––––––––

EVERYBODY’S INSTINCTS had been right, the plane was coming into this airfield.  It was the smaller Antanov cargo plane.  When the plane shuddered to a stop, members of Boko Haram swarmed out of their hiding spots, rifles raised over their heads, and shouting in triumph. Two of the three jeeps were driven onto the make-shift runway.  Soon the only thing heard was the sounds of the jungle and the propellers of the plane winding down. 

“We’ve got a problem,” Drake heard Dare’s voice over the headset.  “I’m close enough to the leader’s jeep that I can hear him.  He’s on the radio, and he’s expecting a truck.  We’ve got more company coming.”

“Stay in positions,” Mason said.  “Dare continue to report.  Jack, you’re on that side of the airstrip, let us know if you can see anything from your position in that tree.”

“Roger.”

Drake watched as the rear cargo door opened revealing two blond men holding AK-47s directed at the terrorists.  He wasn’t all that surprised until a third man holding an M-16 appeared.  In this part of the world, AK-47s were the gun of choice by everyone but Americans. 

“Are you seeing this?” Finn asked.

“Yep,” Jack drawled.  “Seems like we got us a good ole American boy.”

More Boko Haram came out of the jungle and up to the plane.  One large man was holding an AK-47 as well, and he shot into the sky.  It didn’t have any effect on the three men standing on the gangway of the plane.  He ran up to the plane and screamed at the three white men.  The man with the M-16 shot him in the head.

“Dare, report,” Mason commanded.

“The leader was watching.  He doesn’t seem all that upset that his guy bought it.  Hold on, he’s calling out on the radio.  He’s arranging a meet for tonight.  Some name I can’t pronounce.  Let’s hope it’s with the girls.”  It seemed like forever that Drake stood there behind his tree in the rain watching the standoff.  Finally, Dare spoke again.  “The truck should be here any minute.  The leader’s going to go out to the plane.”

“About fucking time,” Drake muttered.  Slowly the jeep made its way over the muddy ground, and then the leader deliberately rolled the wheels of the vehicle over the dead man and came to a halt in front of the open cargo bay.  He called out, his English had a definite French accent.

“Who is Armstrong?”

“Who’s asking?” One of the two blond men with the AK-47s shouted.

“I am Samuel Yemisi.  I lead the Boko Haram.”

The man with the M-16 shouted with laughter.  Not a good move.  Mounted to the top of the jeep was a machine gun.  There was a big guy, who looked pretty fucking grumpy, manning the gun.  “Don’t give me that shit,” the same man continued.  “You’re nothing but a sect leader.”

“You’re surrounded.  I won’t hesitate to have you killed,” Yemisi yelled.  “Then I will take the weapons and I won’t have to pay you.”

“This plane is rigged to blow.  This isn’t our first rodeo,” the American said with a shrug.  “That’s our insurance policy.”

“Insurance policy?”

“This plane is set with explosives, I press the trigger on my belt, the plane blows.  It takes out everything in a quarter mile radius.  So you better pay or we all die.”

“You wouldn’t dare,”  Yemisi said.

“Try me.”

“I don’t think he’s kidding, it’s what I would do,” Finn said.

“He’s not kidding,” Mason said grimly.  “It’s a Decault Group tactic.  Neither you or Drake were with us on that mission.  If Clint hadn’t acted so quickly a couple of months ago, we wouldn’t be here to tell the story.”

“Was this Costa Rica?” Drake asked.

“Yep,” Clint said.  “You guys have been missing out on all the fun shit.”

“Jack or Finn, do you think you could take him out before he hits the trigger?”

“Nope, not from this angle.” Jack said.

“If he would come forward another step, I’ve got him,” Finn assured the team.

“So that stops the weapons deal, but how do we find the girls?” Dare asked.

There was silence on the radio.  That was one of the things Drake appreciated the most about his team.  It wasn’t that they were waiting for Mason to come up with the answer, they were waiting for anyone to come up with a plan.

“It was Yemisi’s brother who had them?” Clint said.

“Yep,” Dare confirmed.

“Then we have to let him get away.”  Drake could hear the excitement in Clint’s voice.  He was on a roll.

“On foot,” Drake quickly said.  “I’m sure as hell not going to try to keep up with a jeep.”

“Remember, our real job is to stop this weapons exchange,” Mason reminded them.

“It’ll be nice to take out another one of Decault’s operations,” Dare put in.  “They’re a scourge.”

“Kills me that they have an American with them,” Jack said.

“According to some sources, this is an American operation, not European,” Mason told them. 

Drake knew they were all killing time, watching the stand-off out on the airfield.  There wasn’t a goddamn thing they could do but see what would happen.  Yemisi wanted the weapons, the men on the plane didn’t want to kill themselves, and Midnight Delta wanted the shot.  Yep, nothing to do but chat and wait.

“So, you never told me, how’s life as a father?” Clint asked again.

Well this was getting ridiculous, Drake thought.  Chatting about who was behind the gun running was one thing.

“Clint, why haven’t you and Lydia set a date?” Drake asked.

“Well that concludes the get-to-know-you part of our conversation,” Jack said with an uneasy laugh.

“What are you talking about, I want to know, too,” Dare said.

“Quiet,” Finn commanded.  “Yemisi is saying something.  Can any of you on the ground hear him?”

“I got him,” Dare said.  “He’s saying that as soon as the weapons are loaded, he’ll make the transfer to their account.  M-16 boy is saying half now.  The rest when the weapons are loaded.”

“You’ve got your orders.  No shots taken until Finn takes out the American.  Then I want everyone else taken out but Yemisi, and I want the tires on the jeeps useless.  Are we set?” Mason asked.

Everyone said yes.  They waited.  Yemisi waved his men to start the unloading process, and the man holding the M-16 stepped forward and to the right as he waved them through.  Blood and bone sprayed out as Finn took a head shot.  Bullets rang out, only slightly muffled by the rain.

Drake, took aim.  Again, and again.  Until he saw that there was not another man standing.

“Report!” Mason demanded.

“Fine,” Dare said.  “But I’m on the move.  Yemisi took off like a bat out of hell.”

“Good,” Clint’s voice was clear as a bell.

“Fine,” Jack drawled.

“I’m good,” Finn said.

“Good,” Drake reported.

“The pilot?” Clint asked.

“He and the co-pilot were in my line of sight.  I got them,” Jack said.

“I want that plane and weapons destroyed.  Jack, you and Drake follow Dare.  We’ll catch up.”

“Roger that.”

***

YEMISI MIGHT HAVE STARTED out like a bat out of hell, but he sure slowed down fast.  Turned out that besides the radio in the jeep the man had a satellite phone. Dare overheard him making a call to his brother. 

“His brother said he didn’t have anyone to send for him.  He was stuck on his own.  Sounded like a power play.  Now that Yemisi lost his men and the weapons, he’s low man on the totem pole.”

“Did he say how far it was to meet up with him?”

“About four days hike, if he was in good shape,”

Drake let out a low laugh.  Dare’s eyes glittered with laughter in the dark.  “Like I said, typical brother bullshit.  Kind of like the stuff you were slinging Clint’s way.”

“I wasn’t making him schlep through the jungle for four days.”

All hint of laughter left Dare’s eyes.  “Yeah, well, he was promising him a reward when he got there.”  Dare’s voice dripped with despair. “We’ve got to get those girls out of there.”

Bile rose in Drake’s throat.  He looked at Jack who stared off into the distance, his face a mask of thunder.

“Anyway, he’s going to sleep for the night.  So the others have time to catch up,” Dare said.

Jack finally looked over at them.  “And another thing that’s makin’ me sick is that it’s Americans supplying the Boko Haram with weapons.” 

Drake took his meaning.  He knew a little bit of Jack’s wife’s story, and these young orphan’s plight had to be hitting him especially hard.  No wonder he was focusing on the weapons. 

“Tell me about the Decault Group,” Drake prompted.  “What happened in Costa Rica?”

“We took ‘em out.  All but the pilot, he got away.  Mason thinks they had some inside intel.”  Hell, Jack’s Texas accent was on steroids.  Yep, he was really upset. 

“Mason thinks there was a mole?”

“That’s what he told Captain Hale.  It was a close call.”

Drake turned to Dare, and the dark-haired man nodded his head solemnly.  “Something was definitely fishy.  They almost expected us.  The pilot never turned off the engines.  They had the same set up with the trigger that time I took the shot after the weapons were unloaded.”

Drake’s mind raced a mile a minute.  He kept circling back to that weasel Edwin Marsh who kept insisting this was not going to be the drop site for the weapons.  He wasn’t just a weasel, there had been a sick that just oozed off the bastard. 

“Mase?” Drake said into the headset.  When he didn’t answer, he called out Clint’s name.

They were still out of range.

“What?” Dare asked.

He could see Jack’s blond eyebrow raise.

“Marsh.  I think he might be dirty.  If there was somebody giving information on the Costa Rica op, then it’s possible there was for this one too.  My money’s on Edwin Marsh, the slimy little fuck,” Drake said.

Both men nodded in agreement.  Jack’s grin was positively feral.

“I want him.  He’s mine.  I remember what he said about those girls.  I’m personally taking that boy out.”  Again, Jack’s drawl was thick.

“I think you’ll have to stand in line,” Dare said as he clapped the big Texan on the shoulder.

“Riled much?” Drake asked trying to dispel Jack’s anger.

“Don’t,” Jack bit out.  “Don’t make light of this.  I know you’re trying to get me to loosen up, but some things won’t stand, treason and the atrocities being visited on those poor young girls are two of those them.”

“You’re right Jack,” Drake said softly.  “You’re absolutely right.”

They waited in silence for the rest of the team to catch up, and watched over Yemisi who slept.  When Mason arrived, Drake told him his suspicions. 

“Clint, call Sheila.  I think Drake’s instincts are spot on.”

Clint nodded.  After he was done with the call, he swore a blue streak.  Mason finally cut him off.  “Just tell us,” he said with a sigh.

“Marsh is in the wind,” Clint said.

“Are they looking for him?” Finn asked.

“Yeah, but not too hard.  Now they’re going to step it up,” Clint answered.  “But Sheila’s going to be pulling threads to see who he could have been working with who would have known about the Costa Rica operation as well.  She was actually pretty excited about the news.”

“Well goody for her,” Jack said sarcastically.

Every man stared at him.  That was completely out of character.

“Jack, are you all right?” Mason asked.

“Yeah,” Jack said tightly.  “This Yemisi just needs to get his ass in gear.  Mason, do you have any idea as to how we’re going to rescue these girls?”

“Same as always, we wait for an opportunity to present itself, then depend on Finn to pull a miracle out of his ass.”

It was true.  How often had Finn come up with something they needed at just the right time?  Hell, the man was fucking MacGyver.

“But here’s my rabbit out of the hat.  As soon as the rain lets up a little bit, a chopper will be bringing in Gray and his team.  They’ll follow our coordinates and meet up with us.  His team was just as adamant that those girls needed rescuing.”

Drake was relieved to see Jack’s face lose some of its strain.

“That’s good news,” Jack finally said.

***

AT LEAST THE RAIN HAD let up.  Clint was in a better mood.  But now it was hot, muggy, and buggy.  Thank God for the insect repellent.  Further on the con side was Drake in the rear with Wyatt Leeds, the youngest member of the two teams, and the kid thought he was funny.  He wasn’t. 

“Didn’t Dex just tell me that you had a kid?  That’s really cool.  Girl or boy?”

Drake rolled his eyes.  “Boy.”

“Is this the first time you left him?” Wyatt asked as they both vaulted over a log.

“Yes.”  Drake was hoping that answering in monosyllables would get the point across to Wyatt that he wasn’t interested in carrying on a conversation.

“That must have been tough.  What’s the little guy’s name?”

“Andrew.”

“I have a cousin named Andrew.  Hope your kid doesn’t turn out like him.  He was in juvie a lot.  Bet he ends up in prison.”

Drake shuddered at the thought of prison, since both of his parents were currently incarcerated.  Really, he needed to get this kid to shut up.

“For the love of God, Wyatt, I can’t hear myself think, just give it a rest for a while, will ya?”

“Sure thing.” Wyatt grinned easily.  Drake got the feeling Wyatt was told to shut up pretty often.

They’d been following Yemisi for three and a half days.  Jack and Hunter Diaz were on point a couple of clicks ahead of them, scoping out the terrain.  Both teams were antsy to find the girls.  Meanwhile, Clint had been in touch with Sheila.  She said that Edwin Marsh’s body was found in Brussels.  Apparently, someone had not been happy with the fact that the weapons sale had not gone through as planned.  As far as Drake was concerned, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

“Got something,” Jack’s voice came through Drake’s headset.

Drake and Wyatt paused as they waited for Jack to continue.  He was taking forever.  The two of them started moving again, and then after twenty minutes, they heard muted sounds and Jack spoke.  “We found two of the girls.  Hunter is speaking to them in French.  They escaped.  We need a medic.”

Gray came on the line, “Aiden, go up ahead and help.”

Drake knew his brother-in-law was the medic for Black Dawn.  They had a problem though.  They needed to get the girls treated, but still allow Yemisi to move forward toward his brother’s encampment without seeing the SEALs and the girls who’d escaped. 

“I’m sticking like glue to Yemisi,” Mason said.  “He’s heading northwest.  You head southeast with the girls, and watch my GPS signal so we don’t meet.  We should be fine.”

“Roger that,” Jack said.

“We might not have to do that,” Hunter said over the com link.

“Why?” Mason asked.

“The girls want to take us back to where the others are being held.  We could just eliminate Yemisi right now.”

There was silence. 

“How reliable are they?” Mason finally asked.  “Will they get lost?”

“Even if they get lost, their trail will be easy enough to track.  We’ve got this,” Jack assured him.

There was dead air on the com.  Two minutes later Mason said, “It’s done.  We don’t have to worry about Yemisi anymore.  Everybody let’s move onto Jack and Hunter’s coordinates.  I want to have rescued those girls by morning.”

Jack was picking up one of the girls when Drake and Wyatt caught up to them.  The young girl was tall, but she was thin and hunched over, obviously in pain.  His heart went out to her.  The other girl was smaller.  She had a grim smile on her face as she looked up at the men circling her.  She spoke to Hunter and Aiden excitedly.

With no hint of fear, she pushed past Drake and started walking.  “What did she say?” Drake asked Aiden.

“She said that we were big and strong, and our guns were bigger than the men who had held her captive.  She expects us to kill all the bad men tout suite.”

“What does that mean?” Wyatt asked.

“Pretty damn quick,” Aiden answered with a laugh.  “We just got our marching orders from a teenage girl.  I love it.”

“That’s because you’re used to taking them from Evie, who isn’t much bigger than this girl is.”  Drake grinned.  He had to find something good in all of this, and that girl’s spirit was something bright to hold onto.  Thinking about the girl who was being held so gently by Jack hurt his heart.  But this one was a soul sister of Evie and made his heart clench.  He needed to protect her, just as he had always needed to protect his six younger sisters.

Drake watched as Hunter caught up with the girl whose name was Elise, and squatted in front of her.  She listened solemnly, and then he got up and the two of them headed toward the rest of the team. 

“You explained?” Mason asked.

“Yeah, I told her that she would be staying here with me, and the rest of you would follow her and Isobel’s trail.  She said we needed to hurry back or she would run away and come help us.”

Every single SEAL had to work hard to keep a straight face.  Yes, she was definitely Evie’s African twin.

“You better keep a good watch on her then,” Gray told his man.

“You better believe it,” Hunter said.  “I asked her not to make me look bad in front of my commander.”

Drake turned one last time to look at Jack holding the injured girl Isobel, as Elise paced in front of them.  God, Drake hoped that all the girls were in such good shape as Elise, but he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of that being true, it was likely they were more like Isobel.  He thought back to the prayers he’d said for Karen when she’d been clinging to life, and said some more now.