“The captain is tired of being on the run, and anxious to marry the love of his life,” Nick replied dryly.
“And perfectly willing to risk our necks to make it happen, I see.” The remark was only half-serious. He knew that Captain Robert Tate would gladly sacrifice his own life for his men, and Sebastian wholly returned the sentiment. Tate and Nick were the only friends he had in this godforsaken world.
“Okay, well, let me get back first and we’ll figure out our next move from there,” he said.
“Sounds good. Be careful, Seb.”
“Always am, Nicky.”
He disconnected the call and shoved the sat phone into his waterproof duffel, then slung the bag over his shoulder and headed for the open doorway of the unlit barn.
He was just crossing the threshold when the whir of helicopter rotors echoed in the air. Narrowing his eyes, Sebastian gazed up at the inky sky, and sure enough, glimpsed bluish lights winking amid the black backdrop. A second later, a military chopper whizzed overhead, followed by a second chopper, and then a third.
Huh. Well, that couldn’t be good.
No sooner had the bleak thought entered his mind than the sound of car engines rumbled in the night air.
He didn’t bother ducking out of sight; he was shrouded by shadows, so nobody would be able to spot him all the way from the road. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he watched as half a dozen Jeeps sped along the one-lane dirt road. He couldn’t make out individual passengers, but the sea of navy blue-and-gold uniforms said it all. San Marquez military.
“Now where are you hurrying off to, boys?” he murmured, eyeing the scene in interest.
Probably some skirmish with the ULF that needed to be handled, or at least that was what he guessed until he noticed three black medic vans sandwiched between the passing Jeeps. The vans were the equivalent of an American ambulance, yet the sirens weren’t wailing, and the headlights were off.
Sebastian frowned. If the military was responding to an emergency, why go out of its way to make the ambulances less conspicuous? They should be plowing full speed ahead, lights flashing and sirens shrieking.
Unless the military didn’t want anyone to know there was a medical emergency in progress...
As his shoulders stiffened, Sebastian moved away from the barn with purposeful strides. He took two steps in the direction of his Jeep before remembering that the damn thing was out of gas.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
Because he knew for a fact that the priest didn’t own a car, he had no way of following that military convoy. Not unless he did it on foot, which would be pointless. By the time he tracked the soldiers, whatever emergency they were racing toward could be yesterday’s news.
Crap. He needed a vehicle. He scanned his brain, trying to remember if there were any cars at that farm he’d spotted five or six miles east of the church. Or he could always jog back to the Doctors International clinic and steal one of the pickups that had been parked out front, but the clinic was a good two hours away, so—
A loud snort interrupted his thoughts.
Sebastian glanced at the barn, his jaw tensing as he realized the solution to his problem was right beyond that door.
But... Crap. Would he be signing his own ticket to hell if he stole a horse from a priest?
A heavy sigh slipped out. Yeah, probably.
Not to mention that he hadn’t been on horseback since...damn, since an eighth-grade trip to that dude ranch in Wyoming.
But, hey, like riding a bike, right?
Decision made, he strode into the barn and made a beeline for the first horse stall. Twenty minutes later, the healthier-looking of the two mares was saddled up and Sebastian was leading the spotted Appaloosa out of her stall.
He made sure to leave five-hundred American dollars on a bale of hay where the old priest would be sure to find it.
* * *
“I’m going with you,” Lissa declared, her green eyes glittering with fortitude.
“You’re staying here,” Julia corrected. She shoved a spare flashlight into her backpack, along with an extra package of batteries.
“Jules—”
“Don’t argue with me about this, Lis. Everyone else just got off a forty-eight-hour shift, and Kevin isn’t here. With me gone, that leaves only Nadir and Marie-Thérèse to run the entire clinic by themselves tonight. They need you.”
A frustrated breath flew out of Lissa’s mouth. “Fine. But radio me the second you get there.”
“I will,” she promised.
She zipped up her bag and marched out of the supply room, with Lissa hot on her heels.
“Did Kev say what the emergency was?” Lissa asked.
“No. He didn’t say much of anything.” She pretended to adjust the straps of her bag, just so she wouldn’t have to meet the nurse’s eyes.
Don’t come here.
Kevin’s ominous warning continued to buzz in her mind like a persistent fly, and she couldn’t seem to swat it away. She wanted to tell Lissa about what Kev had said, but she didn’t want to raise a panic. Besides, the radio had been so static-riddled that she might have misheard him.
Don’t come here. Ha. Fat chance. Did he honestly think he could say something like that and she’d actually abide by it? If her friend and colleague was in trouble, there was no chance of Julia staying away.
“I’ll take one of the trucks,” she said, swiping a set of keys from the bulletin board near the front door. “It’ll get me there faster than my moped.”
Lissa still looked unhappy as the two women stepped outside. “Drive carefully, love. And contact the clinic the moment you reach Esperanza.”
“I will.”
She slid into the cab of the pickup and stuck the key in the ignition. It took a few tries for the engine of the old truck to chug to life.
Poking her head out the open window, she waved at the redhead and managed a smile loaded with encouragement she certainly didn’t feel. “I’ll call you when I get there.”
It was pitch-black out as Julia made her way to the main road. The weak glow of the pickup’s headlights didn’t offer much help in lighting the way, but fortunately, she knew these roads like the back of her hand. For the past six months, she’d ridden her moped all over this region, but she still forced herself not to speed as she drove north. Hardly any of the locals who lived around here owned cars, but it wasn’t uncommon for a herd of goats, or a stray cat or dog, to dart into the middle of the road.
Esperanza was about seventy miles northwest in the remote woodlands at the base of the mountain. During the day, the drive would take only an hour or so, but with the low visibility and reduced speed, Julia ended up nearing the little settlement almost two hours later.
Because she hadn’t been able to see more than five feet in front of her during the entire drive, the sudden burst of light that came out of nowhere hurt her eyes.
Squinting, she gaped at the unexpected sight before her.
Military vehicles formed a barricade in the middle of the road, and upright floodlights had been set up in various spots to illuminate the area. Soldiers moved around with purpose, their murmured voices wafting into the open window of her truck. The uniforms identified the men as San Marquez military, but amid the blue and gold she also saw...green?
Her eyes widened as she realized precisely what she was looking at. Americans. Those were American soldiers.
And every single person wore a white surgical mask over his face.
“What the...” She trailed off, unable to tear her eyes off the confusing chaos up ahead.
Seeing as she couldn’t exactly go straight, Julia pressed her foot on the brake and jerked the gearshift into Park, just as a shout rang out.
The next thing she knew, four soldiers were swarming her pickup like crazed fans surrounding a celebrity’s limousine. The driver’s door was thrown open, someone grabbed her arm, and her sneakers landed on the gravel with a thud.
“What are you— Let
go of me!” she ordered when a strong male hand circled her upper arm and squeezed it hard. She shrugged the hand off and staggered backward.
“Who are you?” one of the soldiers demanded. She couldn’t see his mouth beneath that surgical mask, but his blue eyes were as cold as an Arctic ice cap, and he’d spoken to her in English. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m Dr. Julia Davenport. A colleague of mine was supposed to—”
Her voice died abruptly as she suddenly noticed something up ahead in the distance.
She wrinkled her brow, trying to make sense of that head-scratching visual. Was that a big pile of garbage bags? What the hell were these soldiers doing with— Body bags. Oh, God. Those were body bags.
As horror whipped up her spine, Julia’s gaze flew to the first person she saw. It happened to be a beefy African-American soldier with shuttered brown eyes and a thick black mustache poking out from the top of his mask.
“What’s going on here?” she asked, her voice sounding far calmer than she felt.
The man didn’t answer. Rather, he grabbed her arm and forcibly moved her away from her truck. “Please come with us, ma’am,” he said in a monotone voice.
Outrage slammed into her. “What? No. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on here.”
Her protest was ignored. The grip on her arm tightened.
“I’m an American citizen!” she blurted out. “You can’t just detain me for no reason! I haven’t done anything wrong, damn it!”
She was still shouting out protests as the soldiers dragged her away.
Chapter 4
“What is your business here?”
Julia was grinding her teeth so hard that she was surprised the enamel hadn’t yet filed away to dust. If they asked her that question one more time, she was absolutely going to scream.
For the past hour and a half, she’d been detained in a canvas tent, sitting on an uncomfortable metal chair in the middle of the dirt floor. The chair was the only piece of furniture in the tent, which lent the space a seriously ominous feel. She wasn’t bound, she wasn’t gagged, but the two guards at the entrance and the two soldiers looming over her made it clear that she was a prisoner here.
She had no frickin’ clue what was going on, but it sure as hell wasn’t good. Those body bags out there... Oh, God, and where was Kevin? Where were the people? As she’d been dragged through the village toward the tents set up near the tree line, all she’d seen were soldiers.
Esperanza was deserted. No signs of life. None.
“Answer the question, please.”
Tightening her lips, she met the masked face of one of the soldiers, a tall man who carried himself with so much authority that she knew he must be the one in charge. The surgical masks everyone wore definitely indicated there was some sort of medical emergency in progress, but because nobody was wearing full hazmat suits, she deduced that the mysterious disease that had triggered these precautions probably wasn’t airborne.
“I already answered your question,” she said tersely. “My name is Julia Davenport. I’m a doctor and I run the clinic in Valero. I came here to check on my colleague, Dr. Kevin Carlisle.”
“At this hour of the night?” Suspicion lined the man’s tone. When he crossed his arms over his broad chest, her gaze was drawn to the four stars on the shoulders of his uniform.
She scanned her brain, trying to remember what that signified. Holy crap, he was a general.
Which spoke volumes about the importance of this interrogation.
Angrier than she’d ever been, Julia met her captor’s eyes. “How many more times do I have to answer these same questions? I told you, Dr. Carlisle radioed me. It sounded like an emergency. I was worried. I drove up here to check on him. The end.”
“Watch your tone,” the second soldier ordered.
She shifted her gaze to him, noting that he looked younger than his counterpart and wore a uniform without any insignia. “Oh, gee, was I being rude? Are your other prisoners more polite and agreeable than I am?”
“You’re not a prisoner,” the general replied, sounding annoyed.
“Oh, no?” Arching a brow, she rose from her chair.
The two soldiers guarding the door instantly snapped the barrels of their assault rifles in her direction, their body language becoming menacing.
“That’s what I thought,” she said coolly, then sank back down.
The general’s lips tightened. “Let’s not play games, Dr. Davenport. I need to—”
“Games?” she interrupted. “Are you kidding me? This isn’t a game, for Pete’s sake! Where is my colleague? Why is the village overflowing with body bags?”
As expected, she didn’t receive an answer. Just another question.
“Did you inform any of the staff at the Valero clinic that you were coming up here?”
“No.”
The lie came out smoothly, and there’d been no hesitation on her part. Somehow, she’d known that answering yes to that would be the worst possible thing she could do. As it was, she’d only officially told Lissa about her plans, but the nurse had undoubtedly filled the others in after Julia had left. Maybe it was her paranoia talking, but she had the sinking feeling that these men would send a team of soldiers to the clinic if they thought she’d said anything to her coworkers.
“You left Valero without telling anyone?” The younger soldier looked unconvinced.
“I was alone in my tent when Dr. Carlisle’s distress call came in,” she answered. “My colleagues had their hands full in the clinic with some potential malaria patients, so I just left. I planned on radioing them when I reached Esperanza.”
The men exchanged a look, and then the general gave an imperceptible nod that made Julia’s heart drop to the pit of her stomach. They knew she was lying. Crap.
She decided to distract them. “Why are you wearing masks?” she demanded.
“That is none of your concern,” the general said stiffly.
“Are you kidding me?” she said again, as amazed as she was outraged. “I’m a doctor, and you’re clearly worried that there’s been an outbreak of something. Is it a bacterium? How is it transmitted?”
“Dr. Davenport, we are the ones asking the questions here. Now please tell us, who in Valero knows you came here?”
Disbelief spiraled through her. She shook her head a couple of times, wondering how any of this could possibly be happening, but the more she tried to make sense of the situation, the more afraid she became. Her palms dampened, her body growing cold. Something really, really bad was going on here.
God, Kevin, where are you?
“Dr. Davenport,” the general snapped.
“No,” she snapped back.
He faltered. “No, what?”
“I’m not answering any more questions until I speak to a lawyer.” She scowled at him. “Or to someone who’s willing to give me some answers of my own.”
Then she shut her mouth, crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the two men hovering over her.
After a moment, the general spun on his heel and stalked toward the tent’s entrance. The younger soldier quickly trailed after him.
Both men exited the tent, as did the two guards, but she didn’t fool herself into believing that the latter had gone far. She suspected the guards were right outside those canvas flaps, ready to shoot her down if she tried to escape.
Escape.
What on earth was going on?
And why was she starting to suspect that the only way she was getting out of here would be in one of those body bags lying on the dirt?
* * *
Sebastian watched in growing alarm as more body bags were tossed into the back of the wide-load trucks parked at the entrance of the village. He’d counted thirty-five bags in the first truck, and another forty-one in the second. Had to be the villagers. Christ. More dead villagers.
The soldiers in charge of disposal efficiently carried out their task without comment or expr
ession. Sebastian swallowed a rush of disgust, wondering how they justified it to themselves. Probably assured themselves they were good little soldiers simply following orders, and who were they to question orders?
His jaw tightened. Brought to mind all those soldiers in Nazi Germany—they hadn’t questioned much either, had they?
Battling his rising fury, Sebastian crept deeper into the forest, moving through the shadows like a nocturnal predator. Being a black ops soldier meant he possessed the power of invisibility, the ability to sneak right underneath these men’s noses, even slit their throats without anyone knowing he was ever there.
Through the trees, he espied a cluster of khaki-colored tents. The men in charge had set up a headquarters of some sort, and that was the place to be if he wanted answers. The strap of his M4 was slung over his shoulder, but he didn’t reach for the rifle. Rather, he slipped a lethal hunting knife from the sheath on his hip and gripped the ox-bone handle with ease. If he had to eliminate a guard, he preferred to do it quietly.
He neared an opening in the brush and pressed himself up against the rotting bark of a rosewood tree. His position offered a line of sight to the entrance of a tent that two uniformed men had just emerged from. They were tailed by two heavily armed soldiers, and the uniforms marked all four as American. The entire village was crawling with both U.S. and San Marquez military, indisputable evidence that some sort of joint task force was in effect.
His stomach went rigid as he thought of those body bags. Task force? No, make that joint cleanup crew.
“She’s lying.”
The muffled voice drifted toward him, uttered by—holy hell, a United States Army general. Christ, they’d sent someone that high on the totem pole to handle this cleanup? This was bigger than he’d thought.
He inched closer, struggling to make out the conversation occurring twenty yards away.
“...to Valero. Question the staff, see what Carlisle told them.”
“...necessary? And to contain that many people?”
“Easier if...”
Sebastian’s gut swam with uneasiness. He needed to get closer.