came by. And, besides, if their pursuers did come this way, they’d check the ranch first.
And I’ll hear them.
“We’re stopping here.” He killed the engine.
Tina climbed off the bike, wincing a little, and he followed right after her. They walked the motorcycle to the shack where he hid it in the back and then Drew reached into the saddlebag.