“You gonna make the call?” Dash asked Lance, their radio guy.
Lance nodded. “On it.” He placed the radio call to the helicopters. Moments later, two Black Hawk helicopters landed near the warehouse.
Within the next few minutes, Dash, Lance, Blade and Dawg climbed aboard one of the choppers.
Rucker, Bull, Tank and Mac stayed behind to drive the truck back to the forward operating base where a team from the Intelligence unit and representatives of the local Afghan government would meet them and take the women and children to a temporary shelter.
At least that was what they were told. Dash wasn’t sure what to believe. As little as the men of the Middle East thought of their women, he couldn’t be sure of their treatment.
Dash buckled his safety harness and leaned back. The mission hadn’t gone according to plan. The American traitor, who had been coordinating the sale of humans into slavery and the sex trade, was still free to continue his nefarious operation. They’d been so close. Dash knew close was only good if you were throwing hand grenades.
Lance clapped his hands together and grinned, always the optimist. “We should be back in time for the tail end of the USO concert. I’m going to see if I can meet Sunny Daye in person.”
“Won’t she be surrounded by bodyguards?” Dash asked.
Lance shrugged. “Probably, but I’m good at finding my way around obstacles. A couple of bodyguards won’t slow me down.”
“I hear they have strict rules,” Dawg said. “You can be court-martialed for breaking them.”
Dash grinned. Something about rules made him want to break them. Especially if they didn’t make a whole lotta sense. “More than likely, we’ve missed the concert. She’s probably already packed up and left the base for her next stop.”
“The woman has to sleep sometime,” Blade noted.
Dash leaned his head back and let the vibration of the rotors lull him into a state of half-sleep.
It was after midnight when the chopper made it back to the base. Well past curfew for those who weren’t working the night shift or standing guard at the gates or on perimeter.
Dash was ready for a shower and his rack.
The stage that had been erected earlier that day was gone from the exercise field. Trucks stood in a line ready to head out in the morning.
“Damn. They break down fast,” Lance remarked as the helicopter pilot slowly lowered the aircraft to the ground.
“They don’t mess around,” Blade said. “Too bad we missed the show. I would’ve liked seeing Sunny Daye perform. I hear she puts on a good show.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Dawg said. “You think we can convince the CO to schedule a mission close to her next stop?”
“I wish,” Dash said. “Right now, I could use a sandwich and a shower…in that order.”
“I’m hitting the shower,” Lance said.
“Don’t hog all the hot water,” Dash warned. “On second thought, maybe I’ll get that shower first.”
“You’ll have to race me to it,” Lance said, unbuckling his safety harness before the chopper touched the ground.
As soon as the aircraft landed, Lance and Dash were out the door, racing for their quarters.
Dash could care less about getting to the shower unit first, but he needed the adrenaline rush to clear his head after their failed mission. Whoever it was negotiating the sales of those women and children knew how to cover his own ass. He’d come prepared with his own protection and got away because of it.
It burned in Dash’s gut that they hadn’t caught the guy. How many more lives would he destroy before he was finally brought to justice. And it fired Dash’s ass that the man was apparently American.
If Rucker’s girl, Nora Michaels, hadn’t been caught in one of his raids and escaped, they wouldn’t have known that much. She hadn’t seen his face, but she’d heard his voice and accent before she’d escaped with the little girls he’d stolen from an orphanage. The man was slippery and completely heartless. He had to be stopped.
Racing toward their temporary quarters where they’d stashed their go bags, Blade veered right to his tent, while Dash veered left and rounded the corner of a building. Before he could stop himself, he ran into the back of someone carrying a heavy object over his shoulder. The person and his burden crashed to the ground with a grunt.
Dash landed on what appeared to be a body bag like the ones used to ship dead servicemen back to the states. He struggled to untangle his weapon from the squirming contents.
The man he’d knocked to the ground crawled out from under the bag and Dash, leaped to his feet and tore off, running away as fast as he could.
By the time Dash rose to his feet with his weapon in his hands, the man had disappeared around the corner of a row of tents.
Dash started after him.
“Help,” a voice called out behind him.
Someone from inside the squirming body bag the man had been carrying called out, “Please, help.”
Halted in his tracks by the decidedly feminine tone, Dash fought the urge to go after the man. Instead, he remained where he was and searched for an opening.
Holding his rifle in one hand, he pulled at a zipper. A female emerged, with curves in all the right places and a mane of shiny, light-colored hair that had turned a shadowy blue in the moonlight.
She wasn’t wearing a desert camouflage uniform, nor was she wearing Army PT shorts and a shirt. Instead, she wore sparkling high heels, a short skirt and sequined tank top.
What the hell?
He held out his hand.
When she placed hers in his, he hauled her to her feet.
She swayed and fell against his chest, tears smearing the makeup on her face. “Oh my God. Thank you,” she cried, wrapping her arms around him.
Footsteps pounded, racing toward them.
Dash slipped his arm around the woman and turned his body to shield her with his, bringing his rifle up to point at the owners of the footsteps rounding the corner of the building.
Two uniformed soldiers with black military police armbands, four men in black leather jackets and Dash’s Delta teammate, Blade, skidded to a stop at the end of his rifle barrel.
“Dash, someone abducted Sunny Daye,” Blade’s wide eyes narrowed. “Hey, why are you pointing your rifle at us?”
Dash lowered his weapon and moved slightly, exposing the woman he’d found in the body bag.
His arm still around her, he frowned down into her eyes. “I take it you’re Miss Daye.”
She nodded, her arms slipping around his waist. For a moment, she held him close. Then she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, swiping at her wet, makeup-smeared cheeks. “That’s right. I’m Sunny, and this man saved my life.”
Chapter 2
Sunny Daye stood close to the man in the combat uniform, helmet and bulletproof vest, feeling safer than she’d felt since she’d stepped foot on the arid soil of Afghanistan. “You know who I am… I’d like to know the name of the man who saved me from being carried away in that…that…bag.” She shivered as she stared down at the dark bag someone had thrown over her head.
“Jesus, Dash.” A man, dressed like the one who’d saved her shook his head. “That’s a body bag.”