Chapter 16

The gunfire had settled down a while ago, but even as she strained her ears, Audrey still hadn’t heard Gabe’s all-clear whistle. She sat under a giant, leafy bush, shivering, swatting at the ants crawling up her legs, struggling to hold it together.

Blood. Violence. Death.

Death.

Oh God, what if he was dead? What if that wicked knife hit an artery and he was bleeding out onto the ground while she cowered?

Another blast of gunfire ricocheted off the mountainside, and she jumped.

Okay, this sucked. She wasn’t a natural-born coward, but being tossed light years out of her comfort zone apparently turned her into one.

No. That wasn’t true. She wasn’t a coward. Now that her initial shock had worn off, she wanted to help. But didn’t violence breed violence? At least, that’s what her mother had drilled into her childhood psyche. Violence solved nothing, but Audrey couldn’t see how cowering peacefully under a bush during a firefight solved anything, either, and for the first time in her life, she wished she had a gun for a violent purpose. So what if she’d never killed anything more than a paper cutout? She was a good shot, but faced with taking an actual life, she had no idea if she’d be able to do it. She’d definitely not do it as easily as Gabe had.

Gabe.

She didn’t know what to think of him now. Part of her had always known he was dangerous. Deadly, even. A Navy SEAL trained to kill quickly and quietly. Even so, she never really assimilated that Gabe with the sarcastic, overbearing, and oh-so-tender one who needed a good lesson in manners, who spit fire at the idea of being nursed, who held her so gently and fended off her nightmares.

The way he’d slit that kid’s throat…

Sure, the kid was one of the bad guys, intent on doing who-knows-what to her. But he was still a kid, probably not even old enough to legally drink in the States. Did Gabe have to kill him?

And why did it matter so much to her that he had?

She’d have to think about that. Just not now.

Where was he?

She peeked out from underneath the bush. Gabe told her to hide and stay put, and as much as she wanted to rush to his aid, the best way to help him was to do what he said, minimizing his distractions. He knew what he was doing—she had to keep reminding herself of that. He was the elite of the elite, trained to handle whatever an enemy threw at him.

Except that niggling devil of a voice in the back of her mind—the one that had convinced her it was a good idea to come to Colombia and look for Bryson, bad idea that it was—kept saying Gabe may be elite, but he was not Superman. Bullets went through him as easily as anybody else. Maybe even more easily since he was exactly the type of noble jerk to throw himself in the line of fire.

If he got himself killed on the misguided pretense of protecting the damsel in distress, she might just have to resurrect him and slaughter him again. She was no damsel. She was following orders. As career military, he should appreciate that.

The crunch of twigs under heavy boots echoed through the forest, each step sending a shiver down Audrey’s spine. A brown boot stepped into and then out of her line of sight. She held her breath, fear constricting her chest until her lungs burned with a desperate need for air. The footsteps circled her slowly, tauntingly, before retreating back towards the guerilla camp.

She exhaled and inched forward to peek out from her hiding spot. Golden rays of sunlight pierced through the canopy above and illuminated the chaotic scene below. The gunfire may have ceased, but now the jungle creatures added their own symphony of screams and squawks to the mix. Audrey could only hope that the chaos would mask any sound she made as she tried to escape.

She just couldn’t stay hidden anymore. Not only because of the damn ants still swarming over her legs, but because someone, like the owner of those brown boots, would eventually find her. She had to locate Gabe and somehow get him medical help if he needed it. Lord knows, stupid alpha male that he was, he could be half-dead and wouldn’t ask for help.

Audrey scooted from underneath the bush and straightened slowly, half expecting a guerrilla or one of the unknown attackers to jump out at her. That’s the sort of thing that happened in movies. The inexperienced, unsuspecting leading lady who’s too stupid to live gets taken hostage while her man’s off fighting the good fight.

Uh-huh. She was so not going to become that cliché. She looked around for something to use as a weapon and found a small branch, the end sharpened to a point where it had broken off its tree. It was no Smith Wesson Sigma, her personal favorite, but that sharp end wouldn’t feel too good when jabbed into an attacker’s stomach. And it was just the right size after she stripped off a couple twigs.

Now, where to start? The camp was the obvious choice, but every now and again, a pop of gunfire still sounded from that direction. Obvious, but probably not the smartest. The smartest choice was to run in the opposite direction, or continue hiding until Gabe finally showed up and gave the all clear. Neither appealed to her much. She had the sick feeling that Gabe hadn’t arrived yet because he couldn’t, so it was her turn to play knight in shining armor. Yes, she was terrified half to death, but she was not a coward, dammit. If Gabe needed her help, she’d give it.

Shaking but determined, she held the branch out like a sword and retraced her steps through the jungle to the edge of the poppy field—and came face-to-chest with a man dressed in raid gear. Her gaze dropped instantly to his feet. Brown boots.

So maybe she was that too-stupid-to-live leading lady after all.

He caught her by the arms and clamped a hand over her mouth before a squeak of sound left her lips. Eight more men in raid gear made their way across the field—definitely not guerillas; they were too well-dressed and equipped. Two of the men dragged an unconscious body from the poppy field behind them.

Gabe.

Blood poured down the side of his face. Bruises darkened his jaw and cheekbone, his lip split open. Whoever they were, they’d beaten the holy hell out of him. He lay motionless where they dropped him, so very still that she couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. Pain exploded in her chest. It hurt so bad she thought for sure she had to be bleeding internally.

No, he couldn’t be dead. He was too… stubborn.

She flailed against the arms holding her, biting down hard on the palm clamped over her mouth and simultaneously thrusting the tree branch into his stomach. Somehow, her weapon got turned around, and it wasn’t the sharp end that hit his abs, but it was enough to knock him back a step. He released her with a loud curse, and she ducked through the line of stunned men to get to Gabe’s side.

Breathing. Oh, thank God. And his heart beat strongly behind his ribs when she laid her head on his chest. Still, he looked like hell, and his bad foot had swelled up, again turning an ugly shade of purple. Was that weakness how they’d managed to take him down?

A shadow fell over her as she hugged Gabe. She glared up at Brown Boots. “Who are you?”

Surprise flicked over his dark features that she spoke Spanish, but he recovered fast and answered a question with a question. “Are you with the EPC?”

“No. They took us hostage.” She looked at Gabe. Anger heated her blood and she felt the flush of it creep up her neck into her cheeks. “Why did you beat him?”

“He killed one of my men,” the leader said without remorse.

“Only because your man tried to kill us. We’re just trying to stay alive and find my brother and get out of this damn country!”

“Your brother?” He sounded extremely interested, and Audrey squeezed her eyes shut.

Dammit. Gabe said she shouldn’t have told Cocodrilo about Bryson in the first place, and now she’d gone and made the same mistake with this new group. Someday, she’d learn to keep her mouth shut. If it didn’t get her killed first.

“Are you American, then?” he asked with a pronounced English accent. When she said nothing, he added, “Related to the American businessman, Bryson Van Amee?”

Figuring that for a rhetorical question, she stayed silent. So he already knew about Bryson. Wasn’t that just lovely? Maybe the EPC hadn’t taken Bryson at all, and these guys were responsible.

Better trained and equipped for it, she had no doubt they had taken hostages before. Had no doubt they’d killed hostages before. Oh God.

The leader moved away and spoke in low tones to his men. She didn’t hear much of the conversation, except for “the boss will want to see her,” and that sounded ominous so she tuned them out. Turning her attention to Gabe, she found all the blood came from a small cut at his hairline above his right eyebrow. Thank goodness it wasn’t bad. Might not even need stitches, but hopefully he had a hard head, because she really needed him to wake up concussion-free.

The group came to a consensus, and the two men that had been carrying Gabe returned to his side, picked him up by the arms and legs, and carted him away.

“Hey!” she said.

The leader held out a hand to her. “You’re coming with us.”

“No.” She shook her head and held her ground. “I’m not going anywhere without…” What should she call Gabe? “Bodyguard” would probably get him shot, and “friend” wasn’t a strong enough relationship to warrant her refusal. She hitched her chin and met the leader’s eyes with a challenge in her own. “Without my husband.”

His brows lifted, disappearing under the fringe of his dark hair. “Indeed. I hate to inform you, I don’t need your consent.”

“It’d make your life easier. If you leave him, I’ll fight you every step.”

“I could knock you out.”

“Yes, but I won’t stay unconscious forever, and I’ll wake up swinging. Unless”—she put a lot of stress on the word—”Gabe stays with me.”

“Gabe?” he echoed, and his entire posture changed, jaw hardened, eyes flashed with hatred so hot she’d have been unsurprised to find Gabe’s unconscious body singed from it.

“Bloody fucking hell.” He whistled to his men, who were about to dump Gabe unceremoniously into the jungle and probably kill him.

“Forget it. He’s coming, too,” he told them in Spanish. “But cuff his hands behind his back in case he wakes, and do not take your weapons off him for even an instant.” Then, he held out his hand to Audrey again. “Now, Mrs. Bristow, will you come with us?”

Like she had any other choice. Even though he’d framed it as a question, it was a command at heart.

Audrey ignored his offered hand and stood by herself, fearing she’d jumped out of the pot and into the fire. “You know my… husband?”

Brown Boots gave a clipped nod and looked toward the sky as a helicopter flew overhead.

Help?Audrey wondered and followed his gaze. She couldn’t tell, but friend or foe, there was no way for the people in that chopper to see them through the dense treetops.

Brown Boots motioned his men to get moving, then turned back to her. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but that’ll just bugger things up when I make you a widow.” He gave her a shove forward. “So shut up and walk.”

* * *

“Looks like we’re too late,” Jean-Luc muttered and used the toe of his boot to nudge the still-warm body of a kid who’d had his throat opened up. He gazed up at Quinn, looking a little green, much like he had after Gabe fetched him, hungover, from the bayou. “Looks like someone not so nice got here first.”

Quinn’s chest tightened as he ducked inside the hut Gabe’s phone had led them to, half expecting to see his best friend in a similar state as the kid out front. God, he didn’t know how he’d react if?—

The hut was empty.

Quinn covered his eyes with one shaking hand and felt the warm weight of Jean-Luc’s palm come down on his shoulder. “It’s okay, mon ami. This is a good thing.”

Right. A good thing that Gabe wasn’t dead on the dirt floor of this hut. Right.

Feeling ridiculous, Quinn shook off Jean-Luc’s hand and cleared his throat. “Contact Harvard and see if the phone’s moved.”

Jean-Luc stepped out of the hut for better reception, which gave Quinn some much-needed privacy. He bent over and placed his hands on his knees, sucking in three long breaths.

Gabe was okay. Gabe. Was. Okay. He wasn’t dead. Quinn hadn’t lost another loved one. Not yet. Not yet.

Jean-Luc came back inside and cleared his throat softly.

Quinn straightened so fast all the blood rushed from his head, making him dizzy as fuck. “Well?”

“Harvard says the phone hasn’t moved. He says, from your phone’s signal, it looks like you’re standing right on top of it.”

They both looked around. A feed bag lay in the middle of the floor, cut apart, its oats scattered. There were also the remnants of a boot nearby.

Quinn squatted down and, using his knife, picked up the boot.

Someone had unlaced it and sliced each side open.

“Gabe’s?” Jean-Luc asked.

“Yeah. Man, his foot’s probably all kinds of fucked up right now.”

Dropping the boot, Quinn balanced his elbows on his knees and stared at the pile of feedbags. If the boot hadn’t been moved from the spot it landed, that meant Gabe must have been lying back on those bags when Audrey—he assumed it was Audrey—had cut it off. So it was entirely possible the phone slipped out of his pocket, especially if this was where he’d slept last night. Quinn stood and ran his hand through every crack and crevasse between the bags.

Bingo. Gabe’s phone. He pulled it out. The battery icon blinked red in warning and powered it down. A second later, Marcus came over the radio.

“Achilles, Utah. Over.”

Quinn held out a hand for the radio. “Utah, Achilles. Send your traffic.” They’d decided en route that they’d use their nicknames for all radio contact in case someone was listening, and Jean-Luc had dubbed Marcus “Johnny Utah” from the movie Point Break since Marcus had been an FBI agent and liked to surf. It was a stupid nickname if you asked Quinn. But then again, so was Achilles, and he’d been called that since his first day of BUD/S. And, admittedly, he had heard worse. He’d known a guy on the Teams everyone called McSharty.

“Be advised, Harvard has lost Stonewall’s signal,” Marcus said. “Repeat, we lost Stonewall’s signal. How copy?”

Quinn looked at the dead phone in his hand and sighed. “That’s a good copy. Out.” He started to hand the radio back to Jean-Luc but instead hit the talk button again to find out Ian and Jesse’s location. “Boomer, Achilles. What’s your twenty? Over.”

“Headed your way,” Ian’s voice said a second later. “With a present. Out.”

Quinn and Jean-Luc shared a worried look.

“Is it just me,” Jean-Luc said, “or did Ian sound waaay too happy?”

Yeah, he’d had a peculiar ring of… glee in his voice. Christ, what had that psycho done now? Quinn had thought that by pairing Jesse with Ian, the mostly sensible medic would dilute the EOD expert’s particular brand of sociopathy.

Apparently not.

Shaking his head, Quinn strode to the door, more than a little afraid of what he might find waiting outside. Ian was dragging a bound, naked, and mutilated Colombian man across the camp like a recalcitrant puppy while Jesse walked behind, tight-lipped.

Disapproval and concern for the injured man rolled off the medic in pulses. “Okay, Dr. Lecter, you can stop torturing him anytime now.”

Quinn felt the same way. He was not so noble that he wouldn’t use whatever means necessary to get what he wanted, but there was a line he wouldn’t cross. From the looks of things, Ian had crossed it and then some.

“Ian,” he said very softly, putting an edge of steel in his voice. “Let him go.”

Ian didn’t listen. Big surprise. He knocked the man to his knees, gripped his dark hair, and yanked his head back. Only then did the battered face covered in blood and snot ring a familiar bell.

“Recognize him?” Ian asked. When nobody answered, he scowled. “Did none of you read Harvard’s reports?” He jerked on the guy’s hair hard enough to make him cry out. “Meet Cocodrilo, the EPC’s general of the Amazon region. And he’s been quite talkative. In English, even. Told me some very interesting things you guys just might want to hear.”

Ian let Cocodrilo drop to a sobbing heap on the ground and brushed his hands together. He arched a brow at Jesse. “You can apologize for that Hannibal Lecter crack anytime now.”

“No way.” Jesse shook his head. “I don’t care who he is. He’s a human bein’, and you still went way too far. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Ian snorted. “Why don’t you go spout that righteous shit to the families of all the people this asshole’s tortured and murdered, huh? Let me know how well that works out for you.”

“Shut up.” Quinn stepped between them and wondered how the hell Gabe dealt with shit like this without losing his mind. He could tell Jesse was itching to tend to the injured man and motioned him forward. “Jesse, go ahead and take care of him. And you?—”

Ian’s shoulders stiffened, and Quinn had a sudden flashback to his youth. When Big Ben finished beating his mother and turned on him with a belt in hand, that look in his liquor-glazed eyes, and slurred, “And you, you little bastard…”

Well, shit. When that happened, he used to tighten up exactly like Ian did just now. Had someone once also used the contemptuous Ian Reinhardt as a punching bag? It seemed unbelievable—and yet the proof was there in his dark, wary eyes and defensive stance.

Imagine that. Quinn had something in common with the psycho.

“Good job, Ian.” He said the words he’d so wanted to hear from his own father before he was old enough to realize they’d never come and nodded in a show of approval. Abused kid to abused kid.

Ian looked so taken aback the expression on his face was almost comical. Blinking, he dropped the bad boy act and sounded apologetic when he muttered, “Uh, thanks.”

Quinn waited a beat, letting Ian have a moment to compose himself. When his ever-present sneer returned, Quinn nodded and got back to business. “So, what did you find out?”