Chapter 1
“I don’t see any sign of the dealer or anyone else, for that matter,” Delta Force Sergeant Ryan “Dash” Hayes spoke softly into his mic. As point man for the mission, he was the farthest forward and in the most precarious position. If their target showed up with a full contingent of Taliban gunmen, he could be in trouble.
“According to our Intel guys, he’s supposed to be there right about now,” said Sergeant Rucker Sloan, the team lead. “Dash, you sure he’s not there already and we missed him?”
“I’m sure. It’s dead out there. Nothing moving.”
“You think someone tipped them off?” Bull’s voice came across.
“Could be,” Dash said. “Unless they show up in the next thirty minutes, I’d say they aren’t coming.”
“We’ve already been here for thirty,” Lance’s voice sounded in Dash’s ear. “I say we leave before we’re discovered.”
A snort sounded in Dash’s ear. “You just want to get back to the forward operating base,” Dash drawled.
“Yeah, so?” Lance said.
“It’s not like you’re going to get to meet Miss Daye in person. She’ll have men all around her.”
“It would be nice to hear her sing. We rarely get to see the USO tours,” Lance said. “It would be nice to see one with Sunny Daye in it. I saw her and her partner, Ray Bonner, in concert in Austin last year. They were phenomenal.”
“I thought Ray died.” Dash shifted in his position, his gaze on the warehouse building in front of him but his mind on the beautiful singer, Sunny Daye. “I thought Miss Daye quit singing after her partner’s death.”
“She did,” Lance said. “For a few months. Then she joined the USO in an effort to give back.”
“I heard she joined to get out of the States and away for the paparazzi,” Craig “Bull” Bullington said.
“Probably a little bit of both,” Lance said. “She was pretty broken up about losing her partner. They made some really good music together.”
“I think she carried the pair,” Rucker said over the radio. “He didn’t have as powerful a voice.”
With his thoughts on the beautiful Sunny Daye, it was half a second before Dash realized a vehicle was heading his way. “Guys, we got company.”
All chatter ceased.
“What do you have?” Rucker asked.
“A cargo truck.”
Mac snorted in Dash’s ear. “The question is, what kind of cargo?”
“If they’re delivering at this location, we can only hope our middleman shows,” Rucker said. “From what Nora said, and what the intelligence reports indicate, the man is American.”
“He’s not American,” Dash said through his teeth. “He’s an animal.”
“Truth,” Rucker said. “Any man dealing in human trafficking is nothing more than an animal.”
“Pond scum,” Dawg said. “I have my sights set on the truck. If our target steps one foot out, I’ll blow his fuckin’ head off.”
“It would be better if you just wound him,” Rucker warned. “We need him so the intelligence guys can follow the chain of lowlifes who are perpetuating this travesty. Selling little girls and women into the sex trade is as low as you get.”
“Yeah, but after they get all the information out of him, we need to turn him loose in a minefield,” Blade said. “He needs to die a painful, bloody death.”
“The truck is pulling to the back of the building.” The vehicle moved out of Dash’s view.
“Dawg, you got eyes on it?”
“I do,” Dawg responded. “The driver’s backing up to a loading ramp. Driver and front passenger just got out. They’re going in a side door. An overhead door is rolling up.” Dawg paused in his reporting. “Bastards,” he murmured.
“What’s happening?” Rucker asked.
“They’re herding women and children into the building,” Dawg said. “I count four guards with AK-47 rifles.”
“Move in,” Rucker said. “We want to help the women and children, but, above all, we want to catch the guy orchestrating these trades.”
The Delta team moved in, creeping silently toward the building and the men who were moving their captives.
Anger burned inside Dash. How any man could trade humans like animals, he just couldn’t understand. They had to be animals themselves.
His rifle at the ready, he eased closer to the building.
“All in?” Rucker murmured in Dash’s ear.
One by one, the Delta team acknowledged in low, steady tones.
“Let’s do this,” Rucker said.
The building wasn’t like the others in the area. It had been recently constructed of metal, more like warehouse buildings in the States. It stood on the edge of the village, a big box of a metal building, seeming out of place among the mud-and-stick residential Afghan homes.
Dash and Blade were first in, taking out the two guards left standing on the loading dock, supposedly guarding the open overhead door.
“Dock’s clear,” Dash reported after dragging the guard off to the side to avoid setting off any alarms.
The team entered the building through the large overhead doors.
Their goal wasn’t to kill all the men handling the women and children. They were there to capture the guy making the deals. However, if they killed a few of the bastards, great. Men like that didn’t belong in the world.
With strict instructions from their CO, they were to limit collateral damage. That meant they couldn’t shoot into the crowd of women and children. They might be shot at, but they couldn’t shoot back and risk the lives of any innocents.
The men inside were busy lining up the women and children. They marched a woman up to a raised platform.
One of the men grabbed the scarf from her head and ripped the abaya from her shoulders. The garment fell to the floor.
The woman squealed and tried to reach for the folds of fabric, but the man twisted his hand in her hair and yanked her upright.
Tears streamed from her eyes as she stood naked in front of a small group of men in turbans. She tried unsuccessfully to cover herself with her hands and arms.
The men standing below the poor woman approached her, studied her body and leaned their heads together. Finally, one nodded and spoke in what sounded more like Arabic than Pashtu.
The man holding the woman’s hair allowed her to gather her garments. Then he shoved her to the end of the dais and off to the side.
Another man lifted a female child up onto the raised platform.
“Bastards,” Dash murmured. “They’re selling these women and children.”
“Do you see our American middleman?”
Dash scanned the crowd of men, women and children. In the far corner of the building, another man stood, leaning his back against the wall, wearing a brown, felt Fedora, khaki cargo pants and a long-sleeved, loose-fitting shirt. His wardrobe stood out among the men dressed in the baggy trousers and tunics of middle eastern men.
“Back right corner,” Dash said.
“I see him,” Rucker responded from his position on the other side of the door leading into the warehouse. “Mac, Tank, Blade, Lance…cover the rear exit. Bull, Dash and I are going in.”